How not to give a presentation
BMJ 2000; 321 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.321.7276.1570 (Published 23 December 2000) Cite this as: BMJ 2000;321:1570
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I remember hearing of a rather entertaining story of a Materials
lecturer nearly breaking the OHP with a hammer...
In order to demonstrate the effect of liquid nitrogen on a piece of
bunsen burner tubing, he was about to hit the now ridgid tubing with a
hammer; having placed said tubing on top of the OHP in order for all of
the hall to have a clear view. It was only the laughter of the front row
that stopped him, and they pointed out his potential vandalism.
Shame he'd managed to keep the front row awake!
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
This really happended to me. It was a hot day, the lecture theatre
was badly ventilated, the audience were first year medical students, the
topic was chi-squared tests. It was quite a shock to wake up, realise
that I had gone to sleep on my feet, and I really was giving the lecture I
had been dreaming about. I suspect that the students were also asleep and
did not notice.
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Once upon a time, there was a folklore figure of a man called Jeha.
he was asked to speak at a convention, but did not actually have anything
to say. So when he took to the podium he asked the audience whether they
knew what he was going to speak about. The audience responded No. so Jeha
told them since you have no idea what I am going to say please read the
following and return next week and I will speak to you.
the following week
the audience came prepared and when Jeha posed the question the reponse
was yes we know what you are going to speak about. Jeha then responded
since you know the the subject matter I need not speak at all.
The following week the audience contrived amongst themselves: half of them
would say they know and the remaider would say they do not know.So when
Jeha asked a third time whether they knew what he was going to say half
the audience said yes and the other half said no.
so Jeha answered them those that know tell those that don't. and he walked
off the stage.
A bad presentation? Who knows?
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Although Richard Smith's article is probably better for NOT providing
the correct attribution for his mis-quote ("Nobody ever lost money
underestimating the public's intelligence"), the correct phrasing is
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American
people," and it is attributed to 20th century American journalist and
critic, H. L. Mencken.
Competing interests: No competing interests
The article on how not to give a presentation by Richard Smith was
very interesting for me to read. When I was reading this article I
remembered what my trainer, a Public Health Consultant, told me when I was
preparing a presentation for a job interview. He said his trainer has
told him a good presentation should contain three main points "Firstly
tell them what you are going to tell them; secondly, tell them and
finally, tell them what you have just told them". In other words, first of
all tell them what the contents of your presentation are; secondly,
describe them, finally summarise your talk. I personally think that this
framework will cover some other weak areas in the presentation, therefore
I would have to say this framework is effective with almost all types of
presentations.
Waleed Rashid
SHO Public Health Medicine
Competing interests: No competing interests
Dr Smith, you pretend to being an expert on bad presentations.
Why don't you start a field-work by listening to one of my teaching
sessions.Yours etc, Tamas Fenyvesi
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
29 December 2000
Making it really awful
Editor - How surprising that Smith, undoubtedly a connoisseur, should
miss the best and most common ploy for a putrid presentation. (1) Put up a
series of visuals filled with an all-purpose random selection of abstract
nouns and adjectives. Then read out the words very slowly omitting any
practical examples of their relevance to the subject. Every conference
includes at least one such prize-winning performance.
Roger M. Goss
Director - Patient Concern
P.O. Box 23732
London SW5 9FY
(1) Smith R. How not to make a presentation. BMJ 2000; 321: 1570-1571
(23December)
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Competing interests: No competing interests
I really laughed at Richard Smith's bad presentation. But it
certainly is true that despite the best preparation, bad things are
waiting to happen when you give an invited talk.
I have known or seen several of these:
1. Dropping the pointer and breaking it
2. Electricity going off during the talk
3. Glass of water at the podium drops and breaks
4. Finding out that your diskette with your slides cannot be opened by the
computer.
5. Microphone stops working and the audience applauds
One can never be over prepared for a bad talk.
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I should like to point out an addtitional hallmark of bad
presentations wich appears to have avoided your attention - the full text
foreign language slide.
Personally I feel that a complex yet slightly faded slide in e.g. Russian,
never fails to add the necessary international flavour to make any
presentation interesting. It not only indicates the time taken to prepare
the talk, but also identifies the appropriate level of respect for the
audience.
It is to be regretted that native English speakers do not have this tool
at their disposal, although I understand that there are a number of
schools providing excellent opportunities for learning exotic languages
and giving any speaker the opportunity to have a few crucial slides in
e.g. Slovene.
Competing interests: No competing interests
Experts are the worst
Academics really are shockingly bad at presentations, in general - precisely
because they know so much about what they're saying. Presentations shouldn't
be given with the attitude of "telling my audience what I know" so much as
figuring out what your audience needs to know and then telling them what they
need to know and telling them that.... in the way they need to know it!
Experts in general find it hard to do this - they can't bring themselves to step
back from their research to put themselves in the audiences shoes. (In fact it
was this realisation that made me set up a training company to help academics
make presentations!).
On another point - about the "tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em; tell 'em; tell
'em what you've told 'em" idea - surely that's more accurately given as
tell 'em how you're going to bore 'em;
bore 'em;
remind 'em how you've bored 'em
:)
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests