Handy Hints for Presenters
at the NZ Early Childhood Research Conference

Drafted by Sarah Farquhar, Childforum (Jan 2006)

Preparation Hints

1. Your presentation and paper should reflect a strong research bias.  People don't come expecting to hear your views about what are good or bad teaching or health practises, your views about what policy makers should or should not be doing, slide shows of children at play, or to be shown teaching resources in the absence of a strong focus on research.

2. Work out a clear structure for your presentation, and have notes with bullet points to support the structure you will follow.  Typical structures for a completed paper presentation are usually something like this: (your planned structure will of course vary depending upon your study and the type of session you are presenting)

• Greetings.  My name is ….  The research is about ….  I will be covering the following in this presentation……    I'll be allowing ….. time for discussion and questions.  Feel free to approach me afterwards if you have any further questions or would like a copy of my paper. 
• Outline briefly the purpose of study.
• Justification – relevant literature on your topic.  How your research contributes to/adds to/extends on the current national and international research literature.  Also briefly mention any practical/practice and policy reasons for doing the study.
• Research question/aims.
• Methodology/methodological approach (theory of method).
• Methods/techniques for data collection and analysis.
• Any limitations and issues with reliability, responsibilities to the organisation funding the research, biases, time constraints, ethical dilemmas etc.
• Findings.
• Discussion and questions from the audience.

3. On the day of the conference find the room you will be presenting in before your presentation is scheduled.  Get a feel for the room size and conditions.  Check everything is how you would want it.  If you feel comfortable, your audience will too.

4. Visualise where you will stand, where the audience will be sitting, and how you will be talking with the audience.

5.  If needing to use Data Projection, Whiteboard and pens or other equipment, make sure this available and working before your presentation.

6.  Empty your pockets of anything that makes noise and take off any jewellery if you think you are likely to unconsciously play with it whilst presenting.

7.  Remember to project your voice. You are the presenter! Everyone needs to hear your friendly and engaging voice.

8.  Keep the use of visual aids, especially wordy slides, to the minimum necessary.  Dialogue is more important.

9.  Avoid reading your paper verbatim.  This is boring and the audience will switch off.

10.  Keep the amount of reading the audience needs to do to a minimum as it is demanding on the audience to read and to listen to you at the same time (and be prepared for any failure in the technology - often time is wasted during a presentation by presenters who encounter problems in the technology or their use/familiarity with it).

11. Have confidence in your ability to talk and share your research.  You will find it helpful to practice your talk with friends or colleagues before the day of your presentation.
 
12.  Focus on interacting with the audience.  Make eye contact. Smile. After briefly explaining and communicating what your research is all about, open it up for discussion and sharing. Take care not to base your presentation around slides or the use of technology to present your material – you are the presenter and you need to engage with the audience. 

13. The importance of feedback and discussion cannot be overemphasised – both for you as a researcher and a writer, and for the audience who are learning about your research and want to be better researchers themselves.

14.  Keep within the time limit. Place your watch or mobile phone with clock face on the table in front of you. Ask or make sure that there is someone in the audience who can signal to you when you have 10 minutes left and again when you have only 5 minutes left and need to wind up the presentation.

15.  Take some business cards with you, or have your contact details written on some cards or on written paper.

16.  Have a pad and a pen handy to give to people who miss out on a copy of your paper.  And have the top page of the pad already headed up with the headings of “Name” and “Email” or “Postal  address” on it.

In short, be prepared, be relaxed, and be focused.  Then the benefits of giving the presentation will be maximised for you and for your audience.

Annual Symposium Registration Form:  Download Microsoft Word Document

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