CAPI
Process Improvement Engineering

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Presentation Structure

You may use any format that fits your topic and style but one pattern that is commonly used is:

Title Slide

Include the title of the talk, speaker’s name, University of Florida, course name and semester, and the date you are presenting the talk.

Introduction

While your title slide is showing, give the audience a brief introduction to the subject matter you will discuss. Keep your comments brief, but do include an overview of what you will be presenting. At this point, you need to sell the audience on listening to your presentation and introduce the subject of your presentation. Note, with most audiences, there is a natural curiosity at the beginning of the presentation so do not let this golden opportunity slip by.

Background

Present slides describing the physical processes that underlie your experiments. Show the major equations and discuss where they come from. Detailed derivations are not needed here but a physical description of the phenomena is. Include any theoretical information necessary for the listener to understand why you analyzed the results the way you did and to appreciate the significance of your results.

Apparatus

Show an equipment diagram and describe the apparatus in detail. Discuss briefly how you did the experiments.

Results

By far this is the most important section of the talk. Your results need to be presented in a clear and logical format. For each transparency, determine the key piece(s) of information you want to leave the listener with. Then, select the best presentation format to get that information across to the listener. Graphs are preferred whenever possible. Make sure you not only present the data but also explain the data. Most of the questions will emanate from this section of the talk, so make sure everything you present is crystal clear both in your mind and on the transparency.

Conclusions/Recommendations

State in outline form 2-4 major conclusions based on the results you presented in the previous section. You can also mention any recommendations at this point.

Acknowledgments:

An optional slide if you want to thank your laboratory partners or other contributors.

Questions

Ask if there are any (other) questions from the audience.

Adapted from: Auburn University and Oklahoma State University