Short Talk, Lasting Impression

Short Talk, Lasting Impression

Description

Being able to describe what you do and why is an essential skill for any researcher and this workshop will help you take your communication to the next level. Science Communicator and previous international 3MT winner Dr Jamie Gallagher will show you how to turn your research into the most interesting, engaging and memorable presentation possible. Discover the hints and tips that will make your talk stand out from the crowd and how to banish nerves to give a confident performance.

Objectives

Following this workshop, you should be able to:

• Understand how to turn research into a compelling narrative

• Prepare a high quality, engaging 3MT presentation

• Feel comfortable and confident while delivering talks

• Understand the use of language, body language and visualisation in presenting

Content

1. Take home message

Many people who have not seen or read Lord of the Rings still have a passing familiarity with the story. This shows that even a 500,000 word volume can be summed up simply. Using different books we will look at how to summarise complex topics succinctly. This is about developing the take home message (and thinking about the secondary interactions).

2. Visualisation

Using photos or model making we will explore how research can be visualised or represented non-verbally. This helps them detach researchers from the internal view of their research and consider how other people might view it.

3. Constructing the story

There are four main questions most good 3MT talks revolve around. We will explore what these questions mean and how they can develop a story-based approach.

- What is the big picture, the problem, issue or lack of something.

- What is being done to address this problem

- What part are you playing, you're experiments, your ideas, your work

- What is the situation afterwards if things work out best.

4. Judging

Participants will be put in the judging seat, watching videos of previous contestants and analysing their performance.

5. Consistent narrative

Once they have the main story points mapped out I'd like to show them how to make sure you declutter your talk and have a consistent flow.

6. Presenting

Use of language and body language. Through a series of exercises, we will explore non-verbal communication and how to project confidence and comfort to audiences and judges.