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Develop your presentation

The image shows large block letters in all caps saying "Develop your presentation." To the left of the words is an icon of a cartooned person in teal, standing behind a podium in front of a cartooned audience, gesturing to a screen. On the screen is a simple unlabeled scatter plot with two trendlines that intersect several times.

Use these steps to develop your presentation:

Step 1: 5-Minute draft presentation

Once you have considered your audience, planned your strategy, distilled your research message, and shaped your story, you're ready to create/outline a 5-minute presentation that incorporates some or all of the following:

  • Your hook and audience connection 
  • Your identity and credibility 
  • What you do and how you do it 
  • Why it matters (to your field, the world, and you personally) 
  • An unusual or unexpected element 
  • A clear metaphor or analogy 
  • What's at stake 
  • How we can participate, share in, or contribute to your research/why we matter 

Please don’t memorize this word for word. Instead, learn the phrasing and pattern of the first idea and the last idea and then remember the outline of the rest. You might try drawing or imagining a picture of each section of the outline and follow those pictures in your mind, like a storyboard for a film, a cartoon, or watching a video. 

Step 2: Get feedback from as many people as you can

After presenting your 5-minute version, ask: 

  • What is the most important piece to hang onto?  
  • What was the most exciting piece? 
  • What parts were most engaging or memorable? 
  • What generated the most questions or interest? 
  • Was anything confusing or misleading? 
  • Did the hook work? 
  • Was the metaphor helpful? 
  • Did you understand what's at stake? 

Step 3: 90-Second presentation

Create a 90-second version using the most exciting piece as your introduction and incorporating your most effective story elements. 

Step 4: Get more feedback from as many people as you can

After your 90-second version, ask: 

  • What's the most important piece to hang onto? 
  • What story element was most compelling? 
  • Did the call to action or engagement land?
This resource is available as a supplemental printable handout. The webpage contains the identical content in a fully accessible version. Click here to download.
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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. 2412389. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.