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How to present a research paper in PPT: best practices

A research paper presentation is frequently used at conferences and other events where you have a chance to share the results of your research and receive feedback from colleagues. Although it may appear as simple as summarizing the findings, successful examples of research paper presentations show that there is a little bit more to it.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the basic outline and steps to create a good research paper presentation. We’ll also explain what to include and what not to include in your presentation of research paper and share some of the most effective tips you can use to take your slides to the next level.

Research paper PowerPoint presentation outline

Creating a PowerPoint presentation for a research paper involves organizing and summarizing your key findings, methodology, and conclusions in a way that encourages your audience to interact with your work and share their interest in it with others. Here’s a basic research paper outline PowerPoint you can follow:

1. Title (1 slide)

Typically, your title slide should contain the following information:

• Title of the research paper
• Affiliation or institution
• Date of presentation

2. Introduction (1-3 slides)

On this slide of your presentation, briefly introduce the research topic and its significance and state the research question or objective.

3. Research questions or hypothesis (1 slide)

This slide should emphasize the objectives of your research or present the hypothesis.

4. Literature review (1 slide)

Your literature review has to provide context for your research by summarizing relevant literature. Additionally, it should highlight gaps or areas where your research contributes.

5. Methodology and data collection (1-2 slides)

This slide of your research paper PowerPoint has to explain the research design, methods, and procedures. It must also Include details about participants, materials, and data collection and emphasize special equipment you have used in your work.

6. Results (3-5 slides)

On this slide, you must present the results of your data analysis and discuss any trends, patterns, or significant findings. Moreover, you should use charts, graphs, and tables to illustrate data and highlight something novel in your results (if applicable).

7. Conclusion (1 slide)

Your conclusion slide has to summarize the main findings and their implications, as well as discuss the broader impact of your research. Usually, a single statement is enough.

8. Recommendations (1 slide)

If applicable, provide recommendations for future research or actions on this slide.

9. References (1-2 slides)

The references slide is where you list all the sources cited in your research paper.

10. Acknowledgments (1 slide)

On this presentation slide, acknowledge any individuals, organizations, or funding sources that contributed to your research.

11. Appendix (1 slide)

If applicable, include any supplementary materials, such as additional data or detailed charts, in your appendix slide.

The above outline is just a general guideline, so make sure to adjust it based on your specific research paper and the time allotted for the presentation.

Steps to creating a memorable research paper presentation

Creating a PowerPoint presentation for a research paper involves several critical steps needed to convey your findings and engage your audience effectively, and these steps are as follows:

Step 1. Understand your audience:

• Identify the audience for your presentation.
• Tailor your content and level of detail to match the audience’s background and knowledge.

Step 2. Define your key messages:

• Clearly articulate the main messages or findings of your research.
• Identify the key points you want your audience to remember.

Step 3. Design your research paper PPT presentation:

• Use a clean and professional design that complements your research topic.
• Choose readable fonts, consistent formatting, and a limited color palette.
• Opt for PowerPoint presentation services if slide design is not your strong side.

Step 4. Put content on slides:

• Follow the outline above to structure your presentation effectively; include key sections and topics.
• Organize your content logically, following the flow of your research paper.

Step 5. Final check:

• Proofread your slides for typos, errors, and inconsistencies.
• Ensure all visuals are clear, high-quality, and properly labeled.

Step 6. Save and share:

• Save your presentation and ensure compatibility with the equipment you’ll be using.
• If necessary, share a copy of your presentation with the audience.

By following these steps, you can create a well-organized and visually appealing research paper presentation PowerPoint that effectively conveys your research findings to the audience.

What to include and what not to include in your presentation

In addition to the must-know PowerPoint presentation recommendations, which we’ll cover later in this article, consider the following do’s and don’ts when you’re putting together your research paper presentation:

• Focus on the topic.
• Be brief and to the point.
• Attract the audience’s attention and highlight interesting details.
• Use only relevant visuals (maps, charts, pictures, graphs, etc.).
• Use numbers and bullet points to structure the content.
• Make clear statements regarding the essence and results of your research.

Don’ts:

• Don’t write down the whole outline of your paper and nothing else.
• Don’t put long, full sentences on your slides; split them into smaller ones.
• Don’t use distracting patterns, colors, pictures, and other visuals on your slides; the simpler, the better.
• Don’t use too complicated graphs or charts; only the ones that are easy to understand.
• Now that we’ve discussed the basics, let’s move on to the top tips for making a powerful presentation of your research paper.

8 tips on how to make research paper presentation that achieves its goals

You’ve probably been to a presentation where the presenter reads word for word from their PowerPoint outline. Or where the presentation is cluttered, chaotic, or contains too much data. The simple tips below will help you summarize a 10 to 15-page paper for a 15 to 20-minute talk and succeed, so read on!

Tip #1: Less is more

You want to provide enough information to make your audience want to know more. Including details but not too many and avoiding technical jargon, formulas, and long sentences are always good ways to achieve this.

Tip #2: Be professional

Avoid using too many colors, font changes, distracting backgrounds, animations, etc. Bullet points with a few words to highlight the important information are preferable to lengthy paragraphs. Additionally, include slide numbers on all PowerPoint slides except for the title slide, and make sure it is followed by a table of contents, offering a brief overview of the entire research paper.

Tip #3: Strive for balance

PowerPoint slides have limited space, so use it carefully. Typically, one to two points per slide or 5 lines for 5 words in a sentence are enough to present your ideas.

Tip #4: Use proper fonts and text size

The font you use should be easy to read and consistent throughout the slides. You can go with Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri, or a combination of these three. An ideal text size is 32 points, while a heading size is 44.

Tip #5: Concentrate on the visual side

A PowerPoint presentation is one of the best tools for presenting information visually. Use graphs instead of tables and topic-relevant illustrations instead of walls of text. Keep your visuals as clean and professional as the content of your presentation.

Tip #6: Practice your delivery

Always go through your presentation when you’re done to ensure a smooth and confident delivery and time yourself to stay within the allotted limit.

Tip #7: Get ready for questions

Anticipate potential questions from your audience and prepare thoughtful responses. Also, be ready to engage in discussions about your research.

Tip #8: Don’t be afraid to utilize professional help

If the mere thought of designing a presentation overwhelms you or you’re pressed for time, consider leveraging professional PowerPoint redesign services . A dedicated design team can transform your content or old presentation into effective slides, ensuring your message is communicated clearly and captivates your audience. This way, you can focus on refining your delivery and preparing for the presentation.

Lastly, remember that even experienced presenters get nervous before delivering research paper PowerPoint presentations in front of the audience. You cannot know everything; some things can be beyond your control, which is completely fine. You are at the event not only to share what you know but also to learn from others. So, no matter what, dress appropriately, look straight into the audience’s eyes, try to speak and move naturally, present your information enthusiastically, and have fun!

If you need help with slide design, get in touch with our dedicated design team and let qualified professionals turn your research findings into a visually appealing, polished presentation that leaves a lasting impression on your audience. Our experienced designers specialize in creating engaging layouts, incorporating compelling graphics, and ensuring a cohesive visual narrative that complements content on any subject.

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How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation of Your Research Paper

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Table of Contents

A research paper presentation is often used at conferences and in other settings where you have an opportunity to share your research, and get feedback from your colleagues. Although it may seem as simple as summarizing your research and sharing your knowledge, successful research paper PowerPoint presentation examples show us that there’s a little bit more than that involved.

In this article, we’ll highlight how to make a PowerPoint presentation from a research paper, and what to include (as well as what NOT to include). We’ll also touch on how to present a research paper at a conference.

Purpose of a Research Paper Presentation

The purpose of presenting your paper at a conference or forum is different from the purpose of conducting your research and writing up your paper. In this setting, you want to highlight your work instead of including every detail of your research. Likewise, a presentation is an excellent opportunity to get direct feedback from your colleagues in the field. But, perhaps the main reason for presenting your research is to spark interest in your work, and entice the audience to read your research paper.

So, yes, your presentation should summarize your work, but it needs to do so in a way that encourages your audience to seek out your work, and share their interest in your work with others. It’s not enough just to present your research dryly, to get information out there. More important is to encourage engagement with you, your research, and your work.

Tips for Creating Your Research Paper Presentation

In addition to basic PowerPoint presentation recommendations, which we’ll cover later in this article, think about the following when you’re putting together your research paper presentation:

• Know your audience : First and foremost, who are you presenting to? Students? Experts in your field? Potential funders? Non-experts? The truth is that your audience will probably have a bit of a mix of all of the above. So, make sure you keep that in mind as you prepare your presentation.

Know more about: Discover the Target Audience .

• Your audience is human : In other words, they may be tired, they might be wondering why they’re there, and they will, at some point, be tuning out. So, take steps to help them stay interested in your presentation. You can do that by utilizing effective visuals, summarize your conclusions early, and keep your research easy to understand.
• Running outline : It’s not IF your audience will drift off, or get lost…it’s WHEN. Keep a running outline, either within the presentation or via a handout. Use visual and verbal clues to highlight where you are in the presentation.
• Where does your research fit in? You should know of work related to your research, but you don’t have to cite every example. In addition, keep references in your presentation to the end, or in the handout. Your audience is there to hear about your work.
• Plan B : Anticipate possible questions for your presentation, and prepare slides that answer those specific questions in more detail, but have them at the END of your presentation. You can then jump to them, IF needed.

What Makes a PowerPoint Presentation Effective?

You’ve probably attended a presentation where the presenter reads off of their PowerPoint outline, word for word. Or where the presentation is busy, disorganized, or includes too much information. Here are some simple tips for creating an effective PowerPoint Presentation.

• Less is more: You want to give enough information to make your audience want to read your paper. So include details, but not too many, and avoid too many formulas and technical jargon.
• Clean and professional : Avoid excessive colors, distracting backgrounds, font changes, animations, and too many words. Instead of whole paragraphs, bullet points with just a few words to summarize and highlight are best.
• Know your real-estate : Each slide has a limited amount of space. Use it wisely. Typically one, no more than two points per slide. Balance each slide visually. Utilize illustrations when needed; not extraneously.
• Keep things visual : Remember, a PowerPoint presentation is a powerful tool to present things visually. Use visual graphs over tables and scientific illustrations over long text. Keep your visuals clean and professional, just like any text you include in your presentation.

Know more about our Scientific Illustrations Services .

Another key to an effective presentation is to practice, practice, and then practice some more. When you’re done with your PowerPoint, go through it with friends and colleagues to see if you need to add (or delete excessive) information. Double and triple check for typos and errors. Know the presentation inside and out, so when you’re in front of your audience, you’ll feel confident and comfortable.

How to Present a Research Paper

If your PowerPoint presentation is solid, and you’ve practiced your presentation, that’s half the battle. Follow the basic advice to keep your audience engaged and interested by making eye contact, encouraging questions, and presenting your information with enthusiasm.

We encourage you to read our articles on how to present a scientific journal article and tips on giving good scientific presentations .

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Improve the flow and writing of your research paper with Language Editing Plus. This service includes unlimited editing, manuscript formatting for the journal of your choice, reference check and even a customized cover letter. Learn more here , and get started today!

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How to Convert Academic Research papers to PowerPoint for effective Presentation delivery

Unlock the art of presenting research papers with ease! Learn to convert them into PowerPoint.

Step 1: Visit Google Slides

Step 2: Download MagicSlides Extension

Step 3: Locate Your Research Paper

Step 4: Upload the Research Paper

Step 5: Click "Generate Presentation"

Step 6: Your Research Paper is Now a PowerPoint Presentation

Conclusion:

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How to Make a Successful Research Presentation

Turning a research paper into a visual presentation is difficult; there are pitfalls, and navigating the path to a brief, informative presentation takes time and practice. As a TA for  GEO/WRI 201: Methods in Data Analysis & Scientific Writing this past fall, I saw how this process works from an instructor’s standpoint. I’ve presented my own research before, but helping others present theirs taught me a bit more about the process. Here are some tips I learned that may help you with your next research presentation:

More is more

In general, your presentation will always benefit from more practice, more feedback, and more revision. By practicing in front of friends, you can get comfortable with presenting your work while receiving feedback. It is hard to know how to revise your presentation if you never practice. If you are presenting to a general audience, getting feedback from someone outside of your discipline is crucial. Terms and ideas that seem intuitive to you may be completely foreign to someone else, and your well-crafted presentation could fall flat.

Less is more

Limit the scope of your presentation, the number of slides, and the text on each slide. In my experience, text works well for organizing slides, orienting the audience to key terms, and annotating important figures–not for explaining complex ideas. Having fewer slides is usually better as well. In general, about one slide per minute of presentation is an appropriate budget. Too many slides is usually a sign that your topic is too broad.

Limit the scope of your presentation

Don’t present your paper. Presentations are usually around 10 min long. You will not have time to explain all of the research you did in a semester (or a year!) in such a short span of time. Instead, focus on the highlight(s). Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

You will not have time to explain all of the research you did. Instead, focus on the highlights. Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

Craft a compelling research narrative

After identifying the focused research question, walk your audience through your research as if it were a story. Presentations with strong narrative arcs are clear, captivating, and compelling.

• Introduction (exposition — rising action)

Orient the audience and draw them in by demonstrating the relevance and importance of your research story with strong global motive. Provide them with the necessary vocabulary and background knowledge to understand the plot of your story. Introduce the key studies (characters) relevant in your story and build tension and conflict with scholarly and data motive. By the end of your introduction, your audience should clearly understand your research question and be dying to know how you resolve the tension built through motive.

• Methods (rising action)

The methods section should transition smoothly and logically from the introduction. Beware of presenting your methods in a boring, arc-killing, ‘this is what I did.’ Focus on the details that set your story apart from the stories other people have already told. Keep the audience interested by clearly motivating your decisions based on your original research question or the tension built in your introduction.

• Results (climax)

Less is usually more here. Only present results which are clearly related to the focused research question you are presenting. Make sure you explain the results clearly so that your audience understands what your research found. This is the peak of tension in your narrative arc, so don’t undercut it by quickly clicking through to your discussion.

• Discussion (falling action)

By now your audience should be dying for a satisfying resolution. Here is where you contextualize your results and begin resolving the tension between past research. Be thorough. If you have too many conflicts left unresolved, or you don’t have enough time to present all of the resolutions, you probably need to further narrow the scope of your presentation.

• Conclusion (denouement)

Return back to your initial research question and motive, resolving any final conflicts and tying up loose ends. Leave the audience with a clear resolution of your focus research question, and use unresolved tension to set up potential sequels (i.e. further research).

Use your medium to enhance the narrative

Visual presentations should be dominated by clear, intentional graphics. Subtle animation in key moments (usually during the results or discussion) can add drama to the narrative arc and make conflict resolutions more satisfying. You are narrating a story written in images, videos, cartoons, and graphs. While your paper is mostly text, with graphics to highlight crucial points, your slides should be the opposite. Adapting to the new medium may require you to create or acquire far more graphics than you included in your paper, but it is necessary to create an engaging presentation.

The most important thing you can do for your presentation is to practice and revise. Bother your friends, your roommates, TAs–anybody who will sit down and listen to your work. Beyond that, think about presentations you have found compelling and try to incorporate some of those elements into your own. Remember you want your work to be comprehensible; you aren’t creating experts in 10 minutes. Above all, try to stay passionate about what you did and why. You put the time in, so show your audience that it’s worth it.

For more insight into research presentations, check out these past PCUR posts written by Emma and Ellie .

— Alec Getraer, Natural Sciences Correspondent

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How to Create a Powerful Research Presentation

Written by: Raja Mandal

Have you ever had to create a research presentation? If yes, you know how difficult it is to prepare an effective presentation that perfectly explains your research. Since it's a visual representation of your papers, a large chunk of its preparation goes into designing.

No one knows your research paper better than you. So, only you can create the presentation to communicate the core message perfectly. We've developed a practical, step-by-step guide to help you prepare a stellar research presentation.

Let's get started!

Table of Contents

What is a research presentation, purpose of a research presentation, how to prepare an effective research presentation, create a stunning presentation in less time.

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A research presentation is a visual representation of an individual's or organization's systematic investigation of a subject. It helps the presenter obtain feedback on their proposed research. For example, educational establishments require Higher Degree Research (HDR) students to present their research papers in a research presentation.

The purpose of a research presentation is to share the findings with the world. When done well, it helps achieve significant levels of impact in front of groups of people. Delivering the research paper as a presentation also communicates the subject matter in powerful ways.

A beautifully designed research presentation should:

• Explain the significance of your research.
• Clearly state your findings and the method of analysis.
• Get valuable feedback from others in your community to strengthen your research.
• Make the audience learn more about your work or read your research paper.

According to a recent survey, 79% of people agree that most presentations are boring. You should prepare your presentation in a way that attracts and persuades your audience while effectively sharing the information. Follow the steps below to do that.

Decide on Your Presentation’s Purpose

Beginning the design process without deciding on the purpose of your presentation is like crawling in the dark without knowing the destination. You should first know the purpose of your presentation before creating it.

The purpose of a research presentation can be defending a dissertation, an academic job interview, a conference, asking for funding, and various others. The rest of the process will depend on the purpose of your presentation.

Look at these 25 different presentation examples to get inspiration and find the one that best fits your needs.

Know Your Audience

You probably wouldn't speak to your lecturer like you talk to your friends. Creating a presentation is the same—you need to tailor your presentation's design, tone and content to make it appropriate for your audience.

To do that, you need to establish who your audience is. Your audience could be:

• Scientists/scholars in your field
• Graduate and undergraduate students
• Community members

Your target audience might be a mix of all of the above. In that case, it's better to have something for everyone. Once you know who your target audience is, ask yourself the following questions:

• Why are they here?
• What do they expect from your presentations?
• Are they willing to participate?
• What will keep them engaged?
• What do you want them to do and what's their part in your presentation?
• How do they prefer to receive information?

The answers to these questions will help you know your audience better and prepare your research presentation accordingly. Once you define your target audience, use these five traits of a highly engaging presentation to capture your audience's attention.

Create a Research Presentation Outline

Before crafting your presentation, it's crucial to create an outline. Your outline will act as your guide to put your information in order and ensure you touch on all your major points. Like other forms of academic writing, research presentations can be divided into several parts to make them more effective.

An outline helps guide you as you prepare your presentation as follows:

• It enables you to organize your ideas
• Presents your research in a logical format
• Shows the relationships among slides in your presentation
• Constructs an order overview of your presentation
• Groups ideas into main points

Though there is no universal formula for a research presentation outline, here's an example of what the outline should look like:

• Introduction and purpose
• Background and context
• Data and methodology
• Descriptive data
• Quantitative and qualitative analysis
• Future Research

Learn more about presentation structure to keep your audience engaged. Watch the video below for a better understanding.

Limit the Amount of Text on Your Slides

One of the most important things people often overlook is the amount of text on their presentation slides . Since the audience will be listening and watching, putting up a slide with lots of words will make them focus on reading instead of listening. As a result, they'll miss out on any critical points you are making.

The simpler you make your slides, the more your audience will grasp the meaning and retain the critical information. Here are a few ways to limit the amount of text on your slides.

1. Use Only Crucial Text on the Slides

Without making your point clear immediately, you will struggle to keep your audience's attention. Too much text can make your slides look cluttered and overwhelm the audience. Cut out waffle words, limiting content to the essentials.

To avoid cognitive overload, combine text and images . Add animated graphics , icons , characters and gestures to bring your research presentation to life and capture your audience's attention.

2. Split up the Content Onto Multiple Slides

We recommend using one piece of information on a single slide. If you're talking about two or more topics, divide the topics into different slides to make your slides easily digestible and less daunting. The less information on each slide, the more your audience is likely to read.

3. Put Key Message Into the Heading

Use the slide headings of your presentation as a summary message. Think about the one key point you want the audience to take from each slide. And make the header short and impactful. This will ensure that your audience gets the main points immediately.

For example, you may have a statistic you want to really get across to your audience. Include that number in your heading so that it's the first point your audience reads.

But what if that statistic changes? Having to manually go back and update the number throughout your research presentation can be time-consuming. With Visme's Dynamic Fields feature , updating important information throughout your presentation is a breeze. Take advantage of Dynamic Fields to ensure your data and research information is  always up to date and accurate.

4. Visualize Data Instead of Writing Them

When adding facts and figures to your research presentation, harness the power of data visualization . Add interactive charts and graphs to take out most of the text. Text with visuals causes a faster and stronger reaction than words alone, making your presentation more memorable. However, your data visualization should be straightforward to help create a narrative that further builds connections between information.

Have a look at these data visualization examples for inspiration. And here's an infographic explaining data visualization best practices.

Visme comes with a wide variety of charts and graphs templates you can use in your presentation.

5. Use Presenter Notes

Visme's Presenter Studio comes with a presenter notes feature that can help you keep your slides succinct. Use it to pull out any additional text that the audience needs to understand the content.

View your notes for each slide in the left sidebar of the presentation software to help you stay focused and on message throughout your presentation.

Explain Your Research

Since you're preparing a research presentation, use more slides to explain the research papers you directly contributed to. Sometimes people spend nearly all of the presentation going over the existing research and giving background information on the particular case.

Your audience is there to learn about your new and exciting research, not to hear a summary of old work. So, if you create 20 slides for the presentation, spend at least 15 slides explaining your research. However, don't try to include the words in the slide that you'll present.

Learn more about how to give a good presentation . This will help you explain your research more effectively.

Follow Presentation Design Best Practices

A study shows that 91% of presenters feel more confident when presenting a well-designed slide deck. So, let's move on to the design part of your research presentation to boost your confidence.

1. Create a Stunning Background

The background of each presentation slide is a crucial design element for your presentation. So choose the background carefully. Try not to use backgrounds that are distracting or make the text difficult to read.

Use simple backgrounds to make the slide aesthetically appealing. Always use the same background for the slides throughout the presentation. Look at these presentation background templates and examples to get inspired.

2. Use a Variety of Layouts

Slide after slide of the same layout makes your presentation repetitive and boring. Mixing up the layout of your slides can help you avoid this issue and keep your audience engaged.

The presentation template below has a wide variety of images, texts, icons and other elements to create an interesting layout for your presentation slides.

Have a look at these 29 best presentation templates for inspiration.

3. Use Colors Wisely

Colors play an essential role in designing your presentation slides, regardless of the type of presentation you're working with. However, if you're a non-designer, you might be unsure about about how to use colors in a presentation . So, here are some tips for you:

• Use complementary colors to stay on the safe side.
• Use a text color that contrasts with the background to make the text pop.
• Use colors to emphasize a text or design element.
• Keep colors simple — less is more.

Don't be discouraged if you still find it difficult to choose colors for your presentation. All the presentation templates in Visme come with perfect color combinations to get the job done for you. Below is an example.

4. Use Fonts Hierarchy

Fonts are another design element that can make or break the design of your research presentation. If you struggle a lot while choosing fonts for a presentation , you aren't alone. Here are some tips that you can follow:

• Try not to use smaller fonts that make your text difficult to read.
• Use different font sizes for headings and body text. For example, you can use 20 points for the body text, 24 for the subheadings and 40 for the title.
• Learn about font pairing and use it in your design. For example, use sans-serif with serif fonts as they always go well together.
• Use two or three fonts max—ideally two. One should be for the headlines and the other for the body text. Anything more than that can make your slides cluttered.
• Handwritten fonts and script fonts may look tempting, but they are a big no. They could negatively affect the readability and legibility of your research presentation.

Here's a Visme presentation template designed with the points mentioned above in mind.

5. Include High-Resolution Images

Are there any images you can use in your slides to introduce or explain a topic? What could be better than that? As the saying goes, "A picture tells a thousand words." Use pictures to help your audience listen to you more efficiently while viewing the slides.

Pictures can also help you reduce the text clutter in the presentation, as long as they prompt you to make the points you need to make. If you can't find an image for your presentation, browse through Visme's high-resolution stock photo library . It features over 1,000,000 free stock photos.

Have a look at the presentation template below. It includes only high-resolution images, like all the presentation templates in Visme.

Below is a video of 13 presentation design tips to help you design a research presentation that your audience will love.

Prepare Your Research Presentation Using Visme

Designing presentation slides from scratch isn't easy, especially if you have no experience. Fortunately, Visme comes with hundreds of professional presentation templates crafted by expert designers that make the job easy for you. You don't need any design experience to create effective research presentations.

Choose from hundreds of beautifully designed presentation templates and customize them according to your needs using Visme's all-in-one presentation software . Anyone can use our powerful software to create stunning presentations in minutes.

Create a free account in Visme today and start creating your research presentation like an expert.

Put together powerful research presentations in minutes with Visme.

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How to make a PowerPoint presentation from a research paper?

Academic presentations could be based on research in progress, unfinished work or the full drafts of a research paper. An academic presentation is a sort of like an advertisement for the paper than an attempt to present all the information in the paper. You need to focus on what is important, highlighting the bold outcomes and results is the key here. The below format is a very basic design showing you how to make a PowerPoint presentation from a research paper:

• Introduction (1 slide)
• Research Questions/Hypotheses (1 slide)
• Literature Review/Theory (1 slide)
• Methods & Data Collection (1 slide)
• Data Presentation/Findings (3-5 slides)
• Conclusion (1 slide)

Obviously, this is just a general guideline. It is however important that you focus on your findings, future implication of your work and limitation since it is the potential for future research. During a presentation method and data collection sections should be kept short. Though, this all depends on the nature of the work.

To create a presentation from a full-length paper or article, you can pull out the most important parts of the article, based on the above list or based on the subheadings in your own article.

For the introduction, you can use the same compelling introduction you use in your paper. In the PowerPoint presentation, it is a good idea to find a picture that describes the aim of your research. Visuals are considered very effective tools for keeping the audience interested and for conveying a point.

Your next slide should contain your research questions mentioned in your introduction as well.

Then, spend no more than a minute contextualizing your research questions and project within the literature. Don’t make the mistake of spending too much time reviewing what others have written about your topic. You just want to illustrate the fact that your work contributes to existing research in the field. People don’t come to conferences to hear literature reviews, they want new information and mind-blowing findings. They want to see the real implications of the findings to the global challenges at hand.   The concrete practical solutions.

Think about the questions people might have such as: what data set did you use? How many interviews did you carry out? How many months of participant observation did you complete? What is the timeframe for the data? The geographical observations. Give just enough information to validate your findings for the methodology section.

You should be able to go through all of the above in the first five minutes so that you can spend as much of your time as possible sharing the rich detail of your own data and analyses. If you have ethnographic data, you can tell one story from the field for each point you want to make. For statistical data, you can present a table with findings for each finding you wish to highlight. For interview data, you can use one interview quotes for each theme you plan to highlight.

Once you bold out the significant findings, you can leave a minute or two for your conclusion. Again make sure you use visuals, story format, case studies, quotes, even videos to explain your result to make it very appealing to the audience.

As you make each slide, remember to put a few words as possible on each slide, and place an image on each slide to convey your points visually.

Source: http://getalifephd.blogspot.com/

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How to make a scientific presentation

Scientific presentation outlines

Questions to ask yourself before you write your talk, 1. how much time do you have, 2. who will you speak to, 3. what do you want the audience to learn from your talk, step 1: outline your presentation, step 2: plan your presentation slides, step 3: make the presentation slides, slide design, text elements, animations and transitions, step 4: practice your presentation, final thoughts, frequently asked questions about preparing scientific presentations, related articles.

A good scientific presentation achieves three things: you communicate the science clearly, your research leaves a lasting impression on your audience, and you enhance your reputation as a scientist.

But, what is the best way to prepare for a scientific presentation? How do you start writing a talk? What details do you include, and what do you leave out?

It’s tempting to launch into making lots of slides. But, starting with the slides can mean you neglect the narrative of your presentation, resulting in an overly detailed, boring talk.

The key to making an engaging scientific presentation is to prepare the narrative of your talk before beginning to construct your presentation slides. Planning your talk will ensure that you tell a clear, compelling scientific story that will engage the audience.

In this guide, you’ll find everything you need to know to make a good oral scientific presentation, including:

• The different types of oral scientific presentations and how they are delivered;
• How to outline a scientific presentation;
• How to make slides for a scientific presentation.

Our advice results from delving into the literature on writing scientific talks and from our own experiences as scientists in giving and listening to presentations. We provide tips and best practices for giving scientific talks in a separate post.

There are two main types of scientific talks:

• Your talk focuses on a single study . Typically, you tell the story of a single scientific paper. This format is common for short talks at contributed sessions in conferences.
• Your talk describes multiple studies. You tell the story of multiple scientific papers. It is crucial to have a theme that unites the studies, for example, an overarching question or problem statement, with each study representing specific but different variations of the same theme. Typically, PhD defenses, invited seminars, lectures, or talks for a prospective employer (i.e., “job talks”) fall into this category.

➡️ Learn how to prepare an excellent thesis defense

The length of time you are allotted for your talk will determine whether you will discuss a single study or multiple studies, and which details to include in your story.

The background and interests of your audience will determine the narrative direction of your talk, and what devices you will use to get their attention. Will you be speaking to people specializing in your field, or will the audience also contain people from disciplines other than your own? To reach non-specialists, you will need to discuss the broader implications of your study outside your field.

The needs of the audience will also determine what technical details you will include, and the language you will use. For example, an undergraduate audience will have different needs than an audience of seasoned academics. Students will require a more comprehensive overview of background information and explanations of jargon but will need less technical methodological details.

Your goal is to speak to the majority. But, make your talk accessible to the least knowledgeable person in the room.

This is called the thesis statement, or simply the “take-home message”. Having listened to your talk, what message do you want the audience to take away from your presentation? Describe the main idea in one or two sentences. You want this theme to be present throughout your presentation. Again, the thesis statement will depend on the audience and the type of talk you are giving.

Your thesis statement will drive the narrative for your talk. By deciding the take-home message you want to convince the audience of as a result of listening to your talk, you decide how the story of your talk will flow and how you will navigate its twists and turns. The thesis statement tells you the results you need to show, which subsequently tells you the methods or studies you need to describe, which decides the angle you take in your introduction.

➡️ Learn how to write a thesis statement

The goal of your talk is that the audience leaves afterward with a clear understanding of the key take-away message of your research. To achieve that goal, you need to tell a coherent, logical story that conveys your thesis statement throughout the presentation. You can tell your story through careful preparation of your talk.

Preparation of a scientific presentation involves three separate stages: outlining the scientific narrative, preparing slides, and practicing your delivery. Making the slides of your talk without first planning what you are going to say is inefficient.

Here, we provide a 4 step guide to writing your scientific presentation:

• Outline your presentation
• Plan your presentation slides
• Make the presentation slides
• Practice your presentation

Writing an outline helps you consider the key pieces of your talk and how they fit together from the beginning, preventing you from forgetting any important details. It also means you avoid changing the order of your slides multiple times, saving you time.

Plan your talk as discrete sections. In the table below, we describe the sections for a single study talk vs. a talk discussing multiple studies:

The following tips apply when writing the outline of a single study talk. You can easily adapt this framework if you are writing a talk discussing multiple studies.

Introduction: Writing the introduction can be the hardest part of writing a talk. And when giving it, it’s the point where you might be at your most nervous. But preparing a good, concise introduction will settle your nerves.

The introduction tells the audience the story of why you studied your topic. A good introduction succinctly achieves four things, in the following order.

• It gives a broad perspective on the problem or topic for people in the audience who may be outside your discipline (i.e., it explains the big-picture problem motivating your study).
• It describes why you did the study, and why the audience should care.
• It gives a brief indication of how your study addressed the problem and provides the necessary background information that the audience needs to understand your work.
• It indicates what the audience will learn from the talk, and prepares them for what will come next.

A good introduction not only gives the big picture and motivations behind your study but also concisely sets the stage for what the audience will learn from the talk (e.g., the questions your work answers, and/or the hypotheses that your work tests). The end of the introduction will lead to a natural transition to the methods.

Give a broad perspective on the problem. The easiest way to start with the big picture is to think of a hook for the first slide of your presentation. A hook is an opening that gets the audience’s attention and gets them interested in your story. In science, this might take the form of a why, or a how question, or it could be a statement about a major problem or open question in your field. Other examples of hooks include quotes, short anecdotes, or interesting statistics.

Why should the audience care? Next, decide on the angle you are going to take on your hook that links to the thesis of your talk. In other words, you need to set the context, i.e., explain why the audience should care. For example, you may introduce an observation from nature, a pattern in experimental data, or a theory that you want to test. The audience must understand your motivations for the study.

Supplementary details. Once you have established the hook and angle, you need to include supplementary details to support them. For example, you might state your hypothesis. Then go into previous work and the current state of knowledge. Include citations of these studies. If you need to introduce some technical methodological details, theory, or jargon, do it here.

Conclude your introduction. The motivation for the work and background information should set the stage for the conclusion of the introduction, where you describe the goals of your study, and any hypotheses or predictions. Let the audience know what they are going to learn.

Methods: The audience will use your description of the methods to assess the approach you took in your study and to decide whether your findings are credible. Tell the story of your methods in chronological order. Use visuals to describe your methods as much as possible. If you have equations, make sure to take the time to explain them. Decide what methods to include and how you will show them. You need enough detail so that your audience will understand what you did and therefore can evaluate your approach, but avoid including superfluous details that do not support your main idea. You want to avoid the common mistake of including too much data, as the audience can read the paper(s) later.

Results: This is the evidence you present for your thesis. The audience will use the results to evaluate the support for your main idea. Choose the most important and interesting results—those that support your thesis. You don’t need to present all the results from your study (indeed, you most likely won’t have time to present them all). Break down complex results into digestible pieces, e.g., comparisons over multiple slides (more tips in the next section).

Summary: Summarize your main findings. Displaying your main findings through visuals can be effective. Emphasize the new contributions to scientific knowledge that your work makes.

Conclusion: Complete the circle by relating your conclusions to the big picture topic in your introduction—and your hook, if possible. It’s important to describe any alternative explanations for your findings. You might also speculate on future directions arising from your research. The slides that comprise your conclusion do not need to state “conclusion”. Rather, the concluding slide title should be a declarative sentence linking back to the big picture problem and your main idea.

It’s important to end well by planning a strong closure to your talk, after which you will thank the audience. Your closing statement should relate to your thesis, perhaps by stating it differently or memorably. Avoid ending awkwardly by memorizing your closing sentence.

By now, you have an outline of the story of your talk, which you can use to plan your slides. Your slides should complement and enhance what you will say. Use the following steps to prepare your slides.

• Write the slide titles to match your talk outline. These should be clear and informative declarative sentences that succinctly give the main idea of the slide (e.g., don’t use “Methods” as a slide title). Have one major idea per slide. In a YouTube talk on designing effective slides , researcher Michael Alley shows examples of instructive slide titles.
• Decide how you will convey the main idea of the slide (e.g., what figures, photographs, equations, statistics, references, or other elements you will need). The body of the slide should support the slide’s main idea.
• Under each slide title, outline what you want to say, in bullet points.

In sum, for each slide, prepare a title that summarizes its major idea, a list of visual elements, and a summary of the points you will make. Ensure each slide connects to your thesis. If it doesn’t, then you don’t need the slide.

Slides for scientific presentations have three major components: text (including labels and legends), graphics, and equations. Here, we give tips on how to present each of these components.

• Have an informative title slide. Include the names of all coauthors and their affiliations. Include an attractive image relating to your study.
• Make the foreground content of your slides “pop” by using an appropriate background. Slides that have white backgrounds with black text work well for small rooms, whereas slides with black backgrounds and white text are suitable for large rooms.
• The layout of your slides should be simple. Pay attention to how and where you lay the visual and text elements on each slide. It’s tempting to cram information, but you need lots of empty space. Retain space at the sides and bottom of your slides.
• Use sans serif fonts with a font size of at least 20 for text, and up to 40 for slide titles. Citations can be in 14 font and should be included at the bottom of the slide.
• Use bold or italics to emphasize words, not underlines or caps. Keep these effects to a minimum.
• Use concise text . You don’t need full sentences. Convey the essence of your message in as few words as possible. Write down what you’d like to say, and then shorten it for the slide. Remove unnecessary filler words.
• Text blocks should be limited to two lines. This will prevent you from crowding too much information on the slide.
• Include names of technical terms in your talk slides, especially if they are not familiar to everyone in the audience.
• Proofread your slides. Typos and grammatical errors are distracting for your audience.
• Include citations for the hypotheses or observations of other scientists.
• Good figures and graphics are essential to sustain audience interest. Use graphics and photographs to show the experiment or study system in action and to explain abstract concepts.
• Don’t use figures straight from your paper as they may be too detailed for your talk, and details like axes may be too small. Make new versions if necessary. Make them large enough to be visible from the back of the room.
• Use graphs to show your results, not tables. Tables are difficult for your audience to digest! If you must present a table, keep it simple.
• Label the axes of graphs and indicate the units. Label important components of graphics and photographs and include captions. Include sources for graphics that are not your own.
• Explain all the elements of a graph. This includes the axes, what the colors and markers mean, and patterns in the data.
• Use colors in figures and text in a meaningful, not random, way. For example, contrasting colors can be effective for pointing out comparisons and/or differences. Don’t use neon colors or pastels.
• Use thick lines in figures, and use color to create contrasts in the figures you present. Don’t use red/green or red/blue combinations, as color-blind audience members can’t distinguish between them.
• Arrows or circles can be effective for drawing attention to key details in graphs and equations. Add some text annotations along with them.
• Write your summary and conclusion slides using graphics, rather than showing a slide with a list of bullet points. Showing some of your results again can be helpful to remind the audience of your message.
• If your talk has equations, take time to explain them. Include text boxes to explain variables and mathematical terms, and put them under each term in the equation.
• Combine equations with a graphic that shows the scientific principle, or include a diagram of the mathematical model.
• Use animations judiciously. They are helpful to reveal complex ideas gradually, for example, if you need to make a comparison or contrast or to build a complicated argument or figure. For lists, reveal one bullet point at a time. New ideas appearing sequentially will help your audience follow your logic.
• Slide transitions should be simple. Silly ones distract from your message.
• Decide how you will make the transition as you move from one section of your talk to the next. For example, if you spend time talking through details, provide a summary afterward, especially in a long talk. Another common tactic is to have a “home slide” that you return to multiple times during the talk that reinforces your main idea or message. In her YouTube talk on designing effective scientific presentations , Stanford biologist Susan McConnell suggests using the approach of home slides to build a cohesive narrative.

To deliver a polished presentation, it is essential to practice it. Here are some tips.

• For your first run-through, practice alone. Pay attention to your narrative. Does your story flow naturally? Do you know how you will start and end? Are there any awkward transitions? Do animations help you tell your story? Do your slides help to convey what you are saying or are they missing components?
• Next, practice in front of your advisor, and/or your peers (e.g., your lab group). Ask someone to time your talk. Take note of their feedback and the questions that they ask you (you might be asked similar questions during your real talk).
• Edit your talk, taking into account the feedback you’ve received. Eliminate superfluous slides that don’t contribute to your takeaway message.
• Practice as many times as needed to memorize the order of your slides and the key transition points of your talk. However, don’t try to learn your talk word for word. Instead, memorize opening and closing statements, and sentences at key junctures in the presentation. Your presentation should resemble a serious but spontaneous conversation with the audience.
• Practicing multiple times also helps you hone the delivery of your talk. While rehearsing, pay attention to your vocal intonations and speed. Make sure to take pauses while you speak, and make eye contact with your imaginary audience.
• Make sure your talk finishes within the allotted time, and remember to leave time for questions. Conferences are particularly strict on run time.
• Anticipate questions and challenges from the audience, and clarify ambiguities within your slides and/or speech in response.
• If you anticipate that you could be asked questions about details but you don’t have time to include them, or they detract from the main message of your talk, you can prepare slides that address these questions and place them after the final slide of your talk.

➡️ More tips for giving scientific presentations

An organized presentation with a clear narrative will help you communicate your ideas effectively, which is essential for engaging your audience and conveying the importance of your work. Taking time to plan and outline your scientific presentation before writing the slides will help you manage your nerves and feel more confident during the presentation, which will improve your overall performance.

A good scientific presentation has an engaging scientific narrative with a memorable take-home message. It has clear, informative slides that enhance what the speaker says. You need to practice your talk many times to ensure you deliver a polished presentation.

First, consider who will attend your presentation, and what you want the audience to learn about your research. Tailor your content to their level of knowledge and interests. Second, create an outline for your presentation, including the key points you want to make and the evidence you will use to support those points. Finally, practice your presentation several times to ensure that it flows smoothly and that you are comfortable with the material.

Prepare an opening that immediately gets the audience’s attention. A common device is a why or a how question, or a statement of a major open problem in your field, but you could also start with a quote, interesting statistic, or case study from your field.

Scientific presentations typically either focus on a single study (e.g., a 15-minute conference presentation) or tell the story of multiple studies (e.g., a PhD defense or 50-minute conference keynote talk). For a single study talk, the structure follows the scientific paper format: Introduction, Methods, Results, Summary, and Conclusion, whereas the format of a talk discussing multiple studies is more complex, but a theme unifies the studies.

Ensure you have one major idea per slide, and convey that idea clearly (through images, equations, statistics, citations, video, etc.). The slide should include a title that summarizes the major point of the slide, should not contain too much text or too many graphics, and color should be used meaningfully.

How to Present a Research Paper? (Templates Included)

Last updated on December 25th, 2023

Research paper presentations are required in our academic progress. As a researcher, you must often present a research paper and convey your ideas to the audience. But research paper presentations have unique requirements that must be fulfilled for asserting the audience of your talk.

It can be quite challenging for a research presentation not to bore the audience and enthusiastically present the research paper, but if you follow the necessary steps, you can easily convey your ideas and grab the audience’s attention in no time . 

In this article, we go through how to present a research paper, why you would need to create a research presentation, and discuss the APA style of citing research papers. 

Lastly, we have also included research paper PowerPoint presentation examples at the end of this article to help you conveniently create the perfect research paper presentation in a short amount of time. 

How to Present a Research Paper?

A research presentation is typically 10 minutes long and needs to be formally presented in front of a panel of audience or, in the case of a seminar, a group of people. Here are some important points to help you understand how to present a research paper.

1. How Should the Title of a Research Paper be Presented?

An important part of a research paper is its title which needs to be presented directly and with an interesting take to catch the audience’s attention . It is the first impression that you leave on your audience and helps build the momentum for your upcoming talk. Keep it short and concise. Stretching it out will use your precious talk time, which should be for the crucial parts of the presentation. 

2. Introduction

Next is the introduction you need to cover by giving an overview of your research paper. See it like the abstract of any research paper that lets the readers or, in the research paper presentation’s case, the audience know what the presentation will be about. 

Take the opportunity to introduce yourself and offer a statement about your overall presentation. Explain why your research findings are useful for the audience and how they can help them achieve their goals or solve problems. Clearly define your hypothesis statement to indicate what is yet to come in your presentation. 

3. Main Body of the Presentation

The main body of the presentation should have the most important information your audience needs to know about. In most cases, the findings of the presentation are the most important. Still, in some cases, the methodology followed must also be highlighted and discussed to attract the audience’s attention. 

Ask yourself the most important part the audience needs to know about that signifies the benefit of your research and its findings. Identify the main points and record them to have a set of central points to plan your presentation. Keep the main issues short and to the point when talking about them. Going too much into detail will exceed your presentation time and will not be good for the audience’s attention span. 

4. Use Graphics, including Charts, Graphs, Infographics and Pictures

To clarify the concepts, support arguments, and offer a visual impact, use graphics including tables, flowcharts, graphs, charts, images, infographics and diagrams in your research paper presentation. Visual slides will help make your presentation appealing and memorable. 

Use flowcharts to explain a process flow and its outcomes. Graphs depict statistics in visual form and compare numerical data. Add supporting images and diagrams where necessary. And use charts to show the relationship between elements. 

Pro Tip: A research paper is sometimes presented with the help of a poster presentation . You can learn more on how to make a winning poster presentation in this article published by SlideModel.

But do remember not to over do it. Keep the text short and concise with a reasonable number of graphics to make it attractive and enable you to convey your message better.

5. Offer Supporting Documents

A research presentation is just a narrowed-down version of your research paper with extensively detailed information on the topic, literature review, methodology, findings, and implications. Therefore, along with your research presentation, be sure to offer supporting documents as required. 

If you are applying for a job and giving a research presentation as a part of the interview process, then be sure to provide a CV with a list of your published articles and a cover letter. 

In case of a funding request, submit a proposal when presenting to let the investors and sponsors know your requirements. 

Seminar and conference presentations often do not need supporting documents, but handing a summary of your research paper and its significance can be good for those interested in your research. Poster presentations can also be part of the supporting documents to be included as part of your research project.

6. Prepare a Summary of the Presentation

When concluding your research paper presentation, offer a brief summary of the main points and highlight the significance of your findings . Make a specific request if any action is needed from the audience or the panel of professionals. 

Acknowledge the collaborators and mentors, tell the audience the next steps, and share your contact information with them so they can contact you when required.  

7. Answer Any Underlying Questions

In the end, you can hold a question-and-answer session to answer any underlying queries the audience might have. You can have some questions of your own to stimulate a discussion among the audience and take in questions to answer, making it interactive. 

To prepare for this, write a list of possible questions the audience might have and prepare short, clear-cut answers. Make sure to go through your research paper deeply, so you can answer any question the audience asks and maintain your authority on the matter.  

Reasons for Creating a Research Presentation

Research paper presentations have their unique purpose, and you need to identify your reason for creating a research presentation to be able to properly convey your message and fulfill the purpose of presenting . Here are a few reasons why you would need to create a research presentation.

1. Dissertation Defense

A dissertation defense is commonly required in academic settings where you must defend your research paper’s content in front of a panel of qualified professionals and professors. Also known as a thesis defense , the panel examines and evaluates the presenter’s work and cross-questions their ideas to determine the validity of the paper’s contents. The goal is to defend your thesis and have the examiners approve of your contribution to research. 

2. Academic Job Interview

If you are applying for an academic job, you might need to present a research paper to a panel of professionals and interviewers. Your purpose is to inform, influence, and summarize your research findings and present them coherently to pass the interview and land the job. The audience of an academic job interview may include the department heads, HR managers, and other experts that are knowledgeable in the field. 

Pro Tip: Check out our free Job Interview PowerPoint template to prepare a compelling job interview presentation.

3. Conference/Seminar

Research papers are often presented at conferences and seminars to inform, educate, or inform the audience about the topic. The presentation influences the audience of your point of view about a certain topic, creates a name for the presenter in the field, and increases his/her network circle, resulting in more opportunities for research collaborations, jobs, and partnerships.

The audience of a research conference or seminar typically includes professionals with similar interests or experts in the same field looking for further collaboration opportunities and building up their networks.

4. Funding Request

Research findings can also be presented to a panel of investors to seek funding and obtain opportunities for expansion in any project. The research paper presentation’s purpose is to influence the investors and convince them of your ideas and propositions to receive the necessary funding for starting or expanding any project or business or visualize the concept. 

The audience of a funding request research presentation could be commercial sponsors, grant-giving bodies, and investors looking to solve a business problem and help qualified and experienced professionals get the funding they require. 

What should I do if I have to use the APA style?

APA style is a format for documenting references and includes in-text citations and citing sources at the end of each research paper. 

What Is APA Style?

APA stands for American Psychological Association , a commonly used style of documenting sources in research papers . The standard is used for scientific writing to help authors cite their findings and avoid plagiarism by giving credit to the researcher. It follows the author-date method for in-text citation, as well as a complete list of references at the end of the paper. 

Popularly used in psychology, education, and social science, the APA style was first introduced in 1929, when the Psychological Bulletin laid out its basic guidelines to help authors standardize their citations. APA formatIt makes it easier for readers and the audience to understand the text by knowing their sources and simplifies the research paper structure. 

How to Cite a Research Paper in a PowerPoint Presentation?

When presenting a research paper, you can cite sources in-text on each slide to let the audience know the source of information. You can also cite crucial references verbally in correspondence with in-text citations. 

To verbally let the audience know the source, you can express the argument by stating who said it. The words claim, add, argues, illustrates, grants, notes, observes, suggests, etc. are often used to cite the reference. 

To cite a PowerPoint in text using APA format, you must include the author and date of the presentation.

Another way is to include a reference slide at the end of your presentation. The audience must know where you got the statistics, visuals, facts, and other information. There should be no room for questioning the validity or source of any data. 

How to Present a Research Paper in 5 Minutes?

If time is restricted in your research paper presentation, it is important to plan ahead and practice discussing each slide in 1 minute or less. Give more time to the most important slides, such as the problem, motivation, and its proposed approach or solution. Just stick to 5 to 7 slides and no more to keep your talk short and avoid any unnecessary delays on swiping slides back and forth.  

How to Convert a Research Paper Into a Presentation?

You can convert a research paper into a presentation by summarizing its main points and focusing on the crucial aspects of the subject matter . Research papers are often quite detailed, and compiling them in a 5 to 10-minute presentation can be challenging. Still, it is possible to gather only the most important data to support your arguments. You can also use ChatGPT with GPT 4 with a proper prompt to summarize the research paper and prepare the presentation outline and content. You can use GPT-4V alongside ChatGPT to merge the text and visual comprehension to make the presentation more appealing.

Make clear statements about the problem and its solutions, and convey the essence of the research paper in bullets to keep it short. Visualize your findings to make them appealing and easy to understand, and indicate the essential details through charts, graphs, and other graphics to make them interesting.  

Examples of PowerPoint Templates for Research Presentation

Powerpoint is a great tool to create your research paper presentation effectively, but one might not have the time to design and build the perfect theme for the research paper from scratch. Therefore, you can use research paper PowerPoint presentation examples to create your own research presentation within just a few minutes. 

• Free Scientific Research PowerPoint Template 
• Free Chemistry Presentation Template
• Free Science Research PowerPoint Template
• Free Internet Research PowerPoint Template
• Research Powerpoint Template
• Free Market Research PowerPoint Template
• Free Research Timeline PowerPoint Template

Alternatively, you can download a Free Research Presentation Template for PowerPoint & Google Slides from reputable PPT template providers, such as SlideModel. Here is a preview of the free Research PowerPoint template.

This presentation slide template for PowerPoint contains useful slides that you can use to present a Research Paper to an audience. For example, find out slides such as Introduction, Research Questions & Hypotheses, Literature Review & Theory, Methods & Data Collection, Data Presentation & Findings as well as slides with infographics & data charts. Finally, present your conclusions with a simple & neat conclusions slide as the last slide of the presentation.

An effective research paper presentation needs to be engaging, interactive, and memorable, and that can only be achieved by properly planning out the outline of your presentation and adding the necessary information . Combining text with graphics, asking relevant questions, and answering them clearly during the presentation will establish your authority on the matter and show you as an expert researcher.

Furthermore, having a decent research paper presentation design can help you achieve success in your presentation. The templates provided can help you design and create the perfect research presentation for your upcoming talk and help you attain your purpose.  

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How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation (Step-by-Step)

• PowerPoint Tutorials
• Presentation Design
• January 22, 2024

In this beginner’s guide, you will learn step-by-step how to make a PowerPoint presentation from scratch.

While PowerPoint is designed to be intuitive and accessible, it can be overwhelming if you’ve never gotten any training on it before. As you progress through this guide, you’ll will learn how to move from blank slides to PowerPoint slides that look like these.

Table of Contents

Additionally, as you create your presentation, you’ll also learn tricks for working more efficiently in PowerPoint, including how to:

• Change the slide order
• Reset your layout
• Change the slide dimensions
• Use PowerPoint Designer
• Format text
• Format objects
• Play a presentation (slide show)

With this knowledge under your belt, you’ll be ready to start creating PowerPoint presentations. Moreover, you’ll have taken your skills from beginner to proficient in no time at all. I will also include links to more advanced PowerPoint topics.

Ready to start learning how to make a PowerPoint presentation?

Take your PPT skills to the next level

Start with a blank presentation.

Note: Before you open PowerPoint and start creating your presentation, make sure you’ve collected your thoughts. If you’re going to make your slides compelling, you need to spend some time brainstorming.

For help with this, see our article with tips for nailing your business presentation  here .

The first thing you’ll need to do is to open PowerPoint. When you do, you are shown the Start Menu , with the Home tab open.

This is where you can choose either a blank theme (1) or a pre-built theme (2). You can also choose to open an existing presentation (3).

For now, go ahead and click on the  Blank Presentation (1)  thumbnail.

Doing so launches a brand new and blank presentation for you to work with. Before you start adding content to your presentation, let’s first familiarize ourselves with the PowerPoint interface.

The PowerPoint interface

Here is how the program is laid out:

• The Application Header
• The Ribbon (including the Ribbon tabs)
• The Quick Access Toolbar (either above or below the Ribbon)
• The Slides Pane (slide thumbnails)

The Slide Area

The notes pane.

• The Status Bar (including the View Buttons)

Each one of these areas has options for viewing certain parts of the PowerPoint environment and formatting your presentation.

Below are the important things to know about certain elements of the PowerPoint interface.

The PowerPoint Ribbon

The Ribbon is contextual. That means that it will adapt to what you’re doing in the program.

For example, the Font, Paragraph and Drawing options are greyed out until you select something that has text in it, as in the example below (A).

Furthermore, if you start manipulating certain objects, the Ribbon will display additional tabs, as seen above (B), with more commands and features to help you work with those objects. The following objects have their own additional tabs in the Ribbon which are hidden until you select them:

• Online Pictures
• Screenshots
• Screen Recording

The Slides Pane

This is where you can preview and rearrange all the slides in your presentation.

Right-clicking on a slide  in the pane gives you additional options on the slide level that you won’t find on the Ribbon, such as  Duplicate Slide ,  Delete Slide , and  Hide Slide .

In addition, you can add sections to your presentation by  right-clicking anywhere in this Pane  and selecting  Add Section . Sections are extremely helpful in large presentations, as they allow you to organize your slides into chunks that you can then rearrange, print or display differently from other slides.

The Slide Area (A) is where you will build out your slides. Anything within the bounds of this area will be visible when you present or print your presentation.

Anything outside of this area (B) will be hidden from view. This means that you can place things here, such as instructions for each slide, without worrying about them being shown to your audience.

The  Notes Pane  is the space beneath the Slide Area where you can type in the speaker notes for each slide. It’s designed as a fast way to add and edit your slides’ talking points.

To expand your knowledge and learn more about adding, printing, and exporting your PowerPoint speaker notes, read our guide here .

Your speaker notes are visible when you print your slides using the Notes Pages option and when you use the Presenter View . To expand your knowledge and learn the ins and outs of using the Presenter View , read our guide here .

You can resize the  Notes Pane  by clicking on its edge and dragging it up or down (A). You can also minimize or reopen it by clicking on the Notes button in the Status Bar (B).

Note:  Not all text formatting displays in the Notes Pane, even though it will show up when printing your speaker notes. To learn more about printing PowerPoint with notes, read our guide here .

Now that you have a basic grasp of the PowerPoint interface at your disposal, it’s time to make your presentation.

Adding Content to Your PowerPoint Presentation

Notice that in the Slide Area , there are two rectangles with dotted outlines. These are called  Placeholders  and they’re set on the template in the Slide Master View .

To expand your knowledge and learn how to create a PowerPoint template of your own (which is no small task), read our guide here .

As the prompt text suggests, you can click into each placeholder and start typing text. These types of placeholder prompts are customizable too. That means that if you are using a company template, it might say something different, but the functionality is the same.

Note:  For the purposes of this example, I will create a presentation based on the content in the Starbucks 2018 Global Social Impact Report, which is available to the public on their website.

If you type in more text than there is room for, PowerPoint will automatically reduce its font size. You can stop this behavior by clicking on the  Autofit Options  icon to the left of the placeholder and selecting  Stop Fitting Text to this Placeholder .

Next, you can make formatting adjustments to your text by selecting the commands in the Font area and the  Paragraph area  of the  Home  tab of the Ribbon.

The Reset Command:  If you make any changes to your title and decide you want to go back to how it was originally, you can use the Reset button up in the Home tab .

Insert More Slides into Your Presentation

Now that you have your title slide filled in, it’s time to add more slides. To do that, simply go up to the  Home tab  and click on  New Slide . This inserts a new slide in your presentation right after the one you were on.

You can alternatively hit Ctrl+M on your keyboard to insert a new blank slide in PowerPoint. To learn more about this shortcut, see my guide on using Ctrl+M in PowerPoint .

Instead of clicking the New Slide command, you can also open the New Slide dropdown to see all the slide layouts in your PowerPoint template. Depending on who created your template, your layouts in this dropdown can be radically different.

If you insert a layout and later want to change it to a different layout, you can use the Layout dropdown instead of the New Slide dropdown.

After inserting a few different slide layouts, your presentation might look like the following picture. Don’t worry that it looks blank, next we will start adding content to your presentation.

If you want to follow along exactly with me, your five slides should be as follows:

• Title Slide
• Title and Content
• Section Header
• Two Content
• Picture with Caption

Adding Content to Your Slides

Now let’s go into each slide and start adding our content. You’ll notice some new types of placeholders.

On slide 2 we have a  Content Placeholder , which allows you to add any kind of content. That includes:

• A SmartArt graphic,
• A 3D object,
• A picture from the web,
• Or an icon.

To insert text, simply type it in or hit  Ctrl+C to Copy  and Ctrl+V to Paste  from elsewhere. To insert any of the other objects, click on the appropriate icon and follow the steps to insert it.

For my example, I’ll simply type in some text as you can see in the picture below.

Slides 3 and 4 only have text placeholders, so I’ll go ahead and add in my text into each one.

On slide 5 we have a Picture Placeholder . That means that the only elements that can go into it are:

• A picture from the web

To insert a picture into the picture placeholder, simply:

• Click on the  Picture  icon
• Find  a picture on your computer and select it
• Click on  Insert

Alternatively, if you already have a picture open somewhere else, you can select the placeholder and paste in (shortcut: Ctrl+V ) the picture. You can also drag the picture in from a file explorer window.

If you do not like the background of the picture you inserted onto your slide, you can remove the background here in PowerPoint. To see how to do this, read my guide here .

Placeholders aren’t the only way to add content to your slides. At any point, you can use the Insert tab to add elements to your slides.

You can use either the Title Only  or the  Blank  slide layout to create slides for content that’s different. For example, a three-layout content slide, or a single picture divider slide, as shown below.

In the first example above, I’ve inserted 6 text boxes, 3 icons, and 3 circles to create this layout. In the second example, I’ve inserted a full-sized picture and then 2 shapes and 2 text boxes.

The Reset Command:  Because these slides are built with shapes and text boxes (and not placeholders), hitting the  Reset button up in the  Home tab  won’t do anything.

That is a good thing if you don’t want your layouts to adjust. However, it does mean that it falls on you to make sure everything is aligned and positioned correctly.

For more on how to add and manipulate the different objects in PowerPoint, check out our step-by-step articles here:

• Using graphics in PowerPoint
• Inserting icons onto slides
• Adding pictures to your PowerPoint
• How to embed a video in PowerPoint
• How to add music to your presentation

Using Designer to generate more layouts ideas

If you have Office 365, your version of PowerPoint comes with a new feature called Designer (or Design Ideas). This is a feature that generates slide layout ideas for you. The coolest thing about this feature is that it uses the content you already have.

To use Designer , simply navigate to the  Design tab  in your Ribbon, and click on  Design Ideas .

NOTE: If the PowerPoint Designer is not working for you (it is grey out), see my troubleshooting guide for Designer .

Change the Overall Design (optional)

When you make a PowerPoint presentation, you’ll want to think about the overall design. Now that you have some content in your presentation, you can use the Design tab to change the look and feel of your slides.

For additional help thinking through the design of your presentation,  read my guide here .

A. Picking your PowerPoint slide size

If you have PowerPoint 2013 or later, when you create a blank document in PowerPoint, you automatically start with a widescreen layout with a 16:9 ratio. These dimensions are suitable for most presentations as they match the screens of most computers and projectors.

However, you do have the option to change the dimensions.

For example, your presentation might not be presented, but instead converted into a PDF or printed and distributed. In that case, you can easily switch to the standard dimensions with a 4:3 ratio by selecting from the dropdown (A).

You can also choose a custom slide size or change the slide orientation from landscape to portrait in the Custom Slide Size dialog box (B).

To learn all about the different PowerPoint slide sizes, and some of the issues you will face when changing the slide size of a non-blank presentation,  read my guide here .

 B. Selecting a PowerPoint theme

The next thing you can do is change the theme of your presentation to a pre-built one. For a detailed explanation of what a PowerPoint theme is, and how to best use it,  read my article here .

In the beginning of this tutorial, we started with a blank presentation, which uses the default Office theme as you can see in the picture below.

That gives you the most flexibility because it has a blank background and quite simple layouts that work for most presentations. However, it also means that it’s your responsibility to enhance the design.

If you’re comfortable with this, you can stay with the default theme or create your own custom theme ( read my guide here ). But if you would rather not have to think about design, then you can choose a pre-designed theme.

Microsoft provides 46 other pre-built themes, which include slide layouts, color variants and palettes, and fonts. Each one varies quite significantly, so make sure you look through them carefully.

To select a different theme, go to the  Design tab  in the Ribbon, and click on the  dropdown arrow  in the  Themes section .

For this tutorial, let’s select the  Frame  theme and then choose the third Variant in the theme. Doing so changes the layout, colors, and fonts of your presentation.

Note: The theme dropdown area is also where you can import or save custom themes. To see my favorite places to find professional PowerPoint templates and themes (and recommendations for why I like them), read my guide here .

C. How to change a slide background in PowerPoint

The next thing to decide is how you want your background to look for the entire presentation. In the  Variants area, you can see four background options.

For this example, we want our presentation to have a dark background, so let’s select Style 3. When you do so, you’ll notice that:

• The background color automatically changes across all slides
• The color of the text on most of the slides automatically changes to white so that it’s visible on the dark background
• The colors of the objects on slides #6 and #7 also adjust, in a way we may not want (we’ll likely have to make some manual adjustments to these slides)

Note: If you want to change the slide background for just that one slide, don’t left-click the style. Instead, right-click it and select Apply to Selected Slides .

After you change the background for your entire presentation, you can easily adjust the background for an individual slide.

Inside the Format Background pane, you can see you have the following options:

• Gradient fill
• Picture or texture fill
• Pattern fill
• Hide background

You can explore these options to find the PowerPoint background that best fits your presentation.

D. How to change your color palette in PowerPoint

Another thing you may want to adjust in your presentation, is the color scheme. In the picture below you can see the Theme Colors we are currently using for this presentation.

Each PowerPoint theme comes with its own color palette. By default, the Office theme includes the Office color palette. This affects the colors you are presented with when you format any element within your presentation (text, shapes, SmartArt, etc.).

The good news is that the colors here are easy to change. To switch color palettes, simply:

• Go to the  Design tab in the Ribbon
• In the Variants area, click on the  dropdown arrow  and select  Colors
• Select  the color palette (or theme colors) you want

You can choose among the pre-built color palettes from Office, or you can customize them to create your own.

As you build your presentation, make sure you use the colors from your theme to format objects. That way, changing the color palette adjusts all the colors in your presentation automatically.

E. How to change your fonts in PowerPoint

Just as we changed the color palette, you can do the same for the fonts.

Each PowerPoint theme comes with its own font combination. By default, the Office theme includes the Office font pairing. This affects the fonts that are automatically assigned to all text in your presentation.

The good news is that the font pairings are easy to change. To switch your Theme Fonts, simply:

• Go to the  Design tab  in the Ribbon
• Click on the  dropdown arrow  in the  Variants  area
• Select  Fonts
• Select  the font pairing you want

You can choose among the pre-built fonts from Office, or you can customize them to create your own.

If you are working with PowerPoint presentations on both Mac and PC computers, make sure you choose a safe PowerPoint font. To see a list of the safest PowerPoint fonts, read our guide here .

If you receive a PowerPoint presentation and the wrong fonts were used, you can use the Replace Fonts dialog box to change the fonts across your entire presentation. For details, read our guide here .

Adding Animations & Transitions (optional)

The final step to make a PowerPoint presentation compelling, is to consider using animations and transitions. These are by no means necessary to a good presentation, but they may be helpful in your situation.

A. Adding PowerPoint animations

PowerPoint has an incredibly robust animations engine designed to power your creativity. That being said, it’s also easy to get started with basic animations.

Animations are movements that you can apply to individual objects on your slide.

To add a PowerPoint animation to an element of your slide, simply:

• Select the  element
• Go to the  Animations tab in the Ribbon
• Click on the  dropdown arrow  to view your options
• Select the  animation  you want

You can add animations to multiple objects at one time by selecting them all first and then applying the animation.

B. How to preview a PowerPoint animation

There are three ways to preview a PowerPoint animation:

• Click on the Preview button in the Animations tab
• Click on the little star  next to the slide
• Play the slide in Slide Show Mode

To learn other ways to run your slide show, see our guide on presenting a PowerPoint slide show with shortcuts .

To adjust the settings of your animations, explore the options in the  Effect Options ,  Advanced Animation  and the  Timing  areas of the  Animation tab .

Note:  To see how to make objects appear and disappear in your slides by clicking a button,  read our guide here .

C. How to manage your animations in PowerPoint

The best way to manage lots of animations on your slide is with the Animation Pane . To open it, simply:

• Navigate to the  Animations tab
• Select the  Animation Pane

Inside the Animation Pane, you’ll see all of the different animations that have been applied to objects on your slide, with their numbers marked as pictured above.

Note: To see examples of PowerPoint animations that can use in PowerPoint, see our list of PowerPoint animation tutorials here .

D. How to add transitions to your PowerPoint presentation

PowerPoint has an incredibly robust transition engine so that you can dictate how your slides change from one to the other. It is also extremely easy to add transitions to your slides.

In PowerPoint, transitions are the movements (or effects) you see as you move between two slides.

To add a transition to a PowerPoint slide, simply:

• Select the  slide
• Go to the  Transitions tab in the Ribbon
• In the Transitions to This Slide area, click on the  dropdown arrow  to view your options
• Select the  transition  you want

To adjust the settings of the transition, explore the options in the  Timing  area of the Transitions tab.

You can also add the same transition to multiple slides. To do that, select them in the  Slides Pane  and apply the transition.

E. How to preview a transition in PowerPoint

There are three ways to preview your PowerPoint transitions (just like your animations):

• Click on the Preview  button in the Transitions tab
• Click on the little star  beneath the slide number in the thumbnail view

Note:  In 2016, PowerPoint added a cool new transition, called Morph. It operates a bit differently from other transitions. For a detailed tutorial on how to use the cool Morph transition,  see our step-by-step article here .

Save Your PowerPoint Presentation

After you’ve built your presentation and made all the adjustments to your slides, you’ll want to save your presentation. YOu can do this several different ways.

To save a PowerPoint presentation using your Ribbon, simply:

• Navigate to the  File tab
•  Select  Save As  on the left
• Choose  where you want to save your presentation
• Name  your presentation and/or adjust your file type settings
• Click  Save

You can alternatively use the  Ctrl+S keyboard shortcut to save your presentation. I recommend using this shortcut frequently as you build your presentation to make sure you don’t lose any of your work.

This is the standard way to save a presentation. However, there may be a situation where you want to save your presentation as a different file type.

To learn how to save your presentation as a PDF, see our guide on converting PowerPoint to a PDF .

How to save your PowerPoint presentation as a template

Once you’ve created a presentation that you like, you may want to turn it into a template. The easiest – but not technically correct – way, is to simply create a copy of your current presentation and then change the content.

But be careful! A PowerPoint template is a special type of document and it has its own parameters and behaviors.

If you’re interested in learning about how to create your own PowerPoint template from scratch, see our guide on how to create a PowerPoint template .

Printing Your PowerPoint Presentation

After finishing your PowerPoint presentation, you may want to print it out on paper. Printing your slides is relatively easy.

To open the Print dialog box, you can either:

• Hit Ctrl+P on your keyboard
• Or go to the Ribbon and click on File and then Print

Inside the Print dialog box, you can choose from the various printing settings:

• Printer: Select a printer to use (or print to PDF or OneNote)
• Slides: Choose which slides you want to print
• Layout: Determine how many slides you want per page (this is where you can print the notes, outline, and handouts)
• Collated or uncollated (learn what collated printing means here )
• Color: Choose to print in color, grayscale or black & white

There are many more options for printing your PowerPoint presentations. Here are links to more in-depth articles:

• How to print multiple slides per page
• How to print your speaker notes in PowerPoint
• How to save PowerPoint as a picture presentation

So that’s how to create a PowerPoint presentation if you are brand new to it. We’ve also included a ton of links to helpful resources to boost your PowerPoint skills further.

When you are creating your presentation, it is critical to first focus on the content (what you are trying to say) before getting lost inserting and playing with elements. The clearer you are on what you want to present, the easier it will be to build it out in PowerPoint.

If you enjoyed this article, you can learn more about our PowerPoint training courses and other presentation resources by  visiting us here .

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A step-by-step guide to captivating PowerPoint presentation design

november 20, 2023

by Corporate PowerPoint Girl

Do you often find yourself stuck with a lackluster PowerPoint presentation, desperately seeking ways to make it more engaging and visually appealing? If your boss has ever told you to "please fix" a presentation and you didn't know where to start, you're not alone. In this article, we'll walk you through a straightforward method to transform your PowerPoint slides into a visually captivating masterpiece. 

Let's dive right in! 

Clean up your slides 

The first step in this journey to presentation excellence is all about decluttering your slides and elevating their impact. Say goodbye to those uninspiring bullet points that often dominate presentations. Instead, focus on what truly matters – the key call-out numbers. By increasing the font size of these numbers, you ensure they take center stage, immediately drawing your audience's attention. 

To make those numbers pop, consider breaking the text after the numbers into the next line and adding a touch of color. The contrast created by pairing a dark color with a lighter shade, like dark teal and light teal or burnt orange with peach, can work wonders. This simple adjustment makes your data more engaging , enhancing the overall impact of your presentation. 

Add dimension with boxes 

Now, let's introduce an element of depth and organization to your slides. By adding boxes, you'll create a visually pleasing structure that guides your audience through the content. In the "Insert" menu, select "Table" and opt for a one-by-one table. Change the table color to a light gray shade, elongate it, and position it neatly to the left of your text. 

To improve readability and aesthetics, increase the spacing between text phrases. A small adjustment in the before spacing setting (setting it to 48) significantly enhances the visual appeal of your slides. 

Insert circles 

To further enhance the visual appeal and engagement of your slides, let's introduce circles. In the Insert menu, navigate to Shapes and choose the circle. Adjust the circle's height and width to 1.2, ensuring it complements your content seamlessly. Match the circle's shape fill color with the corresponding text color for a harmonious look. 

Avoid using colored outlines for the circles, as they may distract from the overall aesthetic. This simple addition of circles adds an element of visual interest to your presentation, making it more captivating. 

Choose icons 

Now, it's time for a touch of creativity. Selecting icons to complement your text can elevate the clarity and appeal of your slides. In the "Insert" menu, you can search for relevant keywords to find the perfect icon from PowerPoint's extensive library . 

For instance, if your text discusses investment portfolio yield, search for "growth" and choose an upward arrow growth icon. These icons add an extra layer of visual appeal and clarity to your content, making it more engaging and informative. 

Final touches 

To wrap up the transformation process, we come to the final touches that give your presentation a polished, professional finish. Align your icons with their corresponding circles and change the shape fill color to white. This simple adjustment creates a crisp, cohesive look that ties everything together seamlessly. 

In conclusion, by following these steps, you've embarked on a journey to enhance your PowerPoint presentation . These initial steps are just the beginning of your exploration into the world of design elements and styles that can cater to your specific presentation needs. The key to a stunning PowerPoint presentation lies in the details. By following these steps, you can turn a lackluster set of slides into a visually engaging and dynamic presentation that will captivate your audience. So, the next time your boss says, "Please fix," you'll know exactly where to start. Happy presenting! 

Related topics

30+ Best Research Presentation Templates for PowerPoint (PPT)

Finding the right PowerPoint template plays an important part in getting your message across to the audience during a presentation. And it’s especially true for research presentations.

Using the right colors, graphs, infographics, and illustrations in your slides is the key to delivering information more effectively and making your presentation a success.

Today, we handpicked a great collection of research presentation PowerPoint templates for you to make the perfect slideshows for various types of research papers and studies.

Whether you’re preparing for a presentation at a school, event, or conference, there are templates in this list for all purposes. Let’s dive in.

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Explore PowerPoint Templates

Science & Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template is a perfect choice for preparing a research presentation to share your scientific findings and reports.

The template has 30 unique slides with unlimited color options. There are a few infographics included in the slideshow as well.

Why This Is A Top Pick

The presentation has a very modern and creative design where you can showcase your data and information in an attractive way. You won’t be making boring research presentations ever again.

Labvire – Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

Labvire is another modern PowerPoint template you can use for various types of research presentations. It’s also ideal for laboratory-related research presentations. The template has fully customizable slide layouts with editable charts, graphs, and more. You can choose from more than 40 unique slide designs as well.

Novalabs – Science Research PowerPoint Template

Novalabs PowerPoint template features a highly visual and attractive design. The template includes 36 different slides that feature large image placeholders for adding a more visual look to your presentations. There are lots of editable graphics, shapes, and tables included in the template too. Feel free to customize them however you like.

Research & Development PowerPoint Template

The minimal and clean design of this PowerPoint template makes it a great choice for delivering more effective research presentations. With fewer distractions in each slide, you’ll be able to convey your message more easily. The template comes with 30 unique slides. You can change the colors, fonts, and shapes to your preference as well.

Marketing Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

When talking about research presentations, we can’t forget about marketing research. Most sales and marketing meetings usually include a sophisticated marketing research presentation. This PowerPoint template will help you design those research presentations without effort. It includes a total of 150 slides, featuring 30 unique slides in 5 different color schemes.

Free Business Market Research Presentation Template

This is a free PowerPoint template designed for making business market research presentations. It gives you 27 different and fully customizable slides to create professional slideshows for your business meetings.

Free Business Data Analysis & Research Presentation

With this PowerPoint template, you can create colorful and creative business research and data analysis presentation without any design skills. It includes 35 unique slides with lots of infographics and editable shapes. The template is free to use as well.

Lernen – Research Thesis PowerPoint Presentation

Larnen is the ideal PowerPoint template for making research slideshows for your thesis presentations. It includes 30 unique slides that are available in light and dark color themes. It also has editable charts and graphs.

Aristo – Research Academic PowerPoint Presentation

This PowerPoint template is also made with academic research presentations in mind. The template has a professional design with clean layouts and light colors. It comes with more than 30 different slides.

Biosearch – Science Research PowerPoint Template

You can use this PowerPoint template to make professional presentations to present research data and results. It lets you choose from 40 different slides and 90 color themes. The slides are available in both light and dark color themes as well.

Neolabs – Laboratory & Science Research PPT

Neolabs is another science research presentation made with laboratory research teams in mind. You can use it to make effective slideshows to present your research findings. There are 30 unique slides in this template.

Free Business Cost Analysis PowerPoint Template

This is a free PowerPoint and Google Slides template that comes with 35 unique slides. It’s ideal for making research presentations related to business financials.

Research & Case Study PowerPoint Template

Create the perfect case study presentation using your research data with this PowerPoint template. It includes a modern slide design with infographics and charts for effectively presenting your data.

Liron Labs – Laboratory Research PowerPoint Template

Another PowerPoint template for laboratory research presentations. This template includes 15 useful slide layouts with editable graphics, free fonts, and image placeholders. You can edit and customize the colors and text as well.

Research Thesis PowerPoint Template

Make an attractive and creative research thesis presentation using this PowerPoint template. There are over 30 unique slides in this template. You can either use dark or light color themes to create your presentations.

Colorful Thesis Research PowerPoint Template

If you want to make your research presentations look more colorful and creative, this PowerPoint template is for you. It has 15 different slides with fully customizable layouts. It has editable shapes, free fonts, and image placeholders too.

Free Data Analysis Research PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template is also free to download. You can also customize it using PowerPoint or Google Slides. This template is ideal for marketing agencies and teams for presenting research and data analysis.

Laboratory & Science Research PowerPoint Template

You can make more convincing and unique lab research presentations using this PowerPoint template. It features a creative design that will easily attract the attention of your audience. You can use it to make various other science and research presentations too. The template includes 30 unique slides.

The Biologist – Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

Just as the name suggests, this PowerPoint template is designed with biology and science-related presentations in mind. It includes many useful slide layouts that can be used to make various types of research presentations. There are 30 different slide designs included in this template with editable shapes and colors.

Modern Science & Research PowerPoint Template

If you’re looking for a PowerPoint template to create a modern-looking research presentation, this template is perfect for you. It features a collection of modern and attractive slides with lots of space for including images, icons, and graphs. There are 30 unique slides in the template with light and dark color themes to choose from.

Marketing Report & Research PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template doubles as both a research and report slideshow. You can use it to create various marketing reports as well as marketing research presentations. It comes with 30 slides that feature minimal and clean designs. It includes lots of editable charts, infographics, and tables as well.

Market Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

Another modern PowerPoint template for making market research presentations. This template includes 25 unique slides with master slides, image placeholders, and editable colors. The template is ideal for marketing agencies and corporate businesses.

Free Academic Research Thesis PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template is designed for defending your academic research thesis dissertation. Needless to say, it’s a useful template for academics as well as teachers. The template features 23 unique slide layouts with customizable designs.

Free Economics Research Thesis Presentation Template

You can use this free template to create thesis and research presentations related to economics. It’s useful for academic students and gives you the freedom to choose from 21 slide layouts to make your own presentations.

Labia – Research Presentation Powerpoint Template

Labia is a research presentation template made for professionals. It comes with a set of modern slides with multipurpose designs. That means you can customize them to make many different types of research presentations. There are 30 unique slides included in this template that come in 5 different color themes.

Medical Research Infographics & Powerpoint Slides

You’ll be using lots of charts, graphs, and infographics in your presentations to showcase data in visual form. Not to mention that visuals always work well for attracting the audience’s attention. You can use the infographic slides in this template to create better research presentations. Each slide features a unique infographic with animated designs.

Foreka – Biology Education & Research Presentation PPT

Foreka is a PowerPoint template made for educational presentations, especially for covering topics related to biology. But it can also be customized to present your research presentations. The slides have very useful layouts that are most suitable for making research slide designs. There are 30 slides included with light and dark color themes.

Maua – Aesthetic Business Research PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template is suitable for making elegant and stylish business reports and business research presentations. It’s especially great for making background research and competitor research slideshows. The template comes with 30 slides featuring master slides, image placeholders, and more.

World Data Scientist Powerpoint Presentation Template

You can use this PowerPoint template to create research presentations for many different types of topics, industries, and projects. The template includes lots of data-centric slides where you can easily showcase your data in visual form. There are 30 unique slides included with the template as well.

Free SWOT Analysis Infographics PowerPoint Template

SWOT analysis is a commonly used methodology in business research presentations. With this free PowerPoint template, you can create stylish SWOT analysis infographics for your presentations. It includes SWOT infographics in 30 different styles.

Free Market Research Presentation Infographics PPT

This is a collection of free PowerPoint slides that feature various styles of infographics you can use in your business and market research presentations. There are 30 different infographic slides included in this template. You can edit, change colors, and customize them however you like.

Sinara – Science & Research Powerpoint Template

Sinara is a brilliant PowerPoint template you can use to craft a professional presentation for science-related research and reports. It’s available in 3 different color schemes as well as the option to customize the colors to your preference. The template comes in light and dark themes too.

Political Science and Research PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template will be quite useful to political science and international relations students. It features a total of 150 slides you can use to create attractive presentations for your research and methodologies. There are slides in 5 different color schemes.

How to Make a Research Poster in PowerPoint

We bet you didn’t know that you could actually design posters in PowerPoint. Well, you can and it’s very easy to do so.

The easiest way to make a poster in PowerPoint is to use a pre-made template like the one above.

You can easily copy one of the slides from a template, and resize the slide dimensions to create a vertical poster. Then add a title with a few lines of text and you’ll have yourself a poster.

Or, if you want to craft a poster from scratch, you can read our complete guide on how to create posters in PowerPoint with step-by-step instructions.

For more useful presentation templates, be sure to check out our best educational PowerPoint templates collection.

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Research Paper PowerPoint Templates

Download and use any of our Research Presentation Templates to help you effectively communicate your research findings to your audience. Designing a PowerPoint presentation from start to finish can be stressful, but using our ready-made Research PowerPoint Templates is a quick and easy way to get the details of your research to your audience.

You can personalize these templates by tailoring them to your presentation style. They are professionally and creatively designed for all types of research. Shapes, icons, colors, diagrams, images, charts, graphs, and more. We made available our Research Templates and Google Slides designs to help you illustrate your research work.

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Research is a creative and systematic work to broaden one’s knowledge of a subject. It entails the objective collection, organization, and analysis of information to improve understanding of a topic or issue. A research project may be a continuation of previous work in the field. Using a well-crafted Research Template will help you save time and reduce stress while delivering your research to your target audience. You can use the Research Plan PowerPoint Template to reveal the research test processes or techniques. It could present business, marketing, and management research models in various industries.

Our Research Templates are designed to assist researchers in enhancing their research work by using 100% editable PowerPoint templates. These have been developed in formats that enable universal research use and acceptance. Our Research Templates are compatible with both MAC and Windows computers, as well as Google Slides, Keynote, Office 365, and Microsoft PowerPoint. All of our Research Templates are well-designed with shapes, icons, symbols, and other PowerPoint elements that will make your presentation visually appealing and allow you to communicate with your audience more effectively and quickly.

How Do You Write A Research Presentation?

A brief introduction, your hypotheses, a brief description of the methods, tables and/or graphs related to your findings, and an interpretation of your data should all be included in your presentation. The presentations should last no longer than 10 minutes. That’s not a lot of time. Allow approximately 1 minute per slide.

How to make a PowerPoint presentation from a research paper?

The simple step-by-step procedure for creating an incredible PowerPoint presentation from a research paper is outlined below:

• Introduction – 1 slide
• Hypotheses/ Research Questions – 1 slide
• Several kinds of literature – 1 slide
• Data Collection & Methods – 1 slide
• Data Presentation/ Discovery – 3-5 slides
• Conclusion – 1 slide

What Should A Research Presentation Template Include?

The presentation should include a summary of several hypotheses, a brief description of the methods, tables, and/or graphs related to various materials and methods, an interpretation of your data, a conclusion, and an acknowledgment.

How Many Slides Should A Research Presentation Have?

You should probably divide the presentation into sections based on the number of slides you believe is appropriate. Allow two to three minutes per slide, which means that for a 15-minute sensation, you should have no more than five to seven slides. Also, check out our gallery of research poster templates  available for PowerPoint and Google Slides.

What is the purpose of a research presentation?

A research presentation can be used, among other things, to defend a dissertation, for an academic job interview, for a conference, or to request funding. The purpose of your presentation will determine the remainder of the procedure.

Crafting Engaging and Informative Experiences: How Our Research Paper PowerPoint Templates Stand Out

Designing a PowerPoint presentation from scratch can be a daunting task, but our ready-made Research PowerPoint Templates are here to make your life easier. In this section, we’ll delve into what sets our templates apart and how they can help you create engaging and informative research presentations.

Ready-Made Templates for Stress-Free Presentations

Research presentations require a careful balance of information and engagement. Our Research PowerPoint Templates are designed to take the stress out of the presentation design process. You don’t have to spend countless hours crafting slides from scratch. Instead, you can download our templates and focus on tailoring them to your unique presentation style.

Professional and Creative Design

One of the standout features of our templates is their professional and creative design. We understand that research presentations need to convey complex information in a visually appealing way. That’s why our templates come loaded with a variety of elements, including shapes, icons, colors, diagrams, images, charts, and graphs. These elements are thoughtfully integrated into the templates to help you illustrate your research work effectively.

Versatile Templates for All Types of Research

Whether you’re working on a thesis, conducting marketing analysis, or presenting scientific findings, we have templates that cater to various research domains. Our library includes templates such as the Research Plan PowerPoint Template, Market Research Diagram PowerPoint Template, Animated Research PowerPoint Template, Medical Research PowerPoint Template, and many more. Each template is designed to meet the specific needs of different research projects.

Compatibility and Editability

We understand that researchers use a variety of tools and platforms for presentations. That’s why our Research Templates are compatible with both MAC and Windows computers, as well as popular software like Google Slides, Keynote, Office 365, and Microsoft PowerPoint. You can easily edit and customize these templates to make them your own, saving you valuable time in the process.

Effective Communication Made Easy

Our templates aren’t just about aesthetics; they’re about enhancing your ability to communicate your research effectively. Whether you’re presenting to colleagues, peers, or potential funders, our templates provide you with a visual framework that ensures your message gets across clearly and concisely.

In summary, crafting engaging and informative research presentations has never been easier. Our Research PowerPoint Templates offer a hassle-free solution to transform your research findings into compelling visual narratives. With professionally designed elements and compatibility across various platforms, our templates are your secret weapon for successful research presentations. Download one today and see the difference for yourself.

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Our annual unlimited plan let you download unlimited content from slidemodel. save hours of manual work and use awesome slide designs in your next presentation..

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How to Prepare a Paper Presentation

Last Updated: October 4, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Patrick Muñoz . Patrick is an internationally recognized Voice & Speech Coach, focusing on public speaking, vocal power, accent and dialects, accent reduction, voiceover, acting and speech therapy. He has worked with clients such as Penelope Cruz, Eva Longoria, and Roselyn Sanchez. He was voted LA's Favorite Voice and Dialect Coach by BACKSTAGE, is the voice and speech coach for Disney and Turner Classic Movies, and is a member of Voice and Speech Trainers Association. There are 9 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 364,543 times.

A paper is bad enough, but presentations are even more nerve-wracking. You've got the writing down, but how do you turn it into a dynamic, informative, enjoyable presentation? Why, here's how!

Guidelines and Audience

• Know how long the speech must be.
• Know how many points you're required to cover.
• Know if you must include sources or visuals.

• If you're presenting to people you know, it'll be easy to know what to break down and what to gloss over. But if you're presenting to unknown stockholders or faculty, for instance, you need to know about them and their knowledge levels, too. You may have to break your paper down into its most basic concepts. Find out what you can about their backgrounds.

• Does the facility have a computer and projector screen?
• Is there a working WiFi connection?
• Is there a microphone? A podium?
• Is there someone who can assist you in working the equipment before your presentation?

Script and Visuals

• Only have one point per notecard -- that way you won't end up searching the notecard for your information. And don't forget to number the cards in case you get mixed up! And the points on your cards shouldn't match your paper; instead of regurgitating information, discuss why the key points of your paper are important or the different points of view on this topic within the field.

• As you go through this outline, remove any jargon if it may not be understood.

• If you won't have access to the proper technology, print visual aids on poster board or foam-core board.
• If using presentation software, use words sparingly, but enough to get your point across. Think in phrases (and pictures!), not sentences. Acronyms and abbreviations are okay on the screen, but when you talk, address them fully. And remember to use large fonts -- not everyone's vision is fantastic. [7] X Research source

• It's okay to be a bit repetitive. Emphasizing important ideas will enhance comprehension and recall. When you've gone full circle, cycle back to a previous point to lead your audience to the right conclusion.
• Minimize the unnecessary details (the procedure you had to go through, etc.) when highlighting the main ideas you want to relay. You don't want to overload your audience with fluff, forcing them to miss the important stuff.
• Show enthusiasm! A very boring topic can be made interesting if there is passion behind it.

Practice, Practice, and More Practice

• If you can grab a friend who you think has a similar knowledge level to your audience, all the better. They'll help you see what points are foggier to minds with less expertise on the topic.

• It'll also help you with volume. Some people get rather timid when in the spotlight. You may not be aware that you're not loud enough!

• Do the same with your conclusion. Thank everyone for their time and open the floor for any questions, if allowed.
• Make eye contact with people in the audience to help build your connection with them.

What Is The Best Way To Start a Presentation?

Community Q&A

• Most people get nervous while public speaking. [10] X Research source You are not alone. [11] X Trustworthy Source Mayo Clinic Educational website from one of the world's leading hospitals Go to source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 1
• Visual aids not only help the audience, but they can help jog your memory if you forget where you are in your presentation. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Rehearse in front of a mirror before your presentation. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Answer questions only if it is related to your presentation. Keep these to the end of your talk. Thanks Helpful 76 Not Helpful 14

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://theihs.org/blog/prepare-for-a-paper-presentation-at-an-academic-conference/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/conference-papers/
• ↑ https://www.ncsl.org/legislators-staff/legislative-staff/legislative-staff-coordinating-committee/tips-for-making-effective-powerpoint-presentations.aspx
• ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qZMPW5g-v8
• ↑ https://twp.duke.edu/sites/twp.duke.edu/files/file-attachments/paper-to-talk.original.pdf
• ↑ http://www.cs.swarthmore.edu/~newhall/presentation.html
• ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgebradt/2014/09/10/big-presentation-dont-do-it-have-a-conversation-instead/#6d56a3f23c4b
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/smashing-the-brainblocks/201711/why-are-we-scared-public-speaking
• ↑ https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/specific-phobias/expert-answers/fear-of-public-speaking/faq-20058416

About This Article

To prepare a paper presentation, create an outline of your content, then write your script on note cards or slides using software like PowerPoint. Be sure to stick to one main point per card or slide! Next, design visual aids like graphics, charts, and bullet points to illustrate your content and help the audience follow along. Then, practice giving your presentation in front of friends and family until you feel ready to do it in class! For tips on creating an outline and organizing your information, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to present a research paper using power point

How to male a good power point presentation is an art & skill. But do not worry guys. Here, i am providing very important instructions in easy way to build professional power point presentation. Read less

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• 1. How to present a research paper using PowerPoint In research paper presentation, you are going to discuss everything that you have done and achieved during your research in limited time. Specific outline: Content Research paper presentation outline: 1. Introduction 2. methodology 3. objectives 4. Results & Discussion 5. conclusion 6. Future Recommendations 1. Introduction: Give brief introduction of your work, & focus on the things on which you have worked on. If you are working on gene then it will be important discuss on role & functions of that gene. You may discuss the “problem” on which you have worked on during your research. Things that you need to remember, (A). Focus on the relevant information (B). Do not more than 3 slides on the introduction 2. Methodology: It is about the recipe & spices of your research work. Mention all the materials that were required to do the task and how miraculously you did it. Using Flowcharts in your PowerPoint slides can help you to present it in the more engaging way. Try to fit it in 2 slides only. Emphasis on any special equipment or build that you have used during your work. 3. Objectives: Tell your audience about the verifiable objectives you had while doing this research. It doesn’tmatter if they vary from your results, it is necessary to tell the audience what were you looking for. (A). Consume only one slide (B). Make it concise
• 2. (C). you are allowed to use fancy words or good vocabulary here. 4. Results & Discussion: Write down your results, most possibly in the form of the table. Try not to confuse your audience with so much numerical data so charts will work fine. Highlight if you have something novel in your results. 5. Conclusion: Try to interpret your results in 2-3 points. The conclusion must be very meaningful for audiences. It must not be ambiguous. Usually, a single statement is enough. 6. Future Recommendations : What can be done more on your particle topic? This is very important if you are going to pursue the same topic in your further studies. It will help you to have a future objective for yourself. Tips for Researchpaperpresentations 1. There should be 5#5 rules in eachslide. I.e. there are five words in one sentence & there should be five lines on one slide. 2. Data should be in form of small key points or bullets. Data should be in paragraph form on the slide. It should be precise. Slides are not for the audience it just hints for the presenter. The presenter should explain all terms and every conceptthat is written on slide. 3. Standard heading size is 44 while standard text size is 32. 4. Make link of one slide with the second slide during the presentation. For example, tell the audience what they will listen and see in next slide. 5. The template of PowerPoint presentation should not have shocking color. Text color should be in contrastwith template color. If somewhere in slides text color is same as template audience would not be able to see what is written on it. 6. There should be slide number on every slide except title slide. 7. All slides should be in homogeneity. The presenter should use either upper case or lower case alphabets in the text of the whole presentation. 8. There should be the use of animations but no use of transitions.
• 3. 9. There should be a table of content of presentation on the slide next to title slide. By explaining this presenter should give an overview of the whole presentation.

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Advanced Research Methods

• Presenting the Research Paper
• What Is Research?
• Library Research
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Writing the Research Paper

Writing an Abstract

Oral presentation, compiling a powerpoint.

Abstract : a short statement that describes a longer work.

• Indicate the subject.
• Describe the purpose of the investigation.
• Briefly discuss the method used.
• Make a statement about the result.

Oral presentations usually introduce a discussion of a topic or research paper. A good oral presentation is focused, concise, and interesting in order to trigger a discussion.

• Be well prepared; write a detailed outline.
• Introduce the subject.
• Talk about the sources and the method.
• Indicate if there are conflicting views about the subject (conflicting views trigger discussion).
• Make a statement about your new results (if this is your research paper).
• Use visual aids or handouts if appropriate.

An effective PowerPoint presentation is just an aid to the presentation, not the presentation itself .

• Be brief and concise.
• Focus on the subject.
• Attract attention; indicate interesting details.
• If possible, use relevant visual illustrations (pictures, maps, charts graphs, etc.).
• Use bullet points or numbers to structure the text.
• Make clear statements about the essence/results of the topic/research.
• Don't write down the whole outline of your paper and nothing else.
• Don't write long full sentences on the slides.
• Don't use distracting colors, patterns, pictures, decorations on the slides.
• Don't use too complicated charts, graphs; only those that are relatively easy to understand.
• << Previous: Writing the Research Paper
• Last Updated: May 16, 2024 10:20 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.ucla.edu/research-methods

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How to Turn Any Research Paper into a PowerPoint Presentation in Minutes

If you are a researcher, you may often need to create PowerPoint presentations based on research papers. However, reading and summarizing research papers can be time-consuming and tedious. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a handy tool that could do it in minutes for you automatically?

Well, there is! It is called Scholarcy, and it is a Chrome extension that summarizes research articles, creates interactive flashcards, highlights key points, links to open-access versions of each citation , and more.

I have already explained how to produce a report on an academic article’s quality and structure in my prior article .

Furthermore, I also provided a comprehensive discussion in my previous blog post of a valuable AI-powered Tool that Generates One-Sentence Summaries of Research Papers.

In this blog post, I will show you how to use Scholarcy to convert research papers into PowerPoint presentations in a few easy steps.

How to Turn Any Research Paper into a Stunning PowerPoint Presentation

Step #1: install scholarcy chrome extension.

The first step is to install the Scholarcy Chrome extension from the  Chrome Web Store .

Step #2: Open a Research Paper in Your Browser

The next step is to open a research paper that you want to convert into a PowerPoint presentation in your chrome browser.

It can be any academic paper that is publicly accessible and not behind a login or paywall.

For example, you can use Google Scholar or PubMed to find papers on your topic of interest.

Step #3: Click on the Scholarcy Icon

Once you have opened the paper, click on the Scholarcy icon in your browser toolbar.

This will launch the Scholarcy app in a new tab and start processing the academic paper.

Step 4: Review and Edit the Summary Flashcard

Scholarcy will generate a summary flashcard for the paper, which contains the following sections:

• Title: The title of the paper
• Summary: A concise summary of the paper’s main findings and contributions
• Key Points: A bullet list of the most important points from the paper
• Background Reading: A list of references that provide more context and background for the paper
• Citation s: A list of citation s from the paper with links to open-access versions of each citation
• Sections: A breakdown of the paper’s sections with snippets from each section

You can review and edit the summary flashcard as you wish. You can also use the options menu to modify the way Scholarcy processes your content.

Step #5: Download the PowerPoint File

When you are happy with the summary flashcard, click on the ‘Download’ button at the top right corner of the app and choose ‘PowerPoint’ .

This will download a PowerPoint file to your computer that contains slides based on the file. You can then open the file and edit it further as you like.

Now, you have successfully converted a research paper into a PowerPoint presentation using Scholarcy AI tool.

You can now use it for your own purposes or share it with others. You can also repeat this process for any other papers that you want to present.

In addition to that you also have the option to download a Word file with a summary of the academic paper.

Demonstration (How to Convert Research Paper to PowerPoint Presentation using AI Tool)

I hope you found this blog post helpful and informative. If you want to learn more about Scholarcy and its features, you can visit their  website .

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How to create an effective PowerPoint presentation (2024 guide)

Jun 24, 2024

Posted by: Regine Fe Arat

Creating a compelling PowerPoint presentation is an essential skill in today's professional world. 

Whether you're presenting to colleagues, clients or a large audience, a well-designed and engaging presentation can make a significant impact. 

This guide will walk you through making a powerful, effective PowerPoint presentation. Let’s get straight into it with the most important part of all: Your audience.

Understanding your audience

Effective, tailored communication is the foundation of any successful presentation. 

To connect with your audience and deliver your message effectively, you must understand:

• who they are, 
• what they care about and
• what they hope to gain from your presentation. 

Researching your target audience and adapting your content ensures you create a presentation that resonates with them on a deeper level. This connection means you’re more likely to keep them engaged and motivated throughout. 

Let’s look at the key steps to understanding your audience and crafting a presentation that speaks directly to their needs and interests.

Analyzing your target audience

Before creating your presentation, it's crucial to understand your target audience. Consider factors such as their background, knowledge level, interests and expectations. 

For example, if you're presenting to a technical audience, you may include more detailed information and jargon. If you’re presenting to children, you might want to add some fun slide transitions that you wouldn’t use in a corporate environment.

Tailoring the presentation to the audience

Once you understand your audience, tailor your presentation accordingly. Adjust the content, language and tone to resonate with your audience. 

If you’re presenting to a client, can you align your presentation with their branding and messaging to create a sense of harmony? How can you create a compelling call to action if it's a business presentation ?

Use relevant examples, stories and case studies your audience can relate to, and always present the information in a way that’s easy to understand and engage with.

Planning and organizing content

A well-structured presentation is essential for effectively communicating your ideas and engaging your audience. 

The key to success is carefully planning and organizing your content before creating your PowerPoint slides.

Take time to develop your key ideas, structure your presentation flow and create a clear outline to deliver a compelling and memorable presentation. Let’s look at how to do that.

Developing key ideas

Start by identifying the key ideas and messages you want to convey in your presentation. Focus on the most critical points and organize them logically. 

Use mind maps, outlines or brainstorming techniques to organize your thoughts and ensure your presentation has a clear structure.

Structuring your presentation

Once you have your key ideas, craft your presentation to flow smoothly and engage your audience.

Begin with an attention-grabbing introduction, followed by the main content divided into clear sections or topics. 

Use transitions to seamlessly move from one section to another, and end with a strong conclusion that reinforces your main points.

Designing visual elements

Your PowerPoint presentation’s visuals play a big role in capturing your audience's attention and reinforcing your key messages. 

Carefully designing your slides can create an engaging and visually appealing presentation that effectively communicates your ideas.

Be mindful of your audience. They will appreciate it if you can include an element that represents them. It could be a color combination of a company’s logo or a symbol that represents a group. 

Let’s explore the principles of effective slide design to ensure your visual elements enhance your presentation.

Choosing the right fonts

Select easy-to-read, visually appealing fonts. Stick to a maximum of two or three font styles throughout your presentation for consistency. 

Use font sizes large enough for your audience to read, typically 24 points or larger for body text and 36 points or larger for titles.

Using engaging backgrounds and themes

Choose backgrounds and themes that complement your content and enhance the look of your presentation. 

Skip the distracting backgrounds that take away from your message. 

Incorporating high-quality images and videos

Incorporate visuals such as images, charts, graphs and videos to make a more memorable and engaging presentation. 

Use high-quality images that are relevant to your topic and add visual interest to your slides. Avoid too many decorative elements that can clutter your slides.

Using PowerPoint effectively

PowerPoint is the perfect tool for creating dynamic, engaging presentations. However, to make the most of this software, it's essential to understand its features.

In this section, we'll explore everything from animations to best practices for supporting your key messages and keeping your audience engaged .

Utilizing slide layouts and templates

PowerPoint offers various slide layouts and templates to save time and ensure consistency. Choose a layout that suits your content and conveys your message effectively. 

Customize the templates to fit your presentation style or branding, but avoid overloading your slides with too much text or information.

Adding animations and special effects

Use animations and special effects sparingly to emphasize key points or catch the audience’s attention. Too many animations can be distracting and take away from your content. 

Stick to simple animations that enhance your message rather than overpowering it. Use animations consistently throughout your presentation to maintain a cohesive look and feel.

Applying color schemes and design themes

Choose a color scheme that aligns with your branding (or your client’s) and creates a visually appealing presentation. Contrasting colors for text and backgrounds ensure readability. 

Applying design themes consistently throughout your presentation creates a polished and professional look.

Proper formatting and citations

Ensure that your presentation follows proper formatting guidelines and includes accurate citations for any external sources. 

Bullet points or numbered lists break down information into easily digestible chunks, making it easier to keep your audience interested. 

Including slide numbers and a clear agenda or table of contents helps your audience navigate your presentation. 

Always proofread your slides for any typos before finalizing your presentation.

Delivering an engaging presentation

Delivering an engaging presentation is more than just creating great slides; it also requires strong communication skills and the ability to connect with your audience. 

In this section, we'll focus on presentation delivery, providing you with techniques and strategies to captivate your audience and effectively convey your message. 

Enhancing presentation skills

Work on your presentation skills to become a confident and compelling speaker. Regular practice is one of the best ways to become a great speaker. 

Go beyond boring slides and speeches and use storytelling techniques to make your content more relatable and memorable. 

Practice active listening and reply to your audience's reactions and questions. If they seem bored, jazz it up a little with humor. 

Impromptu speaking is also ideal for engaging your audience. While it can be scary to move away from your script and slides, it can be very effective. 

Using effective body language and eye contact

Good body language is vital in engaging your audience. Maintain a confident posture, use gestures to highlight key points and make eye contact with your audience.

Avoid reading from your slides — use them as visual aids to support your message. 

Consider what side of the slides you want to stand on. Generally speaking, you want to be to the audience’s left of the screen. You want the audience to listen to you before looking at the slides. 

Using voice and tone to engage the audience

Vary your voice and tone to keep your audience interested and engaged. 

Use pauses for emphasis, adjust your speaking speed and modulate your volume to create a dynamic presentation. If you have an impactful slide, let the audience sit with it for a moment.

It’s also important to speak clearly. Properly pronouncing words and not mumbling ensures your audience understands your message.

Tips for a successful presentation

Creating and delivering a successful PowerPoint presentation requires careful planning and practice.

In this section, we'll provide you with valuable tips and best practices for elevating your presentation skills, from rehearsing to gathering feedback.

Preparing and practicing beforehand

Preparation and practice are key to delivering a successful presentation. 

Work backward when planning your presentation: What date is the presentation? Plan weekly milestones to ensure you don’t feel overwhelmed with everything you need to do.

Give yourself time to research your topic, gather relevant information and organize your content.

Rehearse your presentation multiple times to grasp the flow and timing. Practice in front of a mirror, colleagues or friends for feedback to make necessary improvements.

Tips for dealing with technical issues

Technical issues can disrupt your presentation and cause unnecessary stress. Be prepared with backup copies of your presentation on different devices or online platforms. 

Familiarize yourself with the presentation equipment and venue beforehand to minimize potential technical problems. 

Have a plan in case of unexpected issues. Printing handouts and preparing to deliver your presentation without slides are great ways to get ahead of issues.

Engaging the audience with Q&A sessions

If you can, allocate time for a Q&A session at the end of your presentation to engage with your audience and address their questions. 

Encourage participation by asking open-ended questions and actively listening to their responses. 

Be prepared to handle challenging questions with grace and professionalism. Use the opportunity to clarify any unclear points or provide additional insights.

The last card

Creating a good PowerPoint presentation requires effective design, careful planning and engaging delivery. 

Understanding your audience, organizing your content, effectively using visuals and enhancing your presentation skills can captivate your audience and leave a lasting impact. 

Keep exploring the Pip Decks website and our resources to discover more tips, tutorials and templates for even better PowerPoint presentations. 

What is the 10 20 30 rule of PowerPoint?

The 10-20-30 rule is a guideline for effective PowerPoint presentations. 

It suggests: 

• using no more than 10 slides, 
• limiting the presentation duration to 20 minutes and 
• using a font size of at least 30 points for optimal readability.

What are the 5 golden rules of PowerPoint presentations?

The five golden rules of PowerPoint presentations are:

• Keep it simple and concise
• Use visuals to enhance your message
• Maintain a consistent design and color scheme
• Use clear fonts
• Practice and prepare for a confident delivery

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Presentations > How to introduce yourself in a presentation

How to introduce yourself in a presentation

A well-executed presentation should captivate your audience and listeners. The first step to gaining their attention is creating an engaging introduction. Learn why presentation introductions are important and how to properly execute one for your presentation.

Why are presentation introductions important?

Presentation delivery impacts your audience’s reception and listening skills. A dull delivery can deter listeners and potentially leave them disinterested. Conversely, an effective delivery can engage your audience, promote active listening, and stimulate substantive discussion.

Presentation introductions also help to establish the outline of your presentation and give the audience an idea of what is to come. Introductions play a crucial role in captivating listeners from the onset and building momentum. They address who you are, why the audience should be invested, state the topic, establish credibility, preview the main points, and establish the cadence and tone of your presentation. Before you dive into the content of your presentation, ensure you establish an effective introduction to captivate your audience.

Tell your story with captivating presentations

Powerpoint empowers you to develop well-designed content across all your devices

How to begin a presentation introduction

To establish rapport with your audience, here are some tips to effectively introduce yourself and your presentation:

Be clear and concise

A succinct introduction makes it easier for your audience to follow. Keep your introduction simple, short, and include only necessary information. State your name and topic clearly so your audience knows you from the beginning. Avoid unnecessary details or lengthy anecdotes in your introduction to keep things focused and to the point.

Provide pertinent background information

In addition to your name and topic, highlight anything else that is relevant. You can include your education, work background, qualifications, and other information. Most importantly, ensure the information you disclose is directly relevant to yourself and presentation.

Create a hook or attention getter

Once you’ve established your name and topic, create an engaging hook or attention getter. Your introduction can be funny, clever, or it can captivate your audience. Have fun creating an introduction, but be sure to align your tone and delivery to your audience.

Outline your presentation

Let your audience know what your will be discussing. Establish a roadmap of your presentation: outline your contents, topics, and main points in an easily digestible format. This makes it easier for your audience to follow your presentation and prepare for its contents.

Practice and refine

Once you’ve created a solid introduction, rehearse your introduction until the delivery is organic and smooth. Confidence is key for an optimal delivery. Speak clearly, practice eye contact, and use storytelling to engage your audience.

Be authentic

Above all, be yourself—authenticity helps you build trust and connection with your audience. Carry you character, speech, and personality into your presentation to draw in your audience.

A successful introduction establishes tone, cadence, topic, and showcases your personality. Gain your audience’s attention and effectively deliver your presentation with an effective introduction. For more ways to engage your audience and improve presentation delivery , learn more presentation tips .

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