STAND AND DELIVER:HOW TO GIVE A GREAT RESEARCH TALK

Dr. Julie GreensmithIntelligent Modelling and Analysis Research GroupSchool of Computer Science University of Nottingham

MOTIVATIONLets raise the standard together…

LETS ELIMINATE BORING TALKS

We all have to give research talks in order to communicate our scientific research

Just as critical as being able to write a good paper

Generate impact for our research

Encourage others to be interested in our ideas

Gain esteem within our community and in industry

To inspire the next generation of researchers

COMMUNICATION IS ESSENTIAL

Great ideas are nothing, literally worthless, if you dont communicate them to others

Used to crystallise ideas and communicate to your community

Gain feedback on research and ideas

Build relationships with others in your field and the wider community

THE PURPOSE OF THIS TUTORIAL

To describe how to deliver a great research talk

To engage others in your research

Discuss the purpose of giving research talks

Ways to achieve engaging delivery

Not to give a tutorial on how to design slides or on powerpoint!

INSPIRATION

Simon Peyton Jones (SPJ) of Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK

Based on a 1993 Research Paper [1]

Also has written some excellent guides to writing research papers and also grant proposals

Plus he does that thing called “functional programming”

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/papers/giving-a-talk/giving-a-talk.htm

WHY GIVE RESEARCH TALKS?

We really should focus on journal publications with high impact factors (as far as the REF is concerned!)

So, why do we spend years of our lives preparing, writing and presenting conference papers?

The presentation of either your poster or talk is the culmination of the work

Not just so we can travel on expenses…

WHAT YOUR TALK IS FOR

Your paper is the ‘meat’ of the work

Your talk is the advertisement for the ‘meat’

SPJ says:

“Never Confuse The Two”

YOUR GOAL

To entice the listener to want to go away and read your paper

to follow on your work

to cite your work in future

Its not a showcase to show everything that you have ever learned about your thesis topic

Not necessary to go into excruciating detail

MAKE THEM INTERESTEDPique their interest, make them hungry for moreNot relieved to leave the room

YOUR PERFECT AUDIENCE

Have read all of your previous papers and all of the papers that you reference in all your papers

Thorough understanding of all previously published artificial immune systems and algorithms and a perfect working knowledge of the history of immunology and contemporary immunology.

And will be able to understand equations and pseudocode in a single glance

Are fresh, raring to go, eager to hear you speak and love your powerpoint template

YOUR ACTUAL AUDIENCE

Have never heard of you

Are not aware of all the literature ever published in your field

Have just had lunch and are drowsy

Have jet-lag

Are desperate to check their email, facebook, twitter

YOUR JOB IS TO WAKE THEM UP

Therefore…

TALK STRUCTURE

1. Motivation for the research - 20%

2. The key idea of the research - 80%

3. “There is no number 3” - [SPJ]

Not:

a rehash of your paper translated into powerpoint slides

its a totally different communication medium

CRITICAL PERIOD

How long do you think you have before the audience decides to listen to your talk (or not)?

This first period is critical, it is when the listener will decide if they want to invest their attention in what you are saying

You must excite them in the first couple of minutes

laptops start opening, Facebook statuses get updated

Similar to the introduction of a research paper

IN THE FIRST TWO MINUTES

Engage the audience to let them know your motivation:

why they should invest energy in listening to you

what your problem is and why it is interesting

This means don’t start your talk with a lengthy description of your field. It wont interest and excite

Instead, start with the problem first

EXAMPLE - PROBLEM FIRST

Artificial Immune Systems including the Negative Selection Algorithm have been applied to a variety of problems within computer security

However these systems can be prone to poor scaling and the generation of false positive alarms

In this work we attempt to construct a new type of artificial immune system which can scale and has much lower rates of false positives

We will capture novel immunology to do this

PRESENTING THE KEY IDEA

“If you remember nothing else I say today, remember this…”

Get it absolutely clear in your head before you start writing your slides what is your key idea

if you are not clear about this, your audience wont be either

Be specific - its your job to figure this out, not the audience

Be explicit - say “this is the key idea of the paper”

Be precise - make sure the rest of the talk is structured around communicating this

DEPTH OF TALK

“Narrow and deep beats superficial and broad”

Avoid presenting a condensed summary of the paper

Use a problem centred approach to focus your mind and theirs

Examples are the best way to do this

Remember, your talk is an “advert for the meat”

REMEMBERYour talk is “the advert for the meat”

EXAMPLES ARE YOUR WEAPON

“When time is short, omit the general case and not the example”

Use them to motivate the work and to convey the basic intuition of the idea

Help you to illustrate ‘The Idea’ in action

To show extreme and interesting cases

To highlight shortcomings and limitations

Relate it to something the audience already understands

USING EXAMPLES

Want to describe the signal processing aspects of a new algorithm

Can go into the mathematical detail and biological metaphor for as long as you like - but it doesn't help

Before presenting the algorithm, describe a specific scenario in which you will frame the work

Use the example to illustrate the idea and to make it relatable

DECENT EXAMPLE

If we capture data representing an internal intrusion in a LAN we can derive the following signals

Signal 1:

Number of network packets sent per second as an indication of the activity of the host machine

Represents the “danger signal”

Signal 2:

The rate of ‘burstiness’ of sending of network packets as an indication of the type of network connection

Represents the “safe signal”

BAD EXAMPLE

Danger signals:

measure of an attribute which significantly increases in response to abnormal behaviour

a moderate degree of confidence of abnormality with increased level of this signal, though at a low signal strength can represent normal behaviour.

Safe signals:

a high rate of change equals a low safe signal level and vice versa.

a confident indicator of normal behaviour in a predictable manner or a measure of steady- behaviour

measure of an attribute which increases signal concentration due to the lack of change in strength

IN INTERDISCIPLINARY WORK

Both research groups perform a lot of interdisciplinary research

Use a trivial example to relate the concepts from one domain into another

requires a good idea of to which audience you are presenting

“How could I demonstrate this idea to my mum?”

APOPTOSIS VS NECROSIS (BIO)

The innate immune system can tell the difference between a tissue fullof necrotic product and a tissue containing apoptotic cells

Necrosis results in the release of internal cell contents which degrade and become danger signals (Olpan et al 2010).

apoptotic context yields semi-mature cells

necrotic context yields mature cells

It is not the presence of antigen but the detection of damage which isthe initial activator of the human immune system

APOPTOSIS VS NECROSIS (CS)

A computationally interesting mechanism

A practical demonstration of how this works

Gives the audience a much better grounding of what is going on

THINGS TO LEAVE OUTMaybe things you aren’t expecting….

THE POINTLESS OVERVIEW

A short history of Artificial Immune Systems

1st Generation Algorithms

2nd Generation Algorithms

Interdisciplinary development of immune-inspired algorithms

Systems Not Algorithms

Emerging research in artificial immune ensembles

LEAVE IT OUT!

It conveys nearly zero information about your talk to the listener

Eats into the precious two minutes of attention - its boring!!

Either is too superficial to provide any information or you have to explain too much and half the talk is delivered from just this slide

Use signpost slides throughout the talk instead to give inherent structure to the presentation

I hate the ‘slide countdown’ in the corner, it makes me desperate for the talk to end and makes me count down the slides until I can have a coffee!!

THE PAPER EQUIVALENT

How many of you actually read these paragraphs in papers?

“In this paper The DCA is applied to the detection of a port scan, which forms a convenient small-scale computer security problem. Section 2 contains relevant background information regarding the problem of port scans and current scanning detection techniques. Section 3 presents the biological inspiration of the DCA, a summary of relevant developments in immunology, and rudimentary DC biology. This is followed by Sections 4 and 5, describing the abstraction process, a formalised description of the DCA and its implementation as an anomaly detector. This is followed by experimentation with its application as a port scan detector. Section 6 includes a sensitivity analysis of a selection of parameters. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results of the port scan investigation and suggestions for future work.” - Greensmith et al (2010).

THIS IS A SIGNPOST SLIDEIt also works as a ‘natural attention reset’ and is much more effective

17 SLIDES ON RELATED WORK

You don’t need to show off how many papers you have read in a 15 minute research talk

Maximum one slide showing the evolution of the work

Include relevant references in the main body slides

You must absolutely know the related work and be able to answer questions on it

Be careful not to destructively criticise other’s work (they might be in the room!!)

EVER SEEN THIS?

TALKING-TOO-TECHNICAL

We put it in as it represents hours of hard work and blood

If given two minutes there is no way I can understand reams of equations

Just showing equations for the sake of looking clever is not

Present only the parts that are relevant to the talk itself

interested parties will always refer to the paper

NEVER APOLOGISE

“I didn’t have time to prepare this talk properly”

“My computer broke down, so I don’t have the results I expected”

“I don’t have time to tell you about this”

“I don’t feel qualified to address this audience”

“I couldn’t find the graph I was looking for”

“I’m sorry my English is not good”

TIME TO DELIVERIts in the way you tell em…

PREPARATION

Prepare your slides as close to the time of the talk as you dare

They must be totally fresh in your mind

Practice your talk on anyone who will listen/video yourself

Keep your slides as simple as you can so you are not distracted

Avoid reading off cue cards/random bits of paper

Never, ever, ever, simply read off your slides

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING

The best resource you have for giving a talk is YOUR ENTHUSIASM

ENTHUSIASM

If you dont look excited by the subject, why would anyone else?

It makes people more receptive to your ideas if you yourself look convinced of the matter

Energy to move, point, breathe also helps overcome nervousness

It wakes people up - the main goal!

MANAGING ANXIETY

Even the most seasoned professionals can get ‘stage fright’

Jelly legs, wobbly voice, can’t breathe, inability to operate brain

Go to the loo before your session starts

Have a bottle of water handy as your mouth will dry up

Wear something that will not show up massive underarm sweat patches

ANXIETY IS NORMAL

Take on as much oxygen as you can, it will calm your body down

Script your first few sentences precisely, so you dont need your brain until you have got going

Move about and be animated, it seems to burn off the adrenaline

If your hands are shaking, dont use a lazer pointer

You are not alone or weak - we all feel like this!

BE SEEN AND HEARD

Dont hide behind your laptop, it makes you look even more scared and point at the screen and not your laptop

Try and speak to the back of the room

Identify your “nodders” and make eye contact with them

Dont be put off if someone looks unhappy

they probably just checked their email and had a grant proposal rejected, or have indigestion from some dodgy conference food

POWERPOINT ANNOYANCES

Revealing your points

One

by

one

is

painful

Powerpoint Annoyances

Use animations very sparingly

Avoid noises of any kind

Check your videos will work

Make sure you have the right dongle

ANSWERING QUESTIONS

Many people, sometimes prestigious, fall apart at this bit

Questions are a golden golden golden opportunity to connect with your audience

Specifically encourage questions during your talk: pause briefly now and then, ask for questions

Ask someone to rephrase their question as a stalling tactic

TIMING

Never overrun - it looks really bad

At a conference where time is tight, it is important not to overrun - practicing for timing really helps

Audiences will stop listening when time runs out

Never ask “can I carry on” - its awkward and hard for the chair of the session to say no

Unlike this tutorial where I will do what I want.

SEE WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED

Write down all of the problems you can see in this presentation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSGqp4-bZQY

RAISING THE STANDARD

The standard of conference presentations is sometimes so low, that it is a great opportunity to make a good impression just by using one or two of the tips presented today

“The standard is so low you don't have to be

outstanding to stand out” - [SPJ]

PROACTIVE PRACTICE

Been sent on numerous lecturer ‘boot camp’ activities including how to make yourself a better presenter

Most of the advice was not useful or practical

Best activity was to prepare and present a 5 minute talk which was videotaped - highlighted all sorts of weird things I was unaware of!

Also the same for making research based videos for computerphile

THIS AFTERNOON’S ACTIVITY

Using a smartphone camera, in pairs or threes, make a 2 minute video about some interesting aspect of your research

Good practice at presenting but also really need some new promotional IMA material!

Editing does not have to be massively slick, but would like to showcase some ideas at the end of today’s session

We can help do some of the editing - now film the footage :)

I WOULDN'T MAKE YOU DO ANYTHING I WOULDN'T DO MYSELF

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyZ38n9flrE

Enjoy sharing your research with others