Table of

Contents

!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 9

INTRODUCTION 11

CHAPTER 1 13
My Father, My Hero
Woody Woodaman

CHAPTER 2 19
Reflections on the Inclusion of Women in Clinical Trials
Jean L. Fourcroy

CHAPTER 3 29
If you STILL don’t know what you want to be when you grow up…
Mona Homyk

CHAPTER 4 35
Teach to Learn
Edyta Frackiewicz

CHAPTER 5 41
How to Add Muscle to Patient Adherence Program Measurement
and Results
Andree K. Bates

CHAPTER 6 51
The ABCs of Effective Communication: Three Simple Principles
to Apply in Any Circumstance
Marie H. Tartaglio
CHAPTER 7 63
How to Deliver a Sensational Scientific Talk
Janet B. W. Williams

CHAPTER 8 77
Trial Drift Phenomena
Al O. Pacino II

CHAPTER 9 85
A Case Study in Preventing “Trial Drift”
TL Clarkgerman

CHAPTER 10 93
Regulatory, Clinical Trials and Welsh Farmers!
Elias Nyberg

CHAPTER 11 101
Climbing the Ladder with a Chronic Illness
Vaira Altergott

CHAPTER 12 107
Embracing Change
Susie Szembek

CHAPTER 13 113
You work from home ~ I am so jealous!
Mary Elizabeth Roarke

CHAPTER 14 123
Got OCD?
Christina Atwood

CHAPTER 15 129
It’s all about the Attitudes and the Relationships!
Nadina C. Jose

CHAPTER 16 135
Clinical Trials Marketing
Roger Rignack
CHAPTER 17 145
Terrorists Can’t Open Ziploc® Bags…and Other Amusing Travel Stories
With Relevance To The Clinical Trials Industry
David Vulcano

CHAPTER 18 165
Travel Tips for the Road Warriors
Jack Minster

CHAPTER 19 169
The Road to Pharmacopolis
Alison Macpherson

CHAPTER 20 179
There’s always potential to grow
Luis Torres

CHAPTER 21 185
Blonde Ambition
Kelly Clonan

CHAPTER 22 191
So, you want to start your own Biotech Company?
Sandy Putirka

CHAPTER 23 199
Tomorrow’s Landscape Can Be a Dramatic Change from
Today’s Garden
Charlene Dark

CHAPTER 24 209
Downsized But Not Down-and-out!
Jaz Whittington

CHAPTER 25 215
Uncles Make the World Go-round
Leah Brown
 C H A P T E R 7

HOW TO DELIVER
A SENSATIONAL
SCIENTIFIC TALK

!
JANET B. WILLIAMS, DSW

“Lectures were once necessary, but now when all can read, and books
are numerous, lectures are unnecessary.”
- S J

S amuel Johnson notwithstanding, talks are an indispensable part

of professional life. This chapter provides guidelines on prepar-
ing and giving an effective presentation of a scientific paper. Read-
ers will undoubtedly recall hearing many talks whose impacts were
severely compromised by the lack of organization and an ineffective
style of presentation. Preparing a scientific paper for presentation is
very different from writing a paper for publication; the public speaker
must offer more to the audience than they can glean from reading a

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manuscript. The presentation must be entertaining as well as cogent

and well-paced in order to get across to the audience a discussion of a
study or topic in the most effective way.

THE INITIAL PREPARATION:

THINKING ABOU T THE TALK

The title of your talk, publicized in the program, is the first ex-
posure the audience has to you. It will influence how large your
audience will be and how you will eventually be received, so it
should be catchy yet informative. A glance through the pro-
gram of any meeting, paying attention to the titles that “grab”
you, should give you some ideas. A good title is well worth the
amount of time devoted to its development.
Before pen is put to paper, an essential task involves thinking about
the audience. Typically, audiences at research meetings are mixed pro-
fessionally. You should ask yourself how familiar they are likely to be
with your topic, and, given that, what will be of most interest to them
— not to you. The failure of many talks to hit home with an audience
is due to the fact that the speaker did not gear the talk to the interests
and background of that audience.
Once these points have been thought through, you can establish
the scope of your talk by outlining the main ideas you want to cover.
Initially these can be listed as broad statements, not necessarily yet in
logical order. Once this list is completed, however, it is usually neces-
sary to cut the number of ideas in half, and limit yourself to only part
of what you think might be included. The biggest mistake beginning
public speakers make is to overload their talks with too many main
ideas. Once the final list of ideas is developed, they should be put in a

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logical sequence for presentation.

As you work through this phase of preparation and the next, do not
overestimate the audience’s background or ability to absorb new ideas.
When reading an article, the reader can take as much time as necessary
to absorb new ideas, but in a talk if one crucial point is missed, the
rest of the talk may not be understandable. It is far better to slowly
and carefully cover a relatively small amount of material than to cover
many points, however brilliantly, if half the audience gets lost.

ST YLE OF DELIVERY

To read or not to read. Your style of delivery is one of the most crucial
factors in determining how well your talk will be received. Most
audiences prefer to listen to a spoken talk than one that is read in any
form. When reading a paper the speaker keeps his or her eyes cast
down and is not free to make gestures with the arms and hands, since
they must be ready to turn pages. Contrast this style with one in which
the speaker can make frequent eye contact with the audience, look-
ing at each of the listeners one by one, and can make communicative
facial expressions and body gestures to emphasize key points. Thus,
the “speaker” (rather than the “reader”) can use eyes, arms and hands,
and torso, as tools for effective communication, in addition to voice
inflection. In addition, the speaker who is not tied to a sheaf of papers
is free to move out from behind the podium to be in closer contact
with the audience.
Because the speaker must be actively thinking through the ideas
in order to present them coherently, there will be natural pauses (often
sorely lacking in read presentations) between main ideas as both the
audience and the speaker absorb the point and prepare for the next

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