Presentation Skills Training Series

Presenting your research effectively might be one of the most important skills you can add to your toolbox as a grad student. Whether it is at a research conference, job talk, grant application, research pitch competition, or moving beyond academia in your professional career, presenting as effectively as possible will increase both the impact of the research itself as well as your future successes as a professional.

There are seven workshops designed to help you achieve your goals:

Presenting Your Results: Academia and Beyond 

How do you translate your data-driven research into a clear and engaging presentation within and beyond academia? Learn how to develop a content trajectory that fosters interest and curiosity, and how to distill your research into clear and accessible main points. The approach introduces researchers to specific templates and structures to help navigate the challenge of depth, breath and clarity. This workshop is part of SKILLSETS’ Presentation Skills series.

Learning outcomes: 

• Articulate the core message in clear, accessible language 
• Build connection, comprehension, and credibility to create a compelling presentation 
• Understand how to scaffold technical aspects of your presentation in order to maximize comprehension.   

Presenting a Narrative: Academia and Beyond 

How do you create a narrative that captures your scholarly work for diverse audiences? This workshop does a deep dive into the rhetorical strategies of effective presentations. We’ll start by introducing a framework to analyse audience, purpose, organization, and style in order to understand the unique characteristics of different presentation genres. Building on this foundation, the workshop then looks at the power of authentic story-telling to convey information in ways that are both engaging, rigorous and memorable. This workshop is part of SKILLSETS’ Presentation Skills series.

Learning outcomes: 

• Understand how to analyze research presentation genres through audience, purpose, organization, and style 
• Build connection, comprehension, and credibility to create a compelling presentation 
• Articulate your core message in clear, accessible language.   
• Develop and incorporate effective and authentic storytelling  

Developing a Persuasive Pitch 

Research presentations with more explicit goals such as policy implications, grant requests or investment pitches pose a unique set of challenges. This workshop covers how to craft a clear and compelling pitch that is easily understood and championed by the audience. We also cover how to support this narrative with core details like return on investment or policy benefits for the public and/or individual constituents. This workshop is part of SKILLSETS’ Presentation Skills series.

Learning outcomes: 

• Craft a short, clear, and compelling statement on a personal project that is easy to promote 
• Identify and articulate return on investment and/or constituent benefits 
• Ensure the presentation naturally flows into further conversation 

Project Confidence while Presenting 

Your presence at the front of the room or on stage is a combination of physicality and voice. This workshop focuses on conveying confidence and professionalism by looking at how you hold yourself while presenting, how to use physical cues and vocal variety to make presenting more dynamic, and how to speak with vocal clarity and naturalness. In combination, these tools help you deliver a clear, confident and engaging presentation. This workshop is part of SKILLSETS’ Presentation Skills series. 

Learning outcomes: 

• Cultivate a confident physical presence that commands a room 
• Develop a clear, natural delivery that will connect with an audience 
• Establish a dynamic physical and vocal presence that will engage an audience 

Effective Visuals: Complement don’t Compete 

Avoid the pitfalls of building slides that have too much information, take too long to process, and compete for audience attention. By understanding the limits of human visual and auditory language processing, we can focus on how to work within these limits. This workshop covers slide design, slide testing, slide timing, and when to do without slides at all. This workshop is part of SKILLSETS’ Presentation Skills series. 

Learning outcomes: 

• Create complementary visuals that aid rather than compete with comprehension 
• Correct the most common problems presenters have with their slides 
• Establish strategies to properly test the effectiveness and impact of core visuals 

Presenting You: Networking and Elevator Pitches 

Networking: when research becomes about you. This workshop breaks down how to talk about your research in ways that highlight the skills and personal attributes needed to establish your professional competencies. Learn how to tell your research story where the outcomes are less about your research achievements and more about the professional skills you have developed and personal attributes that have helped you succeed. This workshop is part of SKILLSETS’ Presentation Skills series. 

Learning outcomes: 

• Identify and understand personal strengths 
• Reframe research into a personal trajectory of growth 
• Demonstrate personal strengths in a research story 

Presentation Practice: Prepare Effectively and Reduce Anxiety 

This workshop dives deeply into how to practice more effectively and how to get better feedback for your presentation while you prepare.  We’ll review why watching a video of yourself is so painful for most people and how to work around the feeling to make the most of this tool for self-review. We’ll also cover feedback strategies for content, delivery and visuals when looking for feedback from others. We’ll also discuss strategies for keeping anxiety and imposter syndrome in check. This workshop is part of SKILLSETS’ Presentation Skills series. 

Learning outcomes: 

• Prepare effectively through self-video review  
• Solicit feedback for content, delivery and visuals that is helpful 
• Manage presentation-induced anxiety and imposter syndrome 

Presenting a Pitch: From Content to Visuals to Delivery

How do you craft a research presentation to influence policy or request funding? This special 3-hour workshop focuses specifically on research presentations with more explicit goals, such as policy implications, grant requests or investment pitches. Offering a holistic approach to presentations, from content to visuals to delivery, you’ll learn how to present confidently and persuasively while laying out key details and expectations. This workshop is part of SKILLSETS’ Presentation Skills series.

Learning outcomes:

• Develop a compelling presentation with a clear call to action
• Command confidence with clear and natural physical presence and delivery
• Develop engaging visuals that enhance a presentation without overwhelming it.