Giving Presentations: Advice from the Math World

Greetings again. I’m on the way home from the wedding I mentioned last week. The wedding was in California, and afterward we vacationed in Colorado for a few days.

We had planned to be home by now, but a flight delay and a flight cancellation have detained us. A good time to write a blog post!

Before we left home, I gave a presentation mainly for students doing mathematics research this summer. The presentation was on giving presentations. A colleague of my husband had asked me to give it. (My husband is in the Texas A&M University math department.)

In my presentation, I mentioned an excellent article on giving presentations in mathematics (“Advice on Giving a Good PowerPoint Presentation” by Joseph A Gallian). Later, a math professor noted another excellent article on the topic (“How to Give a Good Colloquium” by John E McCarthy). Links to both articles now appear in the AuthorAID Resource Library.

These articles include some advice that applies especially to giving presentations in math and related fields. However, they also include advice that can help in giving presentations in all fields. Here are some examples:

• “If you need a particular slide more than once in your talk, reproduce it at the appropriate places rather than going back to it.” (Gallian)
• “Repeatedly remind the audience of unfamiliar definitions.” (Gallian)
• “Don’t introduce too many ideas.” (McCarthy)

I encourage you to look at one or both of these articles.