The story behind storytelling
Storytelling might not be something that you immediately associate with Academic Presentations, but storytelling is very much what we do when we get up on a stage, whether at a conference or another public speaking event. Everyone who has decided to attend that session, and have chosen to listen to you, are expecting some kind of story, be it an academic one.
During the workshop, we will provide you with a deeper dive into academic storytelling, and what you can do to make that story compelling. More specifically, we will ask you to explore your own academic story and find ways to appeal to your audience by providing them with a specific storytelling technique. Many of these techniques can be seen in the best of presentations you have attended at conferences or stimulating lectures, or even those Netflix series that have you coming back for more each time. You might not be aware of it (or you might be, but have not translated it to your science story), but all these techniques have you hooked in some way. We will guide you through that process and ask you to implement them the next time you present your science.
How to tell a story?
In the following discussion, Jason, Mattia and Djuddah exhibit and discuss different storytelling techniques you can apply to your presentations. The styles which are presented are:
- The petal structure
- The Monomyth
- The Mountain
- In Medias Res
- Nested Loops
- Sparklines
- False Start
- Converging Ideas
These structures plus examples can be viewed here
