Is your “Outline” slide really needed?
February 18, 2011 Filed under Blog, Featured, Presentations, Uncategorized
If you are giving a scientific talk at a conference (e.g., one that lasts 10 minutes), do you really need an outline slide?
Do you really think the audience needs to know what the basic content of your scientific presentation is going to be? Even in longer talks, is such a slide really needed?
When I see one of these slides, I think to myself that I have 30-90 seconds to daydream some more before the talk starts. The speaker immediately has lost my attention.
That’s not what you want to do to make a good first impression and get the audience enthused about your work.
Instead, motivate the talk, tell a story about why this is an interesting problem, or start off with a shocking fact that demands explanation.
Do anything to keep the audience interested in you and not thinking about where they are going to go for lunch once the session is over.
(Image by Sean Seaver at P212121.com, who also is no fan of outline slides.)
I like the beamer (LaTeX) `crumb-trail’, a few lines in the header of each slide indicating the overall structure and where we are in the current section. Sometimes I want context, or want to know if I should interrupt to ask a question or if it looks like we’ll be getting to my issue soon.