The Craft of Scientific Presentations: Critical Steps to Succeed and Critical Errors to Avoid

Many scientists and engineers first learn to present by watching others present and mimicking these teachers. This technique helps to convey the basics, but how do collective bad habits get rooted out? Indeed, many weaknesses get passed on from mentor to mentee and from lab to lab. Instead of just floating aimlessly with the masses, those who aspire to greatness can benefit from reading critical commentary from scientific communicators like Michael Alley. This book, first published in 2002 but updated in 2013, seeks to improve technical presentations across the board. By using real examples from science and engineering, it hits a needed sweet spot to expand readers’ reach.Communication transmits knowledge; it advances careers and wins recognition. However, many scientists do not spend much time on this vital piece in their training beyond a baseline competency. Alley lays a thorough layer of theory on the practices of presentations. Most critically, he tries to ensure that the reader’s presentations are not “just another presentation” in hearers’ ears. Instead, he seeks to maximize their effectiveness and impact.Alley spends over 100 pages focusing on slide presentations, rightfully so considering how fundamental they are to modern communications. He criticizes Microsoft PowerPoint for using a topic/sub-topic organization instead of an assertion/evidence model. He advocates that an assertion/evidence model makes helps an audience naturally retain knowledge long-term. Some say that these adages are dated, being ten years old. However, I can share that as a regular presenter, I identified several specific ways I can change my slides in the future.Anyone who presents science or engineering topics – which includes most scientists, engineers, and even data scientists – can raise their game by looking at this book. I found it one of the most comprehensive approaches about communicating data. Many other books on presentations are indeed trendier, but the added panache often comes with less thought, reason, and evidence. Alley’s book outpaces those books with a deeper theoretical basis honed by decades of research. If you’re a STEM presenter and want one book to improve from, you have found a winner here.

The 2nd edition of Alley's "The Craft of Scientific Presentations" is an important modernization of his original work. I was keen on getting this edition because the 1st Edition was written in 2002. Alley wrote about transparencies and slide carousels then and while these technologies are not entirely obsolete, the ubiquity of projected slides has pushed them to the sidelines. In this edition, Alley deliberately focused on the projected slide, courtesy of Microsoft PowerPoint or your favorite slideware. Although Alley's discussion of the pros, cons and appropriate use of older technologies in the 1st edition was greatly appreciated, he completely omitted it in the 2nd. I find this a wasted opportunity as the short discussion could have still been substantial material for the Appendix. Despite today's technology, carousels and transparencies still have some advantages over LCD projectors.If the 1st Edition cautioned the reader on 10 Critical Errors, the 2nd Edition cautioned on 13. Notably, Alley dedicated 2 (new) Critical Errors to criticizing Microsoft PowerPoint and its role in perpetuating poor presentations as we know them today. Furthermore, he blasted PowerPoint's topic-subtopic default and advocated the assertion-evidence format. He defends his advocacy and strengthens his credibility by citing his work as a multimedia learning specialist--a task he did not do in the 1st edition. The 3rd (new) Critical Error is simply an older chapter broken down.If it weren't for the 2 substantially new Critical Errors, the 2nd Edition would only have been a reorganization of the 1st. Although I have to say the 1st Edition felt more coherent, professional and organized. The outline of the 1st Edition was very clear while the 2nd Edition felt as if I was wandering through Alley's rants and stories. The 1st Edition seemed more professionally done.Finally, the last point of Alley's modernization were his hat tips to the giants of modern day slide communication. He incorporated examples from TED and ideas from the Heath Brothers (), Garr Reynolds () and Nancy Duarte (). He also advocated newer presentation styles such as the Pecha Kucha, evidence-assertion (in addition to the original assertion-evidence), and the Lessig Method.Overall, Alley's book as an important and must-read guide for anyone in the scientific field. Professors, researchers and students will greatly benefit from Alley's work. The book also has the benefit of being short and concrete--a plus for the busy scientist.What makes this book very important is that it is one of the few books centered on scientific presenting. Many of what are available right now are skewed towards presenting in business and to the general public. If ever there are, they are short discussions or a chapter at most. Scientific presentations have certain norms and nuances which Alley carefully takes into account.Owners of the 1st Edition will appreciate the modernized update, especially if you find yourself constantly going back to refresh. If you are a scientist and are currently looking for your first presentation book to invest in, then look no further.For maximum effect, supplement this book with Garr Reynolds and Nancy Duarte. Then you will never look at presentations the same way again. Ever.

Nothing wrong with it at all. Came exactly as described. 5 stars to the seller. Thanks!The book itself gets 4.

The book focuses primarily on the "assertion-evidence" style of presenting scientific results. In a nutshell, an assertion-evidence slide provides a sentence-like statement at the top, followed by supporting photos, figures, equations, tables, etc. In contrast to the bullet-point oriented, topic/sub-topic style of most presentations, this approach has advantages both for the audience (e.g., harnesses multiple paths to learning) and for the speaker (e.g., focuses attention on the main points).The book also contains a lot of supporting material, ranging from high-level structure, to delivery, to nitty-gritty details like font size. Along the way, it cites a lot of historical anecdotes, and shows real-life examples of both good and bad slides. It also briefly mentions a few other alternatives to the bullet-point style, and provides recommendations on when these techniques do and don't work.I came to this book after the author, Michael Alley, presented some of these ideas at my Lab. He made a convincing case, and in the time since then, I've seen co-workers give presentations that the assertion-evidence approach clearly improved. If you've seen Alley speak, I would say the book is written a bit more stiffly than his on-stage delivery, and has more repetition, but I think these result from his desire to make each chapter stand on its own.The contents are research-based, but presented (for the most part) non-dogmatically, with a clear sense that these are guidelines which can be violated as the need arises.

Bem redigido e claro ao permitir comparar estilos de redação obscuros com os simples e eficientes. Tem importantes dicas para redigir as várias partes de um manuscrito de modo a permitir um entendimento escorreito e pronto por parte do leitor.