The end of the semester is coming up, which means that even though we'd rather think about friends and family and pumpkin pie, it's nearly project presentation time for undergrads and research presentations for grad students! Now, I'm not a huge fan of giving presentations for a multitude of reasons that a lot of people probably face - anxiety, fear, nervousness, unfamiliarity with some of the background information - but there a few general steps I've learned to help you make a great presentation and then give a great talk. This is by no means a comprehensive guide to making slides, but it's a good place to start!

Let's get started:

1. Collect your data and analyze it.

Maybe this is obvious, but you need data of some kind and some sort of analysis for people to understand what you're talking about and why it's important. The key point though is to make sure you know what sort of data you're presenting and what each piece of data means. And BACK UP ALL YOUR DATA! You don't want to lose it.

2. Think about the logical flow you want for your talk, the story you want to tell.

This one is super important! Giving a presentation is much easier when you have a logical progression of thought throughout the entire thing. Think of it like a story you want to tell, with characters and events of importance. Arrange the pieces of your data so that the audience can easily understand your thought process as you conducted your research.

3. Go through your slides and make sure you understand them!

Once you have slides, make sure you understand everything on them. Seriously, you need to understand every detail on your slides - not only for potential questions that you might get asked, but because it's also an exercise for you to process the necessary information you will need to get across to your audience.

4. Ask someone to talk a look at it.

This is super helpful, and having a second set of eyes can find the little things that you missed. If you can have a friend look through your presentation, even if it's just for the aesthetics like fonts, colors, alignments, and image quality. It makes a world of difference. In the whirl of slide-making and data analysis, sometimes it's easy to forget those little things too, so have a friend take a look. If they're willing to sit through a practice run, even better!

5. Practice!

Practice makes perfect. The information will feel more comfortable, the slides will become more familiar, and you'll begin to feel more prepared as you talk. Then all you have to do is go out there and rock it!