Better Presentations: A Guide for Scholars, Researchers, and Wonks

Today I'm pleased to announce that my book on creating and delivering better presentation design is available for pre-order! Better Presentations: A Guide for Scholars, Researchers, and Wonks (published by Columbia Academy Press) ships this fall. I wrote this volume because I believe people who work with data and data-intensive content need to improve the fashion they present their piece of work. Better Presentations details essential strategies for developing clear, sophisticated, and visually captivating presentations.

This book is the culmination of a shift in my career, when I started paying closer attending to my arroyo in data assay and communication. I first became really interested in information visualization around 2010 while working as an Economist at the Congressional Budget Office. At the fourth dimension, I felt that we could improve the way nosotros were communicating our work to our audience (a very specific audience, I should add together, of Members of Congress and their staffs). So we started evolving how nosotros presented our data visually and had some early on successes with changing traditional report graphs, developing a line of infographics, and modifying some report layouts. (I spoke about some of this in my 2014 Tapestry talk).

Information technology quickly seemed a natural pivot to call up more carefully near how we presented analysis to different audiences such every bit the Director's keynote address in front end of hundreds of people, testimony in front end of Congress, or smaller presentations to policymakers, decision makers, or analysts at academic conferences.

Since that time, I've spoken with hundreds of people—many who are researchers, analysts, scholars, and others charged with presenting their data and analyses—about how they can meliorate their own presentations. It's clear to me that likewise many people arroyo the task of giving a presentation by converting a written document into slides. The result is often a text-heavy presentation saddled with bullet points, stock images, and graphs also circuitous for an audience to decipher—much less empathise. But presenting is a fundamentally different from of communication than writing.

I depict three core principles for successful presentations in the book: Visualize, Unify, and Focus. Cartoon on those principles, I describe how to visualize data finer, observe and apply images accordingly, cull sensible fonts and colors, edit text for powerful delivery, and restructure a written argument for maximum engagement and persuasion.

I as well include numerous examples of what to exercise (and what non to do) and the best techniques to display piece of work and to win over audiences. My hope is to push presenters by the frustration and intimidation of the process to more effective, memorable, and persuasive presentations.

Over the next few months, I'll post sections from the book and other presentation-related tutorials. I'm also in the midst of developing the online companion, which will include a list of resources, tutorials, and materials from the book you tin can download for your own presentations.

Pre-order the volume now and stay tuned for more than updates over the coming months.

reedervabrain.blogspot.com

Source: https://policyviz.com/2016/05/04/better-presentations-a-guide-for-scholars-researchers-and-wonks/