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Some research behind presenting better: season 2 newsletters

Updated: Oct 31


picture credit: Simon, C (2025). The Neuroscience of memorable content. Training Magazine Network. Webinar: Feb 19th, 2025. Her research is featured in Issue 2.4: Don't start with an overview.
picture credit: Simon, C (2025). The Neuroscience of memorable content. Training Magazine Network. Webinar: Feb 19th, 2025. Her research is featured in Issue 2.4: Don't start with an overview.

Research-based approaches bring results:

Season 2 of the PresentBetter newsletter was all about the science behind the lessons. Topics included how to manage pre-talk nerves, how to give and receive better feedback, and the value of down time while preparing.


Not yet signed up for season 3 and interested? Don't miss out...



Anxiety is not something that just goes away. But the good news is we know ways to manage it while we feel it and help decrease it over time. Here's one of the tips to deal with anxiety that was shared in this newsletter.


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This graph comes from from a research study conducted by Harvard Business School Professor Alison Brooks (2014).


The takeaway is clear: immediately before going on stage, reframe anxiety as excitement. Because you have something important to say. Because you have something important to contribute. Because you deserve to be standing on that stage. And then watch the anxiety fade because we can't be both excited and anxious.

Brooks, A. W. (2014). Get excited: Reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(3), 1144–1158. doi.org/10.1037/a0035325



Feedback from our peers is essential to improving our draft talks. However, knowing how to give good feedback is not an innate skill. Below is one of the exercises, based on Giltrow's read-aloud protocol, included in this issue to help you give better feedback.

First, the presenter runs through their draft talk while the listener writes down reactions: places that were interesting or confusing, places where their attention drifted, etc. After the talk, the listener shares their thoughts, and the final step is to have a conversation where the speaker is allowed to ask probing questions. This is the data speakers need to gain insight about how readers will experience their talk, and it's coupled with a way for them to also explore ways to improve it.

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Giltrow, J. (2002). Academic Writing: Writing and Reading in the Disciplines (3rd ed.). Broadview Press.



It used to be the going wisdom that you should open your talk with a table of contents: first I'll say this, then I'll say this, and last I'll say this. But research now shows that that's not only unhelpful, it's actively distracting to your audience. This newsletter explained why.

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Dr. Carmen Simon showed that memory decreases upon seeing a specific agenda slide, and it decreases even more when the agenda comes with a summary. This is because your table of contents reveals the presentation in its entirety. You have now undermined

one curiosity trigger: incomplete information. Instead, you need to create a naturally flowing trajectory that answers questions as you trigger them.


Simon, C (2024). The Neuroscience of memorable content. Training Magazine. Webinar: Nov 5th, 2024.



When your audience is busy reading text-heavy slides, they aren't listening to you. This newsletter unpacked the science behind what researchers call "inattentional deafness" and shared how to create more helpful visuals.

"Inattentional deafness" happens when we are absorbed in a visual task, such as reading, and we don't hear what's being said to or around us. All of us experience it to different degrees, but as Macdonald and Lavie showed, when the task we're doing becomes more complex, we hear even less of our surroundings. Applied to presentations, this means that the more text-heavy and dense your slides are, the fewer people who will be able to listen to you.

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Macdonald, J.S.P., Lavie, N. Visual perceptual load induces inattentional deafness. Atten Percept Psychophys 73, 1780–1789 (2011). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-011-0144-4



"Present" is a verb, but it is also a noun, an adjective and an adverb. In order to put forward your best presentation, you must think about what "present" means in all its different forms. One meaning touched on in this issue was how to be "present."


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Learning how to be fully present, or immersed, in your talk will help immerse your audience. When we are emotionally invested in our presentation, our audience feels it and responds to it. They can then enter the positive state psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi calls "flow," where they feel like they fully "get" what's going on and they are motivated to keep listening.

For more on flow and an interesting overview of Csikszentmihalyi's work: Sutton, J. (2025).  



When we're up against a deadline, we may feel guilty stepping away from the work. But in reality, "incubation" is essential to creating better presentations. In this newsletter, some of the scientific reasoning behind taking breaks to think differently are explained.

Neurologist Marcus Raichle has identified with fMRI that different areas of the brain are active when we are focusing versus when we are in a default state or resting. So when you step away from your project for a while, you're letting new parts of your mind consider the problem from different angles. This is why you should front-load your presentation process with the right focused work

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early enough so that you can then step away and allow the ideas to reformulate until they coalesce.


Raichle, M. (2015), The Brain's Default Mode Network. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 38: 433-447.



In case the mathematically minded among you were wondering where Issue 2.1 went, here it is. The first newsletter of the season shared full access to a 3-part series of 7 videos to help you improve your on-screen presence, as a special thank you for subscribing.

This video series is designed to help you learn to shine even when the lights are brightest and the only audience is the person recording you. It was filmed for McGill professors, but any researcher getting ready to be on camera will benefit.


One key aspect is immersion. The first 2 videos explained tricks to immerse yourself in what you're saying, which will engage your audience in turn.

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Quick links to all of Season 2 of the PresentBetter newsletter:









Not yet signed up for season 3 and interested? Here you go...

 
 
 

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