Effective Scientific Presentations Across Formats - A Modern Guide for Science Trainees, Researchers, and Others

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a very detailed 17-page pdf article by Steven C. Grambow and Kevin P. Weinfurt at Advances in Social Science Research on September 19, 2024 (Volume 11, number 9, pages 42 to 55) titled Effective Scientific Presentations Across Formats: A Modern Guide for Science Trainees and Researchers.

 

The abstract says:

 

“This paper presents a comprehensive tutorial on delivering effective scientific presentations in the modern era, addressing a landscape altered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The shift to virtual and hybrid formats has fundamentally changed the norms of how scientific findings are shared, creating new challenges and opportunities for presenters.

 

Drawing from over a decade of experience teaching and refining presentation skills, we address a soft-skill gap in clinical and translational science training. The tutorial outlines four key topics: (1) identifying your scientific story, (2) using effective slide design, (3) presenting data, and (4) delivering your presentation. These lessons, developed through extensive seminars and individual coaching at various academic institutions, enable researchers to enhance communication and audience engagement across presentation formats.

 

Our approach, informed by cognitive processing and data visualization principles, has adapted to the new reality of virtual and hybrid presentations. This work contributes practical insights for optimizing presentation skills in this changed communication landscape. By offering actionable recommendations derived from real-world experience, this tutorial provides valuable guidance for science trainees, junior faculty, and established researchers across disciplines. It aims to equip readers with the necessary tools to deliver compelling scientific presentations in any format, advancing effective academic discourse in an era where virtual and hybrid presentations have become the norm.”

 

This article is useful for most presenters, not just scientists. There are four particularly useful figures that are shown by individual images:

 

Figure 1. Comparison of a Slide with More (top) versus Fewer (bottom) Words

 

Figure 2. Directing the Audience’s Attention Through Outlined Shapes or Highlighted Boxes

 

Figure 3. Elements of an Effective Presentation Palette

 

Figure 4. Presenting a Complex Figure in Steps to Support Your Storytelling

 

Back on January 7, 2019 I blogged about A good (but not great) article on how to give a scientific talk. And on February 19, 2014 I blogged about how Assertion-Evidence PowerPoint slides are a visual alternative to bullet point lists.

 

The 2013 image of Edward C. Stone came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Buying a whole-house air purifier

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I bought an Airdog X8 home air purifier, as is shown above. It is a console 15” square by 30” high. We put it in our living room.  

 

Lately we have suffered from unsatisfactory air quality due to smoke from large wildfires. In Boise that smoke is blowing east from central and eastern Oregon. I decided to purchase a whole-house air purifier. There is an article by Courtney Linkwall in the May-June 2026 issue of Consumer Reports titled How to Pick the Right Air Purifier. It says that most purifiers use a certified HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filter, sometimes with an activated carbon filter.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those purifiers basically are just a fancy box with a fan and holders for disposable filters. Under Features that article listed the annual cost for replacing filters. For our HVAC system we already have 20”x20” and 14”x14” (shown above) pleated paper filters that have to be changed every three months. They are inlets for holding them on the second-floor ceiling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the listing for Extra Large Rooms there was an alternative - the Airdog X8 which instead used an electrostatic/ionizer and washable filters (so no annual cost for replacing disposable filters). For example at Amazon, the AeraMax SV has an initial cost of $486 versus the $1199 for the Airdog X8. But the AeraMax SV has an annual cost of $293 for filters. As shown above, after two and a half years the AeraMax already will begin costing more total than the Airdog.  

 

 

Do wind turbines kill all the birds? Or is it the cats instead?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Donald J. Trump often cites a very questionable number. Then he shows a lack of credibility by continuing to repeat it - even after it has been debunked. A number also needs to be put into context. How does it compare with other related numbers?

 

Back on June 2, 2016, there is an article by Vanessa Schipani at FactCheck.org titled Trump’s Hot Air on Wind Energy which said that:

 

“Scientific studies have come up with a wide range of mean estimates concerning bird mortality due to wind farms – from 20,000 to 573,000 bird deaths per year. But no study has estimated that wind farms presently kill 1 million birds a year, as Trump claimed.

 

 …A 2013 Nature study by Loss and others estimated that ‘free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds’ in the U.S. annually. But the researchers added, ‘Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality.’

 In another study published in the journal The Condor in 2014, Loss and colleagues also estimated ‘that between 365 [million] and 988 million birds … are killed annually by building collisions in the U.S., with roughly 56% of mortality at low-rises, 44% at residences, and <1% at high-rises.’”

There is another article by Sophie Lewis at CBS News on October 23, 2020 titled Trump claims wind energy “kills all the birds.” Cats and windows are actually much more to blame. She said:

 

“During Thursday night's final presidential debate between the president and former Vice President Joe Biden, Mr. Trump reiterated his stance against wind energy with a peculiar claim: It ‘kills all the birds.’ 

 ‘I know more about wind than you do,’ Mr. Trump told Biden when moderator Kristen Welker turned to the topic of climate change. ‘It's extremely expensive. Kills all the birds. It's very intermittent. Got a lot of problems.’ "

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

A more recent article by Hannah Ritchie in By the Numbers on January 30, 2024 titled How many birds do wind farms kill? had the statistics that are shown above in a horizontal bar chart with a logarithmic scale. Cats killed 2400 million birds, while wind turbines killed just 1.2 million. So cats killed 2000 times as many as wind turbines! And cats were one of six categories that killed more birds than wind turbines did.

 

There is also an article by Joe Schwarcz at the McGill Office for Science and Society on October 11, 2024 titled The Windmills in Donald Trump’s Mind. And another article by Michael Doyle at E&E News on September 12, 2025 is titled Wind turbines aren’t the biggest threat to birds.

 

An image of wind turbines in Power County, Idaho was cropped from this one at Wikimedia Commons.  

 

 

An article with six solid tips for persuasive speechwriting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found a useful article at The Write Touch on October 18, 2025 titled Persuasive Speechwriting: Six Solid Tips that was originally by Adam Frankel, with comments added by Marsha Zinberg. Those tips are to:

 

1] Write like you talk.

2] Tell a story.

3] Structure matters.

4] Be concise.

5] Be authentic.

6] Don’t just speak – say something.

 

The hexagram was adapted from this one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a wonderful 2018 book by the designer Ingrid Fetell Lee titled Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness. A preview is at Google Books. And there is an excerpt from the introduction. The ten chapters, a JOYFUL TOOLKIT and their starting pages are titled and numbered as follows:

 

Energy                       13

Abundance                42

Freedom                    73

Harmony                  103

Play                          134

Surprise                   164

Transcendence       189

Magic                       217

Celebration             245

Renewal                  271

JOYFUL TOOLKIT  299

 

Chapter 6, Surprise begins:

 

“I sat near the head of a boardroom table in a towering office building in Sydney, my heart fluttering inside my chest. The table seemed to stretch a mile from end to end. All along its edges sat the directors of business units, division heads, and people whose titles start with the letter C. Three weeks earlier, full of bravery and blind optimism of a twenty-four-year-old who had just moved to the opposite side of the world by herself, I had talked my way into a trial run as a brand consultant, a job I had never dine before. I had worked nonstop since then on a brand analysis for the client’s new business, expecting that my boss would be the one presenting it. But a few days before the meeting, my boss told me he believed that the people who did the work should speak for it and that, despite my lack of experience, he wanted me to give the presentation. So there I was, pale faced and shaky, awaiting the calamity that I was certain would follow as soon as I opened my mouth.

 

As the last few attended straggled in, I tried closing my eyes and taking deep breaths, but as I did so, memories of my previous misadventures in public speaking rose to the surface, and I began to feel even more panicked. I snapped my eyes open and looked down at my feet. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a burst of color. A pair of rainbow-striped socks peeked out from under a charcoal-gray pant leg. They seemed so incongruous I wanted to laugh out loud. I looked up at the wearer. It was the imposing, no-nonsense head of the digital business. His eyes followed my gaze to the socks. Then he looked back up, smiled and winked. A moment later I heard my boss bring the meeting to order and call on me to begin the presentation.

 

Joy has a way of showing up when we least expect it. As we move through the stream of daily life, tiny moments can capture our attention and turn our thoughts in a joyful direction. These moments can be especially powerful in times of stress or sadness. My encounter with the rainbow socks didn’t magically transform me into a brilliant presenter, but it did something else that was helpful in that moment: it interrupted my anxious inner monologue, turning my attention from the highlights reel of my past failures to the incredible opportunity I had before me to share my work with an eager audience. It pulled me back into the room and widened my perspective. Suddenly, I found myself wondering what else might not be as it seemed. Maybe hiding inside all those power suits were other warm or funny people. Maybe my boss wouldn’t have given me such a big client if he didn’t think I was capable of handling it. Maybe I could do this after all. I can’t say I wasn’t nervous as I stood in front of that room. In fact, I clutched a water glass for the entire two-hour presentation so tightly my boss later said he could see my white knuckles. But despite my jitters, there were moments when I had to admit to myself that I was actually having fun. In the end I did well enough to turn my trial run into a full-time job and gained more opportunities to practice speaking my mind in public.”

 

The JOYFUL TOOLKIT has a JOYFINDING WORKSHEET on page 302 that has the following questions to think about:

 

PLACES

Where do I feel most joyful?

What is joyful about these places?

What aesthetics define these places?

 

PEOPLE

Who are the most joyful people I know?

What is joyful about these people?

What aesthetics do these people embody?

 

THINGS

What are the most joyful objects in my house?

What is joyful about these things?

What aesthetics do these things exhibit?

 

ACTIVITIES

What activities bring me the most joy?

What is joyful about these activities?

What aesthetics are present in these activities?

 

And The JOYFUL TOOLKIT has a parallel Killjoys Worksheet on page 304 which has the following questions to think about (but none for PEOPLE):

 

PLACES

Where do I feel least joyful?

What about these places kills my joy?

 

THINGS

What are the least joyful objects in my house?

What about these things kills my joy?

 

ACTIVITIES

What activities bring me the least joy?

What about these activities kills my joy?

 

There is a 2 page pdf Joyspotter’s Guide at The Aesthetics of Joy.

 

Ingrid has a 14-minute TED talk on June 11, 2018 titled Where Joy Hides and How to Find It | Ingrid Fetell Lee | TED. A second 19-minute TED interview by Chris Duffy on September 3, 2025 is titled How to Be More Joyful (W/ Ingrid Fetell Lee) | How to Be a Better Human | TED.

 

A cropped version of Dirck Hals Joyful Gathering painting came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Fifteen fears of public speaking you should conquer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a useful Facebook post by Kathryn Esther Clement on July 15, 2020 titled 15 fears of public speaking you must conquer before you think of getting on any stage.

 

Those 15 (listed in alphabetical order) are the more detailed fears of:

 

asking or answering questions

being judged

criticism

failure

forgetting your lines

looking nervous

making mistakes

not being good enough

rejection

silence

a small audience

speaking to influential people

starting

success

using a microphone

 

For each fear she has a sentence with discussion, like for being judged to:

 

“Stop worrying about what people think. Focus on the value you’re bringing.”

 

Must is too strong a word in the title though. And, back on December 12, 2009 I blogged about how Almost nobody wants to see your Top 15 list: please use either a Top 10 or a Top 20 list.

 

There is an article by Jason Teteak at Rule The Room Public Speaking on March 9, 2021 titled Top 10 Fears of Public Speaking, which are in alphabetical order the fears of:

 

competition

embarrassment

failure

futility

inadequacy

leadership

people

self

selling

success

 

Those 15 snooker balls came from OpenClipArt. I added the numbers.

 

 

He went from being a government speechwriter to a part-time school bus driver

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Steven Miller at ProRhetoric on July 21, 2026 titled From Government Speechwriter to School Bus Driver. He spent 72 weeks searching for another job, and then changed his definition for success:

 

 “So, I am doing something different. Very different. I will soon be a school bus driver for my local school district.

 I am happy about and relieved by this because I know that God has led and directed me to this place. Both the place of the bus driver role, but, more importantly, to a place of contentment about it.

 Going from a full-time executive speechwriter position to a part-time school bus driver is tough financially; no doubt about that. The good thing is that this role give me the time to pursue and do the work that I am now confident is my true calling in life. To help churches and ministries with their organization and leadership communication questions and challenges. Those organizations cannot afford to have full-time communications staff. My current role allows me to help those leaders and organizations with time and cost that is affordable for them and for me.”

 A school bus image came from Wikimedia Commons.