Present your paper to listeners not readers: tips on talks W.O. MCCORMICK, MB, FRCP, FRCP[C], FRCP5YCH They who write ill and they who ne'er durst write, Turn critics out of mere revenge and spite.
your paper than you think. The final (or would-be final) version should be rehearsed complete with visual aids and jokes. To do this JOHN DRYDEN you must present it out loud to yourself, your spouse, your dog or It is obviously impertinent to write whomever; you must stand up and about how other people could imactually take the time to show and prove their presentation of papers comment on each slide, with all at conferences. What justification the asides you will use on the day. has any author for such arrogance? Even with these precautions I usuFirst of all, the critic makes no ally find the real presentation takes claim to expertise in the skills he longer than the one to my dogs. criticizes; Channing Pollock (1880Don't read your paper, present 1946) described the critic as "...a it. Only very few geniuses are so legless man who teaches running". on top of their subjects they can Kenneth Tynan, in a more modern do without notes. There is nothing version, called him "a man who shameful about notes: Winston knows the way but can't drive the Churchill advised young politicians car". There is also a relative dearth to pick them up and shake them in of attention to the skills of oral fury at their opponents. presentation. The medical writing There is no best way to have courses arranged by the Royal Colyour notes laid out. Politicians often lege of Physicians and Surgeons of have speeches written out in a very Canada are oversubscribed, and large, wide-spaced type such as "Writing" is a subject heading in Orator. However, politicians selIndex Medicus with many entries dom know their subject very well; under it. There is no subject headtheir speeches may be written for ing "Speaking" or "Talking" under them, and they often do read the which the neophyte speaker could speech, albeit with style and elan. Homework equals good grades look for help. I think a talk should be fully Presenters of papers at conferPapers written for journals are written out, since this is reassuring ences take much trouble in prepara- not ready for oral presentation. In in the event of a memory lapse. It tion: an abstract months ahead, most conferences time is very short can, however, be typed with very copies of the final written paper to only 10 to 20 minutes per talk. wide margins in which the speaker be available at the conference for Ruthless cue words that indicate the press, as well as notes for the essary. pruning of content is nec- writes which section is being covered. The "live" presentation. The average You have to make your point talk is presented almost entirely quickly, so do not make it obscure; from these cue words, but the full From the department of psychiatry, follow the old dictum: text is there if a rescue is Nneeded. University of Toronto and the Queen Say what you are going to say. Exact quotations from other auStreet Mental Health Centre, Toronto. Say it. thors or very detailed data can be Reprint requests to: Dr. WO. read. Don't be ashamed of readSay what you have said. McCormick, Queen Street Mental Health ing; pick the notes up (as Churchill Sit down. Centre, 999 Queen St. W., Toronto, It always takes longer to present did) and read when you need to. Ont. M6J 1H4 1304 CMA JOURNAL/NOVEMBER 3, 1979/VOL. 121 medical person probably gives more oral presentations per year than he publishes written papers. What a pity if the trouble is wasted because of poor presentation techniques. Next, I am convinced that all speakers (unless they are psychopaths who have also had lobotomies) mind how their talks go and are anxious before and during the talk. I was finally spurred to write this paper by an experience at a recent national meeting: I walked out in despair from a talk by a speaker, who is one of the top men in North America on his topic, because of an illegible, hopeless, overhead projection of a complex table. I switched to another room to see an illegible, complicated 5 x 5 cm-slide on a distant screen. This is not a dig at that conference; I have suffered similarly at American, World and British meetings. I have even been to an audiovisual aids conference and heard a lugubrious monologue lacking any visual aids.
John Doe Hospital First Admissions - Schizophrenia, 1984 Males
40
Females 30 Total
70
A transparency done in colour can be more informative and eye-catching Have the tables or graphs that will be shown on the screen typed in place. Visual aids are probably the greatest source of disaster, although they should make oral presentation easier and help to get the content across to the audience. Who has not sat in an audience and suffered through a slide presentation? We even hear: "I am afraid this is a terrible slide, it doesn't matter if you can't read it... I shall tell you the points that matter." These slides do not have a neutral effect; they detract from the paper. A negative set is produced in the audience; "This speaker thinks there is something to tell us but is too lazy to make a good slide." This is a particular danger with overhead projector transparencies. One prestigious scientific society has a rule that not more than three items must appear per slide. Slides that break the rule are ordered off the screen.
The data we need from complicated tables must be extracted and made into simple slides. Finally, do number slides; label them and make sure you have the spot in top right corner when putting them in the projector. This gives the correct projection. Confuse or clarify? The overhead projector has some advantages. Transparencies can be made without the delay required for making photographic slides. They can be hand-made with special felt-tip pens. They can be made from typed and printed materials also - and herein lies a risk. It is so tempting to take "that marvellous Table VI" from the paper in the famous journal; photocopy it (10 seconds) and put it through one of those fancy machines that makes a transparency (20 seconds). It is almost certainly useless. Tables for a journal contain lots of data, to be taken in gradually at the reader's pace, perhaps with reference back and forth
1308 CMA JOURNAL/NOVEMBER 3, 1979/VOL. 121
to the text. Never use tables straight out of books or papers. With overhead transparencies use the same rule: extract segments of information - ideally not more than three per slide. Here are some tips on transparencies, including nontyped material (which can be excellent): * Leave at least a 2.5-cm margin free of writing. * Use different colours to highlight points. * Find a friend or colleague with neat handwriting - handwriting can look better than typing. * When the slide is right way up for you to read as you face the audience it is right way up on the screen. * Don't look at the screen. Audiences hate contemplating your neck and scapulae. A pencil, pen or a finger placed right on the transparency acts as a pointer and is projected clearly. * Graphs in pencil do better than ball-point in transparency machines.
* nicorette Prescribing Information
Indication: Nicorette Chewing Gum is designed to provide partial substitution for the nicotine in cigarette smoke, which is believed to be one of the principal factors in the perpetuation of the smoking habit. It is intended as a temporary aid in cushioning the patient against the psychopharmacological trauma of withdrawal. Its justification as part of the treatment of cigarette addiction lies in its being the least of three evils present in tobacco smoke. ft is therefore importani that it should be regarded merely as an aid to the first stage of cigarette abstention, and that the ultimate aim should be the abandonment of all forms of smoking and all forms of nicotine chewing. Contraindications: Nicorette is contraindicated in pregnancy because of the known adverse effect of nicotine on the fetus. Nicorette is also contraindicated in breast feeding mothers, as nicotine is excreted in breast milk. Precautions: Nicorette may cause an exacerbation of symptoms in patients suffering from inflammation or disease of the oral cavity, gastritis, or peptic ulceration. Nicorette should be prescribed with care in patients with angina, coronary artery disease or peripheral vascular disease. Adverse Effects: Nicorette can sometimes cause, in the early days of treatment, apthous ulcers, throat irritation, excessive salivation and hiccups. However, these symptoms are usually more frequent and severe with the 4mg than the 2mg preparation. Excessive weight gain is sometimes associated with abstention of smoking. For this reason, a patient on Nicorette should be weighed at regular intervals, with modifications in diet as necessary.
PLease direct your attention tothefigures in the upper haLfofthe tenthcoLumn.
...
-.
D
//
I Can't make out anything!
Here, Look through these.
Treatment of Overdose: 1. In a conscious, alert patient, prompt evacuation of the stomach should be performed. When evacuation is complete, activated charcoal may be administered by mouth if necessary. 2. In comatose patients, a clear airway must be established immediately. Other therapeutic measures are purely symptomatic and should be conducted according to the attending physicians assessment of the patient When the patients clinical status stabilizes, consideration may be given to gastric lavage and the administration of activated charcoal.
Dosage and Administration: Dosage 2mg: One 2mg Nicorette piece to be chewed slowly in place of a cigarette when there is a craving to smoke. Up to 10 pieces per day is the usual recommended dosage although in exceptional cases, up to 20 pieces per day may be required. Dosage 4mg: One 4mg Nicorette piece to be chewed slowly in place of a cigarette when there is a craving to smoke which is uncontrolled by 2mg Nicorette. Up to 10 pieces per day is the usual recommended dosage although in exceptional cases, up to 20 pieces per day may be required. How Supplied: Nicorette is supplied as a 4mg (pale yellow) and 2mg (fawn colour) square of highly spiced chewing resin base and packaged in blister pack strips of 15 pieces and contained in boxes of 7 strips (105 pieces). Nicorette 2 mg-DIN 456586 Nicorette 4 mg-DIN 456594
Product monograph available on request
DOW PHARMACEUTICALS Dow Chemical of Canada, Limited 380 Elgin Mills Road, East Richmond Hill, Ontario L4C 5H2 'Trademark of The Dow Chemical Company tTrademark of AB LEO, Helsingborg. Sweden
Before the day of the presentation you will have notified the organizers of your audiovisual requirements. Do not assume that all will be ideal, especially if you are speaking at a conference in a hotel rather than in a hospital or university. Arrive 15 minutes early and try your slides and overhead transparencies. Don't wait until the audience is assembled to find that the overhead projector has been set so close that your material occupies only one quarter of the screen. Carry a large watch. If your rehearsal was truly aloud with all necessary pauses - "Lights off; first slide please" - you will have enough time. If you are running out of time, cut something. End on time and give your audience time for their discussion; they paid too. If you are a chairman follow these guidelines: * Time rules should be fairly ruthless.
1312 CMA JOURNAL/NOVEMBER 3, 1979/VOL. 121
* Speakers should be told that you intend to be strict. * In general the permitted overrun should not be more than 10% of the time allocated. * Your flexibility should be in inverse proportion to the eminence of the speaker. An old hand should know better than to run over; an inexperienced speaker should be encouraged. * Suspend these tough rules if the speaker is an invited one: the rules of courtesy and dignity then are overriding. Some doctors think conferences are a waste of time; this belief is encouraged if the quality of presentation is poor. But with attention to detail and a little extra trouble your preparation time can be rewarded by a successful presentation. I acknowledge with gratitude artistic help from Ms. Kathleen Morgan and the secretarial assistance of Mrs. Nancy Forbes.
your paper than you think. The final (or would-be final) version should be rehearsed complete with visual aids and jokes. To do this JOHN DRYDEN you must present it out loud to yourself, your spouse, your dog or It is obviously impertinent to write whomever; you must stand up and about how other people could imactually take the time to show and prove their presentation of papers comment on each slide, with all at conferences. What justification the asides you will use on the day. has any author for such arrogance? Even with these precautions I usuFirst of all, the critic makes no ally find the real presentation takes claim to expertise in the skills he longer than the one to my dogs. criticizes; Channing Pollock (1880Don't read your paper, present 1946) described the critic as "...a it. Only very few geniuses are so legless man who teaches running". on top of their subjects they can Kenneth Tynan, in a more modern do without notes. There is nothing version, called him "a man who shameful about notes: Winston knows the way but can't drive the Churchill advised young politicians car". There is also a relative dearth to pick them up and shake them in of attention to the skills of oral fury at their opponents. presentation. The medical writing There is no best way to have courses arranged by the Royal Colyour notes laid out. Politicians often lege of Physicians and Surgeons of have speeches written out in a very Canada are oversubscribed, and large, wide-spaced type such as "Writing" is a subject heading in Orator. However, politicians selIndex Medicus with many entries dom know their subject very well; under it. There is no subject headtheir speeches may be written for ing "Speaking" or "Talking" under them, and they often do read the which the neophyte speaker could speech, albeit with style and elan. Homework equals good grades look for help. I think a talk should be fully Presenters of papers at conferPapers written for journals are written out, since this is reassuring ences take much trouble in prepara- not ready for oral presentation. In in the event of a memory lapse. It tion: an abstract months ahead, most conferences time is very short can, however, be typed with very copies of the final written paper to only 10 to 20 minutes per talk. wide margins in which the speaker be available at the conference for Ruthless cue words that indicate the press, as well as notes for the essary. pruning of content is nec- writes which section is being covered. The "live" presentation. The average You have to make your point talk is presented almost entirely quickly, so do not make it obscure; from these cue words, but the full From the department of psychiatry, follow the old dictum: text is there if a rescue is Nneeded. University of Toronto and the Queen Say what you are going to say. Exact quotations from other auStreet Mental Health Centre, Toronto. Say it. thors or very detailed data can be Reprint requests to: Dr. WO. read. Don't be ashamed of readSay what you have said. McCormick, Queen Street Mental Health ing; pick the notes up (as Churchill Sit down. Centre, 999 Queen St. W., Toronto, It always takes longer to present did) and read when you need to. Ont. M6J 1H4 1304 CMA JOURNAL/NOVEMBER 3, 1979/VOL. 121 medical person probably gives more oral presentations per year than he publishes written papers. What a pity if the trouble is wasted because of poor presentation techniques. Next, I am convinced that all speakers (unless they are psychopaths who have also had lobotomies) mind how their talks go and are anxious before and during the talk. I was finally spurred to write this paper by an experience at a recent national meeting: I walked out in despair from a talk by a speaker, who is one of the top men in North America on his topic, because of an illegible, hopeless, overhead projection of a complex table. I switched to another room to see an illegible, complicated 5 x 5 cm-slide on a distant screen. This is not a dig at that conference; I have suffered similarly at American, World and British meetings. I have even been to an audiovisual aids conference and heard a lugubrious monologue lacking any visual aids.
John Doe Hospital First Admissions - Schizophrenia, 1984 Males
40
Females 30 Total
70
A transparency done in colour can be more informative and eye-catching Have the tables or graphs that will be shown on the screen typed in place. Visual aids are probably the greatest source of disaster, although they should make oral presentation easier and help to get the content across to the audience. Who has not sat in an audience and suffered through a slide presentation? We even hear: "I am afraid this is a terrible slide, it doesn't matter if you can't read it... I shall tell you the points that matter." These slides do not have a neutral effect; they detract from the paper. A negative set is produced in the audience; "This speaker thinks there is something to tell us but is too lazy to make a good slide." This is a particular danger with overhead projector transparencies. One prestigious scientific society has a rule that not more than three items must appear per slide. Slides that break the rule are ordered off the screen.
The data we need from complicated tables must be extracted and made into simple slides. Finally, do number slides; label them and make sure you have the spot in top right corner when putting them in the projector. This gives the correct projection. Confuse or clarify? The overhead projector has some advantages. Transparencies can be made without the delay required for making photographic slides. They can be hand-made with special felt-tip pens. They can be made from typed and printed materials also - and herein lies a risk. It is so tempting to take "that marvellous Table VI" from the paper in the famous journal; photocopy it (10 seconds) and put it through one of those fancy machines that makes a transparency (20 seconds). It is almost certainly useless. Tables for a journal contain lots of data, to be taken in gradually at the reader's pace, perhaps with reference back and forth
1308 CMA JOURNAL/NOVEMBER 3, 1979/VOL. 121
to the text. Never use tables straight out of books or papers. With overhead transparencies use the same rule: extract segments of information - ideally not more than three per slide. Here are some tips on transparencies, including nontyped material (which can be excellent): * Leave at least a 2.5-cm margin free of writing. * Use different colours to highlight points. * Find a friend or colleague with neat handwriting - handwriting can look better than typing. * When the slide is right way up for you to read as you face the audience it is right way up on the screen. * Don't look at the screen. Audiences hate contemplating your neck and scapulae. A pencil, pen or a finger placed right on the transparency acts as a pointer and is projected clearly. * Graphs in pencil do better than ball-point in transparency machines.
* nicorette Prescribing Information
Indication: Nicorette Chewing Gum is designed to provide partial substitution for the nicotine in cigarette smoke, which is believed to be one of the principal factors in the perpetuation of the smoking habit. It is intended as a temporary aid in cushioning the patient against the psychopharmacological trauma of withdrawal. Its justification as part of the treatment of cigarette addiction lies in its being the least of three evils present in tobacco smoke. ft is therefore importani that it should be regarded merely as an aid to the first stage of cigarette abstention, and that the ultimate aim should be the abandonment of all forms of smoking and all forms of nicotine chewing. Contraindications: Nicorette is contraindicated in pregnancy because of the known adverse effect of nicotine on the fetus. Nicorette is also contraindicated in breast feeding mothers, as nicotine is excreted in breast milk. Precautions: Nicorette may cause an exacerbation of symptoms in patients suffering from inflammation or disease of the oral cavity, gastritis, or peptic ulceration. Nicorette should be prescribed with care in patients with angina, coronary artery disease or peripheral vascular disease. Adverse Effects: Nicorette can sometimes cause, in the early days of treatment, apthous ulcers, throat irritation, excessive salivation and hiccups. However, these symptoms are usually more frequent and severe with the 4mg than the 2mg preparation. Excessive weight gain is sometimes associated with abstention of smoking. For this reason, a patient on Nicorette should be weighed at regular intervals, with modifications in diet as necessary.
PLease direct your attention tothefigures in the upper haLfofthe tenthcoLumn.
...
-.
D
//
I Can't make out anything!
Here, Look through these.
Treatment of Overdose: 1. In a conscious, alert patient, prompt evacuation of the stomach should be performed. When evacuation is complete, activated charcoal may be administered by mouth if necessary. 2. In comatose patients, a clear airway must be established immediately. Other therapeutic measures are purely symptomatic and should be conducted according to the attending physicians assessment of the patient When the patients clinical status stabilizes, consideration may be given to gastric lavage and the administration of activated charcoal.
Dosage and Administration: Dosage 2mg: One 2mg Nicorette piece to be chewed slowly in place of a cigarette when there is a craving to smoke. Up to 10 pieces per day is the usual recommended dosage although in exceptional cases, up to 20 pieces per day may be required. Dosage 4mg: One 4mg Nicorette piece to be chewed slowly in place of a cigarette when there is a craving to smoke which is uncontrolled by 2mg Nicorette. Up to 10 pieces per day is the usual recommended dosage although in exceptional cases, up to 20 pieces per day may be required. How Supplied: Nicorette is supplied as a 4mg (pale yellow) and 2mg (fawn colour) square of highly spiced chewing resin base and packaged in blister pack strips of 15 pieces and contained in boxes of 7 strips (105 pieces). Nicorette 2 mg-DIN 456586 Nicorette 4 mg-DIN 456594
Product monograph available on request
DOW PHARMACEUTICALS Dow Chemical of Canada, Limited 380 Elgin Mills Road, East Richmond Hill, Ontario L4C 5H2 'Trademark of The Dow Chemical Company tTrademark of AB LEO, Helsingborg. Sweden
Before the day of the presentation you will have notified the organizers of your audiovisual requirements. Do not assume that all will be ideal, especially if you are speaking at a conference in a hotel rather than in a hospital or university. Arrive 15 minutes early and try your slides and overhead transparencies. Don't wait until the audience is assembled to find that the overhead projector has been set so close that your material occupies only one quarter of the screen. Carry a large watch. If your rehearsal was truly aloud with all necessary pauses - "Lights off; first slide please" - you will have enough time. If you are running out of time, cut something. End on time and give your audience time for their discussion; they paid too. If you are a chairman follow these guidelines: * Time rules should be fairly ruthless.
1312 CMA JOURNAL/NOVEMBER 3, 1979/VOL. 121
* Speakers should be told that you intend to be strict. * In general the permitted overrun should not be more than 10% of the time allocated. * Your flexibility should be in inverse proportion to the eminence of the speaker. An old hand should know better than to run over; an inexperienced speaker should be encouraged. * Suspend these tough rules if the speaker is an invited one: the rules of courtesy and dignity then are overriding. Some doctors think conferences are a waste of time; this belief is encouraged if the quality of presentation is poor. But with attention to detail and a little extra trouble your preparation time can be rewarded by a successful presentation. I acknowledge with gratitude artistic help from Ms. Kathleen Morgan and the secretarial assistance of Mrs. Nancy Forbes.
