Seale C. Researching Society and Culture. Third edition (Sage 2011) rscbook.co.uk

1. Box 29.1. Good and bad presentation techniques Usually better Usually worse • Talk • Read • Stand • Sit • Move • Stand still • Vary the pitch of your voice • Speak in a monotone • Speak loudly and clearly, toward • Mumble facing downward the audience • Make eye contact with the • Stare at the podium audience • Focus on main arguments • Get lost in details • Use visual aids: outlines, pictures, • Have no visual aids graphs • Finish your talk within your time • Run overtime. Don’t practice limit. Corollary: rehearse your talk • Summarize your main arguments • Fail to provide a conclusion at the beginning and end • Notice your audience and • Ignore audience behaviour respond to its needs (Source: Edwards,2004:2) Seale C. Researching Society and Culture. Third edition (Sage 2011) www.rscbook.co.uk

2. Strategies to help avoid giving an ‘awful academic talk’ • Remember the needs of this particular audience. • Good time management. • Never read out a talk. • Use effective visual aids. • Grab your audience’s attention at the outset. Seale C. Researching Society and Culture. Third edition (Sage 2011) www.rscbook.co.uk

3. At the start of a talk • Begin with a puzzle, as in a detective novel. • Start with an interesting data extract. • Start with a personal anecdote about how you became interested in your topic. • If you are not the first speaker, try to relate what you have to say to what has gone before. • Tell an apposite witty story (but only if this comes naturally!). Seale C. Researching Society and Culture. Third edition (Sage 2011) www.rscbook.co.uk

4. Using PowerPoint • Keep each slide concise (6 lines of text as a maximum). • If you need more space, use more slides. • Pictures or other images help keep your audience interested. • Don’t talk to the screen. • Have a paper version of your talk in front of you. • Don’t just read out slides but illustrate with interesting examples . Seale C. Researching Society and Culture. Third edition (Sage 2011) www.rscbook.co.uk

5. Review questions for Chapter 29 • What is recipient design and how can you achieve it? • What principles are likely to produce good visual aids? • How can you ensure good time management when giving an oral presentation? • What are the purposes of giving oral presentations? Seale C. Researching Society and Culture. Third edition (Sage 2011) www.rscbook.co.uk

6. Workshop and discussion exercise 1 for Chapter 29 • This exercise will help you answer the question ‘Who is my audience?’ You are trying to persuade someone or some group of the value of your argument and conclusions. Ask yourself: • Would you present the same thing in the same way to all audiences? • What changes might you make and why? • Can you identify your audience (in advance of making your argument)? If not, what could you do? • Are audiences uniform or mixed? • How should you pitch your argument for a mixed audience? Seale C. Researching Society and Culture. Third edition (Sage 2011) www.rscbook.co.uk

7. Workshop and discussion exercise 2 for Chapter 29 This will help you think about recipient design. Select two articles in your area of academic interest from two different journals or books. Work out the audience(s) at which the journal or book is aimed by reading the journal's 'Instructions to Contributors' or a book's Introductory Editorial chapter. Then go through the steps below: In what way does each article attempt to reach its appropriate audience(s)? How successful is it in doing so? How could it be improved to appeal more to its target audience(s)?

8. Workshop and discussion exercise 3 for Chapter 29 Get invited to give a talk on your work and make sure that somebody attends who is prepared to give you good feedback. Plan the talk to reach the audience (e.g. students, staff, laypeople or a mixture). Having given your talk, ask the attending person for feedback on the success of your talk. Then consider how you could have improved the talk to appeal more to its target audience.