presenting research paper on powerpoint

Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research

How to Make a Successful Research Presentation

Turning a research paper into a visual presentation is difficult; there are pitfalls, and navigating the path to a brief, informative presentation takes time and practice. As a TA for  GEO/WRI 201: Methods in Data Analysis & Scientific Writing this past fall, I saw how this process works from an instructor’s standpoint. I’ve presented my own research before, but helping others present theirs taught me a bit more about the process. Here are some tips I learned that may help you with your next research presentation:

More is more

In general, your presentation will always benefit from more practice, more feedback, and more revision. By practicing in front of friends, you can get comfortable with presenting your work while receiving feedback. It is hard to know how to revise your presentation if you never practice. If you are presenting to a general audience, getting feedback from someone outside of your discipline is crucial. Terms and ideas that seem intuitive to you may be completely foreign to someone else, and your well-crafted presentation could fall flat.

Less is more

Limit the scope of your presentation, the number of slides, and the text on each slide. In my experience, text works well for organizing slides, orienting the audience to key terms, and annotating important figures–not for explaining complex ideas. Having fewer slides is usually better as well. In general, about one slide per minute of presentation is an appropriate budget. Too many slides is usually a sign that your topic is too broad.

Limit the scope of your presentation

Don’t present your paper. Presentations are usually around 10 min long. You will not have time to explain all of the research you did in a semester (or a year!) in such a short span of time. Instead, focus on the highlight(s). Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

You will not have time to explain all of the research you did. Instead, focus on the highlights. Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

Craft a compelling research narrative

After identifying the focused research question, walk your audience through your research as if it were a story. Presentations with strong narrative arcs are clear, captivating, and compelling.

• Introduction (exposition — rising action)

Orient the audience and draw them in by demonstrating the relevance and importance of your research story with strong global motive. Provide them with the necessary vocabulary and background knowledge to understand the plot of your story. Introduce the key studies (characters) relevant in your story and build tension and conflict with scholarly and data motive. By the end of your introduction, your audience should clearly understand your research question and be dying to know how you resolve the tension built through motive.

• Methods (rising action)

The methods section should transition smoothly and logically from the introduction. Beware of presenting your methods in a boring, arc-killing, ‘this is what I did.’ Focus on the details that set your story apart from the stories other people have already told. Keep the audience interested by clearly motivating your decisions based on your original research question or the tension built in your introduction.

• Results (climax)

Less is usually more here. Only present results which are clearly related to the focused research question you are presenting. Make sure you explain the results clearly so that your audience understands what your research found. This is the peak of tension in your narrative arc, so don’t undercut it by quickly clicking through to your discussion.

• Discussion (falling action)

By now your audience should be dying for a satisfying resolution. Here is where you contextualize your results and begin resolving the tension between past research. Be thorough. If you have too many conflicts left unresolved, or you don’t have enough time to present all of the resolutions, you probably need to further narrow the scope of your presentation.

• Conclusion (denouement)

Return back to your initial research question and motive, resolving any final conflicts and tying up loose ends. Leave the audience with a clear resolution of your focus research question, and use unresolved tension to set up potential sequels (i.e. further research).

Use your medium to enhance the narrative

Visual presentations should be dominated by clear, intentional graphics. Subtle animation in key moments (usually during the results or discussion) can add drama to the narrative arc and make conflict resolutions more satisfying. You are narrating a story written in images, videos, cartoons, and graphs. While your paper is mostly text, with graphics to highlight crucial points, your slides should be the opposite. Adapting to the new medium may require you to create or acquire far more graphics than you included in your paper, but it is necessary to create an engaging presentation.

The most important thing you can do for your presentation is to practice and revise. Bother your friends, your roommates, TAs–anybody who will sit down and listen to your work. Beyond that, think about presentations you have found compelling and try to incorporate some of those elements into your own. Remember you want your work to be comprehensible; you aren’t creating experts in 10 minutes. Above all, try to stay passionate about what you did and why. You put the time in, so show your audience that it’s worth it.

For more insight into research presentations, check out these past PCUR posts written by Emma and Ellie .

— Alec Getraer, Natural Sciences Correspondent

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How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation of Your Research Paper

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A research paper presentation is often used at conferences and in other settings where you have an opportunity to share your research, and get feedback from your colleagues. Although it may seem as simple as summarizing your research and sharing your knowledge, successful research paper PowerPoint presentation examples show us that there’s a little bit more than that involved.

In this article, we’ll highlight how to make a PowerPoint presentation from a research paper, and what to include (as well as what NOT to include). We’ll also touch on how to present a research paper at a conference.

Purpose of a Research Paper Presentation

The purpose of presenting your paper at a conference or forum is different from the purpose of conducting your research and writing up your paper. In this setting, you want to highlight your work instead of including every detail of your research. Likewise, a presentation is an excellent opportunity to get direct feedback from your colleagues in the field. But, perhaps the main reason for presenting your research is to spark interest in your work, and entice the audience to read your research paper.

So, yes, your presentation should summarize your work, but it needs to do so in a way that encourages your audience to seek out your work, and share their interest in your work with others. It’s not enough just to present your research dryly, to get information out there. More important is to encourage engagement with you, your research, and your work.

Tips for Creating Your Research Paper Presentation

In addition to basic PowerPoint presentation recommendations, which we’ll cover later in this article, think about the following when you’re putting together your research paper presentation:

• Know your audience : First and foremost, who are you presenting to? Students? Experts in your field? Potential funders? Non-experts? The truth is that your audience will probably have a bit of a mix of all of the above. So, make sure you keep that in mind as you prepare your presentation.

Know more about: Discover the Target Audience .

• Your audience is human : In other words, they may be tired, they might be wondering why they’re there, and they will, at some point, be tuning out. So, take steps to help them stay interested in your presentation. You can do that by utilizing effective visuals, summarize your conclusions early, and keep your research easy to understand.
• Running outline : It’s not IF your audience will drift off, or get lost…it’s WHEN. Keep a running outline, either within the presentation or via a handout. Use visual and verbal clues to highlight where you are in the presentation.
• Where does your research fit in? You should know of work related to your research, but you don’t have to cite every example. In addition, keep references in your presentation to the end, or in the handout. Your audience is there to hear about your work.
• Plan B : Anticipate possible questions for your presentation, and prepare slides that answer those specific questions in more detail, but have them at the END of your presentation. You can then jump to them, IF needed.

What Makes a PowerPoint Presentation Effective?

You’ve probably attended a presentation where the presenter reads off of their PowerPoint outline, word for word. Or where the presentation is busy, disorganized, or includes too much information. Here are some simple tips for creating an effective PowerPoint Presentation.

• Less is more: You want to give enough information to make your audience want to read your paper. So include details, but not too many, and avoid too many formulas and technical jargon.
• Clean and professional : Avoid excessive colors, distracting backgrounds, font changes, animations, and too many words. Instead of whole paragraphs, bullet points with just a few words to summarize and highlight are best.
• Know your real-estate : Each slide has a limited amount of space. Use it wisely. Typically one, no more than two points per slide. Balance each slide visually. Utilize illustrations when needed; not extraneously.
• Keep things visual : Remember, a PowerPoint presentation is a powerful tool to present things visually. Use visual graphs over tables and scientific illustrations over long text. Keep your visuals clean and professional, just like any text you include in your presentation.

Know more about our Scientific Illustrations Services .

Another key to an effective presentation is to practice, practice, and then practice some more. When you’re done with your PowerPoint, go through it with friends and colleagues to see if you need to add (or delete excessive) information. Double and triple check for typos and errors. Know the presentation inside and out, so when you’re in front of your audience, you’ll feel confident and comfortable.

How to Present a Research Paper

If your PowerPoint presentation is solid, and you’ve practiced your presentation, that’s half the battle. Follow the basic advice to keep your audience engaged and interested by making eye contact, encouraging questions, and presenting your information with enthusiasm.

We encourage you to read our articles on how to present a scientific journal article and tips on giving good scientific presentations .

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How to present a research paper in PPT: best practices

A research paper presentation is frequently used at conferences and other events where you have a chance to share the results of your research and receive feedback from colleagues. Although it may appear as simple as summarizing the findings, successful examples of research paper presentations show that there is a little bit more to it.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the basic outline and steps to create a good research paper presentation. We’ll also explain what to include and what not to include in your presentation of research paper and share some of the most effective tips you can use to take your slides to the next level.

Research paper PowerPoint presentation outline

Creating a PowerPoint presentation for a research paper involves organizing and summarizing your key findings, methodology, and conclusions in a way that encourages your audience to interact with your work and share their interest in it with others. Here’s a basic research paper outline PowerPoint you can follow:

1. Title (1 slide)

Typically, your title slide should contain the following information:

• Title of the research paper
• Affiliation or institution
• Date of presentation

2. Introduction (1-3 slides)

On this slide of your presentation, briefly introduce the research topic and its significance and state the research question or objective.

3. Research questions or hypothesis (1 slide)

This slide should emphasize the objectives of your research or present the hypothesis.

4. Literature review (1 slide)

Your literature review has to provide context for your research by summarizing relevant literature. Additionally, it should highlight gaps or areas where your research contributes.

5. Methodology and data collection (1-2 slides)

This slide of your research paper PowerPoint has to explain the research design, methods, and procedures. It must also Include details about participants, materials, and data collection and emphasize special equipment you have used in your work.

6. Results (3-5 slides)

On this slide, you must present the results of your data analysis and discuss any trends, patterns, or significant findings. Moreover, you should use charts, graphs, and tables to illustrate data and highlight something novel in your results (if applicable).

7. Conclusion (1 slide)

Your conclusion slide has to summarize the main findings and their implications, as well as discuss the broader impact of your research. Usually, a single statement is enough.

8. Recommendations (1 slide)

If applicable, provide recommendations for future research or actions on this slide.

9. References (1-2 slides)

The references slide is where you list all the sources cited in your research paper.

10. Acknowledgments (1 slide)

On this presentation slide, acknowledge any individuals, organizations, or funding sources that contributed to your research.

11. Appendix (1 slide)

If applicable, include any supplementary materials, such as additional data or detailed charts, in your appendix slide.

The above outline is just a general guideline, so make sure to adjust it based on your specific research paper and the time allotted for the presentation.

Steps to creating a memorable research paper presentation

Creating a PowerPoint presentation for a research paper involves several critical steps needed to convey your findings and engage your audience effectively, and these steps are as follows:

Step 1. Understand your audience:

• Identify the audience for your presentation.
• Tailor your content and level of detail to match the audience’s background and knowledge.

Step 2. Define your key messages:

• Clearly articulate the main messages or findings of your research.
• Identify the key points you want your audience to remember.

Step 3. Design your research paper PPT presentation:

• Use a clean and professional design that complements your research topic.
• Choose readable fonts, consistent formatting, and a limited color palette.
• Opt for PowerPoint presentation services if slide design is not your strong side.

Step 4. Put content on slides:

• Follow the outline above to structure your presentation effectively; include key sections and topics.
• Organize your content logically, following the flow of your research paper.

Step 5. Final check:

• Proofread your slides for typos, errors, and inconsistencies.
• Ensure all visuals are clear, high-quality, and properly labeled.

Step 6. Save and share:

• Save your presentation and ensure compatibility with the equipment you’ll be using.
• If necessary, share a copy of your presentation with the audience.

By following these steps, you can create a well-organized and visually appealing research paper presentation PowerPoint that effectively conveys your research findings to the audience.

What to include and what not to include in your presentation

In addition to the must-know PowerPoint presentation recommendations, which we’ll cover later in this article, consider the following do’s and don’ts when you’re putting together your research paper presentation:

• Focus on the topic.
• Be brief and to the point.
• Attract the audience’s attention and highlight interesting details.
• Use only relevant visuals (maps, charts, pictures, graphs, etc.).
• Use numbers and bullet points to structure the content.
• Make clear statements regarding the essence and results of your research.

Don’ts:

• Don’t write down the whole outline of your paper and nothing else.
• Don’t put long, full sentences on your slides; split them into smaller ones.
• Don’t use distracting patterns, colors, pictures, and other visuals on your slides; the simpler, the better.
• Don’t use too complicated graphs or charts; only the ones that are easy to understand.
• Now that we’ve discussed the basics, let’s move on to the top tips for making a powerful presentation of your research paper.

8 tips on how to make research paper presentation that achieves its goals

You’ve probably been to a presentation where the presenter reads word for word from their PowerPoint outline. Or where the presentation is cluttered, chaotic, or contains too much data. The simple tips below will help you summarize a 10 to 15-page paper for a 15 to 20-minute talk and succeed, so read on!

Tip #1: Less is more

You want to provide enough information to make your audience want to know more. Including details but not too many and avoiding technical jargon, formulas, and long sentences are always good ways to achieve this.

Tip #2: Be professional

Avoid using too many colors, font changes, distracting backgrounds, animations, etc. Bullet points with a few words to highlight the important information are preferable to lengthy paragraphs. Additionally, include slide numbers on all PowerPoint slides except for the title slide, and make sure it is followed by a table of contents, offering a brief overview of the entire research paper.

Tip #3: Strive for balance

PowerPoint slides have limited space, so use it carefully. Typically, one to two points per slide or 5 lines for 5 words in a sentence are enough to present your ideas.

Tip #4: Use proper fonts and text size

The font you use should be easy to read and consistent throughout the slides. You can go with Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri, or a combination of these three. An ideal text size is 32 points, while a heading size is 44.

Tip #5: Concentrate on the visual side

A PowerPoint presentation is one of the best tools for presenting information visually. Use graphs instead of tables and topic-relevant illustrations instead of walls of text. Keep your visuals as clean and professional as the content of your presentation.

Tip #6: Practice your delivery

Always go through your presentation when you’re done to ensure a smooth and confident delivery and time yourself to stay within the allotted limit.

Tip #7: Get ready for questions

Anticipate potential questions from your audience and prepare thoughtful responses. Also, be ready to engage in discussions about your research.

Tip #8: Don’t be afraid to utilize professional help

If the mere thought of designing a presentation overwhelms you or you’re pressed for time, consider leveraging professional PowerPoint redesign services . A dedicated design team can transform your content or old presentation into effective slides, ensuring your message is communicated clearly and captivates your audience. This way, you can focus on refining your delivery and preparing for the presentation.

Lastly, remember that even experienced presenters get nervous before delivering research paper PowerPoint presentations in front of the audience. You cannot know everything; some things can be beyond your control, which is completely fine. You are at the event not only to share what you know but also to learn from others. So, no matter what, dress appropriately, look straight into the audience’s eyes, try to speak and move naturally, present your information enthusiastically, and have fun!

If you need help with slide design, get in touch with our dedicated design team and let qualified professionals turn your research findings into a visually appealing, polished presentation that leaves a lasting impression on your audience. Our experienced designers specialize in creating engaging layouts, incorporating compelling graphics, and ensuring a cohesive visual narrative that complements content on any subject.

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Ten simple rules for effective presentation slides

Kristen m. naegle.

Biomedical Engineering and the Center for Public Health Genomics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America

Introduction

The “presentation slide” is the building block of all academic presentations, whether they are journal clubs, thesis committee meetings, short conference talks, or hour-long seminars. A slide is a single page projected on a screen, usually built on the premise of a title, body, and figures or tables and includes both what is shown and what is spoken about that slide. Multiple slides are strung together to tell the larger story of the presentation. While there have been excellent 10 simple rules on giving entire presentations [ 1 , 2 ], there was an absence in the fine details of how to design a slide for optimal effect—such as the design elements that allow slides to convey meaningful information, to keep the audience engaged and informed, and to deliver the information intended and in the time frame allowed. As all research presentations seek to teach, effective slide design borrows from the same principles as effective teaching, including the consideration of cognitive processing your audience is relying on to organize, process, and retain information. This is written for anyone who needs to prepare slides from any length scale and for most purposes of conveying research to broad audiences. The rules are broken into 3 primary areas. Rules 1 to 5 are about optimizing the scope of each slide. Rules 6 to 8 are about principles around designing elements of the slide. Rules 9 to 10 are about preparing for your presentation, with the slides as the central focus of that preparation.

Rule 1: Include only one idea per slide

Each slide should have one central objective to deliver—the main idea or question [ 3 – 5 ]. Often, this means breaking complex ideas down into manageable pieces (see Fig 1 , where “background” information has been split into 2 key concepts). In another example, if you are presenting a complex computational approach in a large flow diagram, introduce it in smaller units, building it up until you finish with the entire diagram. The progressive buildup of complex information means that audiences are prepared to understand the whole picture, once you have dedicated time to each of the parts. You can accomplish the buildup of components in several ways—for example, using presentation software to cover/uncover information. Personally, I choose to create separate slides for each piece of information content I introduce—where the final slide has the entire diagram, and I use cropping or a cover on duplicated slides that come before to hide what I’m not yet ready to include. I use this method in order to ensure that each slide in my deck truly presents one specific idea (the new content) and the amount of the new information on that slide can be described in 1 minute (Rule 2), but it comes with the trade-off—a change to the format of one of the slides in the series often means changes to all slides.

Top left: A background slide that describes the background material on a project from my lab. The slide was created using a PowerPoint Design Template, which had to be modified to increase default text sizes for this figure (i.e., the default text sizes are even worse than shown here). Bottom row: The 2 new slides that break up the content into 2 explicit ideas about the background, using a central graphic. In the first slide, the graphic is an explicit example of the SH2 domain of PI3-kinase interacting with a phosphorylation site (Y754) on the PDGFR to describe the important details of what an SH2 domain and phosphotyrosine ligand are and how they interact. I use that same graphic in the second slide to generalize all binding events and include redundant text to drive home the central message (a lot of possible interactions might occur in the human proteome, more than we can currently measure). Top right highlights which rules were used to move from the original slide to the new slide. Specific changes as highlighted by Rule 7 include increasing contrast by changing the background color, increasing font size, changing to sans serif fonts, and removing all capital text and underlining (using bold to draw attention). PDGFR, platelet-derived growth factor receptor.

Rule 2: Spend only 1 minute per slide

When you present your slide in the talk, it should take 1 minute or less to discuss. This rule is really helpful for planning purposes—a 20-minute presentation should have somewhere around 20 slides. Also, frequently giving your audience new information to feast on helps keep them engaged. During practice, if you find yourself spending more than a minute on a slide, there’s too much for that one slide—it’s time to break up the content into multiple slides or even remove information that is not wholly central to the story you are trying to tell. Reduce, reduce, reduce, until you get to a single message, clearly described, which takes less than 1 minute to present.

Rule 3: Make use of your heading

When each slide conveys only one message, use the heading of that slide to write exactly the message you are trying to deliver. Instead of titling the slide “Results,” try “CTNND1 is central to metastasis” or “False-positive rates are highly sample specific.” Use this landmark signpost to ensure that all the content on that slide is related exactly to the heading and only the heading. Think of the slide heading as the introductory or concluding sentence of a paragraph and the slide content the rest of the paragraph that supports the main point of the paragraph. An audience member should be able to follow along with you in the “paragraph” and come to the same conclusion sentence as your header at the end of the slide.

Rule 4: Include only essential points

While you are speaking, audience members’ eyes and minds will be wandering over your slide. If you have a comment, detail, or figure on a slide, have a plan to explicitly identify and talk about it. If you don’t think it’s important enough to spend time on, then don’t have it on your slide. This is especially important when faculty are present. I often tell students that thesis committee members are like cats: If you put a shiny bauble in front of them, they’ll go after it. Be sure to only put the shiny baubles on slides that you want them to focus on. Putting together a thesis meeting for only faculty is really an exercise in herding cats (if you have cats, you know this is no easy feat). Clear and concise slide design will go a long way in helping you corral those easily distracted faculty members.

Rule 5: Give credit, where credit is due

An exception to Rule 4 is to include proper citations or references to work on your slide. When adding citations, names of other researchers, or other types of credit, use a consistent style and method for adding this information to your slides. Your audience will then be able to easily partition this information from the other content. A common mistake people make is to think “I’ll add that reference later,” but I highly recommend you put the proper reference on the slide at the time you make it, before you forget where it came from. Finally, in certain kinds of presentations, credits can make it clear who did the work. For the faculty members heading labs, it is an effective way to connect your audience with the personnel in the lab who did the work, which is a great career booster for that person. For graduate students, it is an effective way to delineate your contribution to the work, especially in meetings where the goal is to establish your credentials for meeting the rigors of a PhD checkpoint.

Rule 6: Use graphics effectively

As a rule, you should almost never have slides that only contain text. Build your slides around good visualizations. It is a visual presentation after all, and as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. However, on the flip side, don’t muddy the point of the slide by putting too many complex graphics on a single slide. A multipanel figure that you might include in a manuscript should often be broken into 1 panel per slide (see Rule 1 ). One way to ensure that you use the graphics effectively is to make a point to introduce the figure and its elements to the audience verbally, especially for data figures. For example, you might say the following: “This graph here shows the measured false-positive rate for an experiment and each point is a replicate of the experiment, the graph demonstrates …” If you have put too much on one slide to present in 1 minute (see Rule 2 ), then the complexity or number of the visualizations is too much for just one slide.

Rule 7: Design to avoid cognitive overload

The type of slide elements, the number of them, and how you present them all impact the ability for the audience to intake, organize, and remember the content. For example, a frequent mistake in slide design is to include full sentences, but reading and verbal processing use the same cognitive channels—therefore, an audience member can either read the slide, listen to you, or do some part of both (each poorly), as a result of cognitive overload [ 4 ]. The visual channel is separate, allowing images/videos to be processed with auditory information without cognitive overload [ 6 ] (Rule 6). As presentations are an exercise in listening, and not reading, do what you can to optimize the ability of the audience to listen. Use words sparingly as “guide posts” to you and the audience about major points of the slide. In fact, you can add short text fragments, redundant with the verbal component of the presentation, which has been shown to improve retention [ 7 ] (see Fig 1 for an example of redundant text that avoids cognitive overload). Be careful in the selection of a slide template to minimize accidentally adding elements that the audience must process, but are unimportant. David JP Phillips argues (and effectively demonstrates in his TEDx talk [ 5 ]) that the human brain can easily interpret 6 elements and more than that requires a 500% increase in human cognition load—so keep the total number of elements on the slide to 6 or less. Finally, in addition to the use of short text, white space, and the effective use of graphics/images, you can improve ease of cognitive processing further by considering color choices and font type and size. Here are a few suggestions for improving the experience for your audience, highlighting the importance of these elements for some specific groups:

• Use high contrast colors and simple backgrounds with low to no color—for persons with dyslexia or visual impairment.
• Use sans serif fonts and large font sizes (including figure legends), avoid italics, underlining (use bold font instead for emphasis), and all capital letters—for persons with dyslexia or visual impairment [ 8 ].
• Use color combinations and palettes that can be understood by those with different forms of color blindness [ 9 ]. There are excellent tools available to identify colors to use and ways to simulate your presentation or figures as they might be seen by a person with color blindness (easily found by a web search).
• In this increasing world of virtual presentation tools, consider practicing your talk with a closed captioning system capture your words. Use this to identify how to improve your speaking pace, volume, and annunciation to improve understanding by all members of your audience, but especially those with a hearing impairment.

Rule 8: Design the slide so that a distracted person gets the main takeaway

It is very difficult to stay focused on a presentation, especially if it is long or if it is part of a longer series of talks at a conference. Audience members may get distracted by an important email, or they may start dreaming of lunch. So, it’s important to look at your slide and ask “If they heard nothing I said, will they understand the key concept of this slide?” The other rules are set up to help with this, including clarity of the single point of the slide (Rule 1), titling it with a major conclusion (Rule 3), and the use of figures (Rule 6) and short text redundant to your verbal description (Rule 7). However, with each slide, step back and ask whether its main conclusion is conveyed, even if someone didn’t hear your accompanying dialog. Importantly, ask if the information on the slide is at the right level of abstraction. For example, do you have too many details about the experiment, which hides the conclusion of the experiment (i.e., breaking Rule 1)? If you are worried about not having enough details, keep a slide at the end of your slide deck (after your conclusions and acknowledgments) with the more detailed information that you can refer to during a question and answer period.

Rule 9: Iteratively improve slide design through practice

Well-designed slides that follow the first 8 rules are intended to help you deliver the message you intend and in the amount of time you intend to deliver it in. The best way to ensure that you nailed slide design for your presentation is to practice, typically a lot. The most important aspects of practicing a new presentation, with an eye toward slide design, are the following 2 key points: (1) practice to ensure that you hit, each time through, the most important points (for example, the text guide posts you left yourself and the title of the slide); and (2) practice to ensure that as you conclude the end of one slide, it leads directly to the next slide. Slide transitions, what you say as you end one slide and begin the next, are important to keeping the flow of the “story.” Practice is when I discover that the order of my presentation is poor or that I left myself too few guideposts to remember what was coming next. Additionally, during practice, the most frequent things I have to improve relate to Rule 2 (the slide takes too long to present, usually because I broke Rule 1, and I’m delivering too much information for one slide), Rule 4 (I have a nonessential detail on the slide), and Rule 5 (I forgot to give a key reference). The very best type of practice is in front of an audience (for example, your lab or peers), where, with fresh perspectives, they can help you identify places for improving slide content, design, and connections across the entirety of your talk.

Rule 10: Design to mitigate the impact of technical disasters

The real presentation almost never goes as we planned in our heads or during our practice. Maybe the speaker before you went over time and now you need to adjust. Maybe the computer the organizer is having you use won’t show your video. Maybe your internet is poor on the day you are giving a virtual presentation at a conference. Technical problems are routinely part of the practice of sharing your work through presentations. Hence, you can design your slides to limit the impact certain kinds of technical disasters create and also prepare alternate approaches. Here are just a few examples of the preparation you can do that will take you a long way toward avoiding a complete fiasco:

• Save your presentation as a PDF—if the version of Keynote or PowerPoint on a host computer cause issues, you still have a functional copy that has a higher guarantee of compatibility.
• In using videos, create a backup slide with screen shots of key results. For example, if I have a video of cell migration, I’ll be sure to have a copy of the start and end of the video, in case the video doesn’t play. Even if the video worked, you can pause on this backup slide and take the time to highlight the key results in words if someone could not see or understand the video.
• Avoid animations, such as figures or text that flash/fly-in/etc. Surveys suggest that no one likes movement in presentations [ 3 , 4 ]. There is likely a cognitive underpinning to the almost universal distaste of pointless animations that relates to the idea proposed by Kosslyn and colleagues that animations are salient perceptual units that captures direct attention [ 4 ]. Although perceptual salience can be used to draw attention to and improve retention of specific points, if you use this approach for unnecessary/unimportant things (like animation of your bullet point text, fly-ins of figures, etc.), then you will distract your audience from the important content. Finally, animations cause additional processing burdens for people with visual impairments [ 10 ] and create opportunities for technical disasters if the software on the host system is not compatible with your planned animation.

Conclusions

These rules are just a start in creating more engaging presentations that increase audience retention of your material. However, there are wonderful resources on continuing on the journey of becoming an amazing public speaker, which includes understanding the psychology and neuroscience behind human perception and learning. For example, as highlighted in Rule 7, David JP Phillips has a wonderful TEDx talk on the subject [ 5 ], and “PowerPoint presentation flaws and failures: A psychological analysis,” by Kosslyn and colleagues is deeply detailed about a number of aspects of human cognition and presentation style [ 4 ]. There are many books on the topic, including the popular “Presentation Zen” by Garr Reynolds [ 11 ]. Finally, although briefly touched on here, the visualization of data is an entire topic of its own that is worth perfecting for both written and oral presentations of work, with fantastic resources like Edward Tufte’s “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” [ 12 ] or the article “Visualization of Biomedical Data” by O’Donoghue and colleagues [ 13 ].

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the countless presenters, colleagues, students, and mentors from which I have learned a great deal from on effective presentations. Also, a thank you to the wonderful resources published by organizations on how to increase inclusivity. A special thanks to Dr. Jason Papin and Dr. Michael Guertin on early feedback of this editorial.

Funding Statement

The author received no specific funding for this work.

Reference management. Clean and simple.

How to make a scientific presentation

Scientific presentation outlines

Questions to ask yourself before you write your talk, 1. how much time do you have, 2. who will you speak to, 3. what do you want the audience to learn from your talk, step 1: outline your presentation, step 2: plan your presentation slides, step 3: make the presentation slides, slide design, text elements, animations and transitions, step 4: practice your presentation, final thoughts, frequently asked questions about preparing scientific presentations, related articles.

A good scientific presentation achieves three things: you communicate the science clearly, your research leaves a lasting impression on your audience, and you enhance your reputation as a scientist.

But, what is the best way to prepare for a scientific presentation? How do you start writing a talk? What details do you include, and what do you leave out?

It’s tempting to launch into making lots of slides. But, starting with the slides can mean you neglect the narrative of your presentation, resulting in an overly detailed, boring talk.

The key to making an engaging scientific presentation is to prepare the narrative of your talk before beginning to construct your presentation slides. Planning your talk will ensure that you tell a clear, compelling scientific story that will engage the audience.

In this guide, you’ll find everything you need to know to make a good oral scientific presentation, including:

• The different types of oral scientific presentations and how they are delivered;
• How to outline a scientific presentation;
• How to make slides for a scientific presentation.

Our advice results from delving into the literature on writing scientific talks and from our own experiences as scientists in giving and listening to presentations. We provide tips and best practices for giving scientific talks in a separate post.

There are two main types of scientific talks:

• Your talk focuses on a single study . Typically, you tell the story of a single scientific paper. This format is common for short talks at contributed sessions in conferences.
• Your talk describes multiple studies. You tell the story of multiple scientific papers. It is crucial to have a theme that unites the studies, for example, an overarching question or problem statement, with each study representing specific but different variations of the same theme. Typically, PhD defenses, invited seminars, lectures, or talks for a prospective employer (i.e., “job talks”) fall into this category.

➡️ Learn how to prepare an excellent thesis defense

The length of time you are allotted for your talk will determine whether you will discuss a single study or multiple studies, and which details to include in your story.

The background and interests of your audience will determine the narrative direction of your talk, and what devices you will use to get their attention. Will you be speaking to people specializing in your field, or will the audience also contain people from disciplines other than your own? To reach non-specialists, you will need to discuss the broader implications of your study outside your field.

The needs of the audience will also determine what technical details you will include, and the language you will use. For example, an undergraduate audience will have different needs than an audience of seasoned academics. Students will require a more comprehensive overview of background information and explanations of jargon but will need less technical methodological details.

Your goal is to speak to the majority. But, make your talk accessible to the least knowledgeable person in the room.

This is called the thesis statement, or simply the “take-home message”. Having listened to your talk, what message do you want the audience to take away from your presentation? Describe the main idea in one or two sentences. You want this theme to be present throughout your presentation. Again, the thesis statement will depend on the audience and the type of talk you are giving.

Your thesis statement will drive the narrative for your talk. By deciding the take-home message you want to convince the audience of as a result of listening to your talk, you decide how the story of your talk will flow and how you will navigate its twists and turns. The thesis statement tells you the results you need to show, which subsequently tells you the methods or studies you need to describe, which decides the angle you take in your introduction.

➡️ Learn how to write a thesis statement

The goal of your talk is that the audience leaves afterward with a clear understanding of the key take-away message of your research. To achieve that goal, you need to tell a coherent, logical story that conveys your thesis statement throughout the presentation. You can tell your story through careful preparation of your talk.

Preparation of a scientific presentation involves three separate stages: outlining the scientific narrative, preparing slides, and practicing your delivery. Making the slides of your talk without first planning what you are going to say is inefficient.

Here, we provide a 4 step guide to writing your scientific presentation:

• Outline your presentation
• Plan your presentation slides
• Make the presentation slides
• Practice your presentation

Writing an outline helps you consider the key pieces of your talk and how they fit together from the beginning, preventing you from forgetting any important details. It also means you avoid changing the order of your slides multiple times, saving you time.

Plan your talk as discrete sections. In the table below, we describe the sections for a single study talk vs. a talk discussing multiple studies:

The following tips apply when writing the outline of a single study talk. You can easily adapt this framework if you are writing a talk discussing multiple studies.

Introduction: Writing the introduction can be the hardest part of writing a talk. And when giving it, it’s the point where you might be at your most nervous. But preparing a good, concise introduction will settle your nerves.

The introduction tells the audience the story of why you studied your topic. A good introduction succinctly achieves four things, in the following order.

• It gives a broad perspective on the problem or topic for people in the audience who may be outside your discipline (i.e., it explains the big-picture problem motivating your study).
• It describes why you did the study, and why the audience should care.
• It gives a brief indication of how your study addressed the problem and provides the necessary background information that the audience needs to understand your work.
• It indicates what the audience will learn from the talk, and prepares them for what will come next.

A good introduction not only gives the big picture and motivations behind your study but also concisely sets the stage for what the audience will learn from the talk (e.g., the questions your work answers, and/or the hypotheses that your work tests). The end of the introduction will lead to a natural transition to the methods.

Give a broad perspective on the problem. The easiest way to start with the big picture is to think of a hook for the first slide of your presentation. A hook is an opening that gets the audience’s attention and gets them interested in your story. In science, this might take the form of a why, or a how question, or it could be a statement about a major problem or open question in your field. Other examples of hooks include quotes, short anecdotes, or interesting statistics.

Why should the audience care? Next, decide on the angle you are going to take on your hook that links to the thesis of your talk. In other words, you need to set the context, i.e., explain why the audience should care. For example, you may introduce an observation from nature, a pattern in experimental data, or a theory that you want to test. The audience must understand your motivations for the study.

Supplementary details. Once you have established the hook and angle, you need to include supplementary details to support them. For example, you might state your hypothesis. Then go into previous work and the current state of knowledge. Include citations of these studies. If you need to introduce some technical methodological details, theory, or jargon, do it here.

Conclude your introduction. The motivation for the work and background information should set the stage for the conclusion of the introduction, where you describe the goals of your study, and any hypotheses or predictions. Let the audience know what they are going to learn.

Methods: The audience will use your description of the methods to assess the approach you took in your study and to decide whether your findings are credible. Tell the story of your methods in chronological order. Use visuals to describe your methods as much as possible. If you have equations, make sure to take the time to explain them. Decide what methods to include and how you will show them. You need enough detail so that your audience will understand what you did and therefore can evaluate your approach, but avoid including superfluous details that do not support your main idea. You want to avoid the common mistake of including too much data, as the audience can read the paper(s) later.

Results: This is the evidence you present for your thesis. The audience will use the results to evaluate the support for your main idea. Choose the most important and interesting results—those that support your thesis. You don’t need to present all the results from your study (indeed, you most likely won’t have time to present them all). Break down complex results into digestible pieces, e.g., comparisons over multiple slides (more tips in the next section).

Summary: Summarize your main findings. Displaying your main findings through visuals can be effective. Emphasize the new contributions to scientific knowledge that your work makes.

Conclusion: Complete the circle by relating your conclusions to the big picture topic in your introduction—and your hook, if possible. It’s important to describe any alternative explanations for your findings. You might also speculate on future directions arising from your research. The slides that comprise your conclusion do not need to state “conclusion”. Rather, the concluding slide title should be a declarative sentence linking back to the big picture problem and your main idea.

It’s important to end well by planning a strong closure to your talk, after which you will thank the audience. Your closing statement should relate to your thesis, perhaps by stating it differently or memorably. Avoid ending awkwardly by memorizing your closing sentence.

By now, you have an outline of the story of your talk, which you can use to plan your slides. Your slides should complement and enhance what you will say. Use the following steps to prepare your slides.

• Write the slide titles to match your talk outline. These should be clear and informative declarative sentences that succinctly give the main idea of the slide (e.g., don’t use “Methods” as a slide title). Have one major idea per slide. In a YouTube talk on designing effective slides , researcher Michael Alley shows examples of instructive slide titles.
• Decide how you will convey the main idea of the slide (e.g., what figures, photographs, equations, statistics, references, or other elements you will need). The body of the slide should support the slide’s main idea.
• Under each slide title, outline what you want to say, in bullet points.

In sum, for each slide, prepare a title that summarizes its major idea, a list of visual elements, and a summary of the points you will make. Ensure each slide connects to your thesis. If it doesn’t, then you don’t need the slide.

Slides for scientific presentations have three major components: text (including labels and legends), graphics, and equations. Here, we give tips on how to present each of these components.

• Have an informative title slide. Include the names of all coauthors and their affiliations. Include an attractive image relating to your study.
• Make the foreground content of your slides “pop” by using an appropriate background. Slides that have white backgrounds with black text work well for small rooms, whereas slides with black backgrounds and white text are suitable for large rooms.
• The layout of your slides should be simple. Pay attention to how and where you lay the visual and text elements on each slide. It’s tempting to cram information, but you need lots of empty space. Retain space at the sides and bottom of your slides.
• Use sans serif fonts with a font size of at least 20 for text, and up to 40 for slide titles. Citations can be in 14 font and should be included at the bottom of the slide.
• Use bold or italics to emphasize words, not underlines or caps. Keep these effects to a minimum.
• Use concise text . You don’t need full sentences. Convey the essence of your message in as few words as possible. Write down what you’d like to say, and then shorten it for the slide. Remove unnecessary filler words.
• Text blocks should be limited to two lines. This will prevent you from crowding too much information on the slide.
• Include names of technical terms in your talk slides, especially if they are not familiar to everyone in the audience.
• Proofread your slides. Typos and grammatical errors are distracting for your audience.
• Include citations for the hypotheses or observations of other scientists.
• Good figures and graphics are essential to sustain audience interest. Use graphics and photographs to show the experiment or study system in action and to explain abstract concepts.
• Don’t use figures straight from your paper as they may be too detailed for your talk, and details like axes may be too small. Make new versions if necessary. Make them large enough to be visible from the back of the room.
• Use graphs to show your results, not tables. Tables are difficult for your audience to digest! If you must present a table, keep it simple.
• Label the axes of graphs and indicate the units. Label important components of graphics and photographs and include captions. Include sources for graphics that are not your own.
• Explain all the elements of a graph. This includes the axes, what the colors and markers mean, and patterns in the data.
• Use colors in figures and text in a meaningful, not random, way. For example, contrasting colors can be effective for pointing out comparisons and/or differences. Don’t use neon colors or pastels.
• Use thick lines in figures, and use color to create contrasts in the figures you present. Don’t use red/green or red/blue combinations, as color-blind audience members can’t distinguish between them.
• Arrows or circles can be effective for drawing attention to key details in graphs and equations. Add some text annotations along with them.
• Write your summary and conclusion slides using graphics, rather than showing a slide with a list of bullet points. Showing some of your results again can be helpful to remind the audience of your message.
• If your talk has equations, take time to explain them. Include text boxes to explain variables and mathematical terms, and put them under each term in the equation.
• Combine equations with a graphic that shows the scientific principle, or include a diagram of the mathematical model.
• Use animations judiciously. They are helpful to reveal complex ideas gradually, for example, if you need to make a comparison or contrast or to build a complicated argument or figure. For lists, reveal one bullet point at a time. New ideas appearing sequentially will help your audience follow your logic.
• Slide transitions should be simple. Silly ones distract from your message.
• Decide how you will make the transition as you move from one section of your talk to the next. For example, if you spend time talking through details, provide a summary afterward, especially in a long talk. Another common tactic is to have a “home slide” that you return to multiple times during the talk that reinforces your main idea or message. In her YouTube talk on designing effective scientific presentations , Stanford biologist Susan McConnell suggests using the approach of home slides to build a cohesive narrative.

To deliver a polished presentation, it is essential to practice it. Here are some tips.

• For your first run-through, practice alone. Pay attention to your narrative. Does your story flow naturally? Do you know how you will start and end? Are there any awkward transitions? Do animations help you tell your story? Do your slides help to convey what you are saying or are they missing components?
• Next, practice in front of your advisor, and/or your peers (e.g., your lab group). Ask someone to time your talk. Take note of their feedback and the questions that they ask you (you might be asked similar questions during your real talk).
• Edit your talk, taking into account the feedback you’ve received. Eliminate superfluous slides that don’t contribute to your takeaway message.
• Practice as many times as needed to memorize the order of your slides and the key transition points of your talk. However, don’t try to learn your talk word for word. Instead, memorize opening and closing statements, and sentences at key junctures in the presentation. Your presentation should resemble a serious but spontaneous conversation with the audience.
• Practicing multiple times also helps you hone the delivery of your talk. While rehearsing, pay attention to your vocal intonations and speed. Make sure to take pauses while you speak, and make eye contact with your imaginary audience.
• Make sure your talk finishes within the allotted time, and remember to leave time for questions. Conferences are particularly strict on run time.
• Anticipate questions and challenges from the audience, and clarify ambiguities within your slides and/or speech in response.
• If you anticipate that you could be asked questions about details but you don’t have time to include them, or they detract from the main message of your talk, you can prepare slides that address these questions and place them after the final slide of your talk.

➡️ More tips for giving scientific presentations

An organized presentation with a clear narrative will help you communicate your ideas effectively, which is essential for engaging your audience and conveying the importance of your work. Taking time to plan and outline your scientific presentation before writing the slides will help you manage your nerves and feel more confident during the presentation, which will improve your overall performance.

A good scientific presentation has an engaging scientific narrative with a memorable take-home message. It has clear, informative slides that enhance what the speaker says. You need to practice your talk many times to ensure you deliver a polished presentation.

First, consider who will attend your presentation, and what you want the audience to learn about your research. Tailor your content to their level of knowledge and interests. Second, create an outline for your presentation, including the key points you want to make and the evidence you will use to support those points. Finally, practice your presentation several times to ensure that it flows smoothly and that you are comfortable with the material.

Prepare an opening that immediately gets the audience’s attention. A common device is a why or a how question, or a statement of a major open problem in your field, but you could also start with a quote, interesting statistic, or case study from your field.

Scientific presentations typically either focus on a single study (e.g., a 15-minute conference presentation) or tell the story of multiple studies (e.g., a PhD defense or 50-minute conference keynote talk). For a single study talk, the structure follows the scientific paper format: Introduction, Methods, Results, Summary, and Conclusion, whereas the format of a talk discussing multiple studies is more complex, but a theme unifies the studies.

Ensure you have one major idea per slide, and convey that idea clearly (through images, equations, statistics, citations, video, etc.). The slide should include a title that summarizes the major point of the slide, should not contain too much text or too many graphics, and color should be used meaningfully.

[Guide] How to Present Qualitative Research Findings in PowerPoint?

By: Author Shrot Katewa

As a researcher, it is quite pointless to do the research if we are unable to share the findings with our audience appropriately! Using PowerPoint is one of the best ways to present research outcomes. But, how does one present qualitative research findings using PowerPoint?

In order to present the qualitative research findings using PowerPoint, you need to create a robust structure for your presentation, make it engaging and visually appealing, present the patterns with explanations for it and highlight the conclusion of your research findings.

In this article, we will help you understand the structure of your presentation. Plus, we’ll share some handy tips that will make your qualitative research presentation really effective!

How to Create a Structure for your Qualitative Research Presentation?

Creating the right structure for your presentation is key to ensuring that it is correctly understood by your audience.

The structure of your Research Presentation not only makes it easier for you to create the document, it also makes it simple for the audience to understand what all will be covered in the presentation at the time of presenting it to your audience.

Furthermore, having a robust structure is a great way to ensure that you don’t miss out on any of the points while working on creating the presentation.

But, what structure should one follow?

Creating a good structure can be tricky for some. Thus, I’m sharing what has worked well for me during my previous research projects.

NOTE – It is important to note that although the following structure is highly effective for most research findings presentation, it has been generalized in order to serve a wide range of research projects. You may want to take a look at points that are very specific to the nature of your research project and include them at your discretion.

Here’s my recommended structure to create your Research Findings presentation –

1. Objective of the Research

A great way to start your presentation is to highlight the objective of your research project.

It is important to remember that merely sharing the objective may sometimes not be enough. A short backstory along with the purpose of your research project can pack a powerful punch ! It not only validates the reasoning for your project but also subtly establishes trust with your audience.

However, do make sure that you’re not reading the backstory from the slide. Let it flow naturally when you are delivering the presentation. Keep the presentation as minimalistic as possible.

2. Key Parameters Considered for Measurement

Once you’ve established the objective, the next thing that you may want to do is perhaps share the key parameters considered for the success of your project.

Every research project, including qualitative research, needs to have a few key parameters to measure against the objective of the research.

For example – If the goal of your project is to gather the sentiments of a certain group of people for a particular product, you may need to measure their feelings. Are they happy or unhappy using the product? How do they perceive the branding of the product? Is it affordable?

Make sure that you list down all such key parameters that were considered while conducting the qualitative research.

In general, laying these out before sharing the outcome can help your audience think from your perspective and look at the findings from the correct lens.

3. Research Methodology Adopted

The next thing that you may want to include in your presentation is the methodology that you adopted for conducting the research.

By knowing your approach, the audience can be better prepared for the outcome of your project. Ensure that you provide sound reasoning for the chosen methodology.

This section of your presentation can also showcase some pictures of the research being conducted. If you have captured a video, include that. Doing this provides further validation of your project.

4. Research Outcomes (Presenting Descriptive Analysis)

This is the section that will constitute the bulk of the your presentation.

Use the slides in this section to describe the observations, and the resulting outcomes on each of the key parameters that were considered for the research project.

It is usually a good idea to dedicate at least 1 or more slides for each parameter . Make sure that you present data wherever possible. However, ensure that the data presented can be easily comprehended.

Provide key learnings from the data, highlight any outliers, and possible reasoning for it. Try not to go too in-depth with the stats as this can overwhelm the audience. Remember, a presentation is most helpful when it is used to provide key highlights of the research !

Apart from using the data, make sure that you also include a few quotes from the participants.

5. Summary and Learnings from the Research

Once you’ve taken the audience through the core part of your research findings, it is a good practice to summarize the key learnings from each of the section of your project.

Make sure your touch upon some of the key learnings covered in the research outcome of your presentation.

Furthermore, include any additional observations and key points that you may have had which were previously not covered.

The summary slide also often acts as “Key Takeaways” from the research for your audience. Thus, make sure that you maintain brevity and highlight only the points that you want your audience to remember even after the presentation.

6. Inclusions and Exclusions (if any)

While this can be an optional section for some of the researchers.

However, dedicating a section on inclusions and exclusions in your presentation can be a great value add! This section helps your audience understand the key factors that were excluded (or included) on purpose!

Moreover, it creates a sense of thoroughness in the minds of your audience.

7. Conclusion of the Research

The purpose of the conclusion slide of your research findings presentation is to revisit the objective, and present a conclusion.

A conclusion may simply validate or nullify the objective. It may sometimes do neither. Nevertheless, having a conclusion slide makes your presentation come a full circle. It creates this sense of completion in the minds of your audience.

8. Questions

Finally, since your audience did not spend as much time as you did on the research project, people are bound to have a few questions.

Thus, the last part of your presentation structure should be dedicated to allowing your audience to ask questions.

Tips for Effectively Presenting Qualitative Research Findings using PowerPoint

For a presentation to be effective, it is important that the presentation is not only well structured but also that it is well created and nicely delivered!

While we have already covered the structure, let me share with you some tips that you can help you create and deliver the presentation effectively.

Tip 1 – Use Visuals

Using visuals in your presentation is a great way to keep the presentations engaging!

Visual aids not only help make the presentation less boring, but it also helps your audience in retaining the information better!

So, use images and videos of the actual research wherever possible. If these do not suffice or do not give a professional feel, there are a number of resources online from where you can source royalty-free images.

My recommendation for high-quality royalty-free images would be either Unsplash or Pexels . Both are really good. The only downside is that they often do not provide the perfect image that can be used. That said, it can get the job done for at least half the time.

If you are unable to find the perfect free image, I recommend checking out Dreamstime . They have a huge library of images and are much cheaper than most of the other image banks. I personally use Dreamstime for my presentation projects!

Tip 2 – Tell a Story (Don’t Show Just Data!)

I cannot stress enough on how important it is to give your presentation a human touch. Delivering a presentation in the form of a story does just that! Furthermore, storytelling is also a great tool for visualization .

Data can be hard-hitting, whereas a touching story can tickle the emotions of your audience on various levels!

One of the best ways to present a story with your research project is to start with the backstory of the objective. We’ve already talked about this in the earlier part of this article.

Start with why is this research project is so important. Follow a story arc that provides an exciting experience of the beginning, the middle, and a progression towards a climax; much like a plot of a soap opera.

Tip 3 – Include Quotes of the Participants

Including quotes of the participants in your research findings presentation not only provides evidence but also demonstrates authenticity!

Quotes function as a platform to include the voice of the target group and provide a peek into the mindset of the target audience.

When using quotes, keep these things in mind –

1. Use Quotes in their Unedited Form

When using quotes in your presentation, make sure that you use them in their raw unedited form.

The need to edit quotes should be only restricted to aid comprehension and sometimes coherence.

Furthermore, when editing the quotes, make sure that you use brackets to insert clarifying words. The standard format for using the brackets is to use square brackets for clarifying words and normal brackets for adding a missing explanation.

2. How to Decide which Quotes to Consider?

It is important to know which quotes to include in your presentation. I use the following 3 criteria when selecting the quote –

• Relevance – Consider the quotes that are relevant, and trying to convey the point that you want to establish.
• Length – an ideal quote should be not more than 1-2 sentences long.
• Choose quotes that are well-expressed and striking in nature.

3. Preserve Identity of the Participant

It is important to preserve and protect the identity of the participant. This can be done by maintaining confidentiality and anonymity.

Thus, refrain from using the name of the participant. An alternative could be using codes, using pseudonyms (made up names) or simply using other general non-identifiable parameters.

Do note, when using pseudonyms, remember to highlight it in the presentation.

If, however, you do need to use the name of the respondent, make sure that the participant is okay with it and you have adequate permissions to use their name.

Tip 4 – Make your Presentation Visually Appealing and Engaging

It is quite obvious for most of us that we need to create a visually appealing presentation. But, making it pleasing to the eye can be a bit challenging.

Fortunately, we wrote a detailed blog post with tips on how to make your presentation attractive. It provides you with easy and effective tips that you can use even as a beginner! Make sure you check that article.

7 EASY tips that ALWAYS make your PPT presentation attractive (even for beginners)

In addition to the tips mentioned in the article, let me share a few things that you can do which are specific to research outcome presentations.

4.1 Use a Simple Color Scheme

Using the right colors are key to make a presentation look good.

One of the most common mistakes that people make is use too many colors in their presentation!

My recommendation would be to go with a monochromatic color scheme in PowerPoint .

4.2 Make the Data Tables Simple and Visually Appealing

When making a presentation on research outcomes, you are bound to present some data.

But, when data is not presented in a proper manner, it can easily and quickly make your presentation look displeasing! The video below can be a good starting point.

Using neat looking tables can simply transform the way your presentation looks. So don’t just dump the data from excel on your PowerPoint presentation. Spend a few minutes on fixing it!

4.3 Use Graphs and Charts (wherever necessary)

When presenting data, my recommendation would be that graphs and charts should be your first preference.

Using graphs or charts make it easier to read the data, takes less time for the audience to comprehend, and it also helps to identify a trend.

However, make sure that the correct chart type is used when representing the data. The last thing that you want is to poorly represent a key piece of information.

4.4 Use Icons instead of Bullet Points

Consider the following example –

This slide could have been created just as easily using bullet points. However, using icons and representing the information in a different format makes the slide pleasing on the eye.

Thus, always try to use icons wherever possible instead of bullet points.

Tip 5 – Include the Outliers

Many times, as a research project manager, we tend to focus on the trends extracted from a data set.

While it is important to identify patterns in the data and provide an adequate explanation for the pattern, it is equally important sometimes to highlight the outliers prominently.

It is easy to forget that there may be hidden learnings even in the outliers. At times, the data trend may be re-iterating the common wisdom. However, upon analyzing the outlier data points, you may get insight into how a few participants are doing things successfully despite not following the common knowledge.

That said, not every outlier will reveal hidden information. So, do verify what to include and what to exclude.

Tip 6 – Take Inspiration from other Presentations

I admit, making any presentation can be a tough ask let alone making a presentation for showcasing qualitative research findings. This is especially hard when we don’t have the necessary skills for creating a presentation.

One quick way to overcome this challenge could be take inspiration from other similar presentations that we may have liked.

There is no shame in being inspired from others. If you don’t have any handy references, you can surely Google it to find a few examples.

One trick that almost always works for me is using Pinterest .

But, don’t just directly search for a research presentation. You will have little to no success with it. The key is to look for specific examples for inspiration. For eg. search for Title Slide examples, or Image Layout Examples in Presentation.

Tip 7 – Ask Others to Critic your Presentation

The last tip that I would want to provide is to make sure that you share the presentation with supportive colleagues or mentors to attain feedback.

This step can be critical to iron out the chinks in the armor. As research project manager, it is common for you to get a bit too involved with the project. This can lead to possibilities wherein you miss out on things.

A good way to overcome this challenge is to get a fresh perspective on your project and the presentation once it has been prepared.

Taking critical feedback before your final presentation can also prepare you to handle tough questions in an adept manner.

Final Thoughts

It is quite important to ensure that we get it right when working on a presentation that showcases the findings of our research project. After all, we don’t want to be in a situation wherein we put in all the hard-work in the project, but we fail to deliver the outcome appropriately.

I hope you will find the aforementioned tips and structure useful, and if you do, make sure that you bookmark this page and spread the word. Wishing you all the very best for your project!

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How to Present a Research Paper using PowerPoint [Sample + Tips]

posted on September 30, 2017

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Spending couple of months or years in research seems less difficult as compared to presenting it. Presenting your research work to a bunch of experts can be very difficult sometimes. Your audience will only like well-crafted presentation.

There are certain things you need to take care of. Presenting a research paper is quite different from a talk or any other presentation. In research paper presentation, you are going to discuss everything that you have done and achieved during your research in limited time.

There is a specific outline that  experts  recommend that you must follow during your research paper presentation.

Research Paper Presentation Outline

Introduction.

Give the brief introduction of your work. For example, if you are going to work on a disease than describe the

disease. Focus on the things on which you have worked on. If you are working on genes of that disease then it will be important discuss the genetic pathways of the disease in your introduction.

You may discuss the “problem” on which you have worked on during your research.

Things that you need to remember,

• Focus on the relevant information
• Do not more than 3 slides on the introduction

Methodology

It’s about the  recipe and spices  of your research work. Mention all the materials that were required to do the task and how miraculously you did it.  Using flowcharts in your PowerPoint slides can help you to present it in the more engaging way.

Try to fit it in 2 slides only. Emphasis on any special equipment or  build  that you have used during your work.

Tell your audience about the verifiable objectives you had while doing this research. It doesn’t matter if they vary from your results, it is necessary to tell the audience what were you looking for.

• Consume only one slide
• Make it concise
• You are allowed to use fancy words or good vocabulary here

Results and Discussion

Write down your results, most possibly in the form of the table. Try not to confuse your audience with so much numerical data so charts will work fine. Highlight if you have something novel in your results.

Try to interpret your results in 2-3 points. The conclusion must be very meaningful for audiences. It must not be ambiguous. Usually, a single statement is enough.

Future Recommendations

What can be done more on your particle topic? This is very important if you are going to pursue the same topic in your further studies. It will help you to have a future objective for yourself.

Tips for Research Paper Presentations

• There should be 5*5 rules in each slide. I.e. there are five words in one sentence and there should be five lines on one slide.
• Data should be in the form of small key points or bullets . Data should not be in paragraph form on the slide. It should be precise. Slides are not for the audience it just hints for the presenter. The presenter should explain all terms and every concept that is written on slide.
• Standard heading size is 44 while standard text size is 32.
• Make link of one slide with the second slide during the presentation. For example, tell the audience what they will listen and see in next slide.
• The template of PowerPoint presentation should not have shocking color. Text color should be in contrast with template color. If somewhere in slides text color is same as template audience would not be able to see what is written on it.
• There should be slide number on every slide except title slide.
• All slides should be in homogeneity. The presenter should use either upper case or lower case alphabets in the text of the whole presentation.
• There should be the use of animations but no use of transitions.
• There should be a table of content of presentation on the slide next to title slide. By explaining this presenter should give an overview of the whole presentation.

Paper Presentation Sample

To help our readers, I have made a template for paper presentation. I hope it will be helpful for you.  Research paper presentation sample Download.

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About Haseeb Ahmad

Author is a S&T Journalist and Entrepreneur. He Founded Jaamiah.com - Pakistan's Premier EdTech Startup.

Reader Interactions

September 30, 2017 at 8:31 pm

Simple and useful article. Keep it up, also write about ”Project Report ”

September 30, 2017 at 8:39 pm

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May 19, 2018 at 11:56 am

well articulated. thanks for sharing this.

May 19, 2018 at 5:18 pm

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May 25, 2018 at 12:20 am

Hey, nice work.I will love to have a copy of this work sent to my mail, ( [email protected] ),thanks a million

May 25, 2018 at 2:39 pm

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September 26, 2018 at 8:12 pm

Can you mail it on gmail

September 30, 2018 at 2:59 pm

Dear Vrushikesh, You can download it just by clicking the links. If failed to do so, Please feel free to comment again. I’ll email you

October 22, 2018 at 5:08 am

can you send me the file? the file cant be read. [email protected]

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How to make a PowerPoint presentation from a research paper?

Academic presentations could be based on research in progress, unfinished work or the full drafts of a research paper. An academic presentation is a sort of like an advertisement for the paper than an attempt to present all the information in the paper. You need to focus on what is important, highlighting the bold outcomes and results is the key here. The below format is a very basic design showing you how to make a PowerPoint presentation from a research paper:

• Introduction (1 slide)
• Research Questions/Hypotheses (1 slide)
• Literature Review/Theory (1 slide)
• Methods & Data Collection (1 slide)
• Data Presentation/Findings (3-5 slides)
• Conclusion (1 slide)

Obviously, this is just a general guideline. It is however important that you focus on your findings, future implication of your work and limitation since it is the potential for future research. During a presentation method and data collection sections should be kept short. Though, this all depends on the nature of the work.

To create a presentation from a full-length paper or article, you can pull out the most important parts of the article, based on the above list or based on the subheadings in your own article.

For the introduction, you can use the same compelling introduction you use in your paper. In the PowerPoint presentation, it is a good idea to find a picture that describes the aim of your research. Visuals are considered very effective tools for keeping the audience interested and for conveying a point.

Your next slide should contain your research questions mentioned in your introduction as well.

Then, spend no more than a minute contextualizing your research questions and project within the literature. Don’t make the mistake of spending too much time reviewing what others have written about your topic. You just want to illustrate the fact that your work contributes to existing research in the field. People don’t come to conferences to hear literature reviews, they want new information and mind-blowing findings. They want to see the real implications of the findings to the global challenges at hand.   The concrete practical solutions.

Think about the questions people might have such as: what data set did you use? How many interviews did you carry out? How many months of participant observation did you complete? What is the timeframe for the data? The geographical observations. Give just enough information to validate your findings for the methodology section.

You should be able to go through all of the above in the first five minutes so that you can spend as much of your time as possible sharing the rich detail of your own data and analyses. If you have ethnographic data, you can tell one story from the field for each point you want to make. For statistical data, you can present a table with findings for each finding you wish to highlight. For interview data, you can use one interview quotes for each theme you plan to highlight.

Once you bold out the significant findings, you can leave a minute or two for your conclusion. Again make sure you use visuals, story format, case studies, quotes, even videos to explain your result to make it very appealing to the audience.

As you make each slide, remember to put a few words as possible on each slide, and place an image on each slide to convey your points visually.

Source: http://getalifephd.blogspot.com/

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• Locations and Hours
• UCLA Library
• Research Guides
• Research Tips and Tools

Advanced Research Methods

• Presenting the Research Paper
• What Is Research?
• Library Research
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Writing the Research Paper

Writing an Abstract

Oral presentation, compiling a powerpoint.

Abstract : a short statement that describes a longer work.

• Indicate the subject.
• Describe the purpose of the investigation.
• Briefly discuss the method used.
• Make a statement about the result.

Oral presentations usually introduce a discussion of a topic or research paper. A good oral presentation is focused, concise, and interesting in order to trigger a discussion.

• Be well prepared; write a detailed outline.
• Introduce the subject.
• Talk about the sources and the method.
• Indicate if there are conflicting views about the subject (conflicting views trigger discussion).
• Make a statement about your new results (if this is your research paper).
• Use visual aids or handouts if appropriate.

An effective PowerPoint presentation is just an aid to the presentation, not the presentation itself .

• Be brief and concise.
• Focus on the subject.
• Attract attention; indicate interesting details.
• If possible, use relevant visual illustrations (pictures, maps, charts graphs, etc.).
• Use bullet points or numbers to structure the text.
• Make clear statements about the essence/results of the topic/research.
• Don't write down the whole outline of your paper and nothing else.
• Don't write long full sentences on the slides.
• Don't use distracting colors, patterns, pictures, decorations on the slides.
• Don't use too complicated charts, graphs; only those that are relatively easy to understand.
• << Previous: Writing the Research Paper
• Last Updated: May 16, 2024 10:20 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.ucla.edu/research-methods

30+ Best Research Presentation Templates for PowerPoint (PPT)

Finding the right PowerPoint template plays an important part in getting your message across to the audience during a presentation. And it’s especially true for research presentations.

Using the right colors, graphs, infographics, and illustrations in your slides is the key to delivering information more effectively and making your presentation a success.

Today, we handpicked a great collection of research presentation PowerPoint templates for you to make the perfect slideshows for various types of research papers and studies.

Whether you’re preparing for a presentation at a school, event, or conference, there are templates in this list for all purposes. Let’s dive in.

2 Million+ PowerPoint Templates, Themes, Graphics + More

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Clean & clear.

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Business PPT Templates

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Explore PowerPoint Templates

Science & Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template is a perfect choice for preparing a research presentation to share your scientific findings and reports.

The template has 30 unique slides with unlimited color options. There are a few infographics included in the slideshow as well.

Why This Is A Top Pick

The presentation has a very modern and creative design where you can showcase your data and information in an attractive way. You won’t be making boring research presentations ever again.

Labvire – Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

Labvire is another modern PowerPoint template you can use for various types of research presentations. It’s also ideal for laboratory-related research presentations. The template has fully customizable slide layouts with editable charts, graphs, and more. You can choose from more than 40 unique slide designs as well.

Novalabs – Science Research PowerPoint Template

Novalabs PowerPoint template features a highly visual and attractive design. The template includes 36 different slides that feature large image placeholders for adding a more visual look to your presentations. There are lots of editable graphics, shapes, and tables included in the template too. Feel free to customize them however you like.

Research & Development PowerPoint Template

The minimal and clean design of this PowerPoint template makes it a great choice for delivering more effective research presentations. With fewer distractions in each slide, you’ll be able to convey your message more easily. The template comes with 30 unique slides. You can change the colors, fonts, and shapes to your preference as well.

Marketing Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

When talking about research presentations, we can’t forget about marketing research. Most sales and marketing meetings usually include a sophisticated marketing research presentation. This PowerPoint template will help you design those research presentations without effort. It includes a total of 150 slides, featuring 30 unique slides in 5 different color schemes.

Free Business Market Research Presentation Template

This is a free PowerPoint template designed for making business market research presentations. It gives you 27 different and fully customizable slides to create professional slideshows for your business meetings.

Free Business Data Analysis & Research Presentation

With this PowerPoint template, you can create colorful and creative business research and data analysis presentation without any design skills. It includes 35 unique slides with lots of infographics and editable shapes. The template is free to use as well.

Lernen – Research Thesis PowerPoint Presentation

Larnen is the ideal PowerPoint template for making research slideshows for your thesis presentations. It includes 30 unique slides that are available in light and dark color themes. It also has editable charts and graphs.

Aristo – Research Academic PowerPoint Presentation

This PowerPoint template is also made with academic research presentations in mind. The template has a professional design with clean layouts and light colors. It comes with more than 30 different slides.

Biosearch – Science Research PowerPoint Template

You can use this PowerPoint template to make professional presentations to present research data and results. It lets you choose from 40 different slides and 90 color themes. The slides are available in both light and dark color themes as well.

Neolabs – Laboratory & Science Research PPT

Neolabs is another science research presentation made with laboratory research teams in mind. You can use it to make effective slideshows to present your research findings. There are 30 unique slides in this template.

Free Business Cost Analysis PowerPoint Template

This is a free PowerPoint and Google Slides template that comes with 35 unique slides. It’s ideal for making research presentations related to business financials.

Research & Case Study PowerPoint Template

Create the perfect case study presentation using your research data with this PowerPoint template. It includes a modern slide design with infographics and charts for effectively presenting your data.

Liron Labs – Laboratory Research PowerPoint Template

Another PowerPoint template for laboratory research presentations. This template includes 15 useful slide layouts with editable graphics, free fonts, and image placeholders. You can edit and customize the colors and text as well.

Research Thesis PowerPoint Template

Make an attractive and creative research thesis presentation using this PowerPoint template. There are over 30 unique slides in this template. You can either use dark or light color themes to create your presentations.

Colorful Thesis Research PowerPoint Template

If you want to make your research presentations look more colorful and creative, this PowerPoint template is for you. It has 15 different slides with fully customizable layouts. It has editable shapes, free fonts, and image placeholders too.

Free Data Analysis Research PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template is also free to download. You can also customize it using PowerPoint or Google Slides. This template is ideal for marketing agencies and teams for presenting research and data analysis.

Laboratory & Science Research PowerPoint Template

You can make more convincing and unique lab research presentations using this PowerPoint template. It features a creative design that will easily attract the attention of your audience. You can use it to make various other science and research presentations too. The template includes 30 unique slides.

The Biologist – Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

Just as the name suggests, this PowerPoint template is designed with biology and science-related presentations in mind. It includes many useful slide layouts that can be used to make various types of research presentations. There are 30 different slide designs included in this template with editable shapes and colors.

Modern Science & Research PowerPoint Template

If you’re looking for a PowerPoint template to create a modern-looking research presentation, this template is perfect for you. It features a collection of modern and attractive slides with lots of space for including images, icons, and graphs. There are 30 unique slides in the template with light and dark color themes to choose from.

Marketing Report & Research PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template doubles as both a research and report slideshow. You can use it to create various marketing reports as well as marketing research presentations. It comes with 30 slides that feature minimal and clean designs. It includes lots of editable charts, infographics, and tables as well.

Market Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

Another modern PowerPoint template for making market research presentations. This template includes 25 unique slides with master slides, image placeholders, and editable colors. The template is ideal for marketing agencies and corporate businesses.

Free Academic Research Thesis PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template is designed for defending your academic research thesis dissertation. Needless to say, it’s a useful template for academics as well as teachers. The template features 23 unique slide layouts with customizable designs.

Free Economics Research Thesis Presentation Template

You can use this free template to create thesis and research presentations related to economics. It’s useful for academic students and gives you the freedom to choose from 21 slide layouts to make your own presentations.

Labia – Research Presentation Powerpoint Template

Labia is a research presentation template made for professionals. It comes with a set of modern slides with multipurpose designs. That means you can customize them to make many different types of research presentations. There are 30 unique slides included in this template that come in 5 different color themes.

Medical Research Infographics & Powerpoint Slides

You’ll be using lots of charts, graphs, and infographics in your presentations to showcase data in visual form. Not to mention that visuals always work well for attracting the audience’s attention. You can use the infographic slides in this template to create better research presentations. Each slide features a unique infographic with animated designs.

Foreka – Biology Education & Research Presentation PPT

Foreka is a PowerPoint template made for educational presentations, especially for covering topics related to biology. But it can also be customized to present your research presentations. The slides have very useful layouts that are most suitable for making research slide designs. There are 30 slides included with light and dark color themes.

Maua – Aesthetic Business Research PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template is suitable for making elegant and stylish business reports and business research presentations. It’s especially great for making background research and competitor research slideshows. The template comes with 30 slides featuring master slides, image placeholders, and more.

World Data Scientist Powerpoint Presentation Template

You can use this PowerPoint template to create research presentations for many different types of topics, industries, and projects. The template includes lots of data-centric slides where you can easily showcase your data in visual form. There are 30 unique slides included with the template as well.

Free SWOT Analysis Infographics PowerPoint Template

SWOT analysis is a commonly used methodology in business research presentations. With this free PowerPoint template, you can create stylish SWOT analysis infographics for your presentations. It includes SWOT infographics in 30 different styles.

Free Market Research Presentation Infographics PPT

This is a collection of free PowerPoint slides that feature various styles of infographics you can use in your business and market research presentations. There are 30 different infographic slides included in this template. You can edit, change colors, and customize them however you like.

Sinara – Science & Research Powerpoint Template

Sinara is a brilliant PowerPoint template you can use to craft a professional presentation for science-related research and reports. It’s available in 3 different color schemes as well as the option to customize the colors to your preference. The template comes in light and dark themes too.

Political Science and Research PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template will be quite useful to political science and international relations students. It features a total of 150 slides you can use to create attractive presentations for your research and methodologies. There are slides in 5 different color schemes.

How to Make a Research Poster in PowerPoint

We bet you didn’t know that you could actually design posters in PowerPoint. Well, you can and it’s very easy to do so.

The easiest way to make a poster in PowerPoint is to use a pre-made template like the one above.

You can easily copy one of the slides from a template, and resize the slide dimensions to create a vertical poster. Then add a title with a few lines of text and you’ll have yourself a poster.

Or, if you want to craft a poster from scratch, you can read our complete guide on how to create posters in PowerPoint with step-by-step instructions.

For more useful presentation templates, be sure to check out our best educational PowerPoint templates collection.

How to Present a Research Paper? (Templates Included)

Last updated on December 25th, 2023

Research paper presentations are required in our academic progress. As a researcher, you must often present a research paper and convey your ideas to the audience. But research paper presentations have unique requirements that must be fulfilled for asserting the audience of your talk.

It can be quite challenging for a research presentation not to bore the audience and enthusiastically present the research paper, but if you follow the necessary steps, you can easily convey your ideas and grab the audience’s attention in no time . 

In this article, we go through how to present a research paper, why you would need to create a research presentation, and discuss the APA style of citing research papers. 

Lastly, we have also included research paper PowerPoint presentation examples at the end of this article to help you conveniently create the perfect research paper presentation in a short amount of time. 

How to Present a Research Paper?

A research presentation is typically 10 minutes long and needs to be formally presented in front of a panel of audience or, in the case of a seminar, a group of people. Here are some important points to help you understand how to present a research paper.

1. How Should the Title of a Research Paper be Presented?

An important part of a research paper is its title which needs to be presented directly and with an interesting take to catch the audience’s attention . It is the first impression that you leave on your audience and helps build the momentum for your upcoming talk. Keep it short and concise. Stretching it out will use your precious talk time, which should be for the crucial parts of the presentation. 

2. Introduction

Next is the introduction you need to cover by giving an overview of your research paper. See it like the abstract of any research paper that lets the readers or, in the research paper presentation’s case, the audience know what the presentation will be about. 

Take the opportunity to introduce yourself and offer a statement about your overall presentation. Explain why your research findings are useful for the audience and how they can help them achieve their goals or solve problems. Clearly define your hypothesis statement to indicate what is yet to come in your presentation. 

3. Main Body of the Presentation

The main body of the presentation should have the most important information your audience needs to know about. In most cases, the findings of the presentation are the most important. Still, in some cases, the methodology followed must also be highlighted and discussed to attract the audience’s attention. 

Ask yourself the most important part the audience needs to know about that signifies the benefit of your research and its findings. Identify the main points and record them to have a set of central points to plan your presentation. Keep the main issues short and to the point when talking about them. Going too much into detail will exceed your presentation time and will not be good for the audience’s attention span. 

4. Use Graphics, including Charts, Graphs, Infographics and Pictures

To clarify the concepts, support arguments, and offer a visual impact, use graphics including tables, flowcharts, graphs, charts, images, infographics and diagrams in your research paper presentation. Visual slides will help make your presentation appealing and memorable. 

Use flowcharts to explain a process flow and its outcomes. Graphs depict statistics in visual form and compare numerical data. Add supporting images and diagrams where necessary. And use charts to show the relationship between elements. 

Pro Tip: A research paper is sometimes presented with the help of a poster presentation . You can learn more on how to make a winning poster presentation in this article published by SlideModel.

But do remember not to over do it. Keep the text short and concise with a reasonable number of graphics to make it attractive and enable you to convey your message better.

5. Offer Supporting Documents

A research presentation is just a narrowed-down version of your research paper with extensively detailed information on the topic, literature review, methodology, findings, and implications. Therefore, along with your research presentation, be sure to offer supporting documents as required. 

If you are applying for a job and giving a research presentation as a part of the interview process, then be sure to provide a CV with a list of your published articles and a cover letter. 

In case of a funding request, submit a proposal when presenting to let the investors and sponsors know your requirements. 

Seminar and conference presentations often do not need supporting documents, but handing a summary of your research paper and its significance can be good for those interested in your research. Poster presentations can also be part of the supporting documents to be included as part of your research project.

6. Prepare a Summary of the Presentation

When concluding your research paper presentation, offer a brief summary of the main points and highlight the significance of your findings . Make a specific request if any action is needed from the audience or the panel of professionals. 

Acknowledge the collaborators and mentors, tell the audience the next steps, and share your contact information with them so they can contact you when required.  

7. Answer Any Underlying Questions

In the end, you can hold a question-and-answer session to answer any underlying queries the audience might have. You can have some questions of your own to stimulate a discussion among the audience and take in questions to answer, making it interactive. 

To prepare for this, write a list of possible questions the audience might have and prepare short, clear-cut answers. Make sure to go through your research paper deeply, so you can answer any question the audience asks and maintain your authority on the matter.  

Reasons for Creating a Research Presentation

Research paper presentations have their unique purpose, and you need to identify your reason for creating a research presentation to be able to properly convey your message and fulfill the purpose of presenting . Here are a few reasons why you would need to create a research presentation.

1. Dissertation Defense

A dissertation defense is commonly required in academic settings where you must defend your research paper’s content in front of a panel of qualified professionals and professors. Also known as a thesis defense , the panel examines and evaluates the presenter’s work and cross-questions their ideas to determine the validity of the paper’s contents. The goal is to defend your thesis and have the examiners approve of your contribution to research. 

2. Academic Job Interview

If you are applying for an academic job, you might need to present a research paper to a panel of professionals and interviewers. Your purpose is to inform, influence, and summarize your research findings and present them coherently to pass the interview and land the job. The audience of an academic job interview may include the department heads, HR managers, and other experts that are knowledgeable in the field. 

Pro Tip: Check out our free Job Interview PowerPoint template to prepare a compelling job interview presentation.

3. Conference/Seminar

Research papers are often presented at conferences and seminars to inform, educate, or inform the audience about the topic. The presentation influences the audience of your point of view about a certain topic, creates a name for the presenter in the field, and increases his/her network circle, resulting in more opportunities for research collaborations, jobs, and partnerships.

The audience of a research conference or seminar typically includes professionals with similar interests or experts in the same field looking for further collaboration opportunities and building up their networks.

4. Funding Request

Research findings can also be presented to a panel of investors to seek funding and obtain opportunities for expansion in any project. The research paper presentation’s purpose is to influence the investors and convince them of your ideas and propositions to receive the necessary funding for starting or expanding any project or business or visualize the concept. 

The audience of a funding request research presentation could be commercial sponsors, grant-giving bodies, and investors looking to solve a business problem and help qualified and experienced professionals get the funding they require. 

What should I do if I have to use the APA style?

APA style is a format for documenting references and includes in-text citations and citing sources at the end of each research paper. 

What Is APA Style?

APA stands for American Psychological Association , a commonly used style of documenting sources in research papers . The standard is used for scientific writing to help authors cite their findings and avoid plagiarism by giving credit to the researcher. It follows the author-date method for in-text citation, as well as a complete list of references at the end of the paper. 

Popularly used in psychology, education, and social science, the APA style was first introduced in 1929, when the Psychological Bulletin laid out its basic guidelines to help authors standardize their citations. APA formatIt makes it easier for readers and the audience to understand the text by knowing their sources and simplifies the research paper structure. 

How to Cite a Research Paper in a PowerPoint Presentation?

When presenting a research paper, you can cite sources in-text on each slide to let the audience know the source of information. You can also cite crucial references verbally in correspondence with in-text citations. 

To verbally let the audience know the source, you can express the argument by stating who said it. The words claim, add, argues, illustrates, grants, notes, observes, suggests, etc. are often used to cite the reference. 

To cite a PowerPoint in text using APA format, you must include the author and date of the presentation.

Another way is to include a reference slide at the end of your presentation. The audience must know where you got the statistics, visuals, facts, and other information. There should be no room for questioning the validity or source of any data. 

How to Present a Research Paper in 5 Minutes?

If time is restricted in your research paper presentation, it is important to plan ahead and practice discussing each slide in 1 minute or less. Give more time to the most important slides, such as the problem, motivation, and its proposed approach or solution. Just stick to 5 to 7 slides and no more to keep your talk short and avoid any unnecessary delays on swiping slides back and forth.  

How to Convert a Research Paper Into a Presentation?

You can convert a research paper into a presentation by summarizing its main points and focusing on the crucial aspects of the subject matter . Research papers are often quite detailed, and compiling them in a 5 to 10-minute presentation can be challenging. Still, it is possible to gather only the most important data to support your arguments. You can also use ChatGPT with GPT 4 with a proper prompt to summarize the research paper and prepare the presentation outline and content. You can use GPT-4V alongside ChatGPT to merge the text and visual comprehension to make the presentation more appealing.

Make clear statements about the problem and its solutions, and convey the essence of the research paper in bullets to keep it short. Visualize your findings to make them appealing and easy to understand, and indicate the essential details through charts, graphs, and other graphics to make them interesting.  

Examples of PowerPoint Templates for Research Presentation

Powerpoint is a great tool to create your research paper presentation effectively, but one might not have the time to design and build the perfect theme for the research paper from scratch. Therefore, you can use research paper PowerPoint presentation examples to create your own research presentation within just a few minutes. 

• Free Scientific Research PowerPoint Template 
• Free Chemistry Presentation Template
• Free Science Research PowerPoint Template
• Free Internet Research PowerPoint Template
• Research Powerpoint Template
• Free Market Research PowerPoint Template
• Free Research Timeline PowerPoint Template

Alternatively, you can download a Free Research Presentation Template for PowerPoint & Google Slides from reputable PPT template providers, such as SlideModel. Here is a preview of the free Research PowerPoint template.

This presentation slide template for PowerPoint contains useful slides that you can use to present a Research Paper to an audience. For example, find out slides such as Introduction, Research Questions & Hypotheses, Literature Review & Theory, Methods & Data Collection, Data Presentation & Findings as well as slides with infographics & data charts. Finally, present your conclusions with a simple & neat conclusions slide as the last slide of the presentation.

An effective research paper presentation needs to be engaging, interactive, and memorable, and that can only be achieved by properly planning out the outline of your presentation and adding the necessary information . Combining text with graphics, asking relevant questions, and answering them clearly during the presentation will establish your authority on the matter and show you as an expert researcher.

Furthermore, having a decent research paper presentation design can help you achieve success in your presentation. The templates provided can help you design and create the perfect research presentation for your upcoming talk and help you attain your purpose.  

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Top 10 Research Presentation Templates with Examples and Samples

Simran Shekhawat

Research organizes all your thoughts, suggestions, findings and innovations in one area that postulates to determining the future applicability. A crucial part of strategic planning is research. It aids organizations in goal setting, decision-making, and resource allocation. Research allows us to uncover and discover many segments of society by establishing facts and generating data that effectively determine future outcomes and progress.

Here's an ultimate guide to conduct market research! Click to know more!

Research primarily comprises gathering and analysing information about consumer behaviour, industry dynamics, economic conditions, and other elements that affect how markets and businesses behave in the context of understanding market trends. Understanding market trends requires market research, which is likely to be successful. Research can reveal prospective market dangers and difficulties, enabling organizations to create backup plans and decide on market entry or expansion with more excellent knowledge. By understanding market trends, businesses can create marketing and advertising efforts that resonate with their target audience. 

Learn about product market research templates. Click here .

Additionally, it aids in determining the best customer-reach methods. Businesses can better satisfy market demands by customizing their products or services by studying consumer behaviours, preferences, and feedback. Assessing Market Size and Potential research can shed light on a market's size, potential for expansion, and competitive environment. Businesses aiming to expand or enter new markets need to know this information.

SlideTeam introduces you with their newly launch research templates that has been extensively built to enhance the quality of company’s research and development area by forging to bring answers related to every ‘how’ and ‘why’. The sole purpose of these is to inform, gather information and contributes towards the development and knowledge about the field of study. These templates are professionally design to disseminate knowledge to provide better judgements.

Template 1: Clinical Research Trial PowerPoint Template

Use this premium PPT template to captivate your audience. Download this well-created template to raise your presenting threshold. Establish your milestones with workflows designed to ease the overburdening of tasks. State clear-cut objectives to specify your aim and deliver a timeline. Use these 58-page PowerPoint slides to launch your product success and deliver a presentation that awakes the audience with your research performance and goals.

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Template 2: Company Stock Analysis and Equity Research Report Slide

Uncover impacts about the stock markets and analyze company-related specific and general equity design using this ready-made template. Understanding the technicality of maintenance and presentation of stocks and equity research, we at SlideTeam have designed an equity research PowerPoint slide to ease your presentation load. This presentation aims to analyze the target company's financial performance, ratios, and financial model to welcome investment in the company. Provide an extensive company summary, income statement, balance sheet, vertical and horizontal analysis, organization shareholding structure, SWOT analysis, and share price performance throughout history through this template.

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Template 3: IT Services Research and Development Template

Showcase the power of your company's services, expertise achievement and future goals using this PPT template. This PPT slide provides you with a summary, key statistics, targets, and overview of your IT service Company. Allow this template to lay out values mission, categorize solutions, and enlist a range of services provided along with expenditure incurred on Research development. The deck also includes a business model canvas that depicts the company's historical development, global reach, management team, organizational structure, employee breakdown, and ownership structure.

Template 4: Research Proposal Steps PowerPoint Template

If you are looking to learn how to draft a research proposal, this slide is the ultimate fit for a newbie to comprehend about - 'what', 'where', and 'how' of research. Download this slide to learn about the format and structure of the research proposal. Use this template to illustrate the goal of the research proposal. Furthermore, our PPT sample file aids in instructing students on how to write a research proposal. Furthermore, you may quickly persuade the audience about the proposal's limitations, objectives, and research gap.

Template 5: Research Proposal for Thesis Template

Provide a clear idea and concise summary of your research with the help of this premium template. A well-written thesis statement frequently paves the way for discussion and debate. It can be the foundation for academic dialogue, enabling others to interact with and challenge your ideas—essential for developing knowledge across all disciplines. Your thesis statement will determine the depth of your study and conclusion while enabling you to attract your targeted audience.

Template 6: Market Research PowerPoint Template

To understand the trends and techniques of market structure, companies need to be aware of the trends and to enable that, and market research is one such profitable asset to invest in to allow numerous investments from companies across. Use this template to highlight the key drivers of growth that define the ultimate indicators of market trends. Use this PPT slide to solve marketing issues and make company decisions, incorporating polished business analysis PPT visuals. Get this template to connect business operations with your company's strategic goals.

Template 7: Establish Research Objective Template

For an effective and meaningful research, clarity is essential. Deploy this template to facilitate that research objectives should specify the precise goals and targets of the study to assist in limiting its scope. To ensure the study's readability and comprehensibility, SlideTeam has crafted a flowchart template design to help you elucidate the study's objective, providing a basis for measuring and evaluating the success of well-defined research. Define and design your research with the help of this four-stage design pattern.

Template 8:  A Company Research Venn Chart Presentation

Establish relationships between the sets and groups of data while comparing and contrasting the company's research analysis. This template is helpful as it helps to understand the abstract, objectives, limitations, methodologies, research gap, etc., of the research effectively while focusing on postulating future recommendations and suggestions.

Template 9: Sample Research Paper Outline in a One-Pager Summary Presentation

How effortless it is to study a research paper without turning several pages? Grab this PPT template to research any topic and jot down your findings in a simple and concise format. Most importantly, a significant amount of their precious time can now be dedicated to critical tasks, aiding them in accelerating the research process. This incredibly well-curated one-pager template includes information about the introduction, problem, literature review, suggestions, and conclusions.

Template 10: Big Data Analytics Market Research Template

Deploy this template to introduce your company's extensive data analysis to understand the industry landscape, identify objectives, and make informed business decisions. Use this template slide to determine the current market size and growth rate. Consider the variables influencing this expansion, such as the rising volume of data produced and the demand for data-driven insights. Give information about the big data analysis market's prospects for the future. Over the coming few years, forecast growth trajectories, rising technologies, and market dynamics. Recognize the intended client base's demographics. Summarize your research and include suggestions for companies wishing to enter or grow in the big data analysis market.

PS: Provide an extensive statistical analysis for your research with this template. Check out now!

Refine your Research with SlideTeam.

SlideTeam introduces to its extensively built research templates that not only refines your search capability but also contributes towards the authenticity and development of your organization. It helps you to uncover veils of possibilities of growth while determining the bottlenecks and deriving appropriate solutions for future deliverables.

One of the attractive features about SlideTeam’s template are they are 100% customisable and editable as per the needs.

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PS: Provide an extensive statistical analysis for your research with this template . Check out now!

FAQs on Research Presentation

What is a research presentation.

Research Presentation is a visual representation of an individual or a team's observational findings or invocation in a particular subject.

What are the steps in research presentation?

To effectively convey your research findings to your audience, various phases are involved in creating a research presentation. Whether you're giving a presentation at a conference or a business meeting,

• Define your audience - Identify your audience's interests and level of knowledge. Make sure to adjust your presentation to fit their wants and needs.
• Outline What You Present - Create a clear structure with an introduction, three main ideas, and a conclusion. Choose the most essential points you want your audience to remember.
• Research and Data Collection - Gather and arrange the pertinent information, facts, and proof. Make sure your sources are reliable and current.
• Develop Visuals - To improve understanding, create visual aids like slides, charts, graphs, and photographs. Keep visuals straightforward, clutter-free, and with a distinct visual hierarchy.
• Get Your Audience Active - Take advantage of storytelling, anecdotes, or pertinent instances to draw in your audience. If appropriate, encourage audience participation and questions during the lecture.
• Present your argument - Start with a compelling introduction. Follow your outline while ensuring a logical and obvious flow.
• Keep an open line of communication, communicate clearly, and change your tone and pace. Improve your communication by making gestures and using body language. Respond to comments and questions as they come up or after the presentation.
• Recap and Draw a Conclusion - Summarize the core ideas and principal conclusions. Reiterate the importance of your study and its consequences.

How do you research a topic for a presentation?

To begin with, the idea of research presentation, choosing topics that align with your expertise and knowledge is the first and foremost. After understanding the topic, collect core factual and empirical data for proper understanding. After gauging information, it creates a place for every subtopic that must be introduced.

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Home Free PowerPoint Templates Free Research Paper PowerPoint Template

Free Research Paper PowerPoint Template

Download free research paper powerpoint template & google slides.

Demonstrate your research findings in a visually appealing presentation using our Free Research Paper PowerPoint Template. A research paper is a piece of academic writing that provides deep insights, analysis, interpretation, arguments, and results based on independent research. There are various types of research papers, and they can be related to any domain, such as biological sciences, social sciences, literature, psychology, and technology. We have crafted this interactive research paper PowerPoint Template to present the overview of your research outcomes in a powerful visual way. The color scheme, infographic icons, and data charts used in the template simplify the complex concepts and make them understandable to the audience. Users can change the placeholder images and display their relevant images.

Our Free Research Paper PowerPoint Template is crafted using 100% editable PPT elements. Moreover, users can change these features according to their preferences. The template consists of a title slide to display the topic of the presentation. Next, there are creative slides for showing the following attributes of the research paper:

• Introduction: In this slide, experts can briefly introduce their exploration.
• Research Questions/ Hypothesis: Using graphical icons and editable textboxes, professionals can list out their hypotheses in this slide.
• Literature Review/ Theory: Students can utilize four rectangular boxes to write down various theories related to their studies.
• Methods & Data Collection: Using bullet points, individuals can use this slide to discuss the primary and secondary data facts.
• Data Presentation/ Findings: There are five slides in which we have provided data charts, bar graphs, and pie charts where users can showcase the percentages and statistical findings of their research examination.
• Conclusion: In this slide, you can conclude all the points to maximize content retention.

On each slide, there is a vertical colorful bar with the title of the research paper that creates an attractive look for the slide. Students, professors, experts, scientists, and researchers can leverage this template to showcase their analytical findings comprehensively. You can also use this free slide presentation template to educate people about certain consequences for awareness. Furthermore, professionals can use this template at conferences to showcase their research and analytical skills to acquire projects and collaborate with companies. So, if you want to display your research data points uniquely and attractively, download this template and personalize it now!

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AI Is Everybody’s Business

This briefing presents three principles to guide business leaders when making AI investments: invest in practices that build capabilities required for AI, involve all your people in your AI journey, and focus on realizing value from your AI projects. The principles are supported by the MIT CISR data monetization research, and the briefing illustrates them using examples from the Australia Taxation Office and CarMax. The three principles apply to any kind of AI, defined as technology that performs human-like cognitive tasks; subsequent briefings will present management advice distinct to machine learning and generative tools, respectively.

Access More Research!

Any visitor to the website can read many MIT CISR Research Briefings in the webpage. But site users who have signed up on the site and are logged in can download all available briefings, plus get access to additional content. Even more content is available to members of MIT CISR member organizations .

Author Barb Wixom reads this research briefing as part of our audio edition of the series. Follow the series on SoundCloud.

DOWNLOAD THE TRANSCRIPT

Today, everybody across the organization is hungry to know more about AI. What is it good for? Should I trust it? Will it take my job? Business leaders are investing in massive training programs, partnering with promising vendors and consultants, and collaborating with peers to identify ways to benefit from AI and avoid the risk of AI missteps. They are trying to understand how to manage AI responsibly and at scale.

Our book Data Is Everybody’s Business: The Fundamentals of Data Monetization describes how organizations make money using their data.[foot]Barbara H. Wixom, Cynthia M. Beath, and Leslie Owens, Data Is Everybody's Business: The Fundamentals of Data Monetization , (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2023), https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262048217/data-is-everybodys-business/ .[/foot] We wrote the book to clarify what data monetization is (the conversion of data into financial returns) and how to do it (by using data to improve work, wrap products and experiences, and sell informational solutions). AI technology’s role in this is to help data monetization project teams use data in ways that humans cannot, usually because of big complexity or scope or required speed. In our data monetization research, we have regularly seen leaders use AI effectively to realize extraordinary business goals. In this briefing, we explain how such leaders achieve big AI wins and maximize financial returns.

Using AI in Data Monetization

AI refers to the ability of machines to perform human-like cognitive tasks.[foot]See Hind Benbya, Thomas H. Davenport, and Stella Pachidi, “Special Issue Editorial: Artificial Intelligence in Organizations: Current State and Future Opportunities , ” MIS Quarterly Executive 19, no. 4 (December 2020), https://aisel.aisnet.org/misqe/vol19/iss4/4 .[/foot] Since 2019, MIT CISR researchers have been studying deployed data monetization initiatives that rely on machine learning and predictive algorithms, commonly referred to as predictive AI.[foot]This research draws on a Q1 to Q2 2019 asynchronous discussion about AI-related challenges with fifty-three data executives from the MIT CISR Data Research Advisory Board; more than one hundred structured interviews with AI professionals regarding fifty-two AI projects from Q3 2019 to Q2 2020; and ten AI project narratives published by MIT CISR between 2020 and 2023.[/foot] Such initiatives use large data repositories to recognize patterns across time, draw inferences, and predict outcomes and future trends. For example, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) used machine learning, neural nets, and decision trees to understand citizen tax-filing behaviors and produce respectful nudges that helped citizens abide by Australia’s work-related expense policies. In 2018, the nudging resulted in AUD$113 million in changed claim amounts.[foot]I. A. Someh, B. H. Wixom, and R. W. Gregory, “The Australian Taxation Office: Creating Value with Advanced Analytics,” MIT CISR Working Paper No. 447, November 2020, https://cisr.mit.edu/publication/MIT_CISRwp447_ATOAdvancedAnalytics_SomehWixomGregory .[/foot]

In 2023, we began exploring data monetization initiatives that rely on generative AI.[foot]This research draws on two asynchronous generative AI discussions (Q3 2023, N=35; Q1 2024, N=34) regarding investments and capabilities and roles and skills, respectively, with data executives from the MIT CISR Data Research Advisory Board. It also draws on in-progress case studies with large organizations in the publishing, building materials, and equipment manufacturing industries.[/foot] This type of AI analyzes vast amounts of text or image data to discern patterns in them. Using these patterns, generative AI can create new text, software code, images, or videos, usually in response to user prompts. Organizations are now beginning to openly discuss data monetization initiative deployments that include generative AI technologies. For example, used vehicle retailer CarMax reported using OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot to help aggregate customer reviews and other car information from multiple data sets to create helpful, easy-to-read summaries about individual used cars for its online shoppers. At any point in time, CarMax has on average 50,000 cars on its website, so to produce such content without AI the company would require hundreds of content writers and years of time; using ChatGPT, the company’s content team can generate summaries in hours.[foot]Paula Rooney, “CarMax drives business value with GPT-3.5,” CIO , May 5, 2023, https://www.cio.com/article/475487/carmax-drives-business-value-with-gpt-3-5.html ; Hayete Gallot and Shamim Mohammad, “Taking the car-buying experience to the max with AI,” January 2, 2024, in Pivotal with Hayete Gallot, produced by Larj Media, podcast, MP3 audio, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/taking-the-car-buying-experience-to-the-max-with-ai/id1667013760?i=1000640365455 .[/foot]

Big advancements in machine learning, generative tools, and other AI technologies inspire big investments when leaders believe the technologies can help satisfy pent-up demand for solutions that previously seemed out of reach. However, there is a lot to learn about novel technologies before we can properly manage them. In this year’s MIT CISR research, we are studying predictive and generative AI from several angles. This briefing is the first in a series; in future briefings we will present management advice specific to machine learning and generative tools. For now, we present three principles supported by our data monetization research to guide business leaders when making AI investments of any kind: invest in practices that build capabilities required for AI, involve all your people in your AI journey, and focus on realizing value from your AI projects.

Principle 1: Invest in Practices That Build Capabilities Required for AI

Succeeding with AI depends on having deep data science skills that help teams successfully build and validate effective models. In fact, organizations need deep data science skills even when the models they are using are embedded in tools and partner solutions, including to evaluate their risks; only then can their teams make informed decisions about how to incorporate AI effectively into work practices. We worry that some leaders view buying AI products from providers as an opportunity to use AI without deep data science skills; we do not advise this.

But deep data science skills are not enough. Leaders often hire new talent and offer AI literacy training without making adequate investments in building complementary skills that are just as important. Our research shows that an organization’s progress in AI is dependent on having not only an advanced data science capability, but on having equally advanced capabilities in data management, data platform, acceptable data use, and customer understanding.[foot]In the June 2022 MIT CISR research briefing, we described why and how organizations build the five advanced data monetization capabilities for AI. See B. H. Wixom, I. A. Someh, and C. M. Beath, “Building Advanced Data Monetization Capabilities for the AI-Powered Organization,” MIT CISR Research Briefing, Vol. XXII, No. 6, June 2022, https://cisr.mit.edu/publication/2022_0601_AdvancedAICapabilities_WixomSomehBeath .[/foot] Think about it. Without the ability to curate data (an advanced data management capability), teams cannot effectively incorporate a diverse set of features into their models. Without the ability to oversee the legality and ethics of partners’ data use (an advanced acceptable data use capability), teams cannot responsibly deploy AI solutions into production.

It’s no surprise that ATO’s AI journey evolved in conjunction with the organization’s Smarter Data Program, which ATO established to build world-class data analytics capabilities, and that CarMax emphasizes that its governance, talent, and other data investments have been core to its generative AI progress.

Capabilities come mainly from learning by doing, so they are shaped by new practices in the form of training programs, policies, processes, or tools. As organizations undertake more and more sophisticated practices, their capabilities get more robust. Do invest in AI training—but also invest in practices that will boost the organization’s ability to manage data (such as adopting a data cataloging tool), make data accessible cost effectively (such as adopting cloud policies), improve data governance (such as establishing an ethical oversight committee), and solidify your customer understanding (such as mapping customer journeys). In particular, adopt policies and processes that will improve your data governance, so that data is only used in AI initiatives in ways that are consonant with your organization's values and its regulatory environment.

Principle 2: Involve All Your People in Your AI Journey

Data monetization initiatives require a variety of stakeholders—people doing the work, developing products, and offering solutions—to inform project requirements and to ensure the adoption and confident use of new data tools and behaviors.[foot]Ida Someh, Barbara Wixom, Michael Davern, and Graeme Shanks, “Configuring Relationships between Analytics and Business Domain Groups for Knowledge Integration, ” Journal of the Association for Information Systems 24, no. 2 (2023): 592-618, https://cisr.mit.edu/publication/configuring-relationships-between-analytics-and-business-domain-groups-knowledge .[/foot] With AI, involving a variety of stakeholders in initiatives helps non-data scientists become knowledgeable about what AI can and cannot do, how long it takes to deliver certain kinds of functionality, and what AI solutions cost. This, in turn, helps organizations in building trustworthy models, an important AI capability we call AI explanation (AIX).[foot]Ida Someh, Barbara H. Wixom, Cynthia M. Beath, and Angela Zutavern, “Building an Artificial Intelligence Explanation Capability,” MIS Quarterly Executive 21, no. 2 (2022), https://cisr.mit.edu/publication/building-artificial-intelligence-explanation-capability .[/foot]

For example, at ATO, data scientists educated business colleagues on the mechanics and results of models they created. Business colleagues provided feedback on the logic used in the models and helped to fine-tune them, and this interaction helped everyone understand how the AI made decisions. The data scientists provided their model results to ATO auditors, who also served as a feedback loop to the data scientists for improving the model. The data scientists regularly reported on initiative progress to senior management, regulators, and other stakeholders, which ensured that the AI team was proactively creating positive benefits without neglecting negative external factors that might surface.

Given the consumerization of generative AI tools, we believe that pervasive worker involvement in ideating, building, refining, using, and testing AI models and tools will become even more crucial to deploying fruitful AI projects—and building trust that AI will do the right thing in the right way at the right time.

Principle 3: Focus on Realizing Value From Your AI Projects

AI is costly—just add up your organization’s expenses in tools, talent, and training. AI needs to pay off, yet some organizations become distracted with endless experimentation. Others get caught up in finding the sweet spot of the technology, ignoring the sweet spot of their business model. For example, it is easy to become enamored of using generative AI to improve worker productivity, rolling out tools for employees to write better emails and capture what happened in meetings. But unless those activities materially impact how your organization makes money, there likely are better ways to spend your time and money.

Leaders with data monetization experience will make sure their AI projects realize value in the form of increased revenues or reduced expenses by backing initiatives that are clearly aligned with real challenges and opportunities. That is step one. In our research, the leaders that realize value from their data monetization initiatives measure and track their outcomes, especially their financial outcomes, and they hold someone accountable for achieving the desired financial returns. At CarMax, a cross-functional team owned the mission to provide better website information for used car shoppers, a mission important to the company’s sales goals. Starting with sales goals in mind, the team experimented with and then chose a generative AI solution that would enhance the shopper experience and increase sales.

Figure 1: Three Principles for Getting Value from AI Investments

The three principles are based on the following concepts from MIT CISR data research: 1. Data liquidity: the ease of data asset recombination and reuse 2. Data democracy: an organization that empowers employees in the access and use of data 3. Data monetization: the generation of financial returns from data assets

Managing AI Using a Data Monetization Mindset

AI has and always will play a big role in data monetization. It’s not a matter of whether to incorporate AI, but a matter of how to best use it. To figure this out, quantify the outcomes of some of your organization’s recent AI projects. How much money has the organization realized from them? If the answer disappoints, then make sure the AI technology value proposition is a fit for your organization’s most important goals. Then assign accountability for ensuring that AI technology is applied in use cases that impact your income statements. If the AI technology is not a fit for your organization, then don’t be distracted by media reports of the AI du jour.

Understanding your AI technology investments can be hard if your organization is using AI tools that are bundled in software you purchase or are built for you by a consultant. To set yourself up for success, ask your partners to be transparent with you about the quality of data they used to train their AI models and the data practices they relied on. Do their answers persuade you that their tools are trustworthy? Is it obvious that your partner is using data compliantly and is safeguarding the model from producing bad or undesired outcomes? If so, make sure this good news is shared with the people in your organization and those your organization serves. If not, rethink whether to break with your partner and find another way to incorporate the AI technology into your organization, such as by hiring people to build it in-house.

To paraphrase our book’s conclusion: When people actively engage in data monetization initiatives using AI , they learn, and they help their organization learn. Their engagement creates momentum that initiates a virtuous cycle in which people’s engagement leads to better data and more bottom-line value, which in turn leads to new ideas and more engagement, which further improves data and delivers more value, and so on. Imagine this happening across your organization as all people everywhere make it their business to find ways to use AI to monetize data.

This is why AI, like data, is everybody’s business.

© 2024 MIT Center for Information Systems Research, Wixom and Beath. MIT CISR Research Briefings are published monthly to update the center’s member organizations on current research projects.

Related Publications

Talking Points

Ai, like data, is everybody's business.

Working Paper: Vignette

The australian taxation office: creating value with advanced analytics.

Research Briefing

Building advanced data monetization capabilities for the ai-powered organization.

Building AI Explanation Capability for the AI-Powered Organization

What is Data Monetization?

About the researchers.

Barbara H. Wixom, Principal Research Scientist, MIT Center for Information Systems Research (CISR)

Cynthia M. Beath, Professor Emerita, University of Texas and Academic Research Fellow, MIT CISR

Mit center for information systems research (cisr).

Founded in 1974 and grounded in MIT's tradition of combining academic knowledge and practical purpose, MIT CISR helps executives meet the challenge of leading increasingly digital and data-driven organizations. We work directly with digital leaders, executives, and boards to develop our insights. Our consortium forms a global community that comprises more than seventy-five organizations.

MIT CISR Associate Members

MIT CISR wishes to thank all of our associate members for their support and contributions.

MIT CISR's Mission Expand

MIT CISR helps executives meet the challenge of leading increasingly digital and data-driven organizations. We provide insights on how organizations effectively realize value from approaches such as digital business transformation, data monetization, business ecosystems, and the digital workplace. Founded in 1974 and grounded in MIT’s tradition of combining academic knowledge and practical purpose, we work directly with digital leaders, executives, and boards to develop our insights. Our consortium forms a global community that comprises more than seventy-five organizations.