Academic storytelling

I’ve been toying with the idea of doing something a bit different with my academic presentations recently. In my teaching I’ve been experimenting with innovation games, using prezi instead of powerpoint and just having a lot more interaction in general. But I find that making the transition in academic presentations is a bit more difficult. And it’s mainly fear that’s holding me back.

I had a good chat about this with our resident writing guru Anthony Haynes last week in preparation for our Winter Doctoral Conference, held yesterday. The conference is a way for us PhD students to present our work in a friendly environment before we’re let loose in the wider world of academic conferences. So I thought it might be a good time to try something new. Anthony and I talked about presenting without slides or using just one slide as a backdrop. I was also thinking of giving prezi a try and started putting one together for the occasion.

But in the end, I chickened out. Well, that’s not exactly the right description for it. I suppose I decided to step back a little and ask myself exactly why I wanted to do something different. And the answer is mainly that I want to tell a good story that people can engage with. That’s it. I don’t think this should be beyond us as academics. In fact, I think we have a duty to communicate clearly in writing as well as on stage.

So I decided to focus on the story instead of focusing too much on doing something different. Prezi actually helped me to hone in on the most important elements. To be honest, I find it has been more helpful to me overall as a mind-mapping tool than as a presentation tool. And in the end I used powerpoint to present. There were three parts to my story: the phenomenon (voluntary carbon reporting by firms), my questions and then my results. And in each of these three parts, there were three main points I wanted to make. I didn’t follow the structure of the paper I was presenting. This wouldn’t have helped my audience to engage with the topic at all. I decided to be ruthless in what I left out and to avoid bullet point lists entirely. I had 15 minutes and 9 slides with very little text and as many pictures as possible.

And the results? From the feedback I received, it went down really well. I was told that the presentation was remarkably clear and easy to understand. People who had no prior understanding of the topic were engaged and asked interesting questions. On top of all of that, I felt much more in control of the presentation. It was easier to remember and much more fluid. It took more time to plan but less time to put together and practice.

Things I’ll be doing in future presentations:

• Focusing on the story
• Adapting and playing with the paper structure to fit the presentation format
• Using fewer slides and lists

I’ve realised from the whole experience that it’s not necessary to do something random or completely different for people to remember and engage with your presentation. Putting more of a focus on the message and teasing this message out for your audience is much more important. Tell your story. It’s more interesting for you and it’s definitely more interesting for them.