Outlines in Scientific Presentations

I asked my friends and colleagues for quotations that I could put in the book.  I had way more than I could use.  Here is one that was not used.

This might be controversial, but I never start a talk with an outline of what I’m going to talk about.  If it’s a short talk (e.g., a 12-min conference talk), precious time is wasted on such outline slides, and these talks are so short that an outline isn’t really needed.  If it’s a long talk (e.g., an hour-long seminar), I feel that few people, if any, in the audience will recall what was on my agenda by the time I get halfway through my talk. —Prof. Paul Markowski (The Pennsylvania State University)