How long presentation

She points out that the terrific TED talks are usually 20 minutes long. Exceed it at your peril. That might lead readers to conclude that no talk should exceed 20 minutes, but that would be a flawed conclusion that can lead to disastrous results.

Still, this new research is a useful guide to speakers — so this post will help you use it to your advantage. Should you really give audiences a break every 20 minutes? She had adults attending a 60 minute presentation at work, and tested to see the difference in memory and reaction to the same talk given in one 60 minute long presentation, versus a presentation that had 20 minute segments with short breaks in between.

What Dr. Murphy found was that the people enjoyed the minute chunked presentations more, learned more information immediately after, and retained more information a month later. For maximum learning you want a break every 20 minutes, as opposed to just a change of topic….

Instead of taking one long break, take several short ones…. These are anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes in length. Shorter and more focused presentations are more effective than ones that introduce too much information and delve into unhelpful detail. The opposite is also true. STILL…be mindful of these results when developing your next presentation. Ask yourself whether your presentation really needs to be an hour — the minute version might be even more effective.

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The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". It does not store any personal data. You have to be pretty interesting to retain my attention for a full hour in an engaging way. You come together to confer with other people, and so you need this space to allow time to discuss your ideas.

Coming back to the essay comparison, a good presentation focuses on an argument. And an argument must be something that people can take different sides on. Are you already telling people something they already know? This shows my bias towards the essay format, as I think good essays reflect this focus as well. Additionally, note that as a presenter, you can also be the one to ask questions.

The teacher asks challenging questions to students and invites them to engage. A good essay and a good presentation share many similarities. For example, for my second keynote presentation, my Tech comm trends - take two post was the essay form of the post.

The essay was about 8, words, which is about right for an hour-long presentation. For my first keynote, the essay was an earlier version of the same trends topic. The absolute best advice for any presentation is to structure the idea journey as a story. I mean presentations should follow the general story arc.

You have some sort of goal, and you encounter challenges to that goal. The bulk of your work is in getting through these challenges, until you finally come to some realization or conclusion. This flow aligns perfectly with the essay format. Overall, if I can shape the essay right in the first place, it usually eliminates most of the problems with presentations. In this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, visual communication, information architecture, writing techniques, plain language, tech comm careers, and more.

Check out simplifying complexity and API documentation for some deep dives into these topics. If you're a technical writer and want to keep on top of the latest trends in the field, be sure to subscribe to email updates.

You can also learn more about me or contact me. Toggle navigation. Stay updated. Keep current with the latest trends in technical communication by subscribing to the I'd Rather Be Writing newsletter. See email archive here. Search results. When giving an hour long presentation, about 15 slides is ideal. Note: The details in this post are more like notes for myself, reminders on what to do or not do when it comes to preparing slides. I recognize one presentation style doesn't fit all presenters, so if you find the information helpful, great.

If you object, that's fine too.