Approach the oral presentation task just as you would any other assignment. Review the available topics and then do some background reading and research to ensure you can talk about the topic for the appropriate length of time and in an informed manner. Break the question down into manageable parts .
Creating a presentation differs from writing an essay in that the information in the speech must align with the visual aid. Therefore, with each idea, concept, or new information that you write, you need to think about how this might be visually displayed through minimal text and the occasional use of images. Proceed to write your ideas in full, but consider that not all information will end up on a PowerPoint slide. Many guides, such as Marsen (2020), will suggest no more than five points per slide, with each bullet point have no more than six words (for a maximum of 30 words per slide). After all, it is you who are doing the presenting , not the PowerPoint. Your presentation skills are being evaluated, but this evaluation may include only a small percentage for the actual visual aid: check your assessment guidelines.
To keep your audience engaged and help them to remember what you have to say, you may want to use visual aids, such as slides.
When designing slides for your presentation, make sure:
When choosing images, it’s important to find images that:
The specific requirements for your papers may differ. Again, ensure that you read through any assignment requirements carefully and ask your lecturer or tutor if you’re unsure how to meet them.
Too often, students make an impressive PowerPoint though do not understand how to use it effectively to enhance their presentation.
It is clear by the name that nonverbal communication includes the ways that we communicate without speaking. You use nonverbal communication everyday–often without thinking about it. Consider meeting a friend on the street: you may say “hello”, but you may also smile, wave, offer your hand to shake, and the like. Here are a few tips that relate specifically to oral presentations.
Being confident and looking confident are two different things. Even if you may be nervous (which is natural), the following will help you look confident and professional:
Below is a video of some great tips about public speaking from Amy Wolff at TEDx Portland [1]
Two or more people tied by marriage, blood, adoption, or choice; living together or apart by choice or circumstance; having interaction within family roles; creating and maintaining a common culture; being characterized by economic cooperation; deciding to have or not to have children, either own or adopted; having boundaries; and claiming mutual affection.
Chapter 3: Oral Presentations Copyright © 2023 by Patricia Williamson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.
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Verbally (and as a general rule), do not write down and memorize or read your full text, because then your presentation will sound like what it is: a recited written text. Instead, memorize the outline of your presentation — that is, a tree structure of main points and subpoints — and speak ex tempore, reinventing the words as you go along. As you do, you will occasionally need to think about what to say next and find the most appropriate words to say it. Instead of using filler words ( um , er , you know , I mean , etc.), simply pause. If you say um , you get about half a second of thinking time and the audience is likely to notice the um and be irritated by it. If you keep silent, you can get up to two or three seconds of thinking time without the audience noticing anything. Even if attendees do notice the silence, they will simply think that you are choosing your words carefully — and there is nothing wrong with that.
Despite pointing often at the screen, Marie nicely faces the audience with her body at all times, keeps her hands down between gestures, and maintains eye contact with the attendees. Transcript Vocally, vary the tone, rate, and volume of your voice as a function of the meaning, complexity, and importance of what you are saying. You need not invent a new intonation pattern: You simply need to amplify your normal pattern.
Visually, control your body. Adopt a stable, confident position; move only when you have a positive reason to do so (for example, move closer to the audience for taking questions), not when your body seems to ask for it. When you make a gesture, make it large and deliberate; between gestures, bring your hands down and do not fidget. Establish eye contact: Engage the audience by looking them straight in the eyes.
At all times, make sure you address the audience. Even if you have slides, tell the audience your story in a stand-alone way; do not just explain your slides. In particular, anticipate your slides. You should know at all times what your next slide is about so you can insert an appropriate transition.
To keep the audience engaged , Jean-luc emphasizes his points with facial expressions, purposeful gestures, and — especially — a high dynamic range in his vocal delivery. Transcript If you are a non-native speaker of English, you may find it more challenging to speak ex tempore in English than in your native language. Still, even imperfect extemporaneous English is more likely to engage the audience than reciting a more polished, less spontaneous written text. To improve your delivery and overall presentation as a non-native speaker, practice more, pace yourself, and support your spoken discourse with appropriate slides.
While all speakers benefit from practicing their presentations multiple times, consider investing more time in such practice if you are less familiar with the language. Practicing helps you identify missing vocabulary, including key technical terms (which are difficult to circumvent), and express your ideas more fluently. As you practice, you may want to prepare a list of difficult words (to review on the day of your presentation) or write down an occasional complex yet crucial sentence. Still, do not feel bound to what you write down. These notes should be a help, not a constraint.
Practicing in front of an audience (a few colleagues, for example) can help you correct or refine your pronunciation. If you are unsure how to pronounce some words or phrases, you can ask native speakers in advance or check online dictionaries that offer phonetic spelling or audio rendering. Still, you may be unaware of certain words you mispronounce; a practice audience can point these words out to you if you invite it to do so.
During your presentation, pace yourself. As a non-native speaker, you may feel you need to search for your words more often or for a longer time than in your native language, but the mechanism is the same. Do not let this challenge pressure you. Give yourself the time you need to express your ideas clearly. Silence is not your enemy; it is your friend.
Pacing yourself also means speaking more slowly than you otherwise might, especially if you have an accent in English. Accents are common among non-native speakers — and among specific groups of native speakers, too — and they are not a problem as long as they are mild. Often, they are experienced as charming. Still, they take some getting used to. Remember to slow down, especially at the beginning of a presentation, so your audience can get used to your accent, whether native or not.
Most speakers, even experienced ones, are nervous before or during an oral presentation. Such stage fright is normal and even reassuring: It shows that you care, and you should care if you want to deliver an effective presentation. Accordingly, accept your stage fright rather than feeling guilty about it. Instead of trying to suppress nervousness, strive to focus your nervous energy in your voice, your gestures, and your eye contact. Do not let it dissipate into entropy, such as by using filler words or engaging in nervous mannerisms.
Among the many ways to keep your nerves under control, perhaps the most effective one is to focus constructively on your purpose at all times. Before your presentation, eliminate all the unknowns: Prepare your presentation well, identify (or even meet) your audience, and know the room. During the presentation, do what it takes to get your message across, even if it means doing something differently than you had planned. Have a positive attitude about the presentation at all times: Visualize what you want to achieve, not what you want to avoid.
Even with careful preparation, mishaps can occur. For example, technology may fail, you may forget what you wanted to say, or you may accidentally say the wrong thing. As a rule, do not apologize for what happens — neither in advance nor after the fact. Although well-meant, such apologies provide no benefit to the audience: They are noise. If you can do something about the problem, such as fix the technology or insert what you forgot later in the presentation, concentrate on doing so instead of apologizing. If the problem is out of your control, then there is no need to apologize for it. As a specific example, if you feel your command of English is poor, then do what you can in advance to improve it; in particular, practice your presentation thoroughly. Then, on the day of the presentation, do your best with the command you have, but do not apologize at the beginning of the presentation for what you think is poor English. This apology will not solve anything, and it gives the attendees a negative image of you. Rather, let the attendees judge for themselves whether your command of English is sufficient (perhaps it is, despite what you might think). In other words, focus on delivering results, not excuses.
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Building an academic reputation is one of the most important functions of an academic faculty member, and one of the best ways to build a reputation is by giving scholarly presentations, particularly those that are oral presentations. Earning the reputation of someone who can give an excellent talk often results in invitations to give keynote addresses at regional and national conferences, which increases a faculty member’s visibility along with their area of research. Given the importance of oral presentations, it is surprising that few graduate or medical programs provide courses on how to give a talk. This is unfortunate because there are skills that can be learned and strategies that can be used to improve the ability to give an interesting, well-received oral presentation. To that end, the aim of this chapter is to provide faculty with best practices and tips on preparing and giving an academic oral presentation.
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Gore-Felton, C. (2020). How to Prepare and Give a Scholarly Oral Presentation. In: Roberts, L. (eds) Roberts Academic Medicine Handbook. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31957-1_42
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Oral presentations
Introduction.
Oral presentations are a form of assessment that calls on students to use the spoken word to express their knowledge and understanding of a topic. It allows capture of not only the research that the students have done but also a range of cognitive and transferable skills.
Different types of oral presentations
A common format is in-class presentations on a prepared topic, often supported by visual aids in the form of PowerPoint slides or a Prezi, with a standard length that varies between 10 and 20 minutes. In-class presentations can be performed individually or in a small group and are generally followed by a brief question and answer session.
Oral presentations are often combined with other modes of assessment; for example oral presentation of a project report, oral presentation of a poster, commentary on a practical exercise, etc.
Also common is the use of PechaKucha, a fast-paced presentation format consisting of a fixed number of slides that are set to move on every twenty seconds (Hirst, 2016). The original version was of 20 slides resulting in a 6 minute and 40 second presentation, however, you can reduce this to 10 or 15 to suit group size or topic complexity and coverage. One of the advantages of this format is that you can fit a large number of presentations in a short period of time and everyone has the same rules. It is also a format that enables students to express their creativity through the appropriate use of images on their slides to support their narrative.
When deciding which format of oral presentation best allows your students to demonstrate the learning outcomes, it is also useful to consider which format closely relates to real world practice in your subject area.
The key questions to consider include:
This form of assessment places the emphasis on students’ capacity to arrange and present information in a clear, coherent and effective way’ rather than on their capacity to find relevant information and sources. However, as noted above, it could be used to assess both.
Oral presentations, depending on the task set, can be particularly useful in assessing:
When using this method you are likely to aim to assess a combination of the above to the extent specified by the learning outcomes. It is also important that all aspects being assessed are reflected in the marking criteria.
In the case of group presentation you might also assess:
See also the ‘ Assessing group work Link opens in a new window ’ section for further guidance.
As with all of the methods described in this resource it is important to ensure that the students are clear about what they expected to do and understand the criteria that will be used to asses them. (See Ginkel et al, 2017 for a useful case study.)
Although the use of oral presentations is increasingly common in higher education some students might not be familiar with this form of assessment. It is important therefore to provide opportunities to discuss expectations and practice in a safe environment, for example by building short presentation activities with discussion and feedback into class time.
Individual or group
It is not uncommon to assess group presentations. If you are opting for this format:
Assessed oral presentations are often performed before a peer audience - either in-person or online. It is important to consider what role the peers will play and to ensure they are fully aware of expectations, ground rules and etiquette whether presentations take place online or on campus:
Hounsell and McCune (2001) note the importance of the physical setting and layout as one of the conditions which can impact on students’ performance; it is therefore advisable to offer students the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the space in which the presentations will take place and to agree layout of the space in advance.
Good practice
As a summary to the ideas above, Pickford and Brown (2006, p.65) list good practice, based on a number of case studies integrated in their text, which includes:
Neumann in Havemann and Sherman (eds., 2017) provides a useful case study in chapter 19: Student Presentations at a Distance, and Grange & Enriquez in chapter 22: Moving from an Assessed Presentation during Class Time to a Video-based Assessment in a Spanish Culture Module.
Some students might feel more comfortable or be better able to express themselves orally than in writing, and vice versa . Others might have particular difficulties expressing themselves verbally, due for example to hearing or speech impediments, anxiety, personality, or language abilities. As with any other form of assessment it is important to be aware of elements that potentially put some students at a disadvantage and consider solutions that benefit all students.
Oral presentations present relative low risk of academic misconduct if they are presented synchronously and in-class. Avoiding the use of a script can ensure that students are not simply reading out someone else’s text or an AI generated script, whilst the questions posed at the end can allow assessors to gauge the depth of understanding of the topic and structure presented. (Click here for further guidance on academic integrity .)
Recorded presentations (asynchronous) may be produced with help, and additional mechanisms to ensure that the work presented is their own work may be beneficial - such as a reflective account, or a live Q&A session. AI can create scripts, slides and presentations, copy real voices relatively convincingly, and create video avatars, these tools can enable students to create professional video content, and may make this sort of assessment more accessible. The desirability of such tools will depend upon what you are aiming to assess and how you will evaluate student performance.
Oral presentations provide a useful opportunity for students to practice skills which are required in the world of work. Through the process of preparing for an oral presentation, students can develop their ability to synthesise information and present to an audience. To improve authenticity the assessment might involve the use of an actual audience, realistic timeframes for preparation, collaboration between students and be situated in realistic contexts, which might include the use of AI tools.
As mentioned above it is important to remember that the stress of presenting information to a public audience might put some students at a disadvantage. Similarly non-native speakers might perceive language as an additional barrier. AI may reduce some of these challenges, but it will be important to ensure equal access to these tools to avoid disadvantaging students. Discussing criteria and expectations with your students, providing a clear structure, ensuring opportunities to practice and receive feedback will benefit all students.
Some disadvantages of oral presentations include:
From a student perspective preparing for an oral presentation can be time consuming, especially if the presentation is supported by slides or a poster which also require careful design.
From a teacher’s point of view, presentations are generally assessed on the spot and feedback is immediate, which reduces marking time. It is therefore essential to have clearly defined marking criteria which help assessors to focus on the intended learning outcomes rather than simply on presentation style.
Joughin, G. (2010). A short guide to oral assessment . Leeds Metropolitan University/University of Wollongong http://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/2804/
Race, P. and Brown, S. (2007). The Lecturer’s Toolkit: a practical guide to teaching, learning and assessment. 2 nd edition. London, Routledge.
Annotated bibliography
Class participation
Concept maps
Essay variants: essays only with more focus
Film production
Laboratory notebooks and reports
Objective tests
Patchwork assessment
Creative / artistic performance
Simulations
Work-based assessment
Oral presentation.
Other forms: oral presentations
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The power of words can control the thoughts, emotions and the decisions of others. Giving an oral presentation can be a challenge, but with the right plan and delivery, you can move an entire audience in your favor.
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This resource describes what oral presentations are and suggests strategies for effective planning and presentation
Oral presentations , also known as public speaking or simply presentations, consist of an individual or group verbally addressing an audience on a particular topic. The aim of this is to educate, inform, entertain or present an argument. Oral presentations are seen within workplaces, classrooms and even at social events such as weddings. An oral presentation at university assesses the presenter’s ability to communicate relevant information effectively in an interesting and engaging manner.
In some instances, you may be required to present as part of a group to test your ability to work as a member of a team. Working within a group can sometimes be a challenge or a great success. To understand how to effectively work in a group, take a look at our Group Work resource.
Planning your oral presentation.
Even if it isn’t a specific requirement, it is good practice to engage the audience and/or to have them interact during your presentation. Examples of ways to ensure audience interaction are:
In many oral presentation assessments you will be allowed or required to use visual aids, such as slides, images or props, to add an interesting feature and engage the audience. Keep your visual aids clear and to the point, and ensure that they are easily readable by your audience.
NOTE: Don’t forget to save your visual material on a USB flash drive so that you can easily access it through the class computer (if applicable), and have a back-up if you need to submit it in class or print it out.
It is also important that you use this time to make sure that you are fully prepared. Do you need to collect props? Have you thought about how you will access your visual aids?
On the day of your presentation, you might feel anxious or nervous and that is completely normally. Have confidence in your ability, the presentation you have planned, and the preparation you have done!
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1 From the Medical Service, San Francisco General Hospital, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif
2 Centre for Research in Education at the University Health Network, University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Oral presentation skills are central to physician-physician communication; however, little is known about how these skills are learned. Rhetoric is a social science which studies communication in terms of context and explores the action of language on knowledge, attitudes, and values. It has not previously been applied to medical discourse. We used rhetorical principles to qualitatively study how students learn oral presentation skills and what professional values are communicated in this process.
Descriptive study.
Inpatient general medicine service in a university-affiliated public hospital.
Twelve third-year medical students during their internal medicine clerkship and 14 teachers.
One-hundred sixty hours of ethnographic observation. including 73 oral presentations on rounds. Discoursed-based interviews of 8 students and 10 teachers. Data were qualitatively analyzed to uncover recurrent patterns of communication.
Students and teachers had different perceptions of the purpose of oral presentation, and this was reflected in performance. Students described and conducted the presentation as a rule-based, data-storage activity governed by “order” and “structure.” Teachers approached the presentation as a flexible means of “communication” and a method for “constructing” the details of a case into a diagnostic or therapeutic plan. Although most teachers viewed oral presentations rhetorically (sensitive to context), most feedback that students received was implicit and acontextual, with little guidance provided for determining relevant content. This led to dysfunctional generalizations by students, sometimes resulting in worse communication skills (e.g., comment “be brief” resulted in reading faster rather than editing) and unintended value acquisition (e.g., request for less social history interpreted as social history never relevant).
Students learn oral presentation by trial and error rather than through teaching of an explicit rhetorical model. This may delay development of effective communication skills and result in acquisition of unintended professional values. Teaching and learning of oral presentation skills may be improved by emphasizing that context determines content and by making explicit the tacit rules of presentation.
Oral presentation skills are central to physician-physician communication, but little is known about how these skills are learned. While the communication between physicians and patients has recently received increased scrutiny, 1 less attention has been paid to the nature of communication among physicians. Studies from medical sociology and medical anthropology report that oral communication plays a central role in clinical care. 2 – 6 In particular, the oral presentation of patient cases provides a vehicle for the collaborative conduct of medical work, 2 , 3 , 6 the teaching and evaluation of clinical competence, 2 , 4 , 6 , 7 the negotiation of professional relationships, 2 , 6 and the production of professional values. 5 , 6 , 8 , 9 While previous studies have described some of the language characteristics and socializing effects of oral discourse among physicians, they have not analyzed how these skills are learned or taught.
Rhetoric is a social science which studies communication in terms of context and explores the action of language on knowledge, attitudes and values. Rhetoric has been applied to other professions such as engineering, 10 business, 11 physics, 12 and social work, 13 but has not been previously applied to analyzing medical discourse among physicians. To increase our understanding of physician-physician communication, we used the theoretical framework of rhetoric to study how medical students learn oral presentation skills and what professional values are acquired in this process.
Twelve third-year students on their internal medicine clerkship at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)/San Francisco General Hospital and 14 teachers (8 residents and 6 attendings) were observed for 160 hours, including 73 oral presentations on rounds (42 by students and 31 by interns or postgraduate year 2 [PGY-2] residents ). Observation was by a trained rhetorician (LAL) who made rounds and took call with the patient care teams for part of two 8-week clerkships (October and November 1997, and January and February 1998). Nonparticipant observation was conducted following standard ethnographic technique, 14 in which the observer dwells in the research community and, without engaging in the activities under study, records those activities and the relations between research subjects.
Observation was separated in time to allow detection of possible differences in presentation skills later in the clerkship year. The first group, a convenience sample consisting of 4 of the 8 students on the clerkship (2 students on each of 2 teams), was selected to allow in-depth observation of a small number of students and their teams (2 interns, 1 PGY-2 resident, and 1 faculty attending for each team). Students were observed during all activities of the clerkship for a 3-week period (approximately 100 hours). During this time, the mean number of observed presentations was 7.5 per student and 5 per house officer. Based on the data gathered from the first group, hypotheses were generated, and all 8 students on the clerkship during the second time period were observed (mean number of observed presentations was 1.5 per student) for a 2-week period during team work rounds, attending rounds, and/or presentation rounds with the clerkship director (approximately 60 hours); most oral presentations occurred in these settings. Saturation sampling (when further observations yield minimal or no new information 15 , 16 ) was achieved through this process. Subjects were informed of our interest in “how students adjust to the clerkship”; however, in order to minimize observer effect, we did not disclose our specific interest in their communication skills until after the observation period.
Discourse-based interviews 17 of 8 students and 10 teachers (5 residents and 5 attendings) were conducted and audiotaped. This sample included all the students on the clerkship during the second observation period and 5 of the 6 PGY-2 residents and 5 of the 6 team attendings during the same time period (those who agreed to be interviewed [all] and could be scheduled). Discourse-based interviews elicit tacit knowledge about language by having participants work with a discourse sample and explicitly justify content and organizational choices. Students were asked to arrange a written sample of patient material into oral presentation formats for different contexts and to justify and explain their choices. Teachers were given an already organized presentation sample and asked if they would present it differently in different contexts and to explain their choices. Teachers were also asked to interpret representative feedback statements selected from observational field notes. Different formats for the student and teacher interviews were chosen to reflect the preceptor relationship between students (creating the presentation) and teachers (critiquing the presentation). All students in the second group ( n = 8) also completed a postclerkship survey. General survey questions inquired about the difficulties students had in composing and delivering case presentations, the “golden rules” of case presentation they had learned in their clerkships, and the advice they would offer to clerks beginning this rotation. Table 1 describes selected demographic characteristics of study subjects compared with the UCSF reference groups from which they were drawn. None of the teachers in the study had specific training in teaching oral presentation skills.
Characteristics of Study Subjects and Reference Groups, %
Students | Residents | Faculty | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Subjects ( = 12) | Reference ( = 141) | Subjects ( = 8) | Reference ( = 140) | Subjects ( = 6) | Reference ( = 57) | |
Female | 42 | 56 | 50 | 49 | 17 | 37 |
White | 67 | 45 | 88 | 68 | 100 | 88 |
Asian | 33 | 31 | 13 | 25 | 0 | 4 |
Latino | 0 | 14 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 4 |
African American | 0 | 9 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 5 |
American Indian | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Data from field notes and transcribed interviews were qualitatively analyzed for emergent themes in order to uncover recurrent patterns of communication. Analysis followed the method of grounded theory technique 15 in which textual data is organized into increasingly refined categories representing recurrent (“emergent”) themes. Final categories are checked with an expert insider (RJH) to ensure that they reflect the experienced reality of the discourse under study. Thematic findings from observations and interviews were triangulated using analyses of curricular documents, student surveys, and a review of the sociological, anthropological, and medical literature on medical discourse. Triangulation, a term from cartography, refers to the practice of collecting data from various sources in order to verify the accuracy of observational findings.
Although there were variations in presentation skills within our student and teacher groups (e.g., students demonstrated differing abilities, over time, to learn to adapt content to context), even after saturation sampling we did not find recognizable patterns to these intragroup differences. In addition, there was no discernible overlap between student and teacher presentation skills at any time in the study. Therefore, intragroup differences are not presented, and only intergroup comparisons between students and teachers are reported. Because no substantial differences were observed for students or teachers between the 2 time periods, the results were combined for analysis. Informed consent was obtained from all participants and the study was approved by the institutional review board of UCSF.
In our study, students and teachers had different perceptions of the purpose of oral presentations, and this difference was reflected in performance. Students described and conducted the presentation as a rigid, rule-based storage activity governed by “order” and “structure.” Students typically presented information in the order that interview questions were asked and in the same organizational format as their written records. Student presentations did not change in different contexts or situations. Students repeatedly attempted to present the same case details to the resident on work rounds and to the attending on attending rounds, even after feedback suggesting the diverse requirements of these 2 audiences. Moreover, when students were faced with alternative data arrangements in the interviews, they struggled to explain their preferences, demonstrating a fragile sense of what the “rules” of order and selection were based on. For example, in response to an inquiry about whether the sample patient's “10-year history of progressive dyspnea with exertion” could be moved from past medical history (the student's selection) to history of present illness [HPI], the student interviewee answered: “Geez, I might actually, well I don't really know…no, right, no, I don't know if I would be, I wouldn't be really adamant…well, I'd say no, don't move it because I think…” When asked to articulate reasons for their choices, students either verbally flailed (became dysfluent 18 ), as the above example illustrates, or turned to their sense of the “rules” as justification. One responded: “Well, it's ‘past [history]’ or it's ‘present [history]’, isn't it? His chronic venous stasis and nonhealing ulcers are in the past—I mean he's got them now, but he had them already, so it's past, not present.” Another answered: “Well, you could [move it to the HPI], I mean I think I'd want to, but you might get in trouble. That's not where it's meant to go.”
In contrast to students, interviewed teachers described the presentation as “the way [physicians] talk to each other.” Teachers reported that they approached the presentation as a flexible means of “communication” and a method for “constructing” the details of a case into a diagnostic or therapeutic plan. They described the presentation as both “a story you tell and an argument you make.”
Reflecting their social understanding of the purpose of case presentation, more expert presenters (interns and residents) changed their presentations in response to differing contexts. For example, a resident was observed modifying the same case presentation for 3 different contexts: a telephone request for a specialty consultation, an acute care presentation to the intensive care unit (ICU) team, and a presentation to the medicine team faculty physician at attending rounds. Similarly, interns were often noted to solicit selection guidance from their residents as a strategy for deciding what should be included in their postcall rounds presentation. They would ask questions such as, “Do you want the whole physical exam [or all the lab values] or just the pertinent positives?” Or, more directly, “Which labs would you like?” In the busy postcall context, these interns have learned that offering less, and letting their resident choose, is better than offering more.
The expert's contextual flexibility was also evident in interview responses. In interviews, both resident and faculty teachers explained the changes they would make in the sample presentation in terms of contextual influences, and invariably requested of the interviewer details about the audience and context of the sample presentation before they would comment on its content. Teachers also recognized that students did not understand the social purpose of presentation. They complained that students “forget about communication, who they're talking to and what that person needs and just present masses of information until you can't see the forest for the trees.” Additionally, teachers agreed that students were too wedded to structure, complaining that “if you give them section headings, they'll always put something under them, even if all the information we need is really contained in the first 2 sections of the presentation. They'll fill the written form and then present from it.”
Students in our interview sample recognized that effective presenters altered the structure and organization of their presentations, but could not articulate how, when or why these alterations were chosen. And, as in most modeling situations where teaching is implicit, the principles (for improvisation) were not articulated for students. As a result, students were not easily able to understand or mimic those successful presentations that they witnessed by more experienced team members. One clerk commented:
You know, the hardest thing about this [oral presentation] is that there is this very rigorous form, but the people who are really good at it don't use it—they just converse. So there's this structure that we learn and that I'm using to present my patient, but they want me to pop in and out of it—I guess to have all the details that following the structure implies, but then to play jazz with it, to ease in and out of it. But how do I know when it's okay to pop out?
Students were apt to see improvisation as evidence of the idiosyncrasy of experts, rather than as a function of the influence of context and purpose on presentation content. Thus, they had no awareness of which presentation “rules” they could bend at any given time, and why, and were unable to adopt these macrostrategies even while they sensed them in the presentations of senior team members.
Although most interviewed teachers viewed presentations rhetorically (sensitive to context), as “a fluid- and patient- and time- and situation-dependent activity,” most feedback that students received was implicit, acontextual, and brief. These characteristics are important and problematic. Student presenters received from their teachers, instructions that had been unmoored often from situations and experiences: “Make it shorter,”“Only tell me what is relevant,”“Only tell me what I want to know,”“Just the pertinent positives,”“Just the relevant data.” While “relevance” was cited by both teachers and students as the most important criteria for inclusion of material in an oral presentation and the most difficult to teach and learn, “relevance” was almost never explicitly defined by the teacher or determined by the learner. This lack of explicit and contextually based feedback led to dysfunctional generalizations by students, sometimes resulting in worse communication skills and unintended value acquisition. Two representative vignettes from our observation data, drawn from a larger set of similar examples, illustrate these issues:
On postcall work rounds John's detailed presentation is interrupted by his resident: “We can formally present him at attending rounds—just give a bullet on him, tell us why he came in, what's key in his history, you know…” Rather than editing, John simply begins to read his notes more quickly. Afraid of leaving out critical information and uncertain about what constitutes relevance in this situation, John does not know how to select information appropriate to this context without explicit guidance from the resident. At attending rounds later that morning, John applies what he has interpreted as a rule about conciseness and excludes most of the medical history, skips the physical exam altogether, and moves straight to the problem list and plan. He is surprised and frustrated when the attending interrupts, “Back up! I want to hear the history. I need to know what's going on here.” John has applied what he thought was a general rule about conciseness without being aware that the 2 contexts require different material in the presentation. In one case, the team already knew the patient from the night's admission; in the other, the attending had not yet seen the patient and needed a full report. The contextual differences were not articulated for John and he did not perceive them.
The next vignette also illustrates the problematic nature of feedback about presentations on rounds. But it is perhaps more disturbing because the student's misinterpretation of feedback allows for the possible acquisition of unintended and undesirable professional values.
Judy's presentation of a comprehensive social history for a patient admitted to the ICU for resuscitation following head trauma and alcohol withdrawal is interrupted by her resident: “Just give me the social context stuff when it's warranted, when it's related to the presenting illness.” Judy comments later, “Some people just don't have an interest in people's social lives or what job they have. I don't know if it's because they don't have the time or if it's because they're not interested…so I think there's just that line between how medical you make things and how much of people's lives you bring into it all.” Judy is therefore surprised and unprepared when the resident asks her about the patient's social situation, support system, and availability of programs for abused men prior to discharge. “God, I wish he'd make up his mind,” she says.
For the resident, the request for less social history reflected the acute care context and ongoing resuscitation. For the student, however, it suggested cultural values (social history is never relevant), sending messages about what counts as “medical” information and what does not. Without explicit articulation, the student missed the role of context in determining when social history is relevant in a presentation. The resident is unaware of both the student's errors: her failure to recognize the influence of context on content, and her assumption that social data is not medically relevant.
Our analysis of findings was framed by a rhetorical approach to communication. A range of language analysis methods that derive from the social sciences have recently been applied to medical discourse. 2 – 7 , 18 , 19 Like linguistics (the study of language structure), semiotics (the study of signs and symbols in language) or conversation analysis (the study of language delivery), rhetoric investigates the social relations enacted through language. The rhetorical model captures these relations in a model that breaks communication into four essential components: message, audience, purpose, and occasion. 20 This model places the message (content) in relation to its rhetorical situation (context), which is comprised of an audience, a purpose, and an occasion (the setting and circumstances). Using this model, we can systematically study the relation between any of these critical variables, such as the message and its effects on the audience or the purpose and its impact on the content. Our discussion of findings reflects the rhetorician's attention to the relationship between what we say to our students, what we teach our students to say, and what our students come to value, believe and practice.
Students' explanations of presentation purpose, content, and organization demonstrate a structural, formalized understanding of the case (which emphasizes content) that differs greatly from teachers' social understanding (with emphasis on context). Their approach makes students “stiff” presenters and inhibits their ability to recognize and respond to contextual influences in their oral presentations. One result is that students tend to be underselective and present masses of data because they do not understand the clinical or contextual principles for editing and prioritizing. Another result is that students interpret teachers feedback as “rules” about structure and content rather than reflections of context and audience. Medical students are rule-seekers (as are students in other settings 21 ), hoping at each turn to discover a rule to help organize the masses of new information they are encountering. Cryptic, acontextual feedback messages such as “just what's relevant,”“don't mix the past up with the present,” or “no social history, please” can easily look like rules rather than reflections of place and time. Once formulated, such rules may be blithely transported into new contexts, creating a cascade of errors that frustrates students and teachers alike. To students, the breaking of these “rules” may look like teacher idiosyncrasy instead of a reflection of differing content requirements for different contexts. Others have noted similar problems with misinterpretation of “indirect” feedback in a variety of clinical settings. 4 , 9 , 22 , 23
In addition to suggesting problems with the ostensibly “explicit” feedback students receive on presentations, our data reveal difficulties in the implicit processes of this learning situation. Modeling is a common vehicle for implicit learning, but our data, and that of others, 9 , 24 , 25 suggest that it can set the learner up for confusion and failure if it is not accompanied by an explicit explanation of what is being modeled. In fact, experts may not be the ideal models for novices. Experts in this discourse community, such as senior residents, have already mastered the conventions of oral presentation. Over time, they have asserted their credibility as speakers, and they have earned the right to, as the student said, “play jazz” with their presentations. By virtue of their expertise, however, these role models may offer misleading examples to students who are unable to distinguish between the required conventions and those which are more plastic in the hands of a presenter whose competence is established and who understands the impact of contextual differences on presentation content.
The theme of relevance repeatedly surfaced in our observation and interview data and in our review of written curricular materials and student surveys. This concept was pervasive in teachers' feedback on rounds, and readily acknowledged in interviews, by students and teachers alike, as the most critical and the most difficult aspect of a case presentation. Postclerkship student surveys also supported this finding; clerks reported that determining relevant content in their presentations remained a problem even when they believed that they were mastering other difficult aspects of the clerkship (e.g., knowledge, physical examination). Interestingly, we found that teachers rarely defined the concept for their students; rather, they presupposed 26 students knew how to determine relevance even while explicitly stating that students had great difficulty in this area. Analysis of curriculum documents related to oral presentation also revealed presupposition in reference to the principle of relevance. For example, the advice to “limit yourself to the pertinent data” presupposes that there are data and some of them are pertinent, but it fails to define how one determines which is which. Such presupposition can be a key factor in what medical anthropologists and sociologists have referred to as “hazing” or “pimping.” 27 , 28 Presupposing knowledge that students do not possess can trigger feelings of vulnerability and anxiety, conditions frequently observed in the clinical clerkships. 26 – 28 When asked to define the principle, none of our teacher-interviewees could offer appropriate, operational definitions of relevance although they had no difficulty enacting the principle in their own presentations. Experts' difficulty in accessing and expressing tacit knowledge and attitudes has previously been noted in medical practice 29 and in settings other than medicine. 30 , 31
From our analysis, we believe that the “relevant data” in the oral presentation are determined, by expert presenters, with reference to both clinical (patient-centered) issues and rhetorical (context-centered) issues. 26 But without a specific rhetorical framework and a vocabulary for contextual issues, these experts have difficulty explaining this differentiation to others. This distinction (between clinical and rhetorical relevance) is useful, for it explains a phenomenon that plagues the case presentations of novice physicians: the relaying of clinically accurate but rhetorically irrelevant patient information. For example, what is rhetorically relevant changes between a short case presentation to request a specialty procedure and a new case presentation to the team's attending physician, although the patient's clinical status has not changed. Conversely, a change in the patient's course, such as onset of acute shortness of breath on the second hospital day, alters what is clinically relevant even when the rhetorical context and audience (rounds with the attending physician) remain the same. What is clinically relevant may best be learned by expanding the student's biomedical knowledge and experience, while rhetorical relevance is addressed through specific attention to the purpose, audience and occasion of each presentation. We believe that recognition of the difference between the clinical and rhetorical dimensions of relevance can improve students' selection of presentation material, their interpretation of feedback and their comprehension of the purpose and effect of team communication. 26 Furthermore, such an operational definition of relevance can help teachers to articulate the reasons for success and failure of student presentations, potentially improving both the usefulness of the feedback students receive and the evaluation of their skills.
Our findings suggest that the current process of trial and error that characterizes the learning of oral presentation skills may be flawed and potentially dysfunctional. It could engender values that are in conflict with those we hope to instill in future physicians. However, we also recognize that the presentation “experts” in the study evolved from this very educational system; although it is not clear from our data how and when this occurs. So, why fix something that apparently works? We believe that the potential for inappropriate and unintended value acquisition, inefficient learning, student and teacher frustration, and delay in clinical acculturation argues for change and suggests that the learning process may be made more effective and efficient by an intervention to excavate implicit learning and improve explicit instruction. Genre theorists, who study the nature and acquisition of conventional forms of communication, debate this hypothesis. Some argue 32 that the learning of genres (standard forms of communication such as the oral presentation) is necessarily tacit, as experts cannot easily articulate their implicit knowledge and students need to experience the genre rather than be told rules that they may misuse. Others 33 argue that although authentic experiences are necessary, learning can be aided by the timely provision of information about generic structures, expectations, and “rules of play,” analogous to the value of an experienced coach to a novice athlete. Whether explicit, contextualized instruction can improve students' acquisition of medical genres such as the oral presentation is not currently known; but it is a testable hypothesis. Nonetheless, we believe that 2 rhetorically based 34 recommendations can be made which may improve learning and teaching of oral presentation skills. First, teachers can emphasize the contextual basis for presentations by communicating clearly and repeatedly how context determines content. Second, teachers can make explicit the tacit rules of presentation by carefully articulating the reasoning behind their feedback and assuring that students understand what was said.
Our study has limitations. First, this was a qualitative study subject to observer biases and interpretations. Second, the sample size was small. Repeating the study with different sites and clerkships and observers, and a larger sample size, would help to validate, generalize and expand our findings and might allow us to detect patterns to the intragroup variations we observed. Third, this was a cross-sectional study and so was not able to determine how or when students learn the contextual basis for presentation evident in our resident teachers. A prospective study of students at different times in their clinical training might help to characterize this transition. Fourth, the different formats for students' and teachers' discourse interviews could have effected the results. For example, it may be easier to say what you would do with a sample presentation (teachers) than actually do it (students). Conversely, our observational data support the differences noted between students and teachers in the discourse interviews. In addition, the different formats reflected the preceptor relationship between student (creating the presentation) and teacher (critiquing the presentation) which we were studying. Lastly, the presence of an observer on the team and the connection of the study to the clerkship director may have induced a Hawthorne effect, although this would probably minimize rather than exaggerate the problems seen.
We conclude that students learn oral presentation by trial and error rather than through teaching of a specific educational model. This may delay development of effective communication skills, impair ability to learn from modeled behavior and result in acquisition of unintended professional values. A rhetorical model based on explicit, contextualized instruction may improve students' acquisition of oral presentation skills and help students to recognize the social nature of the language they are learning. As teachers, we need to be aware that the language we use—what we say and not say, and what we encourage students to say and not say—can have powerful effects on student learning.
Here, you’ll find information about preparing research-based oral and performance presentations. Oral presentations are often supplemented by some sort of slideshow (e.g., one created in Microsoft PowerPoint), because people tend to understand and retain what they both hear and see. Performance presentations and film/exhibit/demonstrations are broadly defined and include dance/music/theatre performances, fine art exhibitions, product/device demonstrations, and other similar creative products.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzIJFD-ddoI&feature=youtu.be
UURAF 2025 will be a hybrid event consisting of oral, poster, performance, film and exhibit presentations. UURAF is a public event. Do not share confidential information in your abstract or presentation.
Presenters can expect to interact with judges and visitors through the chat function and dedicated discussion sessions on the event platform Symposium by ForagerOne. Please respond promptly to questions.
Due to space limitations, oral presentations will only be offered as a virtual option.
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COMMENTS
Oral Presentations. Or. l Presen. ations1. PlanningOral presentations are one of the most common assignments i. college courses. Scholars, professionals, and students in all fields desire to disseminate the new knowledge they produce, and this is often accomplished by delivering oral presentations in class, at conferences, in public lectures, or i.
Delivery. It is important to dress appropriately, stand up straight, and project your voice towards the back of the room. Practise using a microphone, or any other presentation aids, in advance. If you don't have your own presenting style, think of the style of inspirational scientific speakers you have seen and imitate it.
An oral presentation is a form of assessment frequently use in the classroom. Oral assessments range from projects to group work to speeches. An oral presentation explains something to an audience. Teachers grade oral presentations based on the information quality presented and presentation method.
The Purpose of an Oral Presentation. Generally, oral presentation is public speaking, either individually or as a group, the aim of which is to provide information, entertain, persuade the audience, or educate. In an academic setting, oral presentations are often assessable tasks with a marking criteria. Therefore, students are being evaluated ...
In the social and behavioral sciences, an oral presentation assignment involves an individual student or group of students verbally addressing an audience on a specific research-based topic, often utilizing slides to help audience members understand and retain what they both see and hear. The purpose is to inform, report, and explain the significance of research findings, and your critical ...
Oral Presentations Purpose. An Oral Research Presentation is meant to showcase your research findings. A successful oral research presentation should: communicate the importance of your research; clearly state your findings and the analysis of those findings; prompt discussion between researcher and audience. Below you will find information on ...
An oral presentation differs from a speech in that it usually has visual aids and may involve audience interaction; ideas are both shown and explained. A speech, on the other hand, is a formal verbal discourse addressing an audience, without visual aids and audience participation. Tips for Types of Oral Presentations Individual Presentation
Oral presentations at a conference or internal seminar differ from scientific papers: they are more localized in space and time; they impose a sequence and rhythm to the audience; and they ...
Delivering effective oral presentations involves three components: what you say ( verbal ), how you say it with your voice ( vocal ), and everything the audience can see about you ( visual ). For ...
To assist the audience, a speaker could start by saying, "Today, I am going to cover three main points.". Then, state what each point is by using transitional words such as "First," "Second," and "Finally.". For research focused presentations, the structure following the overview is similar to an academic paper.
Oral Presentations. Oral presentations are a common feature of many courses at university. They may take the form of a short or longer presentation at a tutorial or seminar, delivered either individually or as part of a group. You may have to use visual aids such as PowerPoint slides. Researching, planning and structuring an oral presentation ...
Oral presentations are a form of assessment that calls on students to use the spoken word to express their knowledge and understanding of a topic. It allows capture of not only the research that the students have done but also a range of cognitive and transferable skills. Different types of oral presentations.
Oral presentations can be formal or informal, depending upon their explicit and implicit purposes and the delivery situation. An oral presentation can be almost any report type, such as a design review, a proposal, or a conference talk. Whatever the specific type, however, an effective oral presentation is carefully planned with your objectives ...
oral presentation: 1 n delivering an address to a public audience Synonyms: public speaking , speaking , speechmaking Types: reading , recital , recitation a public instance of reciting or repeating (from memory) something prepared in advance debate , disputation , public debate the formal presentation of a stated proposition and the ...
What is an oral presentation? An oral presentation is a formal, research-based presentation of your work. Presentations happen in a range of different places. For instance, if you work at a company that assigns people to teams to collaborate on projects, your project team might give an oral presentation of your progress on a particular project.
In the workplace, and during your university career, you will likely be asked to give oral presentations. An oral presentation is a key persuasive tool. If you work in marketing, for example, you will often be asked to "pitch" campaigns to clients. Even though these pitches could happen over email, the face-to-face element allows marketers ...
Presentation skills are the abilities and qualities necessary for creating and delivering a compelling presentation that effectively communicates information and ideas. They encompass what you say, how you structure it, and the materials you include to support what you say, such as slides, videos, or images. You'll make presentations at various ...
Humor, empathy and factual tones are some of many which allows a speaker to connect with the audience and the topic. 3. Briefly research arguments for and against your topic. This allows the audience to observe both sides of the topic and feel as if they have made a fair judgement when convinced.
Define your topic. Arrange your material in a way that makes sense for your objectives. Compose your presentation. Create visual aids. Practice your presentation (don't forget to time it!) Make necessary adjustments. Analyze the room where you'll be giving your presentation (set-up, sight lines, equipment, etc.). Practice again.
Giving an oral presentation at a scientific conference is an almost inevitable task at some point during your medical career. The prospect of presenting your original work to colleagues and peers, however, may be intimidating, and it can be difficult to know how to approach it. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that although daunting, an ...
Oral presentations, also known as public speaking or simply presentations, consist of an individual or group verbally addressing an audience on a particular topic. The aim of this is to educate, inform, entertain or present an argument. Oral presentations are seen within workplaces, classrooms and even at social events such as weddings.
Oral presentation skills are central to physician-physician communication, but little is known about how these skills are learned. While the communication between physicians and patients has recently received increased scrutiny, 1 less attention has been paid to the nature of communication among physicians. Studies from medical sociology and ...
Oral Presentations. Online Only. Submit presentation materials to online event site by April 7. Create an oral presentation using standard presentation software. Create a voice-over for the presentation lasting 7 to 10 minutes; 12 minute maximum. Upload presentation with voice-over to YouTube as an unlisted video.