The last two decades have witnessed an explosion of scientific information in an academic environment that is becoming ever more complex and competitive. Whereas 20 years ago little attention was paid to developing professional skills for young scientists, it is now widely recognized that professional presentation skills are an indispensable cornerstone of a successful scientific career. Today, most universities offer workshops or courses to help young scientists develop professional skills. Presentation Skills for Scientists is the most recent instructional text targeted at improving scientific presentation skills for scientists. The book results from an unusual collaboration between Edward Zanders, a biomedical research scientist who has worked both in academia and industry, and Lindsay MacLeod, a London tourist guide.
Presentation Skills for Scientists reiterates many of the pointers voiced in previous monographs, much of which is common sense – although often ignored – practical advice, such as knowing your audience, planning and rehearsing the presentation, staying within the allotted time, voice projection and eye contact with the audience, and the use of clear visual images that appropriately support the presentation. The book appears targeted to the novice speaker and heavily focused on instilling confidence in and providing encouragement for nervous speakers. In fact, an entire chapter is devoted to ‘controlling nerves’ and the accompanying DVD-ROM contains a substantial segment on breathing and relaxation exercises (some of which might instill panic in the audience with a desire to rush to the aid of the speaker if he or she were observed executing these exercises in a seminar room prior to the presentation). That is not to say that the emphasis on controlling nerves, which permeates most chapters of the book, is not helpful. On the contrary, the ‘we have all been there, just take a deep breath and you'll be okay’ mantra can be reassuring to those who are facing their first initiation in the academic arena. The emphasis on controlling nerves, voice modulation and audience contact, although important considerations in their own right, distracts from what should after all be the main focus of a scientific presentation, the organization of its content. Although the authors provide general guidelines, including advice on keeping the conclusion brief and to the point, the classic concept of ‘telling what you're gonna tell ‘em, then tell ‘em, then tell ‘em what you told them’ is never placed at center stage. Although the book contains many amusing anecdotes, its impact would have benefited greatly if more relevant examples were incorporated in the text.
Nevertheless, Presentation Skills for Scientists is a useful resource. One of its advantages is its small size and user-friendly format. With only 68 pages (including the Index) in a wide-spaced fairly large font, the book can be read within about an hour, and there is no doubt that the reader will benefit from some of the advice presented. What sets this book, however, apart from other books on scientific presentation is the sample presentation contained on the accompanying DVD-ROM. This illustrates systematically side-by-side bad and good aspects of an imaginary presentation, a well-conceived and amusing story of the discovery of the fictitious OOPS gene on the Y-chromosome, which encodes the male-specific forgettin protein. This series of short video clips is instructive and provides a vivid demonstration of how to and how not to deliver a scientific presentation. Like its predecessors, Presentation Skills for Scientists dispels the myth that being a good or a poor speaker is predetermined by an immutable innate talent. The authors aptly quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said ‘All the great speakers were bad speakers first.’
