how to present a research paper using powerpoint

Publication Recognition

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation of Your Research Paper

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A research paper presentation is often used at conferences and in other settings where you have an opportunity to share your research, and get feedback from your colleagues. Although it may seem as simple as summarizing your research and sharing your knowledge, successful research paper PowerPoint presentation examples show us that there’s a little bit more than that involved.

In this article, we’ll highlight how to make a PowerPoint presentation from a research paper, and what to include (as well as what NOT to include). We’ll also touch on how to present a research paper at a conference.

Purpose of a Research Paper Presentation

The purpose of presenting your paper at a conference or forum is different from the purpose of conducting your research and writing up your paper. In this setting, you want to highlight your work instead of including every detail of your research. Likewise, a presentation is an excellent opportunity to get direct feedback from your colleagues in the field. But, perhaps the main reason for presenting your research is to spark interest in your work, and entice the audience to read your research paper.

So, yes, your presentation should summarize your work, but it needs to do so in a way that encourages your audience to seek out your work, and share their interest in your work with others. It’s not enough just to present your research dryly, to get information out there. More important is to encourage engagement with you, your research, and your work.

Tips for Creating Your Research Paper Presentation

In addition to basic PowerPoint presentation recommendations, which we’ll cover later in this article, think about the following when you’re putting together your research paper presentation:

Know your audience : First and foremost, who are you presenting to? Students? Experts in your field? Potential funders? Non-experts? The truth is that your audience will probably have a bit of a mix of all of the above. So, make sure you keep that in mind as you prepare your presentation.

Know more about: Discover the Target Audience .

Your audience is human : In other words, they may be tired, they might be wondering why they’re there, and they will, at some point, be tuning out. So, take steps to help them stay interested in your presentation. You can do that by utilizing effective visuals, summarize your conclusions early, and keep your research easy to understand.
Running outline : It’s not IF your audience will drift off, or get lost…it’s WHEN. Keep a running outline, either within the presentation or via a handout. Use visual and verbal clues to highlight where you are in the presentation.
Where does your research fit in? You should know of work related to your research, but you don’t have to cite every example. In addition, keep references in your presentation to the end, or in the handout. Your audience is there to hear about your work.
Plan B : Anticipate possible questions for your presentation, and prepare slides that answer those specific questions in more detail, but have them at the END of your presentation. You can then jump to them, IF needed.

What Makes a PowerPoint Presentation Effective?

You’ve probably attended a presentation where the presenter reads off of their PowerPoint outline, word for word. Or where the presentation is busy, disorganized, or includes too much information. Here are some simple tips for creating an effective PowerPoint Presentation.

Less is more: You want to give enough information to make your audience want to read your paper. So include details, but not too many, and avoid too many formulas and technical jargon.
Clean and professional : Avoid excessive colors, distracting backgrounds, font changes, animations, and too many words. Instead of whole paragraphs, bullet points with just a few words to summarize and highlight are best.
Know your real-estate : Each slide has a limited amount of space. Use it wisely. Typically one, no more than two points per slide. Balance each slide visually. Utilize illustrations when needed; not extraneously.
Keep things visual : Remember, a PowerPoint presentation is a powerful tool to present things visually. Use visual graphs over tables and scientific illustrations over long text. Keep your visuals clean and professional, just like any text you include in your presentation.

Know more about our Scientific Illustrations Services .

Another key to an effective presentation is to practice, practice, and then practice some more. When you’re done with your PowerPoint, go through it with friends and colleagues to see if you need to add (or delete excessive) information. Double and triple check for typos and errors. Know the presentation inside and out, so when you’re in front of your audience, you’ll feel confident and comfortable.

How to Present a Research Paper

If your PowerPoint presentation is solid, and you’ve practiced your presentation, that’s half the battle. Follow the basic advice to keep your audience engaged and interested by making eye contact, encouraging questions, and presenting your information with enthusiasm.

We encourage you to read our articles on how to present a scientific journal article and tips on giving good scientific presentations .

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Lay Summary: Promote Your Work Outside Academia

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How to Make a Successful Research Presentation

Turning a research paper into a visual presentation is difficult; there are pitfalls, and navigating the path to a brief, informative presentation takes time and practice. As a TA for GEO/WRI 201: Methods in Data Analysis & Scientific Writing this past fall, I saw how this process works from an instructor’s standpoint. I’ve presented my own research before, but helping others present theirs taught me a bit more about the process. Here are some tips I learned that may help you with your next research presentation:

More is more

In general, your presentation will always benefit from more practice, more feedback, and more revision. By practicing in front of friends, you can get comfortable with presenting your work while receiving feedback. It is hard to know how to revise your presentation if you never practice. If you are presenting to a general audience, getting feedback from someone outside of your discipline is crucial. Terms and ideas that seem intuitive to you may be completely foreign to someone else, and your well-crafted presentation could fall flat.

Less is more

Limit the scope of your presentation, the number of slides, and the text on each slide. In my experience, text works well for organizing slides, orienting the audience to key terms, and annotating important figures–not for explaining complex ideas. Having fewer slides is usually better as well. In general, about one slide per minute of presentation is an appropriate budget. Too many slides is usually a sign that your topic is too broad.

Limit the scope of your presentation

Don’t present your paper. Presentations are usually around 10 min long. You will not have time to explain all of the research you did in a semester (or a year!) in such a short span of time. Instead, focus on the highlight(s). Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

You will not have time to explain all of the research you did. Instead, focus on the highlights. Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

Craft a compelling research narrative

After identifying the focused research question, walk your audience through your research as if it were a story. Presentations with strong narrative arcs are clear, captivating, and compelling.

Introduction (exposition — rising action)

Orient the audience and draw them in by demonstrating the relevance and importance of your research story with strong global motive. Provide them with the necessary vocabulary and background knowledge to understand the plot of your story. Introduce the key studies (characters) relevant in your story and build tension and conflict with scholarly and data motive. By the end of your introduction, your audience should clearly understand your research question and be dying to know how you resolve the tension built through motive.

Methods (rising action)

The methods section should transition smoothly and logically from the introduction. Beware of presenting your methods in a boring, arc-killing, ‘this is what I did.’ Focus on the details that set your story apart from the stories other people have already told. Keep the audience interested by clearly motivating your decisions based on your original research question or the tension built in your introduction.

Results (climax)

Less is usually more here. Only present results which are clearly related to the focused research question you are presenting. Make sure you explain the results clearly so that your audience understands what your research found. This is the peak of tension in your narrative arc, so don’t undercut it by quickly clicking through to your discussion.

Discussion (falling action)

By now your audience should be dying for a satisfying resolution. Here is where you contextualize your results and begin resolving the tension between past research. Be thorough. If you have too many conflicts left unresolved, or you don’t have enough time to present all of the resolutions, you probably need to further narrow the scope of your presentation.

Conclusion (denouement)

Return back to your initial research question and motive, resolving any final conflicts and tying up loose ends. Leave the audience with a clear resolution of your focus research question, and use unresolved tension to set up potential sequels (i.e. further research).

Use your medium to enhance the narrative

Visual presentations should be dominated by clear, intentional graphics. Subtle animation in key moments (usually during the results or discussion) can add drama to the narrative arc and make conflict resolutions more satisfying. You are narrating a story written in images, videos, cartoons, and graphs. While your paper is mostly text, with graphics to highlight crucial points, your slides should be the opposite. Adapting to the new medium may require you to create or acquire far more graphics than you included in your paper, but it is necessary to create an engaging presentation.

The most important thing you can do for your presentation is to practice and revise. Bother your friends, your roommates, TAs–anybody who will sit down and listen to your work. Beyond that, think about presentations you have found compelling and try to incorporate some of those elements into your own. Remember you want your work to be comprehensible; you aren’t creating experts in 10 minutes. Above all, try to stay passionate about what you did and why. You put the time in, so show your audience that it’s worth it.

For more insight into research presentations, check out these past PCUR posts written by Emma and Ellie .

— Alec Getraer, Natural Sciences Correspondent

Presenting paper research using PowerPoint: best practices

How to write a research paper ppt.

To create your research thesis presentation, you have to write it first in the doc version. We recommend starting slides after you’ve collected and structured enough data and findings. You will get tired of changing slides all the time. If you lack time or skills, you can order PowerPoint presentation services .

Text features of the research paper presentation ppt:

You have to focus on salient points to deliver valuable data while being on time.
You should express gratitude to the organizers and audience at the end.
The presentation states the importance/impact of your study (answers ‘so what’ question).
It includes not only your findings but also related and credible quotes.
It must show your results instead of talking about the literature.
It should not include more than two objectives.

Design features of the research paper presentation:

A typical research presentation takes up to 15 minutes (better 10).
A presentation has to include no more than 25 slides.
Do not throw paragraphs on slides and add less than 50 words per slide.
Do not display more than two images per slide; add image titles and animation.
Do not use fancy font styles less than 30pt: use Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri 48pt.
Use consistent and neutral colors and avoid text overlaying images.
Do not use multiple-style bullets.
Use keywords rather than paragraphs.
Be consistent in animation and use the ‘one by one’ animation option.
Do not clutter text and organize it according to its relativity.

Research Paper Presentation Outline or Slides to Include

Students and teachers use research papers to share facts, disclose evidence, and present findings interpreted in their own manner. To keep peers’ interest, you have to include only relevant slides and stick to the point.

Examples of slides to include in your research paper ppt:

Self-introduction (name, affiliation, country);
Study title;
Purpose statement;
Scope and limitation;
Research design and methodology;
Research gap;
Study significance;
Literature review;
Theoretical framework;
Study objectivity;
Research questions;
Hypothesis;
Questionnaire detail;
Conclusion;
Recommendations.

It is not a strict outline, and you can omit some slides or add them in another sequence. The point is to add concise slides that reveal your study and deliver its significance due to each slide supplementing the next one and vice versa. And it depends on you how many slides you need to demonstrate it.

How to Present a Research Paper?

Presentation skills can be your superpower in the research argument delivery. Despite the audience type and size, your task is to defend your thesis and fill your peers with confidence. Indeed, people remember how you make them feel, not your words. Review these paper presentation tips and techniques to deliver a killer research presentation.

Know Your Audience

Sometimes, you will change for your audience, and it’s OK. If you want to be heard and accepted, you have to consider people’s backgrounds, interests, or even the average age. Therefore, discover and analyze who your audience is and the exact information they need before the presentation. Using the right terminology and knowledge level will set a connection between you and people because the worst thing you can do is to present to people who hear your subject first. Nobody likes to feel stupid, so always think about who will be in the room.

Tell a Story

After you’ve defined your audience, the next task is to make your research a story with structure. People will not remember figures or words as strong as they can remember the story with a typical story structure. If you can adjust your research paper slides to a necessary outline, you will attract the audience and make them remember you. If you doubt slides design, never hesitate to get a professional look or PowerPoint redesign from the agency.

Follow the next simple story structure:

AND: include background with statements so that people understand what you’re saying.
BUT: add the biggest possible and emotional problem statement your research is solving.
THEREFORE: provide relief and present a solution to the problem you’ve set up.

Those are elementary steps to telling a story that flows. Besides, they will help you not to get lost or muddled up about your presentation with plenty of research data.

Energy Structure

If you want to capture their attention immediately, you have to practice and find a balance between a noisy man that erases any boundaries and a static person without emotions. You have to demonstrate your interest in the research and, thus, engage people till the presentation ends. An emotional and impactful statement is what people will remember, not the table you’ve designed for 5 hours for the research paper writing ppt part.

As we’ve mentioned, people will remember not what you’ve said but how you’ve made them feel. Therefore, you have to both develop your slides and inject the necessary mind-thinking into your process of creating the research presentation. A creative story and attractive slides always increase the impactfulness of what you’re saying.

If you need help with slide design, get in touch with our agency and receive custom and unique research paper slides for any subject.

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How to Present a Research Paper using PowerPoint [Sample + Tips]

posted on September 30, 2017

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Spending couple of months or years in research seems less difficult as compared to presenting it. Presenting your research work to a bunch of experts can be very difficult sometimes. Your audience will only like well-crafted presentation.

There are certain things you need to take care of. Presenting a research paper is quite different from a talk or any other presentation. In research paper presentation, you are going to discuss everything that you have done and achieved during your research in limited time.

There is a specific outline that experts recommend that you must follow during your research paper presentation.

Research Paper Presentation Outline

Introduction.

Give the brief introduction of your work. For example, if you are going to work on a disease than describe the

disease. Focus on the things on which you have worked on. If you are working on genes of that disease then it will be important discuss the genetic pathways of the disease in your introduction.

You may discuss the “problem” on which you have worked on during your research.

Things that you need to remember,

Focus on the relevant information
Do not more than 3 slides on the introduction

Methodology

It’s about the recipe and spices of your research work. Mention all the materials that were required to do the task and how miraculously you did it. Using flowcharts in your PowerPoint slides can help you to present it in the more engaging way.

Try to fit it in 2 slides only. Emphasis on any special equipment or build that you have used during your work.

Tell your audience about the verifiable objectives you had while doing this research. It doesn’t matter if they vary from your results, it is necessary to tell the audience what were you looking for.

Consume only one slide
Make it concise
You are allowed to use fancy words or good vocabulary here

Results and Discussion

Write down your results, most possibly in the form of the table. Try not to confuse your audience with so much numerical data so charts will work fine. Highlight if you have something novel in your results.

Try to interpret your results in 2-3 points. The conclusion must be very meaningful for audiences. It must not be ambiguous. Usually, a single statement is enough.

Future Recommendations

What can be done more on your particle topic? This is very important if you are going to pursue the same topic in your further studies. It will help you to have a future objective for yourself.

Tips for Research Paper Presentations

There should be 5*5 rules in each slide. I.e. there are five words in one sentence and there should be five lines on one slide.
Data should be in the form of small key points or bullets . Data should not be in paragraph form on the slide. It should be precise. Slides are not for the audience it just hints for the presenter. The presenter should explain all terms and every concept that is written on slide.
Standard heading size is 44 while standard text size is 32.
Make link of one slide with the second slide during the presentation. For example, tell the audience what they will listen and see in next slide.
The template of PowerPoint presentation should not have shocking color. Text color should be in contrast with template color. If somewhere in slides text color is same as template audience would not be able to see what is written on it.
There should be slide number on every slide except title slide.
All slides should be in homogeneity. The presenter should use either upper case or lower case alphabets in the text of the whole presentation.
There should be the use of animations but no use of transitions.
There should be a table of content of presentation on the slide next to title slide. By explaining this presenter should give an overview of the whole presentation.