Designing PowerPoint Slides for a Scientific Presentation

In this video, we'll look at the key principles of

designing

PowerPoint

slides

for

scientific

presentation

s. Now, these are the key principles of PowerPoint slide design. First, you must create a slide as a single message unit; in other words, each slide should have a point to a conclusion so viewers know exactly how to read the slide next, you should explicitly state that message on the slide and you can do it in the title, but you can do it elsewhere on the slide then avoid the bullets and opt to forward the tables instead. should work for limiting your bullet points, bullet points are meant for lists, not concepts or ideas, that's where our word charts work best, use simple diagrams when you can, especially when presenting a

scientific

concept and a simple concept diagram can really set you up the stage for your talk.

Be sure to mark steps in biological processes without signage elements such as arrows, numbers, and letters. No one will understand the flow of the process. Write down the key biological structures, even if you think your audience knows the biological structure. they will focus on the things you want them to focus on also annotate your data tables and graphs show the viewer exactly how they should read that table and graph and finally use builds especially for complex

slides

with multiple pieces of information when making invoices you will be able to control the methodical processing of information if you present it all at once the viewer will try to digest the content in one go so let's look at some examples first create a slide it's a single message unit let's look at this slide what what's happening here why we're looking at it this slide is about apoptosis but what it's specifically about is we define it here the bullet says genetically programmed cell death of single cells by fragmentation and two membrane bound particles we're just defining if We are at the second point, are we talking about focusing on a specific feature that Apatow does not prompt an inflammatory response in adjacent cells and tissues or are we focusing on what causes it, in this case, is it induced by injury or why is it caused? prevents it from being suppressed by naturally occurring factors as you can see we're missing topic focus here now let's take a look at this review can we see what the slide is about now?

Yes, the title of the slide here tells us the topic what is apoptosis and how does it happen, we labeled the definition and mentioned a characteristic that distinguishes it from other biological processes, which is the death of individual cells by fragmentation and the particles attached to the membrane and we noted that apoptosis does not cause an inflammatory response and now we state specifically what drives the process and what can suppress it is generally genetically programmed but is also induced by injury note that it can also be suppressed by natural factors now we have a headline that tells us those clues about the topic and we can see the entirety of the slide and what you are trying to achieve next when you have a main takeaway point explicitly state that message on a slide take a look at this example , betta amyloid plaque formation, what are we looking at?

Why are we seeing it here? We only have a theme title that compels the viewers. to find the main point what am I looking at why am I looking at it this review on the other hand gives us a headline message viewers know what is the sticky amyloid beta plaque to carry added effort enzyme fragment a beta of a PP molecule for that message The title explicitly states what the slide is about and there is no ambiguity. There is no guessing on the part of the reader. Next, avoid bullet points. Opt to forward the tables instead.

Let's look at our apoptosis slide again. We turn this into this. table with rows and columns and defined our categories within each row and within each column and as you can see it's much easier to read than a succession of bullet points, it also takes advantage of the horizontal flow of PowerPoint slides instead of the vertical which is most applicable for standard paper

presentation

s below, use simple diagrams where you can, especially when presenting what will be complex ideas in the future, a simple conceptual diagram can set the stage here, in this example we have a message title, nanoparticles can be used in targeted drug delivery to the disease site to enhance the uptake of poorly soluble drugs and now we have a very simple diagram comparing non-targeted vs targeted drug delivery of course, the actual process can be much more complex, but this provides a good general context for the whole topic of your presentation simple diagrams can be very powerful signal next steps in a biological process because without any signal elements without numbers errors and letters viewers won't know how to read the steps or flow in a process here's a good example micro-ray involves isolating RNA by making it fluorescent hybridizing it to a microwave and scanning under laser light and as we can see the flow is laid out for us from left to right from top to bottom tissue RNA has its RNA copy labeled by incorporating fluorescence hybridization into the microarray and then scanning under laser light, but even this good diagram can be enhanced and fully integrated with the slide.

Here's how microway involves one isolating the RNA to make it fluorescent, three hybridizing it to microway to scan under laser light, and see how we combine both. listing each process with arrow flow and title is explicitly connected to that process then write down the key biological structures even if your audience knows what structure you are writing down it will keep them focused and here is another tissue example from the hippocampal region of the brain stained brown to show tau protein and then we annotate the two main structural components the triangular shapes which are neurofibrillary tangles and the amyloid plaques stained only for tau protein so we see right away what the structures are most important in this example they are annotated we know what we are looking at there is no ambiguity you should also annotate your data tables and graphs show the viewer explicitly how to read the data and what to focus on let's see how you could execute this using a figure example from an article Posted in the host cell and microbe figures to the right here, the main point of this paper is that iron-requiring Staphylococcus aureus bacteria are more likely to thrive in the presence of human hemoglobin rather than other non-human forms of motion globin human as mouse hemoglobin and there is the source of our article so let's take a look here we show the slide human hemoglobin promotes S aureus replication and iron limiting conditions we have a message title that tells us exactly how to read the slide then we provide the figure captions are complete but rather succinctly first to the two graphs showing growth of wild-type S. aureus Numan in graph a and delta is DB and graph B in liquid medium supplemented with hemoglobin as sole source of iron the bottom legend shows the other set of experiments where the researchers took petri dishes containing iron restrictive agar, streaked them with bacterial cultures and impregnated them with hemoglobin placed on top of the agar and monitored for growth of Staphylococcus aureus, then we have some notations key that point to the fact that in chart a there are asterisks above our statistical bars and indicate that in those examples there are statistically significant differences in growth patterns, then we have a notation in the second set of experiments that focuses on the gray areas which represent the growth zones of Staphylococcus aureus now you should also use build especially for complex slides where a viewer will try to digest the content in one go if you present it all at once instead of methodically revealing the content again let's use our Example of the cell-hosted microbe, um, human hemoglobin promotes, um, the replication of Staphylococcus aureus under iron-limiting conditions.

We did two sets of experiments our first set of experiments looked at the growth of wild type Staphylococcus aureus Numan in grab a and delta es DB and graph B both in liquid medium supplemented with hemoglobin as sole source of iron and these graphs represent three independent experiments note here that the asterisk in our statistical bars represents statistically significant differences in the growth of Staphylococcus aureus in human hemoglobin versus mouse hemoglobin our second set of experiments consisted of taking petri dishes with iron restrictive agar and streaking them with bacterial cultures the discs were then soaked with hemoglobin was placed on the agar and monitored for growth of Staphylococcus aureus and these gray areas represent the growth zones and as you can see the growth zones were larger and the human hemoglobin than the mouse hemoglobin notice how this construct delivered the material in a methodical manner you controlled the presentation of the data and allowed the audience to focus on the key elements of the data that were really important to you and helped convey the story of your science so let's review our principles key create a slide as a fully integrated single message unit explicitly state that message on the slide avoid bullet points in front tables use simple diagrams where possible especially to introduce key concepts point to your biological steps and processes with arrows numbers or letters or combine them write down your key biological structures so people know exactly what they are looking at write down your data tables and graphs show people how to read the graph and then finally use compilations to reveal its contents methodically when you follow these principles your slides will serve well in your talk and will allow the history of your science to pass