Presentation Guidelines for Residents

Presentation guidelines for Residents

1. Be in the conference room in advance; check the room, the microphone, load your presentation in the computer, run it quickly.
2. Do not use a slide full of words on the screen and talk. If you want your colleagues to listen, do not use slides that they won't have time to read.
3. Do not use a slide that guarantees that your audience will stop listening to you.
4. Slides with over twelve words are counterproductive. Make every words count and heavy in significance.
5. Use everyday language like when you talk to a colleague.
6. Do not talk to the screen, have eye contacts with your colleagues, don’t move around too much. Try to express all your ideas in pictures. Resort to text only where illustrations fail you.
7. Don’t use slides to remind you what to say. If you need some reminder aids, use index cards or text on your laptop screen,but not on the big screen. Your colleagues are all myopic.
8. Use 38 point text and 42–50 point titles. Use sans-serif fonts they're easier to see.
9. Projected slides, unlike printed documents, do not need margins.
10. Use all the space.
11. Simplicity is the best aesthetic. Your audience has little time to absorb what's on your slide.
12. Do not put logos, the talk title, etc. on every slide.
13. Do place the McGill Crest on your first slide.
14. Limit your talks to 30 minutes or less. 
15. Focus on the big picture issues. 
16. Why is your clinical case worth presenting? 
17. How different is your clinical case? 
18. What can we learn from your case that we haven’t learnt from other presentations? 
19. Show evidences that your method of diagnosis or treatment is better.
20. Don’t present incomplete cases unless you got all needed subspecialised consultations and help is needed.
21. Don’t express too many ideas. Have only one big idea that you want your colleagues to leave your talk with. 
22. Send your PowerPoint slides to the staff counselling you ahead of time for revision.
23. Make needed corrections from comments given to you at Grand Rounds.
24. Send your presentations to Dr. Jean Deschênes for publication on the McGill Department of Ophthalmology web site.