Lauro Brito de Almeida, Dr. EAC|FEA|USP(1)
Preparar e
fazer apresentações, acadêmicas ou não, com maior ou menor frequência fazem
parte de nossas vidas. Determinadas aprendizagens são, infelizmente, circunscritas
ao nosso meio [em algumas áreas,
fortemente protegidas por barreiras corporativistas, que em prejuízo do avanço do conhecimento e qualidade, continuam sólidas] e por isso deixamos de aprender, evoluir e incorporar os ensinamentos de outras
áreas do conhecimento. JonathanShewchuk, Professor de Computer Science University of
California at Berkeley é o autor do útil texto sobre apresentações,
a seguir reproduzido, que, felizmente mostra que podemos aprender e muito com
outras áreas do conhecimento.
Giving an Academic
Talk
These are my
opinions on how to give a talk (using presentation software or transparencies)
in computer science or mathematics, distilled for my students and for students
attending Graphics Lunch. I go to conferences, see the same mistakes repeated
by many a speaker, and write my reactions here. You are welcome to disagree
with my opinions, as long as you think each issue through for yourself.
Preparing the talk
Your slides. The plain absurdity of
modern academic talks would be glaring if we hadn't all pickled in it for so
long. Recall the last one you attended. The speaker flashed a slide full of
words on the screen and talked. Did you read and understand the slide? Did you
hear every word spoken? No, you had to make a decision about what to miss.
Recall the last talk you gave. I bet you
made the same mistake. Ask yourself: why are you projecting a slide that
virtually guarantees that your audience will stop listening to you? If you
expect them to listen, why are you showing slides that they won't have time to
read? Like circumcision or Christmas fruitcake, we do it out of tradition, not
because it isn't nasty.
If you want to be
a great speaker, you must first
accept the fact that a slide with more than twelve words on it is usually
counterproductive. Next, accept that this means you
will have to prepare harder than the 99% of your colleagues who are still
babbling to fill the time while the audience puzzles over their slides.
How do you stamp
out those excess words? First, your
new modus operandi is to express all your ideas in pictures. Resort to text only where
illustrations fail you. As an exercise, try to make a talk where the only text is the slide titles, and perhaps
a few two-word labels on figures. Even if you don't quite succeed (I never do),
you'll learn a lot about presentation by trying.
Second, examine your unconscious belief that the purpose of slides is to remind you what to
say. Once upon a time, speakers prepared index cards. Today, speakers
project their index cards (as a list of bullet points) and make their audiences
read them. Please