Oral Presentation Skill

Type of Talk
Presentation
Answers
Question
References

作为学术3P (Paper, Poster, Presentation)之一的Presentation对于科研人员的重要性不言而喻，而作为非英语母语国家的科研人员，要做好一场好的英文口头报告，自然要多花些时间准备。为了准备IAG会议，前段时间搜集了一些关于如何做好一场英文口头报告的资料，在这里整理一下，包含报告的种类（Type of Talk）、如何准备一场口头报告（Presentation）、如何应对观众的提问（Answers）以及如何提问（Question），希望对初次准备英文国际会议的萌新们有帮助。

Type of Talk

通常情况下会议报告根据报告人和邀请方式的的不同可以分为Plenary talk，Keynote talk跟普通的Oral talk三种。

Plenary talk：也叫大会全体特邀报告，一般能给邀请做特邀报告的人都是业界知名大牛。这种报告一般是一个小时的样子。报告的内容覆盖面也比较广，往往涵盖了好几个研究方向，报告的方式也是高瞻远瞩，在很高的位置看总结研究方向的过去，展望未来。如果是一个实验室负责人做这个报告，通常会报告他们整个实验室涉及到的比较有代表性的研究。特邀报告一般都是安排在一天报告的第一二个，而有时候会议安排比较紧的话，这种报告会很早就开始。

Keynote talk：同样也是邀请报告，报告内容是某个具体方向上比较重要的结果。所以面向的对象就不是全体会议人员，而是对某个研究方向有兴趣的人。这种报告一般是30分钟，也有45分钟的。做报告的人一般是某个项目的负责人，基本上都是在第一线工作的科研人员，所以这种报告也是比较接地气，大致上还能听得明白。如果有问题的话，也可以得到比较具体的回答，更有实际意义。

Oral talk：普通口头报告通常是投稿制，需要报告人预先投递摘要，审核通过后再邀请报告。这类报告通常针对非常细分的研究领域，内容也是集中在一个很小的研究课题上，通常学生接触最多的就是普通的口头报告。

Presentation

# 四个内容

听报告的观众通常关注以下四个内容，所以我们准备报告的时候也应当从以下四个方面准备：

(1) Why did you do this? （首先需要阐明我们为什么要做这个研究，这个研究的意义是什么，研究背景是什么？）

(2) How did you do it? （其次解释我们是如何做的，用到了什么材料，使用了什么方法，处理策略是什么？）

(3) What are the results? （接下来展示实验结果。）

(4) What is your interpretation? （最后解释实验结果产生的原因，如何从该结果得到结论。）

# 报告开头

Good morning/afternoon (everyone) (ladies and gentlemen). It’s a pleasure to welcome (the President) here.
Good morning/afternoon ladies and gentlemen. It’s a pleasure to be here with you today.

# 简要自我介绍

I’m … (the Director/PhD student of …).
Let me introduce myself first. I’m Robert Vincent.

# 介绍报告的主题

I plan to say a few words about…
I’m going to talk about…
My purpose/objective today is to …
My talk today will deal with …
My presentation this morning will concern primarily…
This afternoon, I’d like to cover two topics of interest to the automobile industry, …

# 报告目录

My talk is divided into three parts,
In the first part, …Then in the second part, …Finally, I’ll go on to talk about…
Firstly, …Secondly, …Subsequently, …After that, …
To start with, …Later, …In the final part,

# 举例子

Let’s take the example of what happens when …
The best example of … is probably …
An interesting example of … is …
For instance …
Let’s now look at … This will illustrate some of the principles we’ve been talking about.
Let’s take the case where…

# 总结

Okay, that ends (the third part of) my talk, what have we learn today? Let me recap the main points.
Well, I’ve covered the points that I needed to present today.
I’d like to end by emphasizing the main points.
I’d like to end with a summary of the main points.

# 结束感谢

I’d like to thank you for taking time out to listen to my presentation.
Thank you for listening / your attention. / Many thanks for coming.

# 邀请观众提问

So, now I’d be very interested to hear your comments.
And now if you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them for you.
I hope that was clear. If you do have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask them.

Answers

# 礼貌开头

That’s a good [important/ excellent/interesting/ difficult/ complicated/ ] question.
That’s a great question. Thank you for asking.

# 没听清问题

I’m afraid I don’t understand. Could you please rephrase the question?
I’m sorry. I’m not sure I understand. Could you repeat your question please?
If I understand you correctly, what you want to know is ….

# 确认问题

If the person who asked the question could amplify it, I could do more justice to the answer.
Would (Could) you be more specific about your question?
I’m not quite sure your question is [what your mean].

# 问题与报告内容无关

That’s an interesting question, but my presentation doesn’t really deal with that issue.
That’s a good question but, unfortunately, it’s beyond the scope of this presentation.
That’s an interesting point, but I’m afraid it concerns few of us here.

# 只能回答部分问题

I can only provide a partial answer to that question.
I have only a partial answer to that question.
At that present time, I can only express a few highly speculative ideas.
As tar as I know, no enough study has been made on that area.

# 指出问题/错误

Sorry, it seems that you are right. Thank you for pointing out that and I will try my best to amend it in my later work.

# 问题不知道怎么回答

I’m afraid the question is too complicated to be answered with a few words.
Sorry. I’m afraid I know little about that matter. So I don’t think I can answer your question right now.
It is a good question and I have no answer at this moment. Can I have your e-mail so that I can email you my possible new findings later?
I’m sorry. I still don’t understand your question. Could I come back to you later? Could you please talk to me after the session?
I cannot quite remember, I’ll need to do a little checking and get back to you.
I’m afraid we don’t have enough time to go into that now, but I’d be glad to send you some documents on that point.
I’d be glad to talk to you during the break or at the end of the session.

# 问到了未进行的研究，或者未来可能进行的研究

We have not tested/tried xxxx, but it would certainly be interesting to do so.
We are now working on this problem, and if you agree, I will answer your question in a few weeks.
I did notice this problem and plan to resolve it by designing a method of xxxxxx.
The answer to this question is going to need further study.
As far as I know, no enough study has been made in the area.
We are awaiting further research on this issue.
We need to do more studies to answer this problem.
Your question leads to an area which could be the subject of another paper. Perhaps we could continue this discussion during the lunch break.
I wish I knew the answer to your question. We’re working on that aspect right now.

# 需要他人协助回答（报告的工作是团队合作成果，请团队其他成员回答）

I think that question could be better answered by Dr. ABC than me.
Dr. ABC could say more about it, since he has done most of the work.
Fortunately my colleague Dr. ABC, who is richly experienced in this field, is here, Dr. ABC, would it be fair to ask if you have any comments to make.

# 回答问题后的表示

Does that answer your question?
I wonder whether my question is helpful to you.
I hope this answers your questions.

Question

参加学术会议除了聆听报告，更重要的是善于或者说敢于发现并提出问题，然而由于不知如何表达以及担心问题太简单等等原因，首次参加国际的时候我们往往心中有疑问却错失宝贵的提问机会。这里积累总结了几类情况下的提问方式：

# 提问开始

I would like to ask/address/put/pose two questions to Mr. ABC, The first question is ……, My section question is the following:
Mr. ABC, I have a question to ask you, ……
May I presume to ask you a question?

# 报告没听明白/报告人讲的不够仔细，希望报告人给出更详细的解释

I am wondering if you could elaborate something about ……
I’d like to hear a little more about ……
I wonder if Mr. ABC would like to comment on that ……
Would you be so kind as to comment on ……
Would/Could you please give a little more detail about ……?

# 质询新方法的优缺点

Is there any advantages/disadvantages to using the new method?
What would you say are its merits and demerits of the method?

# 询问新方法与已有方法之间的差异

What is the main/key difference between XXX and XXX?
Mr. ABC, how do your results compare with those of XXX?
Compared with XXX, what is the improvement of your method and how much is the improvement?

# 质询对于某现象的解释