How to Prepare and Give a Scholarly Oral Presentation

Abstract

An important function of being an academic faculty member is building an academic reputation, and one of the best ways to build a reputation is by giving scholarly presentations, particularly those that are oral. Earning the reputation of someone who can give an excellent talk often results in being invited to give keynote addresses at regional and national conferences, which increases a faculty member's visibility along with his or her area of research. Given the importance of oral presentations, it is surprising that few graduate or medical programs provide courses on how to give a talk. This is unfortunate because there are skills that can be learned and strategies that can be used to improve one's ability to give an interesting, well-received oral presentation. To that end, the aim of this chapter is to provide faculty with best practices and tips on preparing and giving an academic oral presentation. Excellent speakers are similar to one another in their approach and delivery of oral presentations. They use their voice, words, and nonverbal mannerisms to engage their audience. Academic speakers will often use different media to accentuate their talk such as PowerPoint slides, audio, video, or interactive demonstrations. All too frequently, novice speakers use media to give the talk instead of accentuate key points in their talk. So, it is important not to let technology overwhelm the talk—the speaker is on stage not the medium. In fact, a good speaker should be able to engage an audience without using anything other than his or her verbal and nonverbal communication skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)