Session 2: Elevator pitch and critical reading

The “elevator pitch”: Why and how to prepare a brief (3-5 minute) verbal presentation of your research for non-technical audiences outside your field, including journalists, policymakers, financing agencies, partner scientists involved in multidisciplinary research, prospective employers, business users of research findings and even friends and family.

This session will provide an overview of:

• The “inverted pyramid” structure for organising your points from broad to specific.
• How to describe the potential benefits of your study (economic, social and scientific), the current state of knowledge in the field and the gap you intend to close, and how you are approaching the challenge in scientific/engineering terms.
• The importance of having a written script, whether you intend to speak from memory, use bullet points for support, or read the script verbatim.
• Use of visual aids (PowerPoint slides).
• Defining, delivering and reinforcing the “audience takeaway” that makes your objective(s) clear to your listeners. Are you requesting funding, seeking scientific partners from other disciplines, applying for a job?

Critical Reading: Students will be provided with offprints of four popular science articles from a variety of news outlets: daily papers, weekly newsmagazines and monthly magazines. In a seminar discussion, we will analyse these articles for such issues as clarity, message, structure, and balance between popularisation of the topic vs. rigorous presentation of complex scientific concepts.

Preperations: Please come to the seminar prepared to offer at least one positive and one critical comment about one or more of the articles.