You will have approximately 15-minutes for your talk. As a rough guide, plan for 12 minutes of talking and three minutes of questions. Talk times will be provided closer to the event.

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Talks can be in Norwegian or English – it’s up to you.

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Four points to keep in mind

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1. The most important “rule” is that you want the audience to leave your talk having learnt something but not having felt spoken down to. It’s a balance.

2. This is a public outreach event – try not to talk to an academic audience. But don’t stress about your speaking style. Public speaking gets easier with time. 

3. Be wary of information overload (see tips below)

4. Can the audience see your slides? I will update font size suggestions soon. These suggestions will come from Stormen and based on their projection equipment/room size.

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Information Overload
Check out this Nature article by Nicolas A. Coles on public speaking. Coles uses an analogy that relates information in public talks to salting food and suggests a method to decide what to present and to cut out.

 

To summarize the article, in science communication information is like salting food. Too much salt and no one wants to eat the dish. Too little salt, and the food comes away as bland. Individuals can add more salt themselves. Related to scicomm, bombarding your audience with details makes it difficult to take in new knowledge whereas too little information makes for a boring communication style. 

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One method to decide on what information to keep and what to cut is to ask yourself what percentage of the audience will care about fact or point x. If your estimate lands you at a quarter or less, cut out that fact from your talk.

People who want to know more details will approach you at the event, email you, or reach out on social media. ZOOLYS is designed so that the speakers and the public interact in an informal setting – hopefully leading to questions and answers.

 

Nerves 
This section is probably more for student presenters new to research and public speaking. Keep in mind that the topic is your research area, you are speaking to the public, and you are the expert in the room. The audience is here to learn; even one new fact achieves this goal. Make eye contact with people in the audience – don’t hesitate to ask friends or colleagues to be in the audience for you to make eye contact. And relax and be yourself. Such a cliché, I know. 

 

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Talk Format
There will be a projector, screen, and microphone. How you want to set up your talk is up to you. For example, you can follow the template formats provided in PowerPoint. However,  feel free to experiment if you want to try something different. It’s your talk. 

 

Promotional material
Forskringsdagene 2022 has logotypes for print and online promotional material. For those interested, I can make available logotypes after the national launch date is September 1. You will be able to find the logotypes on my website or email me at andrea@northscicomm.com 

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Thanks again for joining ZOOLYS!