Standing up in front of a room of people and delivering a talk about your science,
is a bit different from the day job in the lab or out in the field and if you've not done it before, hey!
Even if you've done it lots of times, it can be a daunting task.
Even if you've spent time finding a way to frame your research, so that an audience
will be really interested from the start.
Even if you've prepared a great story to carry that interest through,
none of that matters if the way you deliver that story
switches them off.
To do successful science communication on stage and screen, you've got to not just be a great story writer,
You've got to be a great storyteller.
This video is part of a whole YouTube course on how to talk about science with the public.
I wrote it with a focus towards practicing scientists but to also be helpful for
anyone interested in science communication.
Today we're looking at how to give a successful seminar or keynote or lecture or show,
whatever flavour of talk your giving
and you may not be giving that talk in a space like this.
Instead, you may be speaking at a conference venue or in your works atrium or a school hall.
No problem, the same advice will still apply.
So here are nine top tips to help you deliver an effective talk about your science.
Your talk is just the tip of the preparation iceberg.
Have you heard the fact that 90 percent of an iceberg is underwater
Well, that's definitely the case for your talk.
What people see on stage is the culmination of a lot of hard work.
And I'm not just talking about the time
It takes to craft an engaging story.
Some things in life, you can wing.
But unless you're the one in a million hotshot, that has a sickeningly good memory and
perfect delivery every time, you're going to need to practice your presentation.
Take inspiration from Alex Honnold, the legendary climber who scaled the epic rock face of El Capitan
in under four hours,
With no rope.
In order to do it without, you know,
He climbed it many many times with a rope.
He found all his footholds and hand grips and practiced all of those moves
that he would need to get up to the summit.
He also spent ages off the cliff,
visualizing the moves.
It meant that on the morning of the climb,
His nerves were almost as non-existent as his rope because he knew he'd prepared.
Practice Individual elements of your talk out loud, do a full run-through and film it just on your phone
and watch it back.
you'll not only spot things to change in both the content and the way you deliver it, but your nerves will settle too.
*Be contagious*
I've talked a few times in this course,
especially in video five, about the need to draw out the
emotional story of your research or an idea, alongside the science one.
It's also important to not deliver that story like a robot.
You need to share how it makes you feel, show your enthusiasm
and passion for science, then show the frustration and confusion too because emotions are
Infectious. They'll emanate through you, influence how you deliver the words and what your body language
is saying and they'll connect you
with the audience.
So here's something for your to-do list.
Go through your script or your notes and write in the margin the
emotions you want to show and the emotions you want the audience to feel during each section.
Try different ways of delivering those lines, experiment, see which feels best.
I've got a free course resource that can help you plan this out too.
Just head here and grab that, plus the whole pack of free resources that run alongside the course.
*But you do you*
If you're particularly nervous or new to public speaking,
you may need to work on being a bigger version of yourself on stage,
so that your emotions reach the back of the audience.
However,
Don't feel you need to become someone you're not.
For some people, showing their shyness, their quiet nature,
offers an honesty that endears them to an audience.
Even showing moody sadness can work sometimes.
The key is to be you but the you that's best suited to that situation.
For example, a round the table chat with a small audience needs less
amplification of your character in emotions than a solo talk in a big theatre and if you're confident already,
you don't need to amplify, just let the natural emotions of your story out.
*Ponder the paralanguage*
Jargon klaxon, but it's a cool word. So I thought you may want to know it.
Paralanguage.
It's all about, how you say the words you say.
Yes, what you say is really important.
That's why we've worked so hard on the content development in videos four, five and six.
But how you say it, is key to how it lands with your audience and there are two aspects.
What you're doing with your voice?
And what you're doing with your body.
With your body language, how you stand,
how you use your hands, how you look and move around the room, that can convey more
emotional meaning to the audience than what the words are and how you're saying them.
But it's very easy to get overly self-conscious about what your body is saying.
So, as this is just an introductory course,
I want to focus on the importance of using your voice and body for clarity, so that you are both seen and heard
by the audience.
Voice first.
*Create rhythm, then change it up*
I've got three P's for you.
The first is pace.
Speak too fast and people can't keep up, speak too slow and people get bored.
But it also depends on the audience.
It's often better to speak slower with a younger group.
And the medium. As we'll discuss in video ten, the pace of YouTube
delivery, tends to be quicker than on stage.
Two is pitch.
As well as choosing which words to emphasize,
to stress their importance. You can also vary the pitch of your voice
Useful for showing excitement or jeopardy or questioning.
But be careful about how high your pitch can shift when you get excited or passionate.
Screechy voices might carry emotion
but your audience lose the words if there ears feel like they're bleeding.
The third is pauses.
It's not just the pace and the pitch of the words you say that's important,
It's also the gaps between the words.
If you want to stress a term or a sentence, pause after it.
It gives time for something to land and for the audience to reflect on what you've just said.
Or pause before, to signpost you're about to say something profound.
The key tip here though, is that the real power comes, when you deliberately change one of these.
You notice when a song switches up its rhythm, right?
Your ears prick up.
Do the same on stage.
For example,
speeding up or slowing down is a great way to inject
emotion and your audience's attention will dial back in too.
The free course resource can help you plot some of this out.
But when and how you change these elements, will emerge most naturally by giving your talk a few times
and keeping an eye on how your audience responds.
*Don't stress over your body language*
So body language advice will often go something like this.
Don't lock out your knees, but then don't be relaxing so much that you're slouching.
Keep those shoulders back and your head up, feet shoulder width apart.
Body open not closed.
Definitely don't cross your arms and don't put your hands in your pockets and
use your hands, but not too much.
There's a lot of truth to this sort of advice, but here's the thing.
I might be walking around and find myself just naturally in this weird position.
I might cross my arms when I'm thinking.
I might even put my hands in my pockets, if I'm being more casual or if I want to lower my status on stage.
But that's getting a bit deep for this introduction to sci comm though.
I'll be making future videos on all this so do subscribe for those.
I'm a big gesturer as well, as you probably, likely spotted.
it's useful for showing
direction or a timeline, you know if there are three reasons why the ocean is important,
then you can count through them.
The key at the moment, is to not obsess over what your body language is saying.
Instead, let's focus on what you can do with your body, to ensure the audience see you and you connect with them.
*Be visible*
Go wandering all the way off to one side of the stage or the other and people at the edges of the room
might not be able to see you.
Same if you're on stage and you
disappear too deep into it or go and hide in a corner.
They'll lose you.
If I get a chance, before the audience come in,
I like to walk around
the seating area, sit in some of the seats and see what the sight lines are like.
Get a sense of what it would be
like to be out there in the audience.
If there's a lectern or a table for your laptop or papers, you might be tempted to go and stand behind it. Yes
It's so you can read your notes, but you're blocking your connection with parts of the audience.
The lectern might be in the middle or it might be on the side, to not get in the way of the
projector onto the screen.
Stand behind it and you'll be close to one half of the audience but far from the other.
Some of them may not even be able to see your face.
If you've got a microphone that allows you to, get out from behind the podium,
carry your notes with you or mirror your laptop to an iPad and I'm a big fan of working the space.
To not only ensure that everyone can see me but it's so I feel like I'm getting time with each area of the audience.
For me, standing Stockstill is awkward.
I prefer to be kinetic energy not potential energy.
But don't wander around too much, because then it's like watching a game of tennis.
Good job, keeping up.
*The eyes have it*
Having a conversation with someone who doesn't make eye contact, you just feel a bit disconnected.
So how should you handle a room full of eyes?
Some people look above the audience's heads.
It's better than looking down at your feet.
But personally I still feel a bit disconnected.
look at the audience.
Look at them in the eyes.
But don't just fixate on two or three people, jumping between them.
That just gets really weird.
And don't flick quickly between everyone.
That just makes it look like you've had too much coffee.
Move your gaze steadily around the room, making actual eye contact with real people but only
for a second or so.
And make sure you cover all areas of the audience as well, from right to left from the very front, to the very back.
*It's a talk not TV*
The excitement and beauty of speaking about your science, at a conference or a festival or
In a school, is that there are people, real people,
there in front of you.
Embrace that, involve them, ask them questions, pause if they laugh.
Maybe even get them up to take part in something interactive.
I'll be covering how to work with volunteers in a future video.
You want to make it seem like you're presenting the talk for the first time but also
embrace the liveness.
React to a phone going off or someone's sneezing, people coming in late.
Those moments of interaction, can break the audience speaker divide and make you seem even more real.
Oh, and by the way, you don't necessarily write
interactive scripts.
They evolve over time.
You try something and it works well or things happen and you keep them in.
There's so much I could say about how to deliver a successful talk.
So I hope you found this a helpful introduction.
Subscribe for future videos and let me know in the comments below, which tip you found most useful.
What I didn't put into a top tip, was to make sure, like we've talked about with writing your story in video 5.
That you finish strong, with a clear, satisfactory end.
Which I guess I should do with this video.
The next one, is all about how you can best use a demo, to bring your science alive.
I'll see you there.