Communication: Why

Undergraduate - measure of success?Graduate student – measure of success?After school – measure of success?

Your future success will largely depend on your ability to communicate

Communication: HowSeminars• Who is the target audience?• How long do you pay attention?• Why do you stop paying attention?• How many things (conclusions) do you remember from a

seminar?• Do you ask questions?

You are surrounded by opportunities to study communication and develop your own style.

Elevator Pitch

The big game!Contents of the pitch• What you are doing – high level• Why someone should careOnion analogyExcite don’t exhaustTable of contents image

Pitfalls from the Bench to the Podium

Every experimentvs results that support conclusions

Chronological ordervs sequencing results to support conclusions

Proportionality of effortvs significance

The One Rule for Communication

Do whatever is necessary/appropriate to convey your information

The 2nd Rule for Presentations

Do not exceed the allotted time

The Most Important Thing you Must Decide

What do you want the audience to remember?What are the Conclusions and why should anyone care?• 2-3 Conclusions• Significance and novelty• Everything in the presentation should center

around Conclusions• Excess/irrelevant information is bad

• Distract/confuse/exhaust

Steps to Preparing a PresentationOrganize – information for Conclusions• What data is necessary/unnecessary• How sequence your argumentsPrepare Outstanding Slides• Many schematics (concepts and experimental)• Minimize words• Animation to “synchronize” input to the audience• Re-plot figures with focused information & large font sizesPractice• Beginning, transitions and hard parts?• Check timing

Engage Two Senses to Convey Information

Sound – what you say

Sight - what you show

Complement and not Compete• Animation

Slides as a “crutch”• For speaker and listener• For non-native speakers

Your “Story”Introduction• Why are you doing the work?

Experimental• What did you do?

Results• What did you observe?

Conclusions• What does it mean (why is it important)?

Each Slide (or Sequence of Slides) is a Self-contained Mini-story Leading to a Specific Conclusion

Title• Meaningful – goal (introduction) or conclusion?

Experimental• Schematic

Results• Simple plot, table or image

Conclusion• Simple bullet point

Chitosan Electrodeposition Mechanism

Chitosan “recognizes” localized electrical stimuli and responds by depositing as a stable film

pH Gradient

Soluble ChitosanChains (low pH)

Cath

ode

Aqueous Solution

Insoluble ChitosanFilm (high pH)

2H+

H2

Langmuir 18 8620 (2002); 19 4058 (2003)

Gold-coatedwafer

After electro-deposition

Chitosan film peeled

from wafer

Electrodeposition of Protein-Chitosan Conjugate

pH Gradient

2H+

H2

C a t h o d e

pH= pKa

Cathode

Deposition

Langmuir, 19: 9382 (2003)

50 m line500 m space

50 m line100 m space

20 m line300 m space

Spatially-controlled protein assembly

Avidin Assembly at Individual Address

Deposition

Sequential anodic oxidation - control charge transfer (10 s,

0.9V) 0 80 160 240 320 4000

20

40

60

80

Fluo

resc

ence

Charge (C/m2)

Avidin and biotin binding

Avidin

Labeled Biotin

Immerse chip in avidin (1 hr) and then fluorescently-labelled biotin Spatial and quantitative control

of protein assembly (avidin)

Shi et al. Advanced Materials 21 984 (2009)

Electro-addressing Different E. coli Populations

(a) Schematic of Experiment (b) Results

Deposited films

Red Filter

Green Filter

CompositeInduction with IPTG

Deposition of RFP-expressing cells

Deposition of GFP-expressing cells

Deposition of alginate control

Shi et al. Advanced Functional Materials 19 2074 (2009)

OO

OHOH

Q QH2

Enzymatic ChargingAccept electrons from biological

“mediators”Dehydro-

Ascorbate (ox)or

NADP+(ox)

Ascorbate (red)or

NADPH (red)

0

10

20

30

NADPH

Ascorb

ate

Positiv

e

Contro

l

NFi

lm, a

ccep

t

(nm

ole

e- /cm

2 )

Buffer

Enzymatic Charging

GDH

OO

OHOH

NADP+

Q QH2

NADPH

Gluconate Glucose

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

NFi

lm,C

harg

ed

(nm

ole

e- /cm

2 )

Glucose (mM)Adv. Funct. Mat. 22 1409 (2012)

Glucose dehydrogenase (GDH)

Mechanics

Title• An abstract/pitch for the work• Provides a brief overview

• What you’ve accomplished• Why important

MechanicsIntroduction • What is the purpose of the work?

• What’s the problem/opportunity• What’s your approach to solving the problem

• Should directly link to conclusions, significance and novelty

• Keep it short – this is generally the most difficult part of the presentation• Background of other work?

• Inverted pyramid – from broad to specific - (Plaxco, 2010)

Mechanics

Materials and Methods• My approach: to provide information on a

“need-to-know-basis” (don’t ask the audience to remember)

• Give the audience the methods information they need only when they need it

• Embed the methods information in the same slide with the results and conclusions

MechanicsResults • Simplify presentation and focus on the most

important things (only show data directly relevant to conclusions)

• Describe the results (don’t assume the audience can look at the graph and understand what it means)

• Draw a conclusion from each result (data should only be presented that is integral to a conclusion)

Mechanics

Conclusions slide• Be broad in conclusions • Be consistent with the Introduction• Be simple• These are the words you would like the

audience to remember• Indicate why the audience should care

(significance, novelty or applications)

Final Comment

Effective Communication• Is hard work• Is integral to your success• Requires constant learning

• Life is your laboratory