15 Tips to give better talks

In a recent post, Mickey Inzlicht listed 10 tips about giving better talks. As I read it, I had the uncanny feeling he had somehow hacked into my computer. The overlap between his tips and the ones I’ve been sharing for years in a presentation was almost too perfect.

Of course, there’s no mystery here. The similarities are likely due to similar experiences. If you’ve given enough talks—and perhaps more importantly, sat through enough—you develop a sense for what works and what doesn’t.

My own tips are derived from a presentation I give every year to our finest (or perhaps I should say: most research-minded) students. But let me begin at the start of my own journey as a public speaker.

The first time I gave a talk in high school, I was so nervous I could barely hear myself. Everyone, I assumed, was staring at me, noticing how awkward I looked, how uncertain I sounded. I wasn’t invested in the topic either—something about my dislike of punk rock, if memory serves—which only made things worse. I saw myself from the outside, through imagined eyes, and the version I saw wasn’t someone I wanted to be.

A year later, things were different. I chose a topic I was actually interested in: the Nuremberg trials. My parents had a few books on the shelf about these historic events, and I had found myself reading about them with unexpected intensity. When the time came to present, I wasn’t nervous. I just was eager to share with my classmates what I’d learned. No longer was I floating above the audience as an unkind self-critic. I became immersed in the story I wanted to tell. I suspect my 15-year-old self also felt the topic gave me some gravitas (but see footnote). Whatever the reason, it worked.

And that brings me to my first tip.

1. Find a topic you’re really interested in
   If you’re a researcher, you have the enviable luxury of being able to talk about something you’ve already chosen to spend time on. Use that. The most compelling speakers aren’t necessarily the most polished—they’re the ones who are genuinely interested in what they’re saying, who are immersed in the world of ideas they want to share with you.

2. Be yourself—just a bit more
   I don’t remember who said this but it is good advice: “Be yourself times three.” You need to amplify a little, but also remain true to yourself. I was at a conference a few months ago where two keynote speakers could not have been more different, yet both were excellent. The first is the most flamboyant speaker I know (in science), the second is understated, but his quiet humor really works. Neither would have succeeded by adopting the other’s style. They were both great because they stayed within themselves. You don’t need to perform, but you do need to be present. Let your interest in the topic show. If you care, your audience will too.

3. Stand in a way that supports you
   I once took media training. Part of the course focused on stance. We were told to imagine taking our heads off and placing them between our feet—a peculiar example for media training, I thought at the time, though perhaps a great scene for a horror movie. I just imagined a soccer ball instead of my own head. Works just as well. A grounded stance—feet stable, arms relaxed—doesn’t just look confident; it helps you feel confident. Movement is fine (I move a lot myself when possible), but avoid pacing or swaying. From the grounded stance you can move, but you can always return to it, which shows you’re in control.

4. Let your voice breathe
   Intonation and pauses make your speech sound alive. They help listeners follow your structure—and give you room to think. Reading flattens everything and turns people off. Speak as if you’re talking to your grandmother as Gordon Bower put it.

5. Use eye gaze and pauses to guide attention
   We know from psychological research that gaze direction is an important attentional cue. Use it to focus the audience’s attention and for emphasis. Well-placed pauses can be used to the same effect.

6. Practice
   When you are a budding presenter, it’s a good idea to record yourself. When I first began preparing talks, long before the smartphone era, that wasn’t so easy, but someone once recorded a talk of mine without my knowing. Watching it, I realized how much I gestured—something I had been completely unaware of! Since then I’ve tried not to overdo the handwaving. You can learn a lot from watching yourself. Some aspects of your performance may need more cowbell and others less.

7. But don’t over-rehearse
   Students often ask me how much they should rehearse. The danger of too much rehearsal is that your text becomes a straitjacket: if the “right” word doesn’t come to you, you stumble. It’s better to be able to express your ideas in different ways, because unexpected things inevitably happen. I have an extreme example of this. At a conference in Orlando in 2001, my Mac refused to communicate with the projector. No slides. I decided to forego them altogether and wing it. Looking back, this was oddly appropriate, since my talk was about experiments with (among other things) visual stimuli of eagles—one with wings spread, the other perched—images that were easy to enact. The same was true of the results of the experiments, which were very clear. People still mention that talk to me, even 24 years later. The lesson: trust in your ability to improvise. There might hide a B.B. King or Pat Metheny in all of us.

8. Familiarize yourself with the room
   If possible, walk through the room before your talk (explore the space!). Knowing where you stand, whether there is a lectern, how much room you have, and where the audience will sit can help settle your nerves.

9. Avoid the “curse of knowledge”
   Mickey pointed this out as well. Don’t assume too much knowledge on the part of your audience. Use what you think might be familiar to them as scaffolding. For scientists (and perhaps everyone), don’t worry about looking like a dilettante. Audiences don’t mind easing into a talk—they already have plenty to process at a conference. I’ve never been bothered when presenters explain something I already know. Of course, don’t go overboard. You don’t need to explain what working memory is to a room full of cognitive psychologists. But they will appreciate hearing which specific model you’re working with.

10. Use a structure that’s familiar
    Advice going back to Aristotle can be summarized as: “Tell them what you’re going to tell them → tell them → tell them what you told them.” It works. I always use it. It sets expectations, offers redundancy, and keeps everyone oriented. Especially at multi-talk events, redundancy strengthens memory for your message.

11. Signpost with language
    Don’t use your slides as a crutch. You should know what’s on the next slide without looking. To guide your audience’s thinking, use transitions like “Let’s move on to…,” “Next, I’d like to show…,” or “To conclude…” while you’re advancing to the next slide. These phrases not only organize your talk but also reduce cognitive load for the audience.

12. Design your slides as visual support, not textual backup
    Keep words to a minimum. Use clean visuals. Avoid flashy transitions and decorative clutter. If people are reading full paragraphs, they’re not listening. You’re competing with your slides, and the slides usually win. A practice method that works well is what I call “gradual dismemberment” (to stay with the horror theme): start with enough text to help you practice, then at each iteration remove more of the text until only the bare minimum remains. Then you are ready to present. After preparing a few talks this way, you’ll need fewer iterations.

13. Don’t underestimate the effect of a smile
    Even a small smile, early on, helps. It makes clear that you enjoy being up there, sharing your work. You’re not just transferring information—you’re inviting your audience in.

14. Check pronunciation
    English is an orthographically deep language: how words are written and how they’re pronounced often diverge. Many letters you see aren’t pronounced. A case can be made that any letter of the alphabet can be silent in English in one way or another. A relevant example is the silent “p” in psychologist. Silent in English (and in Spanish), that is, but not in Dutch, German, French, or Italian, for example. I’ve often heard Dutch and other European colleagues in English presentations proudly pronounce psychology with a prominent “p”—ironically mispronouncing the name of their own field. Sometimes even native speakers slip. I once heard someone pronounce caveat as if it rhymed with heat. How do you know if you’re mispronouncing a word? There’s no foolproof method. My strategy is to err on the side of caution and check when in doubt. I always use the Merriam-Webster app. Click on the speaker and you hear the word pronounced correctly.

15. Signal when you’re done. The audience wants to applaud your effort, but they need to know when it’s time. Sometimes a presenter simply stops speaking and looks awkwardly around, leaving the audience unsure whether the talk has actually ended. You don’t want this. Help your audience by clearly signaling the conclusion of your talk. You can do this by saying, “Thank you for your attention,” which is what I usually use. A more formal option is, “And this concludes my presentation.” You can also accompany this with a slide with the same text. Avoid ending with, “And I am happy to answer any questions you might have.” At many events, it is the moderator who decides when to invite questions from the audience and not the speaker.

Footnote

I finally visited Nuremberg two years ago. My wife and I were en route to Austria and had decided beforehand to stop in that historic city. We had booked a hotel downtown. After several frustrating hours on a busy Autobahn, we arrived. At that point I wasn’t thinking about history—I was thinking about beer. A Biergarten offered immediate relief. After the first sip, I declared I was in “seventh beer heaven.” Two more beers and some food later, I suddenly developed a craving not for coherence but for pistachio ice cream. We walked around and stopped at three different ice cream parlours, in each of which I ordered pistachio so that I could compare tastes. This comparative research wore me out so much that we soon retreated to our hotel. We never made it to the historical sites. So much for gravitas.