Sample Conference Talk Outline

This conference talk outline is a starting point, not a rigid template. Most good speakers average two minutes per slide, not counting title and outline slides, and thus use about a dozen slides for a twenty minute presentation.

1. Title/author/affiliation (1 slide);


2. Forecast (1 slide): Give gist of problem attacked and insight found. What is the one idea you want people to leave with? This serves a purpose similar to the abstract of a scholarly paper;


3. Outline (1 slide): Give talk structure. Some speakers prefer to put this at the bottom of their title slide. Audiences like predictability;


4. Background
• Motivation and Problem Statement (1-2 slides): Why should anyone care? Most researchers overestimate how much the audience knows about the problem they are attacking;
• Related Work (0-1 slides): Cover superficially or omit; refer people to your paper;
• Methods (1 slide): Cover quickly in short talks; refer people to your paper.


5. Results (4-6 slides): Present key results and key insights. This is the main body of the talk. Its internal structure varies greatly as a function of the researcher's contribution. Do not superficially cover all results; cover key results well. Do not just present numbers; interpret them to give insights. Do not put up large tables of numbers;


6. Summary (1 slide)


7. Future Work (0-1 slides): Optionally, give problems this research opens up;


8. Backup Slides (0-3 slides): Optionally, have a few slides ready -- not counted in your talk total -- to answer expected questions. Likely question areas are ideas glossed over, shortcomings of methods or results, and future work.

Adapted from Mark D. Hill's Oral Presentation Advice Webpage.