HASS P2P RCA Event Series – Academic Presentation Skills

As part of my postgraduate teaching assistant (PTA) job of the HASS Peer2Peer Research Culture Assistant role for the second time, I organized three hybrid workshop sessions on academic presentation skills. These workshops were developed from previous event series on Public Speaking Skills in Academic Presentation (previous blog can be found here, and previous resources can be found here). A podcast about these event series has also been made, and relevant resources can be found here (“RESOURCES for reference” section of the Padlet). The aim is to provide an opportunity for HASS PGRs to meet up (with drink & biscuits provided), make friends, practice academic presentation skills, present research and contribute to resources to share within the HASS community.

The three sessions include:

1) Practicing essential elements of academic presentation skills;

2) Improving academic presentation skills together;

3) Presenting your research.

Some reflections on the events and helpful tips on improving academic presentation skills from the participants include:

“It was a very informative and detailed session delivered in a very digestible way! It was also really useful that Belinda repeated the importance of the audience when presenting because it’s so easy to forget or overlook that when you’re focused on being the one presenting. It was nice to be formed into our own group online to try out the activity and, importantly, still have her to guide us. The way the workshop was organised and her attentiveness made me feel so involved/present as if I had attended in-person!” (Isahbella Rai, idsr202@exeter.ac.uk, PhD in Law)

“It was a very friendly space with good feedback – I liked the roles for feedback to involve everyone. I thought it was very helpful and engaging. Belinda has done a great job organizing and made us feel really comfortable in the room. Thanks everyone who came. It’s also great to catch up with people from various backgrounds and with a broad scope of research. It’s really interesting to get to know other stuff that I’m not really aware of and to listen to various ideas and experiences. Presenting this time to a different audience was really interesting. Most important feedback I received was great and really insightful. I could gain a lot from that.” (Aymeric Lamy, al947@exeter.ac.uk, PhD in History)

“What I really liked was what Belinda said about us integrating those roles within us and taking them away so that we become better speakers overall. And I think going around practicing each role could really help us integrate those roles, having the time checker, ah checker etc. within us. I like that we got to switch roles, and each of us shared our own experiences.” (Soufyane Badreddine, sb1351@exeter.ac.uk, PhD in Sociology)

“I think these sessions are very nice ways to self-reflect and become self-aware and self-conscious while you are presenting something. Because in general you usually don’t think about these things. They actually provide a good opportunity to see how other people present in an informal atmosphere. Belinda also provided some useful tips and points to consider. Then you are thinking about these things and at the same time trying to become a better speaker and presenter. Sometimes, you realise that there are small things you can change, and your presentation skills will improve significantly. They give you this opportunity to realise what first minor steps you should take for improvement. I think they are very useful. I think it should be interesting for everyone to attend the sessions and they should be beyond HASS faculty. It would be nice that they are done at the university level and become a regular thing and people from different fields can work together.” (Mykyta Isagulov, mi338@exeter.ac.uk, PhD in English Literature)

“I really enjoyed this event. It gave me a sense of the range of what people are working on. It was super helpful to practice and evaluate others and my public speaking. Both on a content and style level, I found it enriching.” “In terms of improving academic presentation skills, every time you are tempted to say ‘em’, just leave a gap. It allows people to internalize what you said before. Try to begin the presentation with a question and spend the next however much time you have defining the terms, unpacking and then continuing the range of the debate in terms of answering the question, then conclude with a fun fact that people can take home and say, ‘I didn’t know about that before’. That might go some way into answering the question. That would be the way I would instinctively rhetorically structure a three-minute thesis like that, or any talk really.” (Mark Schunemann, ms1390@exeter.ac.uk, PhD in Philosophy and Anthropology)

“Thank you for such a lively, fun and informative session today! I really enjoyed myself and it was great to engage with you all and with public speaking skills. This could be brilliant across the whole university, every subject matter, all levels (also undergraduate and master’s level), departments and faculty. It is not just about learning how to present yourself, be it your 2^nd language, 3^rd language or 4^th language. It is important for us to learn how we present ourselves, but also it’s really important at a completely cross university interdisciplinary level to meet people within all levels of linguistic understanding and presentation ability. I’ve been doing this for years and I learnt something today.” (Shona Buchanan, mb1374@exeter.ac.uk, PhD in Drama)

“This was a really great session. I think it is really important actually that everybody comes and tries every session like this. Because at multiple points in your PhD journey, you will have to talk about your research, present whether to an academic audience or a public facing audience. So, it is really useful to have a safe and supportive space to practice, make all your mistakes, but then get the help to improve it and make it as best as you can before you actually go out and do it in front of people who might be more critical. So that you are more prepared and you feel ready and confident in what you are doing because you have had that supportive space. Thank you. Everybody should come along and try it.” (Joanna Merrett, Jem260@exeter.ac.uk, PhD in education)

“I quite like it. It was a very comfortable space to present my research. Thank you. If there is a way to get more PGRs involved from other departments, it would be great!” (Saman Abdalkarim, sa914@exeter.ac.uk, PhD in Kurdish Studies)

“Great to meet others – helpful to hear a range of feedback. Belinda was a very engaging speaker and put us at ease. Thank you. As to improving academic presentation skills, think about your audience and how to frame/explain what you say accordingly.” (Romona Nash, rn376@exeter.ac.uk, PhD in Theology and Religion) 

In summary, hopefully, this feedback and suggestion blog on academic presentation skills will help more PGRs improve their skills effectively. Many thanks to all the PGRs who supported the events and contributed to the resources. Please feel free to contact me (dl483@exeter.ac.uk) if you have any questions or simply want to talk about it.

Consent and approval were gained regarding the feedback and comments mentioned in the blog.