Engaging Audiences: Episode 4 - Structure your content

In the fourth and final episode of Engaging Audiences, Shari explains how to structure your presentation content for maximum engagement.

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(Intro music courtesy of Bensound.)

Your research is important and deserves as much attention as possible. But if no one can understand what you’re talking about, what’s the point?

University Affairs magazine and Informed Opinions have teamed up to bring you a video series on how to communicate your research to a wide audience. Hosted by Shari Graydon, it offers tips on making what you know and do more accessible and engaging.

Improving your ability to communicate your research clearly and concisely can help you secure funding, impress in job interviews and even just refocus your brain when you get stuck on a paper or article.

Informed Opinions trains and supports experts — especially women — in making their knowledge and ideas more accessible to a broader audience. The non-profit project delivers keynotes that motivate scholars to engage with media, and workshops that give them tips and tools to do so more effectively.

Transcript

Is it too obvious to mention that your goal at the microphone or lectern is not to remind the audience why they dropped your subject at school? Just because your research is complex doesn’t mean that the way you present it has to be.

Especially if you’re hoping to engage people beyond your discipline. Maybe you avoid books that trumpet their simplicity by putting, “The Seven Habits of” or “Top Five Tips”in their title. But there’s a reason those books sell. They tell us up front that the author has anticipated our desire for concrete takeaways. There’s no shame in signaling to an audience that you’ve thought about what information will be most relevant to them and then organized it in a way that they can follow and remember. the truth is, most people leaving your presentation are only going to recall a few things. Highlighting what’s most important makes it less likely that those few things will include the colour of your scarf or how you lost their attention two minutes in.

Mentioning a deliberate organizing principle can also help to maintain audience engagement. One obvious approach is to state your hypothesis up front, briefly describe how you tested it and then summarize your conclusions. But for a general audience, you don’t want to get bogged down in the methodological details. If there’s a ringer in the room who wants to know more, you can fill her in later.

Depending on your topic, a simple problem/solution approach might also work, especially if you make clear why people should care. Or, you could start by posing a provocative question and then delivering the answer. If the issue you’re addressing is widely misunderstood, you might try a myths and facts structure. This tells people you’re going to dispel ignorance and make the more enlightened than the average citizen by the time you’re done.

And yes, even numbered lists can have their place in communicating serious scholarship. Just don’t make the list, “Thirty-one things you should know about climate change,” or, “Six Signifiers of Sociomateriality.”

Whether you’re delivering a forty-five minute public lecture or presenting for ten minutes on a panel, it’s never a bad idea to give people a road map to where you’re headed. And they’re more likely to retain the message if you share the route you’ll be taking in the process. For University Affairs magazine, I’m Shari Graydon of Informed Opinions.

Engaging Audiences: Episode 4 – Structure your content

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