The Slide-Structure of a Technical 20-min Presentation
By Michalis Faloutsos
Thanks to Michael Samidi

General guidelines:

• Expect 1.5-2 minutes per slide on average. However, I have seen people go through faster and slower. which leads us to the next point.
• Time yourself. Try it out loud. You can think much faster than you can talk.
• Have one major message per slide. Don't combine intuition, motivation problem and solution all in one.
• Be constistent with the title of the slide. If it is "Motivation" you can not say how your method works. If it is "My algorithm" you can not sumarize for the first time other people's work.
• A talk is an advertisement. You are not expected to go into details. Though you can give the flavour or highlight the difficulties involved.
• Don't hesitate to make high level statements like "Our algorithm works better than previous ones" in writing (assuming there is a plot or evidence of course that you can relate or show).
• Start from high level and go to detail. "Warn" people of what you are trying to say.
• Know your audience: its scientific level, and its interests.
• Add some humour if possible. However, avoid making a comment that can a) insult someone in the audience, b) make fun of your work.

A Suggestion for the Structure of the Slides

Clearly this is not the only way. But it has worked for me. Every talk is different. However, if you don't have a lot of experience, this may be a good starting point. Note: Especially for my students: Please start from this structure and write one or two phrases per slide that will summarize the main point of each slide.

1. Title	1 slide
2. What is the problem	1 slide
3. What is the solution/contribution	1 slide
4. Motivation/Importance	1 slide
5. Roadmap	1 slide
6. Background/Model/Definitions/Previous Works	1-3 slide
7. Your innovation and contribution: top-down details in separate slides proof	1-3 slide
8. Experimental results/Proofs	3-5 slide
9. Conclusions	1 slide
10. Future Work	1 slide