Presentations: Or, the overwhelming fear you’re doing it wrong

Posted October 29, 2015 by Tara Pealer

I love to give presentations. Give me a PowerPoint or Prezi, a somewhat captive audience, a chance to pretend to organize my notes, and I’m off.

My philosophy for presenting is ‘if you want to make a splash, you’ve got to jump’. For me, that means is that when I start a presentation, I go into it believing that the most important part of a successful presentation is the actual presenting. If I go into a presentation knowing everything, having an exact plan, but get nervous and stumble or get mentally disorganized, I feel like I’ve negated any work I’ve done. My confidence is derailed completely.

Other people, I know, feel confident in their presentation if they’ve collected and organized all the knowledge they wanted to get across. They just hate the presenting part.

I’m flashy. I’ve got the substance, sure, but flash is where it’s at for me. I did a presentation last week which I kicked off by handing out two jars of m&m’s to the closest guesses of the number of book challenges reported in 2014, and reported since 1982. At the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association 2015 Conference, I included a Mockingjay .gif and ironically used PowerPoint animations to make a ‘Spoilers’ slide. I spent two weeks picking out an outfit (it was a national conference, in my defense). The substance, the research, and the arguments were all there, but the performance part of the presentation was what I focused on.

However, it’s this philosophy which gets me into trouble with poster presentations. Poster presentations have to look nice, sure, but they highlight the substance and, in my experience, the posters are the ones doing the talking. Posters aren’t flashy. They look professional and clean, and they can’t tell a video of Stan Lee to ‘shush’. They won’t have a video of Stan Lee at all. Posters can’t jump to make a splash. Poster presentations are more about one-on-one interactions and less about performing.

Which is why I was disappointed that I had to work during the Poster-iffic event with Professor Mary Wilkins-Jordan, presented by the SC-ALA. I’ve done poster presentations before, and was terrified that I would make a mistake. Other friends and colleagues, I know, felt much more comfortable with their own poster presentations. It’s a skill I struggle with.

All of this is to say that when it comes to presenting, everyone has their own style, and while many may seem daunting, the SLIS programs and student groups do their best to prepare and assist students in being able to learn these important skills.