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The Craft of Scientific Presentations: Critical Steps to Succeed and Critical Errors to Avoid By Michael Alley ( Springer )
Release Date: 2007-06-26
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List Price: $34.95
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Product Description
The Craft of Presentations provides a score of examples from contemporary and historical scientific presentations to show clearly what makes an oral presentation effective. It considers presentations made to persuade an audience to adopt some course of action (such as funding a proposal) as well as presentations made to communicate information, and it considers these from four perspectives: speech, structure, visual aids, and delivery. In keeping with technological innovations, it discusses computer-based projections and slide shows as well as overhead projections. In particular, it discusses ways of organizing graphics and text in projected images and of using layout and design to present the information efficiently and effectively. Unlike other books that discuss technical presentations, this book anchors its advice in the experiences of scientists and engineers, including such successful presenters as Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Feynman, Niels Bohr, and Rita Levi-Montalcini, as well as currently active laboratory directors, scientists, and engineers. In addition to examining successful presentations, Alley also discusses the errors that cause many scientific presentations to flounder, providing a list of ten critical errors to avoid. The insights and tools in this book will guide readers to deliver outstanding presentations. Praise for Michael Alley's The Craft of Presentations: “Alley has revamped the way our research center makes presentations particularly the way we design our presentation slides.” (Daniel J. Inman, Director Center for Intelligent Material Systems) “This book fills a void by illustrating key issues and difficulties in oral presentations with the experiences of others.” (Christene Moore, Communication Instructor University of Texas at Austin)
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 excellent book ( est28 )
The book was excellent pointing out errors that as a presenter one may overlook and yet they determine the quality of your presentation
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a little chatty but quite interesting to read
I've been thinking about how to improve students' scientific presentation and find this book very useful. The author occasionally slips in quite a few interesting stories of some famous scientists. Quite an enjoyable reading experience.
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Great way to structure presentations
This book suggests ways to go beyond the "stock" powerpoint style presentation scheme of titles and bullets to create better presentations. What do I mean by better? Basically, the goal is to create a more narrative presenation. Rather than a presentation of lists of facts, a good scientific presentation also tells a story, and at the same time elucidates a finding in clear detail.
Getting someone to think or create a presentation in this way is a difficult thing to teach, and so the book takes a conversational tone and has plenty of examples and counter examples. It also discusses the various expectations of author, audience, and other politicos who might be in the room, and suggests ways to meet those expectations. I recently put the tactics to good use, for instance, I had picutres of the actual elements of the apparatus over schematic as I spoke about them. It was very effective, and kept the audience engaged.
Bottom line, I recommend this book if you want to improve your style or if you are nervous about starting out in the world of scientific presentation. It also helps with confidence to know you've worked hard on improving your style, your audience will appreciate it as well.
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 Scientific Presentation review
It gave me advice on traps to avoid in presentations. I just need to make good practice of them.
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A personal account with interesting anecdotes
Although this is a little old fashioned in its style and content (particularly the photos and graphic style), I was sufficiently engaged with the content and anecdotes to read it right through in one evening. I learnt some new facts and had an insight into the style and ideas of someone who approaches fine lectures and presentations with great care. This made it worthwhile. It is a delightful change not to be assaulted by ego or self assurance. There is one irritating characteristic of style - the repeated use of "granted".
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