85
9.6
Have Clear Objectives and Scope
The audience should not still be wondering what exactly you are aiming at, in the
midst of your talk. Too many speakers dive deep way too early in their detailed
results and theory, prior to having clearly introduced the objectives and scope of
the study.
For the benefit of the audience (as well as your own), clearly introduce the questions you want to address in your talk. Ideally, that should be just a few key points.
Otherwise, I suggest you down select fewer topics and thus reduce your presentation scope.
The few key points you introduce early on will be the same key points that will
be addressed again in your conclusion slides. There should be a perfect match
between the objectives listed at the onset of your talk and the conclusion points.
The one question you do not want people in the crowd to ask themselves is:
“what is the point of all this”? While your results and theory might potentially be
quite complex (which makes sense if you are presenting to subject matter experts in
a highly scientific forum), make the objective and scope sections extremely easy to
understand, even for those not familiar at all with your world.
9 Structure
9.6
Have Clear Objectives and Scope
The audience should not still be wondering what exactly you are aiming at, in the
midst of your talk. Too many speakers dive deep way too early in their detailed
results and theory, prior to having clearly introduced the objectives and scope of
the study.
For the benefit of the audience (as well as your own), clearly introduce the questions you want to address in your talk. Ideally, that should be just a few key points.
Otherwise, I suggest you down select fewer topics and thus reduce your presentation scope.
The few key points you introduce early on will be the same key points that will
be addressed again in your conclusion slides. There should be a perfect match
between the objectives listed at the onset of your talk and the conclusion points.
The one question you do not want people in the crowd to ask themselves is:
“what is the point of all this”? While your results and theory might potentially be
quite complex (which makes sense if you are presenting to subject matter experts in
a highly scientific forum), make the objective and scope sections extremely easy to
understand, even for those not familiar at all with your world.
9 Structure