“Two Minutes More!” Preparing Slides for Conference Research Presentations

Competitions for research awards give lots of weightage to the floor presentation, including the quality of the slides. ¹ Likewise, the National Medical Commission mandates all postgraduate students to publish or submit a research article in scientific journals or present the paper at the national conference of the concerned Society. ² However, be it an award paper or a free paper, many find it hard to condense the information from their manuscript (or worse, the entire thesis) into slides that should be presented in 7–10 minutes. Though articles on preparing effective PowerPoint slides^3,4 and making appealing podium presentations ⁵ are abound, we could not find any specifically discussing converting a thesis or research paper to a small number of slides that convey all the essential information in a manner that is time-efficient and also aids audience comprehension. This article tries to fill that gap and provides valuable tips and tricks that presenters, both amateur and seasoned, may find useful.

General Points

• Choose the wide-screen (16×9) aspect ratio, as it helps include graphs and related text in the same slide.

• The content may be complex, demanding much attention from the audience. Hence, keep the background and design of the slides elegant but simple and nondistracting. Avoid bells and whistles such as unnecessary clip arts and fancy animation effects.

• Include slide numbers on the footer—audience members with questions on specific slides can mention the number, and then you can jump to the slide promptly by typing the slide number and pressing Enter.

• If there is an instruction to maintain anonymity, remember it, especially while preparing the title slide and writing about the study setting and the Ethics Committee.

• In the beginning, save time by not announcing, “My topic is so and so”—people would have already gleaned it from the title slide on display.

• Don’t expand abbreviations on the slides, as you can explain them verbally. At the same time, avoid unnecessary abbreviations that can be confusing.

• Use Section Header slides (that say only “Methods” in a larger font, for example) before the methods section and the results and discussion section. This helps emphasize the transition to the audience.

• Mention the crucial references on the slides in the Harvard style (author name and year). Less important references, like newspaper reports, need not be cited; you can instead tell about them. Then, in the footer, list the references cited on that slide, in a smaller font size. Fewer details are needed than in the references section of the manuscript/thesis. Mention only the first author’s name (with et al. if required), journal name, year, issue, and page numbers; the article title can be omitted (Figure 1).

Figure 1. An Example of How to Mention the References in the Slide Body and the Footer.

• Using animations between subsequent bullet points is appropriate and preferable in most situations—it helps direct the audience’s attention better and prevents the slides from looking wordy. However, use only the “appear” option, as the others take slightly more time and can be distracting.

• Likewise, while moving to a subsequent point, pressing the “Next” button slightly before you finish the previous point, rather than doing it only after you have fully completed reading/explaining it, helps save some time.

• Instead of including all the information on the slides, reserve some for verbal explanation. For example, on the slide you may merely write, “possibility of confounding factors,” and when presenting, you may say, “like socioeconomic status.” For each slide, such points can be entered in the “Click to add notes” area below the actual slide so that you will not forget them and can even see them during the presentation if you use the Presenter View.

• Use concise language on the slides—remove all information that can be inferred from the context or is nonessential. For example, in the results and discussion section, there is no need to repeatedly write “Our study found that.” Similarly, instead of “The study by George et al. showed that,” you can write “George et al. showed that.” Another option is to merely write “George et al.:” followed by their finding, and then verbally add “showed that” while presenting. Using terms like “intervention group” and “control group” rather than “the group that received divalproex sodium” and “the group that received placebo” helps too. Sentences need not be complete, and articles (a, an, and the) can be omitted wherever possible.

• Slides should not contain any information not included in the manuscript submitted for the award. Likewise, if it is a competition for articles already published in journals, information on the slides should be restricted to those included in the concerned article.

Introduction Section

• This section should be the smallest. Use 1–2 slides only, for the following:

  • defining new terms or concepts, if any
  • the research gap
  • the most important novelty
  • primary and secondary objectives—with important variables in bold.

• To cite on the slides, pick the latest or the best-quality studies and the most recent systematic reviews or meta-analyses.

• For important references, a screenshot may be provided, with the major and relevant finding highlighted in a text box (Figure 2).

• In a presentation of 7–8 minutes, do not spend more than a minute on the introduction section.

Figure 2. An Example of How to Emphasize the Major Findings of Important Previous Papers Using a Screenshot and a Textbox.

Methods Section

• Mention the design, setting, sample size calculation, inclusion and exclusion criteria, sampling technique, tools used, data collection period, and interventions, if any.

• Avoiding text, the methods may be better depicted visually, as staggered processes, to demonstrate the study workflow. For example, in randomized controlled trials, the screening process, randomization, allocation concealment, interventions for each group, assessment time points, and outcome measures can be portrayed visually using appropriate smart art graphics (Figure 3) or shapes. Displaying a flow chart based on a relevant reporting guideline may be informative, too.

• If the number of tools used is less, their screenshots can be shown, and you can tell their names in the background.

• Specify that ethics approval and patient consent were obtained. One option is to show a slide with “Ethics considerations” written on it and verbally explain in the background that they were obtained.

• In the slide on the statistical analysis section, the names of the software used or the tests done need not be mentioned. Mention the P value cut-off and the details of correction done for multiple testing, if any. If there is no relevant information to share, it is okay to eschew the slide on statistical analysis.

Figure 3. An Example of Depicting the Methods Using Smart Art Graphics.

Results and Discussion

• Unlike in the manuscript or thesis, these sections may be combined, to save time.

• Results should get the most time.

• Tables of sociodemographic details should not be omitted. However, you need not combine all variables into a single Table 1 as in the manuscript. If the table is huge, especially if there are more than 5–7 rows, describe only 1–3 variables on one slide. The subsequent results tables too may be split similarly, may be with data related to each variable on a separate slide.

• While describing binary variables, mentioning the proportion of only one (e.g., yes) will suffice.

• Consider if it is necessary to present proportions of unimportant categories like “other,” “did not reveal,” etc.

• Present the results related to the primary and different secondary outcomes on separate slides.

• Exploratory analyses that yielded negative results may be omitted.

• If possible, use graphs rather than tables to show trends/findings—they may be better assimilated. Text or table can be provided besides the figure, if space allows.

• Instead of copying-pasting tables and graphs from your Word file, use PowerPoint’s inbuilt features to create them. However, carefully crosscheck the numbers with those in the manuscript/thesis.

• As we are used to reading from left to right, it helps to place graphs or tables on the left side of the slide and the text of their explanations or discussions on the right.

• Use the highlight option to underscore the major or significant findings (Figure 4). If time is less, talk about only them while presenting.

Figure 4. An Example of Highlighting a Significant Finding on a Table.

• Do not repeat information in text and images/tables.

• Discuss the major findings—2–3 points for each on the slides, with 1–2 additional verbal explanations if needed.

• Compare your findings with those of the most vigorous and relevant studies and the latest systematic reviews and meta-analyses, if available.

• Instead of wasting space by writing “our findings are similar to that of Johns et al.,” you may merely write “~ Johns et al.”

• Build hypotheses based on your findings, citing appropriate references.

• Strengths and limitations can be written parallelly on the same slide (Figure 5).

• Add a slide on the translational significance or implications of your findings. However, don’t overhype the implications.

Figure 5. An Example of Presenting Strengths and Limitations on the Same Slide in a Parallel Manner.

Closing Slides

• Have a “conclusions” slide. Avoid hyping here also.

• If you have mentioned the references in the footer of each slide, there is no need in the end for a series of slides listing them.

• Include a final slide with “Thank you” and “Any questions?,” maybe with some appropriate images.

Rehearse the presentation multiple times to ensure that you do not overshoot the allotted time. If the time limit is eight minutes, rehearse for a 7-minute presentation; this provides some buffer time for unexpected glitches. Backup the PowerPoint file in previous versions of the software too (1997–2003, for example) and have both cloud and local backups. Check the compatibility of fonts, audio files, and videos, if any; it can be embarrassing if they dysfunction during the coveted presentation. Also, it may be a good idea for young researchers to closely watch paper presentations of others—both novice and experienced speakers—and take notes, to improve themselves.