Posted on by davidegaglio

Walk the talk

By Davide Gaglio

It’s time for the 2nd World seabird conference! I am very excited to be a part of it and luckily it happens to taking place in Cape Town this year. An international conference is an important step for a PhD student, and I get to meet my heroes in seabird research! Researchers from institutes all of the world will be gathering this week at the CTICC in Cape Town.

This conference will give me the chance to make a lasting impression that could make a huge difference to my project and my future career. It will give me the opportunity to showcase my PhD and in particular follow up on my mission to convince everyone that “not only penguins are cute… but also Swift Terns!” (But maybe I’m shooting myself in the foot with this mission — recently I won in the Oceans of Life Photographic Competition with a cute penguin photo…) It’s probably the most important international photo competition on the marine environment, so to be one of the winners makes me feel very privileged and super-excited! And I can’t wait to see my picture displayed at the conference!
I’m starting out right with the photo, but I’m a bit stressed about my talk… So I thought I’d share some suggestions, which I found helpful.

1) Be yourself

Figure out what my “natural” presentation style is, is crucial. Ok, English is not my first language…but I always try to find a way to entertain my audience! I will start my talk with an old Italian say “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are!”… good intro to show a dietary study, right?

you are what you eat

2) Preparing slides

I’ve been told that when it comes to slides, less is more. There is not point to rush through 50 slides in 10 minutes. The bulk of my talk will be 5 or 6 slides, which will be focused on the results. I mean, that’s the interesting stuff, really – who cares about the boring background detail?

3) Be clear and concise

My goal will be to make the audience remember my focal points, trying to highlight my primary message more clearly. I want a broad audience, not just experts in my field, to be able to understand my results. So I won’t ramble and I won’t use overly complicated language.

4) Engage your audience with illustrations

… “I DON’T WORRY ABOUT THAT!” I have plenty of photos!

5) Handling the Q&A

For me, the most nerve-wracking part of a presentation is that after I have delivered my talk and I will be waiting for unknown questions!!…hhmmm… It’s a bit intimidating! Well, people told me “Davide… You designed and implemented the study and conducted the analyses so no-one better than you, can answer the questions related to your project”…Yes, they are right! I should relax…

6) Practice makes perfect!

Perfection is my second name!! ha ha… Allow yourself enough time to practice your talk at least three times before going live on stage, focusing on transitions, eye contact, and rate of speech, which are often problematic when first giving a talk. Practice your talk in front of a diverse audience. Use your lab mates, who probably already know a lot about your research and can give detailed comments. It may also be useful to spend some time toying with any equipment you may use, such as a laser pointer or projector, so that you don’t waste time during your presentation to figure out how to use it. The more comfortable you feel during a talk, the clearer your message will be to the audience.
My preparation for my talk is going well, but I know I will get the most out of the conference once my talk is done. Then I will stop practicing in my head, and actually listen to the other presenters, too. And I am really looking forward to it, especially the numerous social events!! ☺ ☺

Posted on by SAYAS

Blow by blow

By Yonela Z. Njisane

thinkingThings don’t always go according to plan; but that does not mean you should not plan at all, otherwise you might end up frustrated and moving in circles. Even the Bible says in Proverbs 29:18 “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

It was all planned out perfectly

According to the proposed timeline I presented in the beginning (2013) of my PhD journey, I should be submitting a complete thesis this month. Well, I really wish I could, but it’s not going to happen. I am not there yet. See, at the time all seemed easy and doable until I faced hurdles on the ground and had to revise my approach, which also meant finding other resources to reach the goal. Trust me, I am not making up excuses…

The revised plan

After the proposal, literature review and really useful preliminary studies we ran, the core of the project was done this year. Yup! It’s been such a hectic year that I even find it hard to travel the 320 km to go home; I don’t even go for shopping. This is when the PhD pressure really sunk in- can’t even remember the last time I was bored, wondering what am I doing with my time.

I am currently writing up my chapters, step by step. Beginning of last month, I was asked to write down and submit a realistic roadmap to follow till the finish line. I’ve been doing my best to stick to it. Though the pace is sometimes not as I would have planned, I’ve found it to be really helpful for my progress.6 steps

So far, I have progressed up to about 60% of the thesis. As anticipated, writing about my own work (experimental chapters) has been more interesting and fun, compared to the review. I must say though, the review is helpful as a reference point for the paper writing. And, after completing my first experimental paper, I went back and revised the review script 🙂 , finally.

The mean part

There is just one beast that sometimes has the power to put you down: Statistical analysis of my data. I used to think numbers were my thing until I came across statistics. The data collection for Chapter 2 was my favourite. And, then all the fun vanished as the statistical output was just not coming out right, over and over again.

I used to nail maths in high school, but nobody really taught me how to think analytically, like a statistician. It’s a whole different ball game. But I am learning, thanks to Lizwells’ assistance — a good friend with great stats expertise. I hear it’s not even that hard. Well Yah! It’s great when your hypotheses are supported. I’m learning that doing stats requires practice. You can read all the stats books you want, but nothing prepares you for throwing your own data at statistical tools.

I’m starting to see that a PhD is not just following a clever plan; there’s a lot of battling with schedules and drafts and strange numbers. It’s a learning curve, is it not… As Albert Einstein said, “Learning is experience. Everything else is just information.”