 First of all, let me thank the organizers for giving me this opportunity to talk to you about something which is quite an exciting topic which I have learned myself over the years starting from early days of master's course which I have done and carried through till now and even today I am a student learning the art of scientific presentation. I feel that there is lot much one can learn first by listening to people and trying to have an attitude that today or tomorrow you are going to become a good speaker who can sell the products. I do not intend to say that you are going to become a sales representative sometime down the line but the product that you have it may be some wonderful results but if you present it poorly it will not get the deserving attention. So one should really know how to sell the product. There are several things that one can learn and I have learned over the years how to sell my product that is of course the research output that comes from my laboratory. So I will summarize my thoughts on this. These are guidelines not necessarily rules. The talk is entitled secrets of real life learning process in scientific presentation. We start with a lighthearted disclaimer. I am going to do a little bit of acting on stage. So if the acting coincides with any of your actions please take it as deliberate and I can only say sorry towards the end of it if you find some similarity. First of all I do not know anyone of you. That is a good thing that you will not blame me that you deliberately try to enact me. So that is not my intention. The outline of the talk is the first I will talk about content creation that how will you prepare for a seminar. What content you want to put in into the slides and why you want to put in those contents. So that will be the focus of the first module. Then I will talk about preparation and practice. How well you have to prepare and how well you have to practice. Delivery on stage tips. On stage there are so many things that people are quite nervous about. On stage performance. It is a performing arts okay. In one sense it is something that you have to go to the stage and perform yourself and there is no other outlet. There is no other way out. You have to be on stage and performing and how do you tackle that. And improvement which is a very continuous process. That also I will touch upon. So this is the outline of the talk. And many times let me also tell you that many times I have seen in student presentations that all of them will have a title slide and then comes a slide which is like again which in one sense it looks pretty much similar to what I have on that is outline. Most of them have. But I end of it funny part is that I always feel like laughing that the fifth one would be conclusion. For God's sake any talk will have a conclusion. You do not have to necessarily state it once again. And also many people will have an introduction on top of all these. An introduction conclusion are sort of redundant. It is implied. It is going to be anyway there. So you do not put that as the outline. It is not really part of the outline. But it is in gradient. It is an integral part of any scientific talk. So you do not put that in the outline. Content creation it starts first with attitude. A scientific talk, a well-prepared talk is made several days ago. Not in the preceding night of your M. Tech presentation. It is never made in the preceding night. Because the very problem is that the attitude is incorrect. Because you are taking that as a mandate free requirement as part of your course or mandate free requirement as part of something else that you are part of. Fundamentally your approach is that you are taking it as a burden. Instead of finding it as an enjoyable task. Because this is something that is going to be getting paid off in the long run. If you present well, you are going to be well-received in very many different platforms. Be it as a sales representative, be it as a company executive, as a group leader, as a scientist, as a teacher. Any forum you go, there is no runaway from not presenting well. So it is very, very fundamental that you have the right attitude. What is the attitude? The secret of joy in work is contained in one word. That is excellence. You have to thrive to be excellent. And where you start is immaterial. History is immaterial. What was your past is immaterial. But it is about the attitude that yes, I want to become a good presenter in future or in the days to come. Or in next four years, by the time I finish this program, I want to be a good presenter, a confident presenter on stage. This attitude is the starting point. So to know how to do something well is to enjoy it. So as I said before, that there is no runaway from this huge responsibility on your shoulder that you have to begin to learn and to enjoy what you are doing. So it is certainly not a burden. It is a pleasurable exercise as you become more and more comfortable on stage talking about your own results, talking about literature. You are going to be doing pretty much fine on stage. So this is the starting point. Attitude. Develop the right attitude. So this is a again lighthearted comment. A teacher gives a book to a student if you could read. And in this generation, everyone is very fancy about SMS messages. Teacher tells that just think of this book as if you are reading a long text message. So it is just a small inversion of the attitude. The student thinks that, oh, big book, oh, I have to read all these pages. No, I am not for it. So it is a negative attitude towards the book. But the teacher tells that to develop the right attitude, you think it is a long text. So the student has, oh, is it a long text? Let me try. So the attitude, correct at your end that yes, I want to do a good job not in immediate future, but in the long run. When I say long run, if you are enrolled in a program, say four years is a good enough period for you to come from zero all the way up to say 90 plus in a scale of 100 in terms of rating of how good you present. Now the content creation, which is most important and remove all the wrong notions that if my slides are graphically the best, I have a great presentation made, which is incorrect notion. So content is the most important point. Once you have that attitude that yes, I want to do a good presentation, the content creation is the starting point understand the topic very well. Here there is a lot of effort that is required. It calls in the knowledge that you have, the confidence that you have on the subject and how well you have understood. If you have not understood something clearly, talk to your colleagues, talk to your supervisor, talk to your lab mates in somehow or read additional books, resort to internet resources, all modes of learning you make sure that you are done with it such that you feel confident about the content that forms the basis of confidence, poorer the content, lower would be the confidence. That is the very origin of people going to the stage and sweating. They will like take the anki and do all kinds of things sweating. There are very many things that has its origin in the content of the slide and you only know that oh that between 10th and 15th slide I have something which I never understood. You might have gone through such situations like I do not think I know it, but then why the hell that slide is there. Do not take the risk of having something in it, which you do not have any control over. Keep that in mind to put slides which you understand better and then you should also think about while preparing the slides, preparing the content. You should also think about what are the points to be included, what are the points to be stressed and what are the points to be flashed. What do I mean by flashed? There are slides which are only of supporting value, not necessarily the main focus, but the supporting slides would help you, but do not spend too much time on the supporting slide. So that comes under the category of slides to be flashed. Now next aspect is know your audience. As far as I am concerned I can only read the non-verbal communication part. I can read the body language, read the phases, but I have no idea about who you are. Fortunately I am not giving a scientific presentation. I am only talking about ways to give a scientific presentation. There is a huge difference between that. If I am to give a talk in chemistry, the department I come from, I really need to know your background, maybe your master's student or research scholars or your teachers from different colleges or your scientists from different national laboratories. I need to know to whom I am speaking to. This is very important. Even if you go and speak to school children in high school, never ever underestimate the audience. That is very, very fundamental to a successful scientific talk. Never underestimate the audience. There may be audience who are disinterested, not paying any attention to what you are doing, but that is a different aspect, but never underestimate them. Don't think that you are a master of the topic that you have in hand. Yes, it adds value to the confidence, but not necessarily that you should look down upon the audience and think that I know better than anyone in the audience. You will be really sacked by certain questions, targeted questions, and there are people in the audience who know how to throw stones bullseye. That, spot on, the biggest limitation in your presentation they will capture. So never underestimate the audience, give some respect to the audience and talk to them as if you want to exchange ideas with them. Okay, respect the audience. That is very important. Now, with regards to preparation of slide, order of slide is very important. Which slide should come first? Which should follow that? Which should come five slides in progress of your talk? What should be the 10th slide? What should be the 15th slide? So what I can tell you is that a story that is written in your mind is the story that should come in the slide. So it is the mental exercise first. At your end, jot down the points, make, you know, scratch the little notes in your booklet before you go on to make the slide. Without no idea about the flow, if you directly sit in front of a PowerPoint presentation and start making the slide, it is not going to work. Because fundamentally, where one would go wrong is in the flow, which is very, very important. The flow is as important as if you tell a story, people would appreciate that. If you do not tell a story, they will make a story on you. That's how hopeless the talk was. And you will hear during the tea time, oh, that guy, hopeless. At the same time, if you give a good talk, someone would come and pat your shoulder, a great talk here. Great talk, well done. And someone would, you will even, even over here, someone say that awesome talk. So it feels good, you know, you feel good. So make sure that you have a good flow. Let me illustrate. Famous lines from Lord Tennyson. I have highlighted a few of these in a different color. Just to illustrate the concept of flow and how important the flow is. It's a beautiful point. And I'm going to narrate and explain. Just to highlight that I come from hounds of coot and hern to bicker down a valley, 30 hills I hurried down, half a hundred bridges. Let me stop there. So it's about a, it's about a, you know, a brook, how a big, you know, the ocean, before it merges with the ocean, the origin of all these rivers will have at some mountain, some hill top, where the origin is important. Where it is, I come from the hounds of coot and hern. Coot is a kind of bird. So it comes from somewhere and then bicker down the valley. So it is like slowly flowing down the valley. So you're taking a journey, right? You have an origin taking a journey and then hurry, 30 hills hurry down. So it talks about how downgrade the river is flowing, coming to half a hundred bridges. It has crossed over half a hundred bridges. It speaks for the flow of events and that makes the poem beautiful. And then till last by Philip's poem is not so important, till last I flow to join the brimming river. So it's a major, major, major event that a small little brook merges with a major river. So all these attributes you will see in your scientific presentation. You start from the introduction from the, hounds of coot and hern. You start from the introduction. Slowly define what you're going to speak. Why that topic is important? And you can see the flow and this flow is extremely important. And when you find the flow, yes, there is a flow. I think it's a good talk. That feel is good. That feel is important. That is why I say that if you make a good presentation, content for a good presentation, you feel good. Why you feel good? Because you see the flow, you see the connection. And at last for men may come and men may go, but I go on forever. That means if you develop that skill, if you develop the skill of giving a presentation, it will remain forever with you. That's my interpretation of this same poem in the context of today's talk. Now decide on the sequence of slides. How do you decide on the sequence? That the content, the connection, the flow, you have thought about that and you put together, say, 15 or 20 different slides. And when you want to get full mastery, full control over the sequence of slide, you must know what was slide number two, what was slide number seven. And from seven, you may have to go back to slide number two for whatever reasons, just to address probably a question from the audience or to illustrate some additional points. So you must know content of every slide and what sequence it appears. That gives, that acts as a tremendous confidence booster that you are entirely in control of what you are doing on stage. Now in introduction, describe the background of the work and give due credit to other people who have done the work before because nothing can come from heaven, as scientists would say, nothing comes from heaven, but you have to describe what is the background, where did it all originate from and give credits to people who have done the similar work before and if you become very well experienced, you could always do the following, that when you talk about, say, Professor Karnan's work and you have a slide which cites one of his papers or one of his contributions. And I would say, Professor Karnan from IIT Bombay had recently shown that and it gives, say, a sense of attachment with the community. It's not like, oh, some Karnan, that's different. If you are a scientist and if you are giving a technical talk, always, you know, have some sort of attachment and the affiliation and the location, it gives a feel that, okay, at least I have seen Professor Karnan on the website and I know that he is in IIT Bombay. And that's a part of the culture that we, when we gather in a, say, in a marriage reception, for example. And we introduce people to each other, right? Oh, he stays there. It's a part of culture. And in science, the part of culture, science and technology, the part of culture is that you should talk about the affiliation. Professor Karnan from IIT Bombay had recently shown. It gives a different feel as compared to you telling that, oh, some Karnan had shown recently. These two are different things, okay? So keep in mind, if you are more and more confident, also talk about the affiliation. And good to have supporting slides after a blank slide at the end of your presentation because supporting slides can act as a rescue slide in case you are bombarded with questions, which typically happens in Mtrek and PhD presentations. And about the way the slides are prepared, don't go for two fancy slides. Keep in mind there are only two colors which are really good, black and blue, because I use it. Because there is a scientific justification, these two colors are visible from far behind. And you never know what kind of room your seminar is going to take place. I had no idea how this room would look like when I came. But keep a font size of minimum 24 if you are using PowerPoint. And this same font size is visible, even if I give the same talk in PCSA or in a much larger classroom of say 500 students sitting. And even the backbencher, the VIPs who sit in the backbench, even for them it is visible. So keep that in mind. And color selection is important. Do not use light colors. And there is something which is written light here, L-I-G-H-T. And I don't know how many of those letters are visible. And many people use that in scientific presentations. Do not use fancy colors thinking that oh that will glorify my slide and that will enhance the appearance of my slide. These are wrong notions. And when it comes to language, what language should I use? Should I use a long sentence? No. You should try to learn how to use telegraphic language. Just point the base languages because you are presenting to an audience. We don't have enough time to go and read all the sentences that you make. So keep a language which is simple and telegraphic and make sure that there are no mistakes in whatever little you have written. Now, with regards to the text, so many times, many times famous speakers, Nobel laureates on stage, they will have a long passage in the single slide, text-riched slides. It's a distraction. It's a distraction for the audience. Do you know there is a interesting graph, like Professor Geithon talked about graphs, there is an interesting graph time on the x-axis and concentration, attention on the y-axis. After seven minutes of any scientific presentation, the concentration exponentially decreases. This is a fact, it's a proven fact. So concentration level of the audience will exponentially decrease. So you have to really work hard to bring back the concentration, bring the audience back to you and your presentation. It's an effort. First you recognize and realize that the concentration is not going to last like a DC current throughout. It's going to drop down dramatically. So if you use text-riched slides, that's the best way, the best starting point for the audience to go to sleep. Aramsay, they will just go back to sleep a nice AC room. This is the right time to sleep. So never put slides which are too much textual, with lot of statements on it and leave some empty space if possible. In case you, if you cannot avoid using large content, suppose you are giving a talk on literature on how to appreciate literature. I have one passage from one of my favorite authors. I will go back and come back to this slide once again. Oh, high on text. Will anyone, do you think anyone, what percentage of audience will even bother to look at so much of text? No, no, no. It's not for me. That would be the immediate reaction from the audience. However, the same content you can use in animation effectively. The same thing. As matters stand today, many teachers are unable to do best of which they are capable. For this, there are a number of reasons, some more or less accidental others deep seated. To begin with, the former, most teachers are overworked and compelled to prepare their pupils for examinations rather than to give them liberalizing mental training. This is there, liberalizing mental training. So in the context of a full-page text, I am picking that word. One of the major responsibilities of a teacher is to impart liberalizing mental training. It's a very important point. And then goes on to the same paragraph in a fashion which comes as a module. It comes in the form of module. People who are not accustomed to teaching, these are sort of revolutionary statements. It had sent its own ripples in late forties and early fifties in the kingdom. The people who are not accustomed to teaching and this includes practically all education authorities, very powerful statements have no idea of the expense of spirit that it involves. It's all about teaching. And then, this is even more something which I like really best. Pledgemen are not expected to reach sermons for several hours a day, but analogous effort is demanded of teachers. If you look at the college teachers, they teach how many hours a day. So these are thought-provoking statements which Bertrand Russell had done in his unpopular essays in late 1940s. It's so characteristic of today's affairs. He is a visionary. He is a mathematician, philosopher and a writer. He is a visionary. He made this statement several years ago. How true it is? The result is that many of them become harassed and nervous out of touch with recent work in the subject that they teach and unable to inspire their students with a sense of intellectual delights to be obtained from new understanding and new knowledge. How appropriate is this statement in today's context? So going back what I have done, a text-rich paragraph I split using more of simple animation emphasized on certain aspect of it and tried to convey the meaning. If you ever happen to deal with a text-rich slide, make sure that you use animation effectively and stress the point, modulate demodulate as you do it. Now with regards to tables and data avoid data intensive table. How do I avoid data intensive table? I have one to show. So this table has too many entries in it and I expected to understand the scientific content of it but just as an illustration this table has too many numbers but then the question from the audience point of view is that which one I should look at? So there is no clue as far as audience is concerned which one I should look at. So you could use some kind of highlighting some kind of animation or some kind of additional color to emphasize what is the most important finding in this table. So when you deal with data intensive slide make sure that you give special emphasis, special attention to certain regions in the table but don't expect the audience to follow every entry that you have made in the table. So that is important. So here these are the important one. I used this number 31.6 and this 37.5 to derive something that is written in this box down here anti-addition is more favor. So these two numbers are good enough to point out that very very essential finding a finding which I could obtain in my group after a struggle of two long years. Each entry takes about six months in this table. Therefore you should also show that look I have so much of data and it's very painful to get them but I don't want you to burden with all those data but keep in mind these two entries this 31 and 37 will give me this very precious conclusion. So on one hand you have shown that you have wonderful set of data and on the other hand you have also highlighted what is most important point in this data. So that is the way to handle data intensive slide which comes very handy when you deal with variety of scientific and engineering problems. Now preparing slides uniformity and appearance this is something an illustration then sipping water middle of my presentation if at all ever your mouth gets dry mouth gets dry take a sip of water nobody is going to think or feel bad about that you know you are on stage you must be in full control of what is going on it's not their job who is sitting on the other side. So if you feel dry take a sip of water that is again an illustration uniformity and appearance of graphics important you could have a theme what is a theme a theme is what I have that I have a heading for most of my slides and I have a red red line that is there you know separating the heading from rest of the content and I also have some RB Suno that the corner if that is visible in a very faint font color deliberately and there is a theme and see if you look at Microsoft it offers lot of fancy themes like you know very fancy themes I am not encouraging the use of very graphically embellished theme but you could have a theme of your own keep it simple and use uniform font colors and graphics also should be having some sort of theme which gives a better feel for your talk and in regards to decoration and animation there is a wrong notion among students that if you decorate it so fancy with like seven with your colors and friends will say that awesome slide here great slide so do not get carried away by that what is important is the content as I said you could always try to improve the slide and its graphics quality animation etc when you are done with the contents do not waste your time to begin with working on the graphical treat so this you keep it at the end when you have sufficient time after creating the content you can go on to decorate these slides uniformity in appearance again an important aspect figures should be of good quality as Gaito mentioned about readable from distance this is an important point I said that you never know the same you may make to a smaller group of audience in a small room and maybe a big auditorium with 500 people 1000 people sitting and listening to you so when you make the slide it cannot be auditorium dependent unless you have a prior knowledge about that when you make it make sure that it is a multipurpose slide therefore keep a font size keep good quality graphics which is visible from distance and you could include slide numbers and now so we have gone through what we have gone through it to have a right attitude think about the slide order order of the slide and then create the slide use some general recommendations now that there is a pause now that you have the slides what next and again I am going to illustrate why did I take a pause and say now that you have the slides what next so there there has been a flow in what I was doing and suddenly I took a small little break and re-emphasized I have the slides now so there is a modulation like I started realizing that some in the audience are beginning to dose down and sleeping or some had already lost attention and then I am bringing back the audience I have the slides what next so suddenly my voice went up this is called modulation very important for giving a successful talk you cannot be monotonously saying that a clergyman was never asked to you can you could do all kinds of things make sure that you learn how to modulate and when to modulate it is not like in every sentence one would use some high pitch and say that that is not really modulation it is annoying modulation you modulate when there is a digression when there is change of season when if the if the change of season from winter to spring we could sense it you know birds chirp and you know new new birds will come out so all this is a change and when it there is going to be a change like the way I said okay we have the slides ready what next so there is change of season the digression a new topic so there you try to bring back the audience and bring back their attention there you have to modulate and you must modulate otherwise no one would recognize that oh one topic has gone and you are moving on to the next topic so I am bringing back the theme once again so those are in the light color deliberately not there but I could see on my screen the content creation what we have done till now then I am talking about preparation and practice that is the second second step preparation and practice I did look at my watch to see where I am where I am in terms of time preparation and practice oh okay a tall big guy no fear and a small guy no fear renown same means very very different is there a connection with what I am talking so my interpretation is that you know your fear and that will lead you to a situation with where you don't have fear so slides back once again know your fear then you will have no fear okay so this is the thing fight or flight either fight it on stage do a good job or quit run away no no no I cannot give a presentation I am very nervous but question is how long you can go in that mode how long you can shy away from giving a presentation it's an attribute that every modern day kid should have world has become global Americans with much much inferior I hope this goes worldwide web this statement Americans with much inferior caliber they are trained in their schools how to sell their products and the guy would come with tie and say that oh my product is best in the world and with all the American accent my product is best in the world and poor poor people on the other side will think that oh this product is best that's because they know how to sell their product okay so let us address this problem on stage issues on stage preparation and practice if you know what are this root source of fear you will have no fear at the end okay now don't be casual too casual on stage be a little bit serious I have seen you know our IIT kids come with a lipper and a Bermuda and a casual t-shirt and as teachers we have always paid a little serious attention and said that next time when you present come in formal dress next time they will all be formal so make sure that you don't be too casual for beginners practice a lot first time presentation nervous hands are like very cold and sweating and you know very cold air conditioned room no no no it is I think it's minus 20 kind of feeling very cold because you are nervous okay that is where you have to know your fear what is the source of it what is the source of it and the practice will help a lot for beginners first time presenters go to a room close the door practice in front of mirror if you are feeling nervous this does not apply to all many people are not nervous about giving a presentation so this recommendation is not for them but if you ever feel nervous it's a good idea to go in front of the mirror and usually in like I believe that most homes will have the full tall mirror and you can present in front of that first then practice with your eyes closed and dream about your presentation the very very important I have been hugely successful in doing that and many of the content in this slide are based on my real life experience you can dream about what you are talking what you are going to speak tomorrow what you are going to speak day after tomorrow you can dream about that how do you dream by knowing every every slide and the content and the connection and you will close your eyes and think okay this is the first slide I will talk about this I will stress about that and do not try to buy hard the statements that you are going to make on stage it doesn't work that way and it can be even dangerous if you forget two sentences then you like begin to scratch and look up the skies for somebody's mercy all these on stage non-verbal communication which I will touch upon shortly practice different layers of practice by yourself and practice in your dreams day dreams and give a mock presentation to a friendly group of audience to begin with when I say friendly group your best friends who will never criticize you because if they criticize you they are no longer your friends that sort of the way we have grown up right so take three four of best friends and say that you listen to me tell me the positive constructive suggestions okay I have my research group meetings people are really butchered broken into pieces but end of it they all grow better and they all become good presenters of tomorrow okay so mock presentation is important if you get time and this is where the presentation has to start way ahead of time so that you can also afford to give a mock presentation before your real presentation time management it is very important I keep looking at the watch it is very important and it has a huge connection with the way you speak there is no universal rule that one minute per slide two minutes per slide five minutes per slide it depends on what is your natural speed okay depending on natural speed you decide how many slides you can afford for a twenty minutes presentation so it is a personal attribute not dictated by your advisor okay I have lots of remarks to make about advices as I go along I will keep touching upon that time management is a decision done by you okay and you only know how fast you can speak how slow you can speak avoid elaborate introduction this is again part of the time management and lot of our fancy m tech students what they do presentation they will have twenty slides eighteen of them introduction topic is very well introduced and then results and discussion one slide and conclusion last slide so people are smart do they think that they are smart then faculty would rip them off by saying that you come back again you repeat the course okay so do not put too much of introduction because it gives a very wrong sense of what you are trying to do when you do a serious presentation make sure that only a fraction of your total time is dedicated for introductory slides okay that is important how to manage between different sections now moving on to the on stage tips very very important delivery of the content so what I have done till now content creation preparation and practice so you have done everything okay you have good content you are feeling confident you know every slide of it you know everything that is there in the slide you have prepared well enough what next delivery on stage yes you are on stage it is time to perform and to me it is an opportunity to me it is not about being nervous on stage because then you are messing up the show you are a performer on stage and the stage belongs to you and make good use of that and as I said I wanted to be introduced I walked into the stage slowly and steadily never rush to the stage if you rush to the stage what will happen you will be like sighing deep and you will completely lose control of the first few minutes of course everybody would overcome after first few minutes in first few minutes what happens is that there is a natural increase in the adrenaline level in your blood adrenaline is pumped seriously into your blood stream such that you are equipped to do the task so you are on duty on stage you are supposed to perform a task at your hand then you need some extra energy extra vital you know supplies will increase oxygen level through your blood stream more energy to be spent on stage ok if that is the case adrenaline level will naturally go up then adrenaline level goes up your heartbeat will increase and if you interpret that this is because of nervousness you are wrong yes nervousness has a contribution but you realize that is where I say that know your fear adrenaline level will increase therefore your heartbeat will increase and your hands will become colder than before these are all natural ok it is not that only it happens to you it happens to everybody and they all know how to manage you are learning how to manage so you have to approach and this is intricately tied with the attitude aspect which I was mentioning before you know your fear on stage first few minutes yes you have increased heartbeat but do not pay attention to the heartbeat you have a task at hand to perform it is not that you are oh I am nervous what can I do I will tell you some small little techniques when you come to the stage you must have a smiling face you should be smiling those who know me when they see me smile they will all laugh so since you people do not know me how comic I can get you are not laughing so when you come to the stage keep a smiling face look at the audience look at the audience and do not present a very serious face on stage because then everybody gets serious it is not all about being very serious on stage then the fun part is gone you may not be really enjoying what you are doing on stage keep a smiling face spend about first 30 seconds do nothing it is a very important tip on stage first 30 seconds just do nothing what you should do look at the mic as if you have invented it and then look at the pointer usually they will give a pointer and say that you know it this is the only button it has but do all kinds of this drama for first 30 minutes it is with purpose that in 30 minutes the adrenaline level is sort of equilibrated and you are in full control of yourself and if you still feel that no no no still you know my supervisor is in the first row and my you know the biggest critic is in the second row just do not worry about never look at your supervisor that is the key okay if you feel ever nervous do not look at your supervisor and read the title of the slide I did that read the title this is the early early few seconds on stage management that everyone should know if at all you ever felt nervous in giving a talk but if you are of the other category that no I never felt nervous what is there it is not a big deal then you this rule does not apply okay now check the pointer check the caller mic start very softly read the title and that is the only time you can read from the slide that is my rule okay never read from the slide if you read I will show you what happens suppose you are still tensed or you first 30 seconds 30 seconds I followed whatever professor Sunoj had said but I am still feeling bit nervous what should I do turn to the turn to the screen and take a deep breath without anyone noticing it this is what Boris Becker and you know all these tennis players would do they will do but you cannot do that facing the audience you turn around and do that trick and come back this is one of the one of the tips that will be helpful it is okay to carry a bottle of water if you think that still I am feeling nervous maybe take it five seconds break close the water and then come dry mouth is addressed so now within within say first one minute you are you are pretty much equilibrated you are in control move on to introduction and start the show don't worry about being judged very very important why you feel nervous end of the day because you have fear of being judged keep in mind when you are on stage when you are on stage you are like this lady who is performing and she cannot worry about you know what the other people are going to think about her she is a performer you have to be a performer on stage okay so if that is the case do not worry about what others are going to think about you because that is going to affect you negatively so you don't want any negative thoughts running through your mind when you are on stage okay do your job as best as you can stage belongs to you and only you okay you want exclusivity right what is the fun in being wearing a designer clothes everybody will be happy next door neighbor don't have it only I have it you feel happy right so that exclusivity the stage belongs to you for that 30 minutes it belongs only to you make use of that now it's an opportunity to perform okay whatever be the content like science or arts whatever the content of the talk is stage belongs to you and you should feel happy proud and privilege that oh it's my turn it's not their turn let them speak let them sleep how does it matter of course I know techniques how to wake people up but that is at that advanced level I will talk about that if time permits start looking at the audience start looking at the audience and I think I have looked at almost everybody's face by now I scan different regions of the whoever is sitting here and these faces have already registered and I am already familiar with the faces you have to be looking at the audience but in the first few minutes what will happen for those who are first time on stage you will see in spite of all these light you will see darkness you may not be able to see because of tension because of on stage management problem you really don't see anyone that's natural it's not for you it happens for many keep in mind it's not your limitation okay it's natural faces will become soon clear as you spend more and more time you will see the faces some are smiling some are sleeping all these different faces you will soon be able to see and then you will be pretty much on the national highway you can do a great job up there in the stage this is important avoid looking at the roof sky and the stars because what happens normally is that students are well prepared and they keep the slide they project it on the screen and then like they will be talking looking at and then nobody had shown the other day and where are they looking at nobody is going to help up from the heaven you have to be looking at scanning different regions of the audience who are directly looking at you never look at the rooftop never look at the lights and if at all you still have a fear of looking at the audience I will suggest you one good thing with you know no intention to target anyone there will be a few audience who will have gray hair there will be a few among the audience who will have bald head there will be few who will be wearing a flower if you do not want to look at them look at their flower look at the bald heads look at the gray hair this is another way of getting control I could not really see them but I can see the flower so I will not be looking at you but I will look at your flower as if I am giving great great job on stage so these are tiny little tricks that will help you and these are for the beginners after sometime you are going to be just fine on stage these are the on stage thing and non-verbal communication never read from the slide which is actually a very very negative way of presenting do not read from the slide if you read from the slide then what is the purpose of being a speaker you just project the slide and go and sit there it will put it in the auto auto slide change mode why should there be a speaker slides are meant for the audience not for you how many times I turned to the slide because I have here that may be your argument slides are only a reinforcement reinforcement tool to illustrate what you want to say you cannot entirely depend on the slide if you read from the slide initial few minutes what will happen this will happen that few people are still paying attention to after few minutes this will happen it is not expected that a presenter reads from the slide and if you are ok with the second picture you are welcome to read from the slide but end of the day who is the loser you are the loser so do not think of reading from the slide look for some friendly phases in the audience you will always have some friends looking at you you can look at them and start speaking as if it is like a dialogue between me and my friend these are for the early few minutes management and then you can scan different blocks of the audience the key here is that talk to me I will forget show me I will understand involve me I will remember so you have to somehow learn how to involve the audience in what you are speaking involve the audience into the content of what you have on the slide then it is going to become a successful presentation and for a teacher like me it is very very important that my students are involved in what I present ok so this is very important if you involve the audience they will remember what you talked about but if you only talk to them they will forget immediately ok so this is going to be a successful thing and I was because of this camera I was asked to stay in this territory otherwise I would have come there and I would have spent my time moving around like a honeybee throughout the state that has been the standard practice do not position yourself like a statue and you know men would worry about how to have a good body language on stage and you could put one hand in the pocket or you could keep a poster because I am doing that way so you could have like you know never have this kind of as if you are going and standing in front of your principal in the college like do not give a talk like this like a statue be very serious and it does not give a good feel for the audience move around move your hands move your feet walk up and down have some kind of mobility on stage because that gives a good feel good sense for the audience as well now ok I have everything on stage management everything is done but you know sir I cannot speak English well oh you cannot speak English well do not worry that is certainly not a concern because as I said in the beginning it is a long term process it is not that your English in the past was bad does not mean that you will continue to be speaking bad English throughout your life it is an opportunity so it is going to be a long learning process that you would decide that I will slowly and steadily improve my presentation skills and language is part of it and even if you speak a language speak English in huge mother mother tongue accent attached to it do not worry about that do not worry about whether you have mother tongue accent in your English or not that is not an aspect that you should worry about as a beginner and in the long run things will improve and it will improve for good use words which you are very familiar with and I have had the wonderful opportunities to ask some questions what did you say and somebody said unprecedented what does that mean unprecedented it was there in a book do you know the meaning? no sir so do not use words which you do not know that can be very embarrassing at times and then one would think that somebody gave a great talk because he spoke like an American that is a wrong notion you are in India speak like an Indian and if you can afford to speak like an American like in call center you may want to give a try but that does not mean that you gave a great talk accent is not making a great talk it is a wrong notion that if your pronunciation is great you gave a great talk that is only one aspect of it you give a talk in your native native ability to speak English with the objective that in the long run it will improve when you give a talk first time in first few times do not worry about how you pronounce you just have to convey the meaning because these are huge negative effects that will survive in your mind and you know mess up your presentation so keep in mind it is not about how well you pronounce it is good to pronounce better but that is not the sole criteria of giving a good talk and then I have a statement I just want to demonstrate I was simply going to post office to host office to find where my file was at last I found under the table then I took an apple and ran to the class but I was late you might have seen this kind of accent from among your friends that is what I want to say okay depending on the regional mother tongue touch there will be differences in the way you speak it is okay but in a scientific talk that is not the point the point is how well you can deliver the content of your slides that you should keep in mind never think that these are negative things that is going to affect your performance on stage or performance in delivering the content modulations and demodulations which I talked about the local summary into perspective what you have done till now where you are heading to that is local summary that is exactly the time where you should try to modulate the monotonous rhythm otherwise you would speak loud and clear do not murmur many times I have seen people in periodic local summaries no one can understand so keep in mind that you cannot afford to murmur do not go too fast do not go too slow so you need a hybrid half car and half rest so you need some kind of hybrid that you need to know what is your natural speed and if you pack up too many slides for a 20 minutes talk you have to go fast that is not good if you pack up too little slides for a 30 minutes talk you have to go terribly slow even that is not good so that is where the practice and time management prior to the talk will help now avoid certain words which are very common this thing that thing avoid this thing that thing key all in the talk these are uncalled for words try to minimize those it might come but do not worry but try to minimize in the long run you should not be using these words in the talk key, mathlab that now that the talk is over what next questions most nervous phase of the talk you thought that all nervousness is over and I gave a good talk there comes the questions and answers taking questions listen to the questions carefully yes you pay attention to the question very patiently carefully listen and if you know the answer immediately respond if you do not know the answer try to take some time and think and then respond many times what happens with student presentations is that they think that faculty is like infi god very very famous faculty his question would be really hard so I better do not attempt it you know that like you know you are getting 1 out of 10 instead of you trying and attempting to answer that question you will get 8 out of 10 so try to take some time try to respond positively that is the right attitude and if you on some instances if you do not know the answer you say that I am sorry can I get back to you these are very famous international ways of dealing with questions can we talk at the lunch time can we talk can we postpone the discussion can you refrain from not answering because of you know patenting issues and all so there are different techniques of you know skipping a question and telling you that you have to be in full control okay so hierarchy is that answer listen carefully and answer then take your time think and try to answer if you do not know the answer you can always tell that I think I do not know the answer to that it is a great question and you can always say by if the question is good always say this is the American way always say that good question this is the typical American way good question I have not thought about that yeah it is a good question maybe we will discuss during the coffee break so as if like oh you know I do not have time right now I will discuss in the coffee break but these are different ways of tackling the question but never be aggressive attacking the question if somebody is asking oh he is a student how dare you ask the question that approach is completely that is what I said respect the audience very important it can be really backfaring big time so respect the audience and now improvement continuous process the last module with regards to time management I looked at the watch and I got the note that we will wind up in just 2 minutes time management you can do all the time management but as far as I am concerned with so many talks worldwide and in IIT many other places I have usually large number of slides and I take a decision on stage after asking the chairman how much time I have chairman would say chairman sometimes chairman is sleeping and suddenly oh you have 5 minutes okay good and that 5 minutes you can use to rush through or slow down okay so if you have already done too many of your slides you can slow down in that last 5 minutes or you have not done not even half of it you can decide where to stop this is an advanced level management thing that one would learn when you are very comfortable on stage with the content and this is a long term that on stage dynamic time management this is advanced concept speed up slow down and humor most western speakers will start the presentation with some sort of story they will show a picture and talk that in this part of the world it is all snow at this time of the year and you have wonderful weather that has no connection with what he is going to talk about but this is the part of a light hearted way of beginning a talk in the advanced level you have been talking for last 5 years and now it is time to climb up to the advanced level of giving presentations you can build these things into your presentation have some humor pre-planned humor usually does not work so have on stage way of you know cracking jokes or you know pulling someone from the audience and you could do all kinds of things in control of what you are doing on stage so what I have tried to do so it is like a loop coming back like in a you know the award movies you would have first seen a child walking through the street and last seen child again walking through the street so I am like recapitalizing and coming to the point where I started what I have tried to do as I started with some course many times in the presentation there were few course as one person I cannot change the world but I can change the world change the world of one person so if one among you who listen to me today decided that ok I am going to implement some of those recommendations made because I want to improve my presentation skills if one of you have decided I think I serve the purpose so that is what my simple minded approach is that if I can change world of one person it is good now one more thought yesterday is a cancelled check tomorrow is a promissory note today is the only cash that you have spend it wisely so spend your time wisely take it seriously and try to implement these recommendations and you are going to become a great speaker tomorrow ok thank you all for listening to me