Last updated: 2026-10-06

U
Undergraduate level

Presentations and Demonstrations

A presentation or demonstration tests whether you can explain what the project did and why it matters, in the time given, to people who have not lived with it for months. It is a different skill from writing the report, and the two reinforce each other. A presentation that has to answer questions from a room will show quickly which parts of the argument are clear and which are not.oral vs written: different constraints

This page covers planning the talk around the question, showing a working artefact without losing the audience, and handling questions. The argument should be the same as the report's, shortened and reordered for a listener.

Start From the Question

A presentation should be organised around the question, not the chronology of the project. The audience wants to know what was asked, what was done, what was found, and what it means. The order in which you did the work is rarely the order that makes sense to someone hearing it for the first time.

A useful outline for a short talk, of around ten minutes, is:

  1. The question and why it matters, in one or two minutes.
  2. The approach, in enough detail to show it was reasoned, in two minutes.
  3. The main result, shown as a figure or a single number with its uncertainty, in three minutes.
  4. What the result means and what it does not show, in two minutes.
  5. What you would do next, in one minute.

Leave the detail for questions. Anything you cannot explain in the time is a candidate for the appendix of the report, not for the slides.

Slides That Carry an Argument

Each slide should make one point, stated as a sentence the audience can read at a glance. A slide titled "Results" tells the audience nothing. A slide titled "The new method halves the error on the hardest cases" tells them what to look for in the figure beneath. Use figures in preference to tables, and label every axis and unit so that nobody has to guess.

Show the uncertainty. A result shown without its range invites the audience to read a small difference as large. A bar with an error bar, or a short sentence giving the interval, costs one line and protects the claim.

Demonstrations

A live demonstration of a working artefact is persuasive, and it is also the most likely part of a talk to fail. Plan for failure before it happens.

  • Rehearse on the presentation machine, with the same network, display, and peripherals, not only on your own laptop.
  • Prepare a recording of the demonstration working, and play it if the live version fails. Tell the audience what they are seeing.
  • Use a fixed script with a small number of steps, each with an expected result you have written down.
  • Keep the demonstration short. Two minutes showing the key behaviour is more convincing than ten minutes showing everything.

If the demonstration depends on data or a network connection, check both the day before. The risk register from Risk Analysis for a Project should include the demonstration itself.treat the demo as a first-class risk item

Handling Questions

Questions are the part of the presentation that shows whether you understand the project. A few habits help:

  • Repeat the question before answering, so that the whole room hears it and you have a moment to think.
  • Say when you do not know. "I have not tested that, but I would expect X, for this reason" is a better answer than a guess presented as a fact.
  • Separate what you measured from what you believe. The first is evidence. The second is a judgement, and the audience should be able to tell them apart.
  • Use the limitations you already listed. A question about a limitation is easier to answer when you named the limitation yourself in the talk.

Practise the likely hard questions with a peer. The most useful ones are usually "why did you not compare against X?", "how do you know this is not chance?", and "what would make you change your conclusion?" The critical analysis in Designing Experiments and Writing Critical Analysis prepares you for all three.

Timing and Rehearsal

Rehearse the talk aloud, at least twice, with a timer. Most students overrun because they rehearse silently and underestimate how long a sentence takes to say. Cut from the middle of the talk, not the end, and keep the question and the conclusion intact.