Honing Your Research Presentation
Jinfo Blog

By Anja Chemnitz Thygesen

Abstract

Anja Thygesen considers three essential questions when taking on a research project - and explains why a project cannot be properly framed unless you have identified the level of analysis required and end use.

Item

Being a good researcher is one thing, showing it is another.

Quite a common problem for information researchers is that the focus is on finding and researching and less on the presentation of the results. This may be fine if your "client" has enough time to go through the material you deliver but in many cases time is one of the reasons why you were asked to do the research in the first place.

Essential Questions

To help your client and to get credit for your hard efforts on the research, you should consider these three essential questions:

• Who is your client?
• Why have you been hired for the job?
• How will the results be used?

Taking these things into consideration can help you decide on the level of detail, format of output and communication of the results.

Some clients may actually like to get many details, all sources, your verbal comments and will even continue doing the research based on your findings. Others just want to get the answer "yes" or "no" and not to be bothered with the details. It all comes down to the three essential questions.

What Level of Analysis is Required?

• Presentation of the results can be basic but with some help and guidance provided to the client on how to interpret the findings and how to identify the key "gems" within that 

• In other situations the results can be semi-structured with your basic formatting or analysis of the data

• Presentations in a high value-added version are most often full reports with an analysis and visualisation of the data and findings.

In all cases you should consider how to help your client in the best way possible and how you can push the barriers of their understanding of what you can deliver.

Exceed Expectations

Give them something extra! It can be just a short summary of "other findings" or whatever you picked up during the research.

And remember to keep the research in mind after finishing the request. You may come across an interesting article, a useful conversation at a dinner party or something else that you can give the client and show that you still have the request in mind.

Last but not least; don't be afraid of trying an alternative format for your analysis or to push yourself outside your comfort zone. This is a great way of learning something new!

Find Out More

In the Subscription Article "Presenting Research Results" Anja Thygesen provides detail on some of her most important learnings when it comes to the degree and type of data crunching and writing up reports.

She covers different ways to present and visualise data, how everyday tools such as Excel and PowerPoint can provide surprisingly powerful visualisations, and how to ensure that the presentation methods chosen meet the audience and end use. 

This Blog Item is part of the FreePint Topic Series "Making Information Visible".

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