The theory

Explaining your research to your peers, funding councils, other stakeholders and the general public is a professional necessity. Unfortunately, however, scientists do not enjoy the best reputation as communicators even when giving a research talk aimed at their peers. There are plenty of books and websites giving advice on how to use packages such as PowerPoint, how to decide about the content of a presentation or how to keep the audience interested using multimedia (Meredith, 2010). These sources will tell you how to improve your performance, to keep to time and to deal with the questions during the talk or after it. This is all very useful and important but we think that the key to a successful presentation is your engagement with your subject and your audience.

If you go to a live performance by famous musicians, you might notice something – invariably the music speaks through them, their bodies and instruments. The best ones are no longer there in some sense; they are lost, immersed; they channel the music. They are not preoccupied with how they look or what the audience thinks about their performance – the only thing that counts is living the music – becoming the music. Much the same can be said about a research talk, no matter what the subject is. The best speakers we have heard were ‘hardly there’ – all that counted was their subject; they were the subject.