Powerful Points: Public Speaking for Graduate Students

There’s a reason they don’t call academia “The Ivory Amphitheater.” Most people don’t become researchers because they crave the limelight. In fact, many of us feel anxiety when we have to get up on a stage and talk about the things we know. But while stage fright might be common, it’s by no means intransigent. Take it from Assistant Professor Travis Sawyer, who won the Southwest Showdown—a regional research presentation competition for graduate students.

“I used to be terrified of public speaking. I mean, I think most of us are when we’re in the earlier stages of our education. But afterward, I found that I really enjoyed the experience.”

In fact, several Grad Slam winners used to be daunted by public speaking, but now they’re perfectly comfortable with it. The key is figuring out how to turn your research into a story. Dr. Chris Impey, a University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy who has won eleven teaching awards and has taught two online classes with over 300,000 enrolled, says that narrative is at the heart of effective public speaking: “The main tool, I would say, is storytelling. That’s the thing that unifies scholarly activity or research in any subject. It’s just a human activity.”

But a story is an end product; to build one, you need the right materials—namely, words. That might sound easy, but young researchers have a habit of using unnecessary, complicated jargon to show off just how much they know, like a chef throwing in aniseed, saffron, and powdered ghost orchids when they could just as easily have used, oh, I don’t know, salt. To simplify your diction, reverse-engineer your presentation. Break your points down to their clearest components and use those. Next, try to convert your findings into concrete examples and intuitive metaphors.

“A great example of a metaphor used to explain science is what NASA said after the release of the James Webb Space Telescope image . . . It's a wow image, but it's much more of a wow image when they say, ‘Yes, this image was taken with a telescope. But the field—the area of night sky you're looking at—is the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length.”

Metaphors might not show your audience the complex research that underlies your presentation, but they’re an easy way to explain your results. Once you’ve mastered metaphors, you can start tailoring your presentation to your audience. This could involve fitting your metaphors to your audience’s frame of reference—using objects and situations that are familiar to them. But more importantly, you have to consider how your audience learns. Students in a western university program are used to sitting in a classroom and listening to someone explain a topic, but not everyone learns that way. What if you’re presenting to first graders? Or experts in your field? Or Buddhist monks whose primary mode of education is debate? Each situation is going to require a different approach that goes far beyond word choice. And ideally, as your confidence grows, you’ll open a few more windows on the ivory tower and invite more of the world in to see what you know.