Editorial

“Two Minutes More!” Preparing Slides for

Conference Research Presentations
Shahul Ameen1 , Samir Kumar Praharaj2 and Vikas Menon3

C
ompetitions for research awards
give lots of weightage to the floor
presentation, including the quality
of the slides.1 Likewise, the National Medi-
cal Commission mandates all postgraduate
students to publish or submit a research
article in scientific journals or present the
paper at the national conference of the con-
cerned Society.2 However, be it an award
paper or a free paper, many find it hard to
condense the information from their man-
uscript (or worse, the entire thesis) into
slides that should be presented in 7–10 min-
utes. Though articles on preparing effective
PowerPoint slides3,4 and making appealing
podium presentations5 are abound, we
could not find any specifically discussing
converting a thesis or research paper to a
small number of slides that convey all the
essential information in a manner that is the slide promptly by typing the slide
 The content may be complex, demand-
time-efficient and also aids audience com- number and pressing Enter.
ing much attention from the audience.
prehension. This article tries to fill that gap  If there is an instruction to maintain ano-
Hence, keep the background and design
and provides valuable tips and tricks that nymity, remember it, especially while
of the slides elegant but simple and non-
presenters, both amateur and seasoned, preparing the title slide and writing
distracting. Avoid bells and whistles
may find useful. about the study setting and the Ethics
such as unnecessary clip arts and fancy
animation effects. Committee.
General Points  Include slide numbers on the footer—  In the beginning, save time by not
 Choose the wide-screen (16×9) aspect audience members with questions announcing, “My topic is so and so”—
ratio, as it helps include graphs and on specific slides can mention the people would have already gleaned it
related text in the same slide. number, and then you can jump to from the title slide on display.

Dept. of Psychiatry, St. Thomas Hospital, Changanacherry, Kerala, India. 2Dept. of Psychiatry, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, Manipal Academy of Higher
1

Education, Manipal, India. 3Dept. of Psychiatry, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Puducherry, India.

HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE: Ameen S, Praharaj SK and Menon V. “Two Minutes More!” Preparing Slides for Conference Research
Presentations. Indian J Psychol Med. 2023;45(1):1–4.

Address for correspondence: Shahul Ameen,Mise En Scene,Behind Anandashramam, Submitted: 15 Nov. 2022
Changanacherry, Kerala, India. E-mail: shahulameen@yahoo.com Accepted: 15 Nov. 2022
Published Online: 23 Nov. 2022

Copyright © The Author(s) 2022

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative ACCESS THIS ARTICLE ONLINE
Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
Website: journals.sagepub.com/home/szj
which permits non-Commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission
provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https:// DOI: 10.1177/02537176221142555
us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine | Volume 45 | Issue 1 | January 2023 1

Ameen et al.
 Don’t expand abbreviations on the
slides, as you can explain them verbally.
At the same time, avoid unnecessary
abbreviations that can be confusing.
 Use Section Header slides (that say only
“Methods” in a larger font, for example)
before the methods section and the results
and discussion section. This helps empha-
size the transition to the audience.
 Mention the crucial references on the
slides in the Harvard style (author name
and year). Less important references, like
newspaper reports, need not be cited;
you can instead tell about them. Then, in
the footer, list the references cited on that
slide, in a smaller font size. Fewer details
are needed than in the references section
of the manuscript/thesis. Mention only
the first author’s name (with et al. if
required), journal name, year, issue, and
page numbers; the article title can be
omitted (Figure 1).
 Using animations between subsequent
bullet points is appropriate and prefer-
able in most situations—it helps direct
the audience’s attention better and pre-
vents the slides from looking wordy.
However, use only the “appear” option,
as the others take slightly more time
and can be distracting.
 Likewise, while moving to a subse-
quent point, pressing the “Next” button
slightly before you finish the previous
point, rather than doing it only after you
have fully completed reading/explain-
ing it, helps save some time.
FIGURE 1.
An Example of How to Mention the References in the Slide Body
and the Footer.
2 Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine | Volume 45 | Issue 1 | January 2023
 Instead of including all the informa-
tion on the slides, reserve some for
verbal explanation. For example, on the
slide you may merely write, “possibil-
ity of confounding factors,” and when
presenting, you may say, “like socio-
economic status.” For each slide, such
points can be entered in the “Click to
add notes” area below the actual slide
so that you will not forget them and can
even see them during the presentation if
you use the Presenter View.
 Use concise language on the slides—
remove all information that can be
inferred from the context or is nones-
sential. For example, in the results and
discussion section, there is no need
to repeatedly write “Our study found
that.” Similarly, instead of “The study by
George et al. showed that,” you can write
“George et al. showed that.” Another
option is to merely write “George
et al.:” followed by their finding, and
then verbally add “showed that” while
presenting. Using terms like “interven-
tion group” and “control group” rather
than “the group that received divalproex
sodium” and “the group that received
placebo” helps too. Sentences need not
be complete, and articles (a, an, and the)
can be omitted wherever possible.
 Slides should not contain any informa-
tion not included in the manuscript
submitted for the award. Likewise, if
it is a competition for articles already
published in journals, information on
the slides should be restricted to those
included in the concerned article.
Introduction Section
 This section should be the smallest.
Use 1–2 slides only, for the following:
o defining new terms or concepts,
if any
o the research gap
o the most important novelty
o primary and secondary objec-
tives—with important variables
in bold.
 To cite on the slides, pick the latest
or the best-quality studies and the
most recent systematic reviews or
meta-analyses.
 For important references, a screenshot
may be provided, with the major and
relevant finding highlighted in a text
box (Figure 2).
 In a presentation of 7–8 minutes, do
not spend more than a minute on the
introduction section.
Methods Section
 Mention the design, setting, sample
size calculation, inclusion and exclu-
sion criteria, sampling technique,
tools used, data collection period, and
interventions, if any.
 Avoiding text, the methods may be
better depicted visually, as staggered
processes, to demonstrate the study
workflow. For example, in randomized
controlled trials, the screening process,
randomization, allocation conceal-
ment, interventions for each group,
assessment time points, and outcome
measures can be portrayed visually
using appropriate smart art graphics
(Figure 3) or shapes. Displaying a flow
chart based on a relevant reporting
guideline may be informative, too.
 If the number of tools used is less, their
screenshots can be shown, and you can
tell their names in the background.
 Specify that ethics approval and
patient consent were obtained. One
option is to show a slide with “Ethics
considerations” written on it and ver-
bally explain in the background that
they were obtained.
 In the slide on the statistical analysis
section, the names of the software used
or the tests done need not be men-
tioned. Mention the P value cut-off

FIGURE 2.
An Example of How to Emphasize the Major Findings of Important
Previous Papers Using a Screenshot and a Textbox.
Editorial
and the details of correction done for
multiple testing, if any. If there is no rel-
evant information to share, it is okay to
eschew the slide on statistical analysis.

Results and Discussion

 Unlike in the manuscript or thesis,
these sections may be combined, to
save time.
 Results should get the most time.
 Tables of sociodemographic details
should not be omitted. However, you
need not combine all variables into a
single Table 1 as in the manuscript. If
the table is huge, especially if there
are more than 5–7 rows, describe only
1–3 variables on one slide. The subse-
quent results tables too may be split
similarly, may be with data related to
each variable on a separate slide.
FIGURE 3.  While describing binary variables,
mentioning the proportion of only
An Example of Depicting the Methods Using Smart Art Graphics.
one (e.g., yes) will suffice.
 Consider if it is necessary to present
proportions of unimportant catego-
ries like “other,” “did not reveal,” etc.
 Present the results related to the
primary and different secondary out-
comes on separate slides.
 Exploratory analyses that yielded neg-
ative results may be omitted.
 If possible, use graphs rather than
tables to show trends/findings—they
may be better assimilated. Text or table
can be provided besides the figure, if
space allows.
 Instead of copying-pasting tables and
graphs from your Word file, use Pow-
erPoint’s inbuilt features to create
them. However, carefully crosscheck
FIGURE 4. the numbers with those in the manu-
An Example of Highlighting a Significant Finding on a Table. script/thesis.
 As we are used to reading from left to
right, it helps to place graphs or tables
on the left side of the slide and the text
of their explanations or discussions on
the right.
 Use the highlight option to under-
score the major or significant findings
(Figure 4). If time is less, talk about
only them while presenting.
 Do not repeat information in text and
images/tables.
 Discuss the major findings—2–3 points
for each on the slides, with 1–2 addi-
tional verbal explanations if needed.
 Compare your findings with those of
the most vigorous and relevant studies
Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine | Volume 45 | Issue 1 | January 2023 3
Ameen et al.
FIGURE 5.
An Example of Presenting Strengths and Limitations on the Same
Slide in a Parallel Manner.
and the latest systematic reviews and
meta-analyses, if available.
 Instead of wasting space by writing
“our findings are similar to that of Johns
et al.,” you may merely write “~ Johns
et al.”
 Build hypotheses based on your find-
ings, citing appropriate references.
 Strengths and limitations can be
written parallelly on the same slide
(Figure 5).
 Add a slide on the translational
significance or implications of your
findings. However, don’t overhype
the implications.
Closing Slides
 Have a “conclusions” slide. Avoid
hyping here also.
 If you have mentioned the references
in the footer of each slide, there is no
4 Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine | Volume 45 | Issue 1 | January 2023
need in the end for a series of slides
listing them.
 Include a final slide with “Thank you”
and “Any questions?,” maybe with
some appropriate images.
Rehearse the presentation multiple
times to ensure that you do not over-
shoot the allotted time. If the time limit
is eight minutes, rehearse for a 7-minute
presentation; this provides some buffer
time for unexpected glitches. Backup
the PowerPoint file in previous ver-
sions of the software too (1997–2003,
for example) and have both cloud and
local backups. Check the compatibility
of fonts, audio files, and videos, if any; it
can be embarrassing if they dysfunction
during the coveted presentation. Also, it
may be a good idea for young research-
ers to closely watch paper presentations
of others—both novice and experienced
speakers—and take notes, to improve
themselves.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of
interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the
research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
ORCID iDs
Shahul Ameen https://orcid.org/0000-0002-
4734-2628
Samir Kumar Praharaj https://orcid.org/0000-
0001-8530-1432
Vikas Menon https://orcid.org/0000-0001-
8035-4658
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