Fig. 52. The new ScienceSlides 2008 interface in PowerPoint 2003/2007 for windows.

New ScienceSlides interface. The main ScienceSlides toolbar shows ScienceSlides information button, Search query button and Browse Slides buttons, as in ScienceSlides 2007. All ScienceSlides categories may be browsed from the ScienceSlides dialog box. The new ScienceSlides 2007 interface in PowerPoint 2003/2007 (Windows, Fig 52) is very similar to the interface in PowerPoint 2004/2008 for Mac (Fig. 53).

Fig. 53. The new ScienceSlides 2007 interface in PowerPoint 2004/2008 for Mac OS X.

In addition, the directory window in ScienceSlides 2008 dialog box has two modes: text and thumbnail. The thumbnail mode may allow for faster selecting the desired slides for inserting into your presentation (Fig. 54).

Fig. 54. Thumbnail view in directory window of ScienceSlides 2008 dialog box.

Compatibility with Microsoft Office 2008 for OS X. Microsoft has introduced several major changes that govern how the add-ins like ScienceSlides work with PowerPoint. As a result, the ScienceSlides 2008 Mac users have to insert selected slides from ScienceSlides menu into new PowerPoint presentation, in contrast to PowerPoint 2004 where insertions were made into the existing presentation. This change requires one additional step of merging new and existing PowerPoint presentations in the new PowerPoint 2008 for Mac.

I hope you enjoy version 2008.

Sincerely,

Jozef Spychala, PhD
contact@visiscience.com
VisiScience Corp.
PO Box 4385
Chapel Hill, NC 27515
USA

Fig. 49. The new ScienceSlides 2007 interface as seen in PowerPoint 2003 for windows.

Fig. 50. The new ScienceSlides 2007 interface in PowerPoint 2004 for Mac OS X.

Compatibility with Microsoft Office 2007. Microsoft has introduced some interesting changes in PowerPoint 2007 for windows interface that are beneficial for ScienceSlides 2007 users. The ScienceSlides 2007 bar is now hidden and the user, after installation, has to click on Add-Ins button in top PowerPoint 2007 bar to access it. The PowerPoint appearance changes and now shows all add-ins, including ScienceSlides, in a separate toolbar (Figure 51). This change may be very convenient for users who use ScienceSlides occasionally and do not want it to clutter the screen all the time. From there on everything else is the same as in PowerPoint 2003.

Fig. 51. The new ScienceSlides 2007 interface in PowerPoint 2007 for windows.

I hope you enjoy version 2007.

Sincerely,

Jozef Spychala, PhD
contact@visiscience.com
VisiScience Corp.
PO Box 4385
Chapel Hill, NC 27515
USA

Figure 44. Preparing template for drawing microRNA.

Drawing the stem-loop structure using Curve Tool. As shown in Figure 45, begin drawing the structure from the far left site and continue to the right site corner.

Figure 45. Steps for drawing the initial shape for stem-loop structure..

Editing the initial drawing. After you created a curved line resembling stem-loop structure a few editing steps are necessary to achieve the final shape. Use either Format AutoShape or Edit Points dialog boxes. Make sure that the line you are about to edit is highlighted - otherwise the corresponding dialog box will not be accessible with the right mouse button. More information on these menus is available from Using Curve Tool to draw complex arrows, an apple and DNA and Figures 38 & 39 therein. Within the Edit Points dialog box click on the line (segment) you want to transform and select the Straight Segment from the menu. In all, transform all six line segments that need to be straight. These steps are shown in Figure 46.

Figure 46. Editing the line shape using Edit Points dialog box.

Next, edit points within the curved segments of the stem-loop structure by clicking the right mouse button over the point to be edited, as shown in Figure 47

Figure 47. Editing points in the loop sections.

Select either smooth point or corner point and drag Bezier handles until desired curvature is achieved. To finish the stem-loop structure delete the template lines and circles, as shown in Figure 48, draw short horizontal line, copy it multiple times, align, distribute and position within the stem section to finish microRNA. Finally, you may also add text boxes with 7mG and AAAAAA at the beginning and at the end of the drawn line, respectively.

Figure 48. Addition of horizontal lines to complete the stem-loop structure.

Modern science is communicated in three basic ways: (1) written scientific articles (mostly pre-peer reviewed), (2) oral presentations (on-site peer review) and (3) postings on boards (posters) - in a sense a combination of written and oral communications. Oral scientific presentation is critical because it shows how much in command of your research you are. No hiding behind editing and polishing process of delayed written articles. Oral communications are scrutinized on site and speakers are challenged in an immediate way. Although written work is more permanent, and thus the record could be examined by more scientists in a delayed fashion, scientific presentations on conferences are viewed as more challenging. On the upside, scientific presentations, if done with care, could show a broader aspect of your research, tell more about the discovery process in your lab or at your bench and more readily let the people inside your reasoning.

Secondly, scientific seminar offers fuller array of media that may help you better convey the message. Science communication is increasingly reliant on images. The growing complexity of science puts an increasing pressure on scientists, health professionals and students, to clearly communicate their scientific data and present their ideas and hypothesis. This is particularly critical in the broad field of biomedical sciences where images are important part of any presentation. Pictures speak a thousands words, however few scientist take time to develop slides representing complex structural, cellular and anatomical objects. Understandably so, they just take too much time and often require good knowledge of more advanced graphical software. For example signaling pathways have become so complex that making an illustrative slide is challenging for even proficient user of graphical software.
Therefore, a thorough preparation for a talk is a must. Sometimes your reputation may be on the line. Even if your data is cutting edge, remember, it is very easy to ruin your presentation with poorly prepared slides. If done right, scientific presentation offer something that is lacking in published work - speaker can interact with his/hers peers in a personal way, propose more challenging ideas or interpretations, to probe for their potential acceptance.

ScienceSlides is a new tool that helps you in the preparation of PowerPoint presentation. In its upcoming sixth update (ScienceSlides 2006 Fall Edition - released October 1st), it provides an in-depth content that is useful for any speaker in biochemistry, biology, pharmacology, molecular biology and medicine and may be useful even for nutritionists, environmentalists and general health professionals. ScienceSlides package is designed to provide ready to use and easily modifiable graphic material in the form of compound structures, illustrations and scientific artwork, to fill the need for the preparation of high quality scientific presentation. ScienceSlides is quickly becoming an indispensable tool for scientists who care about their scientific presentations.

II. Scientific Presentation Basics - Speaker and Audience

Know your audience:

Take formal approach in more distinguished settings such as national and international conferences and more casual at your own institution. You may get away with a funny remark at your institution but it may sound misplaced at the international meeting. When preparing for an out-of-town talk, spend 15-20 minutes on Medline to find out what they publish. This should influence the depth of your Introduction. Find a connection, common ground, etc. so you can refer to local publications to show you are on top of your field. In places where their research is somewhat different provide more thorough introduction and include slide describing complex and new technique.

Know yourself:

Know your limitations. Some scientists handle public presentation better than others. However, most scientists are a rather shy breed. They would rather publish than present their data orally. If so, take conservative approach (as if you had a choice!): spend extra time on preparing simple and clean data slides that are meticulously labeled and informative. Start with a thoughtful and focused introduction and end with a simple 2-3 point conclusions slide. Also, do not forget to add summary/content slide at the beginning that will tell the audience what you are going to talk about. Basically, let the slides bail you out! This way you may be less talkative but nevertheless the audience will get the message. This strategy is especially useful for foreign scientists where the language barrier may be a handicap. If you are an excellent speaker in you native language but your English is still not well polished, it may be at first hard to make the transition. Follow the rule: say less, show more.

Advice for younger speakers: practice, practice and practice. Only then you will get better and more relaxed during delivering scientific presentation. Being relaxed is a key - you will handle interruptions and unforeseen questions much better when calm. After all, you should know the subject better than anyone in the audience and should handle questions with ease. For all those shy and nervous scientists: never decline invitation for a talk. You just have to get through the first several nerve wracking experiences. Let be assured, you will get better. Ever noticed how easy prominent scientists deliver their seminars and how well they handle questions? This is simply because they are frequently invited and hear the same questions over and over.

III. Scientific Presentation Basics - Slides and Presentation Structure

Slide Text and Layout:

Keep the message simple and to the point. Write simple phrases and use clear unambiguous words. Its good to avoid abbreviations, jargon and complicated sentences. Take advantage of PowerPoints bullet points. Always align bulleted items flush left. Many people are scanners. This is especially true when viewing a presentation. Use a maximum of 6 short, clear bullets per slide, and a maximum of 6 words per bullet. Consider legibility. Remember, what seems clear on the computer screen may not be legible from across the room. Anticipate the size of the conference room and adjust the font size. Try reducing the spacing between lines rather than reducing the text size.

Introduction:

Introduction is important for one reason. It lets you set the tone and get the audience excited about your project. Identify potential implications for general medicine, etc. Just before showing the first data slide - show a bridging slide. Its function is to make a solid connection between the general idea and your specific project. Post a question that your data slides are going to answer.

Data Slides:

Data slides should be labeled in a way that helps the viewer assess the experiment without asking additional questions. If confused, most people will not ask these and stay annoyed. You just start seeing bored faces. Just labeling lanes 1,2,3 -> and refereeing to Legend, or describing them verbally is not good enough. Audience likes to analyze the data at its own pace and will go back and forth between gels lanes. Control what the audience is looking at during your talk. When making transition to a next aspect of your project, first just show the heading alone, not yet new data. Audience will not listen to you if you already show new data and still talk about how you got the idea leading to this particular experiment. If a complex experiment requires showing 3-4 gels on the screen at the same time, show them gradually, first one, make a comment, add second gel and continue with description, and so on. Final slide will have all 4 gels in it, but audience will not wonder around with attention. This way you control the eyes of the people in audience. This is also good for audience - it lets them follow you exactly and better understand your flow of thought. This aspect of scientific presentation is probably the most important for keeping the audience attention throughout the talk.

Presentation Pace:

Limit the number of slides in your presentation. It is always better to make it short and simple than long and complicated. Take advantage of PowerPoints rehearsal feature and time yourself to see exactly how long your presentation takes. Three most important suggestions for younger speakers: practice, practice and practice.

Reconsider the length of any presentation thats grown to more than 25-30 slides (per 45 minutes) - no matter what the time limit. Use speaker notes. If you have more content than can fit comfortably on slides, create speaker notes and provide them as audience handouts along with your visuals. If not sure - on average use 1 slide per 2 minutes. For an average 45 minutes seminar this is about 25 slides. Important: the conclusions slide is supposed to help finish your talk with a bang. Do not let over-extend your talk and skip it. This will ruin the overall impression.

Finishing touch:

Have a finishing slide that may include summary/ conclusions, take home message or summarizing scheme. Underline important findings and stress their importance for the future of your project. If you had strong definitive data, make a final scheme that will present a given pathway in a new way. Show a similar current understanding slide in the Introduction. That way you will tie the presentation together.

Use matching colors:

One of the most neglected aspects of slide design is selection of colors. The time of dark blue slides with white text or diagram is long gone. Color is an integral part of human perception and carefully designed multicolor slides will help you convey the message. The role of color objects, slide backgrounds and any other graphical enhancements in scientific slides is very simple: they all are supposed to enhance the presented data without causing distraction. Their tone should be subdued and color palette kept to minimum. Proper color matching is one important aspect that is frequently overlooked, and the most common result of poorly selected colors is distraction. There are colors that do not go well together and there are combinations that create pleasing effects. To help you select matching colors we recommend visiting a ColorSchemer Gallery web site (http://www.colorschemer.com/schemes/index.php) where a large number of color schemes are available to choose from. Select the set which has an equal combination of light colors, which you will use for filling-in objects, and dark colors for letters and labels.

IV. How ScienceSlides will help you in your PowerPoint Presentations?

ScienceSlides is a new tool designed to make your PowerPoint presentation better in a fraction of time. To use it, all you need is to open PowerPoint and use pull-down menus to select biomedical discipline of your choice. Also, if connected to the Internet, you can access slide’s references from the dialog box which opens within PowerPoint.

Essential features of ScienceSlides:

1. Seamless integration with PowerPoint. ScienceSlides works from within PowerPoint and all tools and objects are only a click away from inserting into your presentation.
2. After insertion, end user can modify all objects and slides. This feature will help personalize your presentation. Although ScienceSlides has a vast library of objects and slides, end user can still make it more unique and personal by modifying them.
3. Content updated twice a year. Content is the most important feature of ScienceSlides. It covers almost all BioMedical fields from Biology, Biochemistry,
   Pharmacology, Signaling, Methods, and Molecular Biology to Molecular Pathology, etc. It is continuously reviewed and expanded to keep up with new developments.
4. Journal-like literature review via PubMed. Majority of Signaling slides and many
   other have references attached to them. These references (as abstracts) can be brought up directly from ScienceSlides dialog box so one can quickly view the source information!

Try to view ScienceSlides content as a source of
scientific information in a graphical form!

V. Most frequent mistakes in scientific presentations.

1. Ugly slides. Speaker did not put much effort to prepare slides or may even used an ancient slide from a meeting 15 years ago. Bad idea! It shows disregard for audience. This is where ScienceSlides is most helpful.
2. Presentation pace too fast. Audience attention lost after 10-15 minutes. Just remember the rule of 2 minutes per slide.
3. Disconnect between Introduction (too general) and data slides (too specific). Make bridging slide that will transit the attention from the general field to your particular project.
4. Data slides labeled too sparingly. Audience may be forced to interrupt and ask technical question - not good for the flow of your thought!
5. Data slides overloaded. Sometime you may need to show three to four gels at the same time. Do not put them all up at the same time! Use transitions, or better yet, have each consecutive slide add one additional experimental component. With long tables highlight the lines you are trying to emphasize on (for example using bold typeface).
6. Does not have a well polished finish slides. This may include summary/ conclusions, take home message or summarizing scheme. Underline important findings and stress their importance for the future of your project. Finish with a bang!

Course: 915 -06S, September 18, time: 10:30 - 11:30
Location: Building 12A, Room B51
Speaker: Jozef Spychala, Ph.D.
Course details: Go to NIH Course listings website

All scientists in Bethesda, Rockville and Washington, DC area are invited!

Visiscience Team

Figure 40. Drawing steps leading to curved arrow using Bezier Tool. Note that the shown arrow has only two editing points: beginning and the end.

More complex arrow could be transformed using the same Bezier Tool. In the Fig. 41 on top an arrow was drawn using 4 anchor points. The same effect could be achieved using just two anchor points in a straight arrow and Bezier Tool to induce the curvature.

Hint: When drawing more complex objects it is very useful to have Grid and Guides on the screen. These do not print and neither show in on screen presentation. They are only on your screen computer to aid in drawing objects and help maintain symmetrical proportions, horizontal and vertical positioning. To activate Grid and Guides select View pull down menu and click Grid and Guides. In the subsequent menu click Display grid on screen (this dialog box is shown in Fig. 7 from Drawing pentagon, hexagon and other cyclic structures).

Figure 41. Drawing steps leading to a complex arrow.

Drawing an apple using Curve and Bezier Tools. Having gained some PowerPoint drawing experience, we can make more complex object such an apple. We begin with the four anchor points containing symmetrical oval, drawn using Curve Tool. Use the grid to maintain proportions. The shape closes automatically when the fifth (double) click is made directly over the first anchor point. The step-by-step procedure to draw an apple is shown in Fig. 42. To induce top and bottom cleavage, introduce two additional anchor points. At the step 4 copy the finished apple shape and overlap it with the original. The bottom object will have changed color and serve as a template to maintain the shape during further manipulations. To make the bite site we add a single additional anchor point on the left. However, in contrast to selecting Smooth Point from the menu Edit Points as we did before, we select Corner Point to produce sharp turn at the upper and lower side of the prospective bite (Fig. 42). Any imperfections at the original bottom left anchor point could be smoothened using Straight Point Tool.

Figure 42. Drawing steps leading to an apple.

Drawing DNA. The basic strategy in drawing DNA molecule is somewhat different from previous objects only because this complex molecule consists of many small basic shapes. The most important building block for DNA is an 8-anchor point shape illustrated in Fig. 43.

Hint: When drawing objects that later may be part of more complex structures it is very useful to draw them well magnified using the full space of the slide. In the full scale it is much easier to take advantage of the grid and work out small glitches of the drawing. After they are finished you may downsize them without changing proportions using Format>AutoShape> dialog box and Size tab with selected Lock aspect ratio.

Figure 43. Drawing steps leading to DNA.

Drawing the initial building block for DNA construction may require some tweaking before short DNA molecule is assembled. Additional small cylinders that are necessary for the final DNA molecule are easier to build from common rectangles. To preserve the proper DNA turning direction it is important to work with Bring to front and Bring to back buttons at each of the DNA turns. Useful hint: try to envision that DNA, when looked at from left to right, is turning toward you. Then place each basic block either in front or in the back, relative to each other, accordingly.

In contrast to Freeform and Scribble tools, which also allow drawing curved lines and objects, the Curve tool lets you draw them in a more elegant way. By definition, line fragments (segments) between edit points are curved and this allows you to connect separate objects on the slide in a more creative way. Once the curved line or arrow is finished, using Edit Points dialog box, as we will show later, you can change the line curvature, make some segments within the curved line straight and other curved. Drawing curved lines and arrows is particularly useful when making a molecular biology signaling pathway slide. Here we demonstrate how to draw a simple curved line and arrow consisting of two segments (three editing points).

Drawing curved line. First, click the Curve tool or select Curve from the lines menu in AutoShapes dialog box. Your mouse pointer within the slide area will change into crosshair. Place this new pointer where you want to start drawing a line or arrow and your first click will initiate the process. Drag the pointer to place where you want the line or arrow to make a turn and click again. Note that during drawing the first segment of the line is shown straight. Continue dragging to the point where your want the line to end and double click to end the drawing process. The whole procedure is shown in Figure 35.

Figure 35. Steps to drawing curved line/arrow using Curve tool. Note that the shown line has three editing points: beginning, turn and the end.

An example of practical application for the use of curved arrow is shown in Fig. 36. As mentioned before, signaling pathways are a collection of objects and arrows and the use of curved arrows is sometimes essential. As a rule of thumb when using curved arrows: use as few editing points as possible. The arrow shown in Fig. 36 has only 3 editing points. The more editing points you will use the more difficult is to maintain smooth curves.

Figure 36. Curved arrow in the context of signaling pathway.

Editing curved lines. After you created a curved line or an arrow you can easily edit and change its properties using either Format AutoShape or Edit Points dialog boxes. Make sure that the line you are about to edit is highlighted – otherwise the corresponding dialog box will not be accessible. With the Format AutoShape dialog box (accessible from Format pull down menu and selecting Colors and Lines tab) you can change the position and shape of arrowheads (and thus transform a simple line into an arrow or double sided arrow), change the thickness and color of line and the line style (dashed or continuous). The Format AutoShape dialog box is shown in Figure 37.

Figure 37. Format AutoShape dialog box for editing lines and arrows.

Alternatively, you can have all these frequently used menus, such as line thickness, dashed lines or arrow lines arranged in the bottom Drawing bar for instantaneous access. Refer to “Essential Drawing Tools I” and “Setting up Your Personal Workspace” previous articles for more information on how to place these menus icons in the bottom Drawing bar.

More specific properties of curved line or arrow could be controlled with Edit Points dialog box tools. These can be accessed by highlighting the line you want to edit and clicking the right mouse button. From the list of general object editing tools (Fig. 38a) select the Edit Points command which will lead you to curved line editing mode. Note the end points of line to change from empty circles to closed black rectangles. The mouse pointer, when crossing the selected line of interest, changes now to a crosshair with black rectangle in the middle. Click the line again and Edit Points dialog box will appear as shown in Fig. 38b. Using tools from this dialog box you can change the line segment from straight to curved, closed path to make an object out of the curved line, add or delete points.

Figure 38. a) General line editing tools and b) Edit Points dialog box for editing curved lines and arrows.

A similar but somewhat different dialog box appears when you point the crosshair pointer to the editable point within the line. The pointer changes its shape again and if you click right mouse button Edit Points dialog box for points will appear as shown in Fig. 39. More about these tools in the upcoming article.

Figure 39. Edit Points dialog box for editing points in curved lines and arrows.

Hint: When drawing a number of similar lines on a slide, which you would like to have the same line properties (color, thickness etc.), point to the line which you would like to set as a default and click the right mouse button. From the menu (Fig. 38a) select the Set AutoShape Defaults. From now on, in this particular set of slides you are working on, each line or arrow will have the same properties.

Useful hints:

1) For text use the following font sizes:
Title: 72 - 96
Authors/ Institution: 40 - 48
Section headings/Figure legends: 32 - 40
Text: 20 - 28

2) Tables could be made right on the poster using PowerPoint Table editor or copied from the existing slide.

3) Data figures could be converted from Excel as described in Editing Excel charts in PowerPoint. Do not use whole pre-made slides for incorporation into poster. Instead, copy the figure from your older slide as a vector graphics and paste/edit right on poster.

4) Images should be saved at minimum 150 dpi (preferably 300 dpi) before importing into poster. Use Photoshop for this purpose. Remember that the resolution requirement for printing (poster) is higher than for on-screen presentation.

Fig. 34. The general outlay of a poster prepared in PowerPoint.

Color palette. The role of color objects, slide backgrounds and any other graphical enhancements in scientific slides is very simple: they all are supposed to enhance the presented data without causing distraction. Their tone should be subdued and color palette kept to minimum. Proper color matching is one important aspect that is frequently overlooked, and the most common result of poorly selected colors is distraction. There are colors that do not go well together and there are combinations that create pleasing effects. Figure 26 show examples of color palettes that are well matched.

Fig. 26. Matched color schemes, as displayed by ColorSchemer Gallery (http://www.colorschemer.com/). More color palettes may be found at http://www.colorschemer.com/schemes/index.php

Color gradients and shades. Color gradients should be applied carefully with well matched individual colors. Here we show an example of how to create an impression of metallic-looking round objects with simple gradients. Some colors, when matched with gray or black make an impression of shade. To show this effect in a specific context we will use the shape of elongated round rectangle and two basic colors: white and yellow as shown in Figure 27.

Fig. 27. Two elongated round rectangles with single colors before application of shading as described in the text.

Next, using Fill Effects dialog box with selected Gradient tab, we apply horizontal gradient with dark grey or black. As one can see in Figure 28, this could be done by, first, selecting one color option at the Colors top panel and moving the slider toward the dark side almost all the way, and second, selecting horizontal orientation (shading styles) at the bottom panel and gradient distribution (variants) by clicking the lower right option at the bottom right panel.

Fig. 28. Settings in Fill Effects dialog box for achieving silver-like shine.

Check the preview box to see if the changes are as expected. After both objects are processed as described above, the resulting objects, now with metallic polish (silver and copper/gold), should look like that in Figure 29.

Fig. 29. Final look of silver and copper like objects.

Making objects look shiny. More complex strategy needs to be applied in PowerPoint to achieve the objects, for example ovals or circles, having a shiny look. In contrast to more advanced software packages, PowerPoint does not have sophisticated drawing tools. However, a few simple steps will help create effects with adequate results. Figure 30 shows the overall strategy in creating glowing and shining objects. The starting object is a one-color orange oval (A) which is transformed into three different objects (B - D). These are subsequently combined to achieve final look. To clearly see the object C, invisible on white background, the background of this slide was set to dark color.

Fig. 30. Overall strategy of creating shining effects.

Each transformation is performed using tools in Fill Effects dialog box that is activated by clicking Fill Color icon at the bottom of PowerPoint window and selecting Fill Effects. To illustrate all settings required to change object A to object B, Figure 31 shows Fill Effects dialog boxes side-by-side with settings for these objects. Similarly, final settings for objects C & D are shown in Figure 31 C&D.

Fig. 31 A&B. Fill Effects dialog boxes with settings for objects A (left) and B (right).

Note that in Figure 31 C the one color setting was changed to two color setting, color 2 being white, and some transparency (middle panel) was applied. The amount of transparency applied caused the color 1 to completely disappear (Figure 30). To achieve the final results, as shown in Figure 30, objects C and D need to be placed on top of objects E and F, respectively. Make sure that they are brought to front using Bring to Front command. Adjust the position and size of top objects to have the desired effect.

Fig. 31 C&D. Fill Effects dialog boxes with settings for objects C (left) and D (right).

A selection of similar objects drawn using the same general strategy is shown in Figure 32.

Fig. 32. Further sample objects generated with strategy outlined above.

Shadows and reflections. Another way to accentuate objects, and especially text boxes, on the presentation slide is to generate shadows and reflections at the bottom of the object. These effects are illustrated in Figure 33.

Fig. 33. Examples of objects and text boxes with added shadows and reflections.

These effects are generated by adding transparency to the shadow/reflection and compressing the size to imitate the reflection on glass surface.