Blog 6: It Takes De(a)dication

The key characteristics of a good presentation

Good presentations are undeniably rare. In searching Youtube, looking for recorded lectures and conference papers, I realized just how uncommon it is to be enraptured by a presentation. To be engaged over the course of a talk hinges, I think, on several key factors. One of the most memorable (in the good way) presentations I have attended was by Gary Warrick at the Ontario Archaeological Symposium, held in Southampton in 2023. Though I would have preferred to find a more recent one, this one really stands out and so I chose to ‘speak’ to it.

First, the speaker must be speaking to the audience, rather than at the audience. I believe there to be a stark difference here. In a room filled with sometimes hundreds of people and an often strict time limit, it is not possible for the presenter to speak with the audience, but speaking to them feels like the next best thing. It involves making eye contact and intonation. It resembles dialogue between the audience and speaker. Being spoken at can be characterized by an individual reading the script, often involving a monotone voice. It is not engaging and serves to create a disconnect from the speaker and their audience. Warrick’s (2023) work took this engagement with the audience one step further, by walking around the room, pulling people into his work and the discussion.

Another key characteristic of a good presentation is its impact. Although it is not always possible to present new and ground breaking ideas, a presentation should have substance. At the aforementioned conference, many speakers presented work that felt unfinished and/or was the description of a specific discovery. It was unpolished and generally uninteresting. Presentations should offer the audience something. Warrick (2023) was highlighting an idea new to Ontario archaeology. He presented the notion that pathways between sites should be looked for and are archaeologically observable. This is a concept underexplored, especially in CRM, which made it exciting and new.

The excitement surrounding presentations leads me to my following point. The speaker, to give a good presentation, should be obviously excited by their work. If not excited, at least interested in. All too many speakers are disenchanted with their own work. Too make the audience care about the presentation, the hallmark of a good one, the speaker should demonstrably care. Warrick (2023) was visibly excited by the work he was doing and felt it was impactful. He encouraged others to consider this new avenue and made a case for why cultural resource management archaeology should involve the methods he proposed to study pathways.

Warrick (2023) undeniably knew his audience. Some of this, I am sure, comes with experience. He has been involved with academic archaeology and CRM for decades, and likely attended many OAS conferences over the span of his career. This was an advantage many did not have, and it showed. The bulk of the audience was composed of CRM archaeologists with a mix of academic archaeologists (professors and graduate students exclusively – no undergraduates to be seen) for good measure. The presentation was perfectly tailored to this audience. This really showed when he spoke to the limitations of CRM. He acknowledged that it isn’t always possible to enact new policy within the discipline, but looking for pathways was something we should, as archaeologists, begin to think about. What he suggested, as a result, felt applicable and plausible (even if not immediately so). It was something that I could apply, which served to make it exciting and impactful.