research paper review presentation

How to Do a Paper Review Presentation

How to Create a PowerPoint Presentation for College Class

Giving an oral presentation is an excellent way to disseminate the results of a research paper. While oral presentations can be nerve-wracking, proper organization and adequate time will help the process flow more easily and make your presentation a success. Once you have organized your presentation, making slides or other visual aids will add interest and impact.

Break your paper into sections. All presentations (and all papers) should begin with an introduction and end with conclusions. In between are many points capable of being organized. Write the major points on paper in outline form.

Write your main conclusions in outline form. Often, writing the conclusions first helps organize the rest of your presentation. Create slides for your main conclusions, which should fit onto one or two slides or overhead projector sheets.

Write your introduction. Your introduction should tell listeners why your review paper was important and include previous research as background information. Indicate your research question or the point of your paper at the end of the introduction. Give a brief outline on how your presentation will proceed. Create slides using this information. In a 15-minute to 20-minute presentation, your introduction should take two to four slides.

Create slides for the body of your presentation. Using graphics where feasible will help hold your audience’s interest.

Practice your presentation to help you feel more comfortable during the actual presentation. Practicing also helps you ensure the presentation length is within the allotted time. Practice in front of a limited audience (parents, friends) to get feedback regarding your speaking volume and presentation content.

• Generally, aim to have approximately one slide for every minute of your presentation.

Related Articles

How to Summarize a Presentation

How to structure a presentation.

How to Introduce a Research Paper Sample

What Is the Purpose of an Outline?

How to write a rebuttal speech.

How to Ace Speech Class

How to Evaluate an Oral Presentation

How to Footnote a Newspaper Article

• Ramapo College: Creating an Oral Presentation
• Howtostudy.com: Making an Oral Presentation

Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research

How to Make a Successful Research Presentation

Turning a research paper into a visual presentation is difficult; there are pitfalls, and navigating the path to a brief, informative presentation takes time and practice. As a TA for  GEO/WRI 201: Methods in Data Analysis & Scientific Writing this past fall, I saw how this process works from an instructor’s standpoint. I’ve presented my own research before, but helping others present theirs taught me a bit more about the process. Here are some tips I learned that may help you with your next research presentation:

More is more

In general, your presentation will always benefit from more practice, more feedback, and more revision. By practicing in front of friends, you can get comfortable with presenting your work while receiving feedback. It is hard to know how to revise your presentation if you never practice. If you are presenting to a general audience, getting feedback from someone outside of your discipline is crucial. Terms and ideas that seem intuitive to you may be completely foreign to someone else, and your well-crafted presentation could fall flat.

Less is more

Limit the scope of your presentation, the number of slides, and the text on each slide. In my experience, text works well for organizing slides, orienting the audience to key terms, and annotating important figures–not for explaining complex ideas. Having fewer slides is usually better as well. In general, about one slide per minute of presentation is an appropriate budget. Too many slides is usually a sign that your topic is too broad.

Limit the scope of your presentation

Don’t present your paper. Presentations are usually around 10 min long. You will not have time to explain all of the research you did in a semester (or a year!) in such a short span of time. Instead, focus on the highlight(s). Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

You will not have time to explain all of the research you did. Instead, focus on the highlights. Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

Craft a compelling research narrative

After identifying the focused research question, walk your audience through your research as if it were a story. Presentations with strong narrative arcs are clear, captivating, and compelling.

• Introduction (exposition — rising action)

Orient the audience and draw them in by demonstrating the relevance and importance of your research story with strong global motive. Provide them with the necessary vocabulary and background knowledge to understand the plot of your story. Introduce the key studies (characters) relevant in your story and build tension and conflict with scholarly and data motive. By the end of your introduction, your audience should clearly understand your research question and be dying to know how you resolve the tension built through motive.

• Methods (rising action)

The methods section should transition smoothly and logically from the introduction. Beware of presenting your methods in a boring, arc-killing, ‘this is what I did.’ Focus on the details that set your story apart from the stories other people have already told. Keep the audience interested by clearly motivating your decisions based on your original research question or the tension built in your introduction.

• Results (climax)

Less is usually more here. Only present results which are clearly related to the focused research question you are presenting. Make sure you explain the results clearly so that your audience understands what your research found. This is the peak of tension in your narrative arc, so don’t undercut it by quickly clicking through to your discussion.

• Discussion (falling action)

By now your audience should be dying for a satisfying resolution. Here is where you contextualize your results and begin resolving the tension between past research. Be thorough. If you have too many conflicts left unresolved, or you don’t have enough time to present all of the resolutions, you probably need to further narrow the scope of your presentation.

• Conclusion (denouement)

Return back to your initial research question and motive, resolving any final conflicts and tying up loose ends. Leave the audience with a clear resolution of your focus research question, and use unresolved tension to set up potential sequels (i.e. further research).

Use your medium to enhance the narrative

Visual presentations should be dominated by clear, intentional graphics. Subtle animation in key moments (usually during the results or discussion) can add drama to the narrative arc and make conflict resolutions more satisfying. You are narrating a story written in images, videos, cartoons, and graphs. While your paper is mostly text, with graphics to highlight crucial points, your slides should be the opposite. Adapting to the new medium may require you to create or acquire far more graphics than you included in your paper, but it is necessary to create an engaging presentation.

The most important thing you can do for your presentation is to practice and revise. Bother your friends, your roommates, TAs–anybody who will sit down and listen to your work. Beyond that, think about presentations you have found compelling and try to incorporate some of those elements into your own. Remember you want your work to be comprehensible; you aren’t creating experts in 10 minutes. Above all, try to stay passionate about what you did and why. You put the time in, so show your audience that it’s worth it.

For more insight into research presentations, check out these past PCUR posts written by Emma and Ellie .

— Alec Getraer, Natural Sciences Correspondent

Share this:

• Share on Tumblr

• Research Process
• Manuscript Preparation
• Manuscript Review
• Publication Process
• Publication Recognition
• Language Editing Services
• Translation Services

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation of Your Research Paper

• 4 minute read
• 132.6K views

Table of Contents

A research paper presentation is often used at conferences and in other settings where you have an opportunity to share your research, and get feedback from your colleagues. Although it may seem as simple as summarizing your research and sharing your knowledge, successful research paper PowerPoint presentation examples show us that there’s a little bit more than that involved.

In this article, we’ll highlight how to make a PowerPoint presentation from a research paper, and what to include (as well as what NOT to include). We’ll also touch on how to present a research paper at a conference.

Purpose of a Research Paper Presentation

The purpose of presenting your paper at a conference or forum is different from the purpose of conducting your research and writing up your paper. In this setting, you want to highlight your work instead of including every detail of your research. Likewise, a presentation is an excellent opportunity to get direct feedback from your colleagues in the field. But, perhaps the main reason for presenting your research is to spark interest in your work, and entice the audience to read your research paper.

So, yes, your presentation should summarize your work, but it needs to do so in a way that encourages your audience to seek out your work, and share their interest in your work with others. It’s not enough just to present your research dryly, to get information out there. More important is to encourage engagement with you, your research, and your work.

Tips for Creating Your Research Paper Presentation

In addition to basic PowerPoint presentation recommendations, which we’ll cover later in this article, think about the following when you’re putting together your research paper presentation:

• Know your audience : First and foremost, who are you presenting to? Students? Experts in your field? Potential funders? Non-experts? The truth is that your audience will probably have a bit of a mix of all of the above. So, make sure you keep that in mind as you prepare your presentation.

Know more about: Discover the Target Audience .

• Your audience is human : In other words, they may be tired, they might be wondering why they’re there, and they will, at some point, be tuning out. So, take steps to help them stay interested in your presentation. You can do that by utilizing effective visuals, summarize your conclusions early, and keep your research easy to understand.
• Running outline : It’s not IF your audience will drift off, or get lost…it’s WHEN. Keep a running outline, either within the presentation or via a handout. Use visual and verbal clues to highlight where you are in the presentation.
• Where does your research fit in? You should know of work related to your research, but you don’t have to cite every example. In addition, keep references in your presentation to the end, or in the handout. Your audience is there to hear about your work.
• Plan B : Anticipate possible questions for your presentation, and prepare slides that answer those specific questions in more detail, but have them at the END of your presentation. You can then jump to them, IF needed.

What Makes a PowerPoint Presentation Effective?

You’ve probably attended a presentation where the presenter reads off of their PowerPoint outline, word for word. Or where the presentation is busy, disorganized, or includes too much information. Here are some simple tips for creating an effective PowerPoint Presentation.

• Less is more: You want to give enough information to make your audience want to read your paper. So include details, but not too many, and avoid too many formulas and technical jargon.
• Clean and professional : Avoid excessive colors, distracting backgrounds, font changes, animations, and too many words. Instead of whole paragraphs, bullet points with just a few words to summarize and highlight are best.
• Know your real-estate : Each slide has a limited amount of space. Use it wisely. Typically one, no more than two points per slide. Balance each slide visually. Utilize illustrations when needed; not extraneously.
• Keep things visual : Remember, a PowerPoint presentation is a powerful tool to present things visually. Use visual graphs over tables and scientific illustrations over long text. Keep your visuals clean and professional, just like any text you include in your presentation.

Know more about our Scientific Illustrations Services .

Another key to an effective presentation is to practice, practice, and then practice some more. When you’re done with your PowerPoint, go through it with friends and colleagues to see if you need to add (or delete excessive) information. Double and triple check for typos and errors. Know the presentation inside and out, so when you’re in front of your audience, you’ll feel confident and comfortable.

How to Present a Research Paper

If your PowerPoint presentation is solid, and you’ve practiced your presentation, that’s half the battle. Follow the basic advice to keep your audience engaged and interested by making eye contact, encouraging questions, and presenting your information with enthusiasm.

We encourage you to read our articles on how to present a scientific journal article and tips on giving good scientific presentations .

Language Editing Plus

Improve the flow and writing of your research paper with Language Editing Plus. This service includes unlimited editing, manuscript formatting for the journal of your choice, reference check and even a customized cover letter. Learn more here , and get started today!

Know How to Structure Your PhD Thesis

Systematic Literature Review or Literature Review?

You may also like.

What is a Good H-index?

What is a Corresponding Author?

How to Submit a Paper for Publication in a Journal

Input your search keywords and press Enter.

• Google Slides Presentation Design
• Pitch Deck Design
• Powerpoint Redesign
• Other Design Services

• Guide & How to's

How to present a research paper in PPT: best practices

A research paper presentation is frequently used at conferences and other events where you have a chance to share the results of your research and receive feedback from colleagues. Although it may appear as simple as summarizing the findings, successful examples of research paper presentations show that there is a little bit more to it.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the basic outline and steps to create a good research paper presentation. We’ll also explain what to include and what not to include in your presentation of research paper and share some of the most effective tips you can use to take your slides to the next level.

Research paper PowerPoint presentation outline

Creating a PowerPoint presentation for a research paper involves organizing and summarizing your key findings, methodology, and conclusions in a way that encourages your audience to interact with your work and share their interest in it with others. Here’s a basic research paper outline PowerPoint you can follow:

1. Title (1 slide)

Typically, your title slide should contain the following information:

• Title of the research paper
• Affiliation or institution
• Date of presentation

2. Introduction (1-3 slides)

On this slide of your presentation, briefly introduce the research topic and its significance and state the research question or objective.

3. Research questions or hypothesis (1 slide)

This slide should emphasize the objectives of your research or present the hypothesis.

4. Literature review (1 slide)

Your literature review has to provide context for your research by summarizing relevant literature. Additionally, it should highlight gaps or areas where your research contributes.

5. Methodology and data collection (1-2 slides)

This slide of your research paper PowerPoint has to explain the research design, methods, and procedures. It must also Include details about participants, materials, and data collection and emphasize special equipment you have used in your work.

6. Results (3-5 slides)

On this slide, you must present the results of your data analysis and discuss any trends, patterns, or significant findings. Moreover, you should use charts, graphs, and tables to illustrate data and highlight something novel in your results (if applicable).

7. Conclusion (1 slide)

Your conclusion slide has to summarize the main findings and their implications, as well as discuss the broader impact of your research. Usually, a single statement is enough.

8. Recommendations (1 slide)

If applicable, provide recommendations for future research or actions on this slide.

9. References (1-2 slides)

The references slide is where you list all the sources cited in your research paper.

10. Acknowledgments (1 slide)

On this presentation slide, acknowledge any individuals, organizations, or funding sources that contributed to your research.

11. Appendix (1 slide)

If applicable, include any supplementary materials, such as additional data or detailed charts, in your appendix slide.

The above outline is just a general guideline, so make sure to adjust it based on your specific research paper and the time allotted for the presentation.

Steps to creating a memorable research paper presentation

Creating a PowerPoint presentation for a research paper involves several critical steps needed to convey your findings and engage your audience effectively, and these steps are as follows:

Step 1. Understand your audience:

• Identify the audience for your presentation.
• Tailor your content and level of detail to match the audience’s background and knowledge.

Step 2. Define your key messages:

• Clearly articulate the main messages or findings of your research.
• Identify the key points you want your audience to remember.

Step 3. Design your research paper PPT presentation:

• Use a clean and professional design that complements your research topic.
• Choose readable fonts, consistent formatting, and a limited color palette.
• Opt for PowerPoint presentation services if slide design is not your strong side.

Step 4. Put content on slides:

• Follow the outline above to structure your presentation effectively; include key sections and topics.
• Organize your content logically, following the flow of your research paper.

Step 5. Final check:

• Proofread your slides for typos, errors, and inconsistencies.
• Ensure all visuals are clear, high-quality, and properly labeled.

Step 6. Save and share:

• Save your presentation and ensure compatibility with the equipment you’ll be using.
• If necessary, share a copy of your presentation with the audience.

By following these steps, you can create a well-organized and visually appealing research paper presentation PowerPoint that effectively conveys your research findings to the audience.

What to include and what not to include in your presentation

In addition to the must-know PowerPoint presentation recommendations, which we’ll cover later in this article, consider the following do’s and don’ts when you’re putting together your research paper presentation:

• Focus on the topic.
• Be brief and to the point.
• Attract the audience’s attention and highlight interesting details.
• Use only relevant visuals (maps, charts, pictures, graphs, etc.).
• Use numbers and bullet points to structure the content.
• Make clear statements regarding the essence and results of your research.

Don’ts:

• Don’t write down the whole outline of your paper and nothing else.
• Don’t put long, full sentences on your slides; split them into smaller ones.
• Don’t use distracting patterns, colors, pictures, and other visuals on your slides; the simpler, the better.
• Don’t use too complicated graphs or charts; only the ones that are easy to understand.
• Now that we’ve discussed the basics, let’s move on to the top tips for making a powerful presentation of your research paper.

8 tips on how to make research paper presentation that achieves its goals

You’ve probably been to a presentation where the presenter reads word for word from their PowerPoint outline. Or where the presentation is cluttered, chaotic, or contains too much data. The simple tips below will help you summarize a 10 to 15-page paper for a 15 to 20-minute talk and succeed, so read on!

Tip #1: Less is more

You want to provide enough information to make your audience want to know more. Including details but not too many and avoiding technical jargon, formulas, and long sentences are always good ways to achieve this.

Tip #2: Be professional

Avoid using too many colors, font changes, distracting backgrounds, animations, etc. Bullet points with a few words to highlight the important information are preferable to lengthy paragraphs. Additionally, include slide numbers on all PowerPoint slides except for the title slide, and make sure it is followed by a table of contents, offering a brief overview of the entire research paper.

Tip #3: Strive for balance

PowerPoint slides have limited space, so use it carefully. Typically, one to two points per slide or 5 lines for 5 words in a sentence are enough to present your ideas.

Tip #4: Use proper fonts and text size

The font you use should be easy to read and consistent throughout the slides. You can go with Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri, or a combination of these three. An ideal text size is 32 points, while a heading size is 44.

Tip #5: Concentrate on the visual side

A PowerPoint presentation is one of the best tools for presenting information visually. Use graphs instead of tables and topic-relevant illustrations instead of walls of text. Keep your visuals as clean and professional as the content of your presentation.

Tip #6: Practice your delivery

Always go through your presentation when you’re done to ensure a smooth and confident delivery and time yourself to stay within the allotted limit.

Tip #7: Get ready for questions

Anticipate potential questions from your audience and prepare thoughtful responses. Also, be ready to engage in discussions about your research.

Tip #8: Don’t be afraid to utilize professional help

If the mere thought of designing a presentation overwhelms you or you’re pressed for time, consider leveraging professional PowerPoint redesign services . A dedicated design team can transform your content or old presentation into effective slides, ensuring your message is communicated clearly and captivates your audience. This way, you can focus on refining your delivery and preparing for the presentation.

Lastly, remember that even experienced presenters get nervous before delivering research paper PowerPoint presentations in front of the audience. You cannot know everything; some things can be beyond your control, which is completely fine. You are at the event not only to share what you know but also to learn from others. So, no matter what, dress appropriately, look straight into the audience’s eyes, try to speak and move naturally, present your information enthusiastically, and have fun!

If you need help with slide design, get in touch with our dedicated design team and let qualified professionals turn your research findings into a visually appealing, polished presentation that leaves a lasting impression on your audience. Our experienced designers specialize in creating engaging layouts, incorporating compelling graphics, and ensuring a cohesive visual narrative that complements content on any subject.

#ezw_tco-2 .ez-toc-widget-container ul.ez-toc-list li.active::before { background-color: #ededed; } Table of contents

• Presenting techniques
• 50 tips on how to improve PowerPoint presentations in 2022-2023 [Updated]
• Present financial information visually in PowerPoint to drive results
• Keynote VS PowerPoint
• Types of presentations

• Design Tips

8 rules of effective presentation

• Business Slides

Employee training and onboarding presentation: why and how

How to structure, design, write, and finally present executive summary presentation?

Page Content

Overview of the review report format, the first read-through, first read considerations, spotting potential major flaws, concluding the first reading, rejection after the first reading, before starting the second read-through, doing the second read-through, the second read-through: section by section guidance, how to structure your report, on presentation and style, criticisms & confidential comments to editors, the recommendation, when recommending rejection, additional resources, step by step guide to reviewing a manuscript.

When you receive an invitation to peer review, you should be sent a copy of the paper's abstract to help you decide whether you wish to do the review. Try to respond to invitations promptly - it will prevent delays. It is also important at this stage to declare any potential Conflict of Interest.

The structure of the review report varies between journals. Some follow an informal structure, while others have a more formal approach.

" Number your comments!!! " (Jonathon Halbesleben, former Editor of Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology)

Informal Structure

Many journals don't provide criteria for reviews beyond asking for your 'analysis of merits'. In this case, you may wish to familiarize yourself with examples of other reviews done for the journal, which the editor should be able to provide or, as you gain experience, rely on your own evolving style.

Formal Structure

Other journals require a more formal approach. Sometimes they will ask you to address specific questions in your review via a questionnaire. Or they might want you to rate the manuscript on various attributes using a scorecard. Often you can't see these until you log in to submit your review. So when you agree to the work, it's worth checking for any journal-specific guidelines and requirements. If there are formal guidelines, let them direct the structure of your review.

In Both Cases

Whether specifically required by the reporting format or not, you should expect to compile comments to authors and possibly confidential ones to editors only.

Following the invitation to review, when you'll have received the article abstract, you should already understand the aims, key data and conclusions of the manuscript. If you don't, make a note now that you need to feedback on how to improve those sections.

The first read-through is a skim-read. It will help you form an initial impression of the paper and get a sense of whether your eventual recommendation will be to accept or reject the paper.

Keep a pen and paper handy when skim-reading.

Try to bear in mind the following questions - they'll help you form your overall impression:

• What is the main question addressed by the research? Is it relevant and interesting?
• How original is the topic? What does it add to the subject area compared with other published material?
• Is the paper well written? Is the text clear and easy to read?
• Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented? Do they address the main question posed?
• If the author is disagreeing significantly with the current academic consensus, do they have a substantial case? If not, what would be required to make their case credible?
• If the paper includes tables or figures, what do they add to the paper? Do they aid understanding or are they superfluous?

While you should read the whole paper, making the right choice of what to read first can save time by flagging major problems early on.

Editors say, " Specific recommendations for remedying flaws are VERY welcome ."

Examples of possibly major flaws include:

• Drawing a conclusion that is contradicted by the author's own statistical or qualitative evidence
• The use of a discredited method
• Ignoring a process that is known to have a strong influence on the area under study

If experimental design features prominently in the paper, first check that the methodology is sound - if not, this is likely to be a major flaw.

You might examine:

• The sampling in analytical papers
• The sufficient use of control experiments
• The precision of process data
• The regularity of sampling in time-dependent studies
• The validity of questions, the use of a detailed methodology and the data analysis being done systematically (in qualitative research)
• That qualitative research extends beyond the author's opinions, with sufficient descriptive elements and appropriate quotes from interviews or focus groups

Major Flaws in Information

If methodology is less of an issue, it's often a good idea to look at the data tables, figures or images first. Especially in science research, it's all about the information gathered. If there are critical flaws in this, it's very likely the manuscript will need to be rejected. Such issues include:

• Insufficient data
• Unclear data tables
• Contradictory data that either are not self-consistent or disagree with the conclusions
• Confirmatory data that adds little, if anything, to current understanding - unless strong arguments for such repetition are made

If you find a major problem, note your reasoning and clear supporting evidence (including citations).

After the initial read and using your notes, including those of any major flaws you found, draft the first two paragraphs of your review - the first summarizing the research question addressed and the second the contribution of the work. If the journal has a prescribed reporting format, this draft will still help you compose your thoughts.

The First Paragraph

This should state the main question addressed by the research and summarize the goals, approaches, and conclusions of the paper. It should:

• Help the editor properly contextualize the research and add weight to your judgement
• Show the author what key messages are conveyed to the reader, so they can be sure they are achieving what they set out to do
• Focus on successful aspects of the paper so the author gets a sense of what they've done well

The Second Paragraph

This should provide a conceptual overview of the contribution of the research. So consider:

• Is the paper's premise interesting and important?
• Are the methods used appropriate?
• Do the data support the conclusions?

After drafting these two paragraphs, you should be in a position to decide whether this manuscript is seriously flawed and should be rejected (see the next section). Or whether it is publishable in principle and merits a detailed, careful read through.

Even if you are coming to the opinion that an article has serious flaws, make sure you read the whole paper. This is very important because you may find some really positive aspects that can be communicated to the author. This could help them with future submissions.

A full read-through will also make sure that any initial concerns are indeed correct and fair. After all, you need the context of the whole paper before deciding to reject. If you still intend to recommend rejection, see the section "When recommending rejection."

Once the paper has passed your first read and you've decided the article is publishable in principle, one purpose of the second, detailed read-through is to help prepare the manuscript for publication. You may still decide to recommend rejection following a second reading.

" Offer clear suggestions for how the authors can address the concerns raised. In other words, if you're going to raise a problem, provide a solution ." (Jonathon Halbesleben, Editor of Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology)

Preparation

To save time and simplify the review:

• Don't rely solely upon inserting comments on the manuscript document - make separate notes
• Try to group similar concerns or praise together
• If using a review program to note directly onto the manuscript, still try grouping the concerns and praise in separate notes - it helps later
• Note line numbers of text upon which your notes are based - this helps you find items again and also aids those reading your review

Now that you have completed your preparations, you're ready to spend an hour or so reading carefully through the manuscript.

As you're reading through the manuscript for a second time, you'll need to keep in mind the argument's construction, the clarity of the language and content.

With regard to the argument’s construction, you should identify:

• Any places where the meaning is unclear or ambiguous
• Any factual errors
• Any invalid arguments

You may also wish to consider:

• Does the title properly reflect the subject of the paper?
• Does the abstract provide an accessible summary of the paper?
• Do the keywords accurately reflect the content?
• Is the paper an appropriate length?
• Are the key messages short, accurate and clear?

Not every submission is well written. Part of your role is to make sure that the text’s meaning is clear.

Editors say, " If a manuscript has many English language and editing issues, please do not try and fix it. If it is too bad, note that in your review and it should be up to the authors to have the manuscript edited ."

If the article is difficult to understand, you should have rejected it already. However, if the language is poor but you understand the core message, see if you can suggest improvements to fix the problem:

• Are there certain aspects that could be communicated better, such as parts of the discussion?
• Should the authors consider resubmitting to the same journal after language improvements?
• Would you consider looking at the paper again once these issues are dealt with?

On Grammar and Punctuation

Your primary role is judging the research content. Don't spend time polishing grammar or spelling. Editors will make sure that the text is at a high standard before publication. However, if you spot grammatical errors that affect clarity of meaning, then it's important to highlight these. Expect to suggest such amendments - it's rare for a manuscript to pass review with no corrections.

A 2010 study of nursing journals found that 79% of recommendations by reviewers were influenced by grammar and writing style (Shattel, et al., 2010).

1. The Introduction

A well-written introduction:

• Sets out the argument
• Summarizes recent research related to the topic
• Highlights gaps in current understanding or conflicts in current knowledge
• Establishes the originality of the research aims by demonstrating the need for investigations in the topic area
• Gives a clear idea of the target readership, why the research was carried out and the novelty and topicality of the manuscript

Originality and Topicality

Originality and topicality can only be established in the light of recent authoritative research. For example, it's impossible to argue that there is a conflict in current understanding by referencing articles that are 10 years old.

Authors may make the case that a topic hasn't been investigated in several years and that new research is required. This point is only valid if researchers can point to recent developments in data gathering techniques or to research in indirectly related fields that suggest the topic needs revisiting. Clearly, authors can only do this by referencing recent literature. Obviously, where older research is seminal or where aspects of the methodology rely upon it, then it is perfectly appropriate for authors to cite some older papers.

Editors say, "Is the report providing new information; is it novel or just confirmatory of well-known outcomes ?"

It's common for the introduction to end by stating the research aims. By this point you should already have a good impression of them - if the explicit aims come as a surprise, then the introduction needs improvement.

2. Materials and Methods

Academic research should be replicable, repeatable and robust - and follow best practice.

Replicable Research

This makes sufficient use of:

• Control experiments
• Repeated analyses
• Repeated experiments

These are used to make sure observed trends are not due to chance and that the same experiment could be repeated by other researchers - and result in the same outcome. Statistical analyses will not be sound if methods are not replicable. Where research is not replicable, the paper should be recommended for rejection.

Repeatable Methods

These give enough detail so that other researchers are able to carry out the same research. For example, equipment used or sampling methods should all be described in detail so that others could follow the same steps. Where methods are not detailed enough, it's usual to ask for the methods section to be revised.

Robust Research

This has enough data points to make sure the data are reliable. If there are insufficient data, it might be appropriate to recommend revision. You should also consider whether there is any in-built bias not nullified by the control experiments.

Best Practice

During these checks you should keep in mind best practice:

• Standard guidelines were followed (e.g. the CONSORT Statement for reporting randomized trials)
• The health and safety of all participants in the study was not compromised
• Ethical standards were maintained

If the research fails to reach relevant best practice standards, it's usual to recommend rejection. What's more, you don't then need to read any further.

3. Results and Discussion

This section should tell a coherent story - What happened? What was discovered or confirmed?

Certain patterns of good reporting need to be followed by the author:

• They should start by describing in simple terms what the data show
• They should make reference to statistical analyses, such as significance or goodness of fit
• Once described, they should evaluate the trends observed and explain the significance of the results to wider understanding. This can only be done by referencing published research
• The outcome should be a critical analysis of the data collected

Discussion should always, at some point, gather all the information together into a single whole. Authors should describe and discuss the overall story formed. If there are gaps or inconsistencies in the story, they should address these and suggest ways future research might confirm the findings or take the research forward.

4. Conclusions

This section is usually no more than a few paragraphs and may be presented as part of the results and discussion, or in a separate section. The conclusions should reflect upon the aims - whether they were achieved or not - and, just like the aims, should not be surprising. If the conclusions are not evidence-based, it's appropriate to ask for them to be re-written.

5. Information Gathered: Images, Graphs and Data Tables

If you find yourself looking at a piece of information from which you cannot discern a story, then you should ask for improvements in presentation. This could be an issue with titles, labels, statistical notation or image quality.

Where information is clear, you should check that:

• The results seem plausible, in case there is an error in data gathering
• The trends you can see support the paper's discussion and conclusions
• There are sufficient data. For example, in studies carried out over time are there sufficient data points to support the trends described by the author?

You should also check whether images have been edited or manipulated to emphasize the story they tell. This may be appropriate but only if authors report on how the image has been edited (e.g. by highlighting certain parts of an image). Where you feel that an image has been edited or manipulated without explanation, you should highlight this in a confidential comment to the editor in your report.

6. List of References

You will need to check referencing for accuracy, adequacy and balance.

Where a cited article is central to the author's argument, you should check the accuracy and format of the reference - and bear in mind different subject areas may use citations differently. Otherwise, it's the editor’s role to exhaustively check the reference section for accuracy and format.

You should consider if the referencing is adequate:

• Are important parts of the argument poorly supported?
• Are there published studies that show similar or dissimilar trends that should be discussed?
• If a manuscript only uses half the citations typical in its field, this may be an indicator that referencing should be improved - but don't be guided solely by quantity
• References should be relevant, recent and readily retrievable

Check for a well-balanced list of references that is:

• Helpful to the reader
• Fair to competing authors
• Not over-reliant on self-citation
• Gives due recognition to the initial discoveries and related work that led to the work under assessment

You should be able to evaluate whether the article meets the criteria for balanced referencing without looking up every reference.

7. Plagiarism

By now you will have a deep understanding of the paper's content - and you may have some concerns about plagiarism.

Identified Concern

If you find - or already knew of - a very similar paper, this may be because the author overlooked it in their own literature search. Or it may be because it is very recent or published in a journal slightly outside their usual field.

You may feel you can advise the author how to emphasize the novel aspects of their own study, so as to better differentiate it from similar research. If so, you may ask the author to discuss their aims and results, or modify their conclusions, in light of the similar article. Of course, the research similarities may be so great that they render the work unoriginal and you have no choice but to recommend rejection.

"It's very helpful when a reviewer can point out recent similar publications on the same topic by other groups, or that the authors have already published some data elsewhere ." (Editor feedback)

Suspected Concern

If you suspect plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, but cannot recall or locate exactly what is being plagiarized, notify the editor of your suspicion and ask for guidance.

Most editors have access to software that can check for plagiarism.

Editors are not out to police every paper, but when plagiarism is discovered during peer review it can be properly addressed ahead of publication. If plagiarism is discovered only after publication, the consequences are worse for both authors and readers, because a retraction may be necessary.

For detailed guidelines see COPE's Ethical guidelines for reviewers and Wiley's Best Practice Guidelines on Publishing Ethics .

8. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

After the detailed read-through, you will be in a position to advise whether the title, abstract and key words are optimized for search purposes. In order to be effective, good SEO terms will reflect the aims of the research.

A clear title and abstract will improve the paper's search engine rankings and will influence whether the user finds and then decides to navigate to the main article. The title should contain the relevant SEO terms early on. This has a major effect on the impact of a paper, since it helps it appear in search results. A poor abstract can then lose the reader's interest and undo the benefit of an effective title - whilst the paper's abstract may appear in search results, the potential reader may go no further.

So ask yourself, while the abstract may have seemed adequate during earlier checks, does it:

• Do justice to the manuscript in this context?
• Highlight important findings sufficiently?
• Present the most interesting data?

Editors say, " Does the Abstract highlight the important findings of the study ?"

If there is a formal report format, remember to follow it. This will often comprise a range of questions followed by comment sections. Try to answer all the questions. They are there because the editor felt that they are important. If you're following an informal report format you could structure your report in three sections: summary, major issues, minor issues.

• Give positive feedback first. Authors are more likely to read your review if you do so. But don't overdo it if you will be recommending rejection
• Briefly summarize what the paper is about and what the findings are
• Try to put the findings of the paper into the context of the existing literature and current knowledge
• Indicate the significance of the work and if it is novel or mainly confirmatory
• Indicate the work's strengths, its quality and completeness
• State any major flaws or weaknesses and note any special considerations. For example, if previously held theories are being overlooked

Major Issues

• Are there any major flaws? State what they are and what the severity of their impact is on the paper
• Has similar work already been published without the authors acknowledging this?
• Are the authors presenting findings that challenge current thinking? Is the evidence they present strong enough to prove their case? Have they cited all the relevant work that would contradict their thinking and addressed it appropriately?
• If major revisions are required, try to indicate clearly what they are
• Are there any major presentational problems? Are figures & tables, language and manuscript structure all clear enough for you to accurately assess the work?
• Are there any ethical issues? If you are unsure it may be better to disclose these in the confidential comments section

Minor Issues

• Are there places where meaning is ambiguous? How can this be corrected?
• Are the correct references cited? If not, which should be cited instead/also? Are citations excessive, limited, or biased?
• Are there any factual, numerical or unit errors? If so, what are they?
• Are all tables and figures appropriate, sufficient, and correctly labelled? If not, say which are not

Your review should ultimately help the author improve their article. So be polite, honest and clear. You should also try to be objective and constructive, not subjective and destructive.

You should also:

• Write clearly and so you can be understood by people whose first language is not English
• Avoid complex or unusual words, especially ones that would even confuse native speakers
• Number your points and refer to page and line numbers in the manuscript when making specific comments
• If you have been asked to only comment on specific parts or aspects of the manuscript, you should indicate clearly which these are
• Treat the author's work the way you would like your own to be treated

Most journals give reviewers the option to provide some confidential comments to editors. Often this is where editors will want reviewers to state their recommendation - see the next section - but otherwise this area is best reserved for communicating malpractice such as suspected plagiarism, fraud, unattributed work, unethical procedures, duplicate publication, bias or other conflicts of interest.

However, this doesn't give reviewers permission to 'backstab' the author. Authors can't see this feedback and are unable to give their side of the story unless the editor asks them to. So in the spirit of fairness, write comments to editors as though authors might read them too.

Reviewers should check the preferences of individual journals as to where they want review decisions to be stated. In particular, bear in mind that some journals will not want the recommendation included in any comments to authors, as this can cause editors difficulty later - see Section 11 for more advice about working with editors.

You will normally be asked to indicate your recommendation (e.g. accept, reject, revise and resubmit, etc.) from a fixed-choice list and then to enter your comments into a separate text box.

Recommending Acceptance

If you're recommending acceptance, give details outlining why, and if there are any areas that could be improved. Don't just give a short, cursory remark such as 'great, accept'. See Improving the Manuscript

Recommending Revision

Where improvements are needed, a recommendation for major or minor revision is typical. You may also choose to state whether you opt in or out of the post-revision review too. If recommending revision, state specific changes you feel need to be made. The author can then reply to each point in turn.

Some journals offer the option to recommend rejection with the possibility of resubmission – this is most relevant where substantial, major revision is necessary.

What can reviewers do to help? " Be clear in their comments to the author (or editor) which points are absolutely critical if the paper is given an opportunity for revisio n." (Jonathon Halbesleben, Editor of Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology)

Recommending Rejection

If recommending rejection or major revision, state this clearly in your review (and see the next section, 'When recommending rejection').

Where manuscripts have serious flaws you should not spend any time polishing the review you've drafted or give detailed advice on presentation.

Editors say, " If a reviewer suggests a rejection, but her/his comments are not detailed or helpful, it does not help the editor in making a decision ."

In your recommendations for the author, you should:

• Give constructive feedback describing ways that they could improve the research
• Keep the focus on the research and not the author. This is an extremely important part of your job as a reviewer
• Avoid making critical confidential comments to the editor while being polite and encouraging to the author - the latter may not understand why their manuscript has been rejected. Also, they won't get feedback on how to improve their research and it could trigger an appeal

Remember to give constructive criticism even if recommending rejection. This helps developing researchers improve their work and explains to the editor why you felt the manuscript should not be published.

" When the comments seem really positive, but the recommendation is rejection…it puts the editor in a tough position of having to reject a paper when the comments make it sound like a great paper ." (Jonathon Halbesleben, Editor of Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology)

Visit our Wiley Author Learning and Training Channel for expert advice on peer review.

Watch the video, Ethical considerations of Peer Review

Loading metrics

Open Access

Ten simple rules for effective presentation slides

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Biomedical Engineering and the Center for Public Health Genomics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America

• Kristen M. Naegle

Published: December 2, 2021

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009554
• Reader Comments

Citation: Naegle KM (2021) Ten simple rules for effective presentation slides. PLoS Comput Biol 17(12): e1009554. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009554

Copyright: © 2021 Kristen M. Naegle. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The author received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The author has declared no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The “presentation slide” is the building block of all academic presentations, whether they are journal clubs, thesis committee meetings, short conference talks, or hour-long seminars. A slide is a single page projected on a screen, usually built on the premise of a title, body, and figures or tables and includes both what is shown and what is spoken about that slide. Multiple slides are strung together to tell the larger story of the presentation. While there have been excellent 10 simple rules on giving entire presentations [ 1 , 2 ], there was an absence in the fine details of how to design a slide for optimal effect—such as the design elements that allow slides to convey meaningful information, to keep the audience engaged and informed, and to deliver the information intended and in the time frame allowed. As all research presentations seek to teach, effective slide design borrows from the same principles as effective teaching, including the consideration of cognitive processing your audience is relying on to organize, process, and retain information. This is written for anyone who needs to prepare slides from any length scale and for most purposes of conveying research to broad audiences. The rules are broken into 3 primary areas. Rules 1 to 5 are about optimizing the scope of each slide. Rules 6 to 8 are about principles around designing elements of the slide. Rules 9 to 10 are about preparing for your presentation, with the slides as the central focus of that preparation.

Rule 1: Include only one idea per slide

Each slide should have one central objective to deliver—the main idea or question [ 3 – 5 ]. Often, this means breaking complex ideas down into manageable pieces (see Fig 1 , where “background” information has been split into 2 key concepts). In another example, if you are presenting a complex computational approach in a large flow diagram, introduce it in smaller units, building it up until you finish with the entire diagram. The progressive buildup of complex information means that audiences are prepared to understand the whole picture, once you have dedicated time to each of the parts. You can accomplish the buildup of components in several ways—for example, using presentation software to cover/uncover information. Personally, I choose to create separate slides for each piece of information content I introduce—where the final slide has the entire diagram, and I use cropping or a cover on duplicated slides that come before to hide what I’m not yet ready to include. I use this method in order to ensure that each slide in my deck truly presents one specific idea (the new content) and the amount of the new information on that slide can be described in 1 minute (Rule 2), but it comes with the trade-off—a change to the format of one of the slides in the series often means changes to all slides.

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

Top left: A background slide that describes the background material on a project from my lab. The slide was created using a PowerPoint Design Template, which had to be modified to increase default text sizes for this figure (i.e., the default text sizes are even worse than shown here). Bottom row: The 2 new slides that break up the content into 2 explicit ideas about the background, using a central graphic. In the first slide, the graphic is an explicit example of the SH2 domain of PI3-kinase interacting with a phosphorylation site (Y754) on the PDGFR to describe the important details of what an SH2 domain and phosphotyrosine ligand are and how they interact. I use that same graphic in the second slide to generalize all binding events and include redundant text to drive home the central message (a lot of possible interactions might occur in the human proteome, more than we can currently measure). Top right highlights which rules were used to move from the original slide to the new slide. Specific changes as highlighted by Rule 7 include increasing contrast by changing the background color, increasing font size, changing to sans serif fonts, and removing all capital text and underlining (using bold to draw attention). PDGFR, platelet-derived growth factor receptor.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009554.g001

Rule 2: Spend only 1 minute per slide

When you present your slide in the talk, it should take 1 minute or less to discuss. This rule is really helpful for planning purposes—a 20-minute presentation should have somewhere around 20 slides. Also, frequently giving your audience new information to feast on helps keep them engaged. During practice, if you find yourself spending more than a minute on a slide, there’s too much for that one slide—it’s time to break up the content into multiple slides or even remove information that is not wholly central to the story you are trying to tell. Reduce, reduce, reduce, until you get to a single message, clearly described, which takes less than 1 minute to present.

Rule 3: Make use of your heading

When each slide conveys only one message, use the heading of that slide to write exactly the message you are trying to deliver. Instead of titling the slide “Results,” try “CTNND1 is central to metastasis” or “False-positive rates are highly sample specific.” Use this landmark signpost to ensure that all the content on that slide is related exactly to the heading and only the heading. Think of the slide heading as the introductory or concluding sentence of a paragraph and the slide content the rest of the paragraph that supports the main point of the paragraph. An audience member should be able to follow along with you in the “paragraph” and come to the same conclusion sentence as your header at the end of the slide.

Rule 4: Include only essential points

While you are speaking, audience members’ eyes and minds will be wandering over your slide. If you have a comment, detail, or figure on a slide, have a plan to explicitly identify and talk about it. If you don’t think it’s important enough to spend time on, then don’t have it on your slide. This is especially important when faculty are present. I often tell students that thesis committee members are like cats: If you put a shiny bauble in front of them, they’ll go after it. Be sure to only put the shiny baubles on slides that you want them to focus on. Putting together a thesis meeting for only faculty is really an exercise in herding cats (if you have cats, you know this is no easy feat). Clear and concise slide design will go a long way in helping you corral those easily distracted faculty members.

Rule 5: Give credit, where credit is due

An exception to Rule 4 is to include proper citations or references to work on your slide. When adding citations, names of other researchers, or other types of credit, use a consistent style and method for adding this information to your slides. Your audience will then be able to easily partition this information from the other content. A common mistake people make is to think “I’ll add that reference later,” but I highly recommend you put the proper reference on the slide at the time you make it, before you forget where it came from. Finally, in certain kinds of presentations, credits can make it clear who did the work. For the faculty members heading labs, it is an effective way to connect your audience with the personnel in the lab who did the work, which is a great career booster for that person. For graduate students, it is an effective way to delineate your contribution to the work, especially in meetings where the goal is to establish your credentials for meeting the rigors of a PhD checkpoint.

Rule 6: Use graphics effectively

As a rule, you should almost never have slides that only contain text. Build your slides around good visualizations. It is a visual presentation after all, and as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. However, on the flip side, don’t muddy the point of the slide by putting too many complex graphics on a single slide. A multipanel figure that you might include in a manuscript should often be broken into 1 panel per slide (see Rule 1 ). One way to ensure that you use the graphics effectively is to make a point to introduce the figure and its elements to the audience verbally, especially for data figures. For example, you might say the following: “This graph here shows the measured false-positive rate for an experiment and each point is a replicate of the experiment, the graph demonstrates …” If you have put too much on one slide to present in 1 minute (see Rule 2 ), then the complexity or number of the visualizations is too much for just one slide.

Rule 7: Design to avoid cognitive overload

The type of slide elements, the number of them, and how you present them all impact the ability for the audience to intake, organize, and remember the content. For example, a frequent mistake in slide design is to include full sentences, but reading and verbal processing use the same cognitive channels—therefore, an audience member can either read the slide, listen to you, or do some part of both (each poorly), as a result of cognitive overload [ 4 ]. The visual channel is separate, allowing images/videos to be processed with auditory information without cognitive overload [ 6 ] (Rule 6). As presentations are an exercise in listening, and not reading, do what you can to optimize the ability of the audience to listen. Use words sparingly as “guide posts” to you and the audience about major points of the slide. In fact, you can add short text fragments, redundant with the verbal component of the presentation, which has been shown to improve retention [ 7 ] (see Fig 1 for an example of redundant text that avoids cognitive overload). Be careful in the selection of a slide template to minimize accidentally adding elements that the audience must process, but are unimportant. David JP Phillips argues (and effectively demonstrates in his TEDx talk [ 5 ]) that the human brain can easily interpret 6 elements and more than that requires a 500% increase in human cognition load—so keep the total number of elements on the slide to 6 or less. Finally, in addition to the use of short text, white space, and the effective use of graphics/images, you can improve ease of cognitive processing further by considering color choices and font type and size. Here are a few suggestions for improving the experience for your audience, highlighting the importance of these elements for some specific groups:

• Use high contrast colors and simple backgrounds with low to no color—for persons with dyslexia or visual impairment.
• Use sans serif fonts and large font sizes (including figure legends), avoid italics, underlining (use bold font instead for emphasis), and all capital letters—for persons with dyslexia or visual impairment [ 8 ].
• Use color combinations and palettes that can be understood by those with different forms of color blindness [ 9 ]. There are excellent tools available to identify colors to use and ways to simulate your presentation or figures as they might be seen by a person with color blindness (easily found by a web search).
• In this increasing world of virtual presentation tools, consider practicing your talk with a closed captioning system capture your words. Use this to identify how to improve your speaking pace, volume, and annunciation to improve understanding by all members of your audience, but especially those with a hearing impairment.

Rule 8: Design the slide so that a distracted person gets the main takeaway

It is very difficult to stay focused on a presentation, especially if it is long or if it is part of a longer series of talks at a conference. Audience members may get distracted by an important email, or they may start dreaming of lunch. So, it’s important to look at your slide and ask “If they heard nothing I said, will they understand the key concept of this slide?” The other rules are set up to help with this, including clarity of the single point of the slide (Rule 1), titling it with a major conclusion (Rule 3), and the use of figures (Rule 6) and short text redundant to your verbal description (Rule 7). However, with each slide, step back and ask whether its main conclusion is conveyed, even if someone didn’t hear your accompanying dialog. Importantly, ask if the information on the slide is at the right level of abstraction. For example, do you have too many details about the experiment, which hides the conclusion of the experiment (i.e., breaking Rule 1)? If you are worried about not having enough details, keep a slide at the end of your slide deck (after your conclusions and acknowledgments) with the more detailed information that you can refer to during a question and answer period.

Rule 9: Iteratively improve slide design through practice

Well-designed slides that follow the first 8 rules are intended to help you deliver the message you intend and in the amount of time you intend to deliver it in. The best way to ensure that you nailed slide design for your presentation is to practice, typically a lot. The most important aspects of practicing a new presentation, with an eye toward slide design, are the following 2 key points: (1) practice to ensure that you hit, each time through, the most important points (for example, the text guide posts you left yourself and the title of the slide); and (2) practice to ensure that as you conclude the end of one slide, it leads directly to the next slide. Slide transitions, what you say as you end one slide and begin the next, are important to keeping the flow of the “story.” Practice is when I discover that the order of my presentation is poor or that I left myself too few guideposts to remember what was coming next. Additionally, during practice, the most frequent things I have to improve relate to Rule 2 (the slide takes too long to present, usually because I broke Rule 1, and I’m delivering too much information for one slide), Rule 4 (I have a nonessential detail on the slide), and Rule 5 (I forgot to give a key reference). The very best type of practice is in front of an audience (for example, your lab or peers), where, with fresh perspectives, they can help you identify places for improving slide content, design, and connections across the entirety of your talk.

Rule 10: Design to mitigate the impact of technical disasters

The real presentation almost never goes as we planned in our heads or during our practice. Maybe the speaker before you went over time and now you need to adjust. Maybe the computer the organizer is having you use won’t show your video. Maybe your internet is poor on the day you are giving a virtual presentation at a conference. Technical problems are routinely part of the practice of sharing your work through presentations. Hence, you can design your slides to limit the impact certain kinds of technical disasters create and also prepare alternate approaches. Here are just a few examples of the preparation you can do that will take you a long way toward avoiding a complete fiasco:

• Save your presentation as a PDF—if the version of Keynote or PowerPoint on a host computer cause issues, you still have a functional copy that has a higher guarantee of compatibility.
• In using videos, create a backup slide with screen shots of key results. For example, if I have a video of cell migration, I’ll be sure to have a copy of the start and end of the video, in case the video doesn’t play. Even if the video worked, you can pause on this backup slide and take the time to highlight the key results in words if someone could not see or understand the video.
• Avoid animations, such as figures or text that flash/fly-in/etc. Surveys suggest that no one likes movement in presentations [ 3 , 4 ]. There is likely a cognitive underpinning to the almost universal distaste of pointless animations that relates to the idea proposed by Kosslyn and colleagues that animations are salient perceptual units that captures direct attention [ 4 ]. Although perceptual salience can be used to draw attention to and improve retention of specific points, if you use this approach for unnecessary/unimportant things (like animation of your bullet point text, fly-ins of figures, etc.), then you will distract your audience from the important content. Finally, animations cause additional processing burdens for people with visual impairments [ 10 ] and create opportunities for technical disasters if the software on the host system is not compatible with your planned animation.

Conclusions

These rules are just a start in creating more engaging presentations that increase audience retention of your material. However, there are wonderful resources on continuing on the journey of becoming an amazing public speaker, which includes understanding the psychology and neuroscience behind human perception and learning. For example, as highlighted in Rule 7, David JP Phillips has a wonderful TEDx talk on the subject [ 5 ], and “PowerPoint presentation flaws and failures: A psychological analysis,” by Kosslyn and colleagues is deeply detailed about a number of aspects of human cognition and presentation style [ 4 ]. There are many books on the topic, including the popular “Presentation Zen” by Garr Reynolds [ 11 ]. Finally, although briefly touched on here, the visualization of data is an entire topic of its own that is worth perfecting for both written and oral presentations of work, with fantastic resources like Edward Tufte’s “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” [ 12 ] or the article “Visualization of Biomedical Data” by O’Donoghue and colleagues [ 13 ].

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the countless presenters, colleagues, students, and mentors from which I have learned a great deal from on effective presentations. Also, a thank you to the wonderful resources published by organizations on how to increase inclusivity. A special thanks to Dr. Jason Papin and Dr. Michael Guertin on early feedback of this editorial.

• View Article
• PubMed/NCBI
• Google Scholar
• 3. Teaching VUC for Making Better PowerPoint Presentations. n.d. Available from: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/making-better-powerpoint-presentations/#baddeley .
• 8. Creating a dyslexia friendly workplace. Dyslexia friendly style guide. nd. Available from: https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/advice/employers/creating-a-dyslexia-friendly-workplace/dyslexia-friendly-style-guide .
• 9. Cravit R. How to Use Color Blind Friendly Palettes to Make Your Charts Accessible. 2019. Available from: https://venngage.com/blog/color-blind-friendly-palette/ .
• 10. Making your conference presentation more accessible to blind and partially sighted people. n.d. Available from: https://vocaleyes.co.uk/services/resources/guidelines-for-making-your-conference-presentation-more-accessible-to-blind-and-partially-sighted-people/ .
• 11. Reynolds G. Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery. 2nd ed. New Riders Pub; 2011.
• 12. Tufte ER. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. 2nd ed. Graphics Press; 2001.

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base

Methodology

• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

• Academic style
• Vague sentences
• Style consistency

See an example

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

Open Google Slides Download PowerPoint

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, September 11). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved July 10, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, what is a theoretical framework | guide to organizing, what is a research methodology | steps & tips, how to write a research proposal | examples & templates, what is your plagiarism score.

The Cersonsky Lab at UW-Madison

The Cersonsky Lab is a research group based at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering

8 Tips for a Literature Review Presentation

by Caleb Youngwerth

Literature reviews for research are very different from any other presentation you may have done before, so prepare to relearn how to present. The goals of research literature reviews are different, the style is different, even the pacing is different. Even if you have previously done a literature review in an academic setting, you will still want to know these tips. I found this out the hard way, so you don’t have to. Also, to clarify, these tips are meant for a literature review of a topic, not a singular study or paper, though many of the tips do apply to both.

1. Highlight current research

The point of a literature review for research is to highlight the current state of research related to your topic, not to simply give background information. Background information is important and should be included, but the focus of the presentation should be showing some current studies that either confirm or challenge the topic you are studying. As much as textbooks from 30 years ago might seem to have all the information you need for your presentation, a research study from this decade does a far better job representing the current state of the topic, which is the end goal of the presentation. Also, since the new research should be the focal point of the presentation, as a general piece of advice, try to give each research study a minimum of one full slide, so you can give a fuller picture of what the study actually concluded and how they reached their conclusion.

2. Alternate old and new

The best way to keep people listening to your presentation is to vary what you include in your presentation. Rather than trying to give all of the background information first and then showcase all the flashy new research, try to use the two interchangeably. Organize the presentation by idea and give all the background needed for the idea, then develop the idea further by using the new research studies to help illustrate your point. By doing this, you not only avoid having to backtrack and reteach the background for each and every new study, but also help keep the presentation interesting for the audience. This method also helps the audience avoid being overwhelmed since only a little bit of new information is introduced at a time. Obviously, you may need to include a brief introductory section that contains nothing but textbook information that is absolutely necessary to understand anything about the topic, but the more varied the presentation, the better.

3. Use complete sentences

Every presentation class up to this point probably has taught you that slides with full sentences are harmful to your presentation because it is distracting to the listener. Unlearn all that information for this style of presentation. Bullet points are still good, but you should have complete ideas (which usually means complete sentences) for every single point. If someone would be able to read your slides and not hear you, and still be able to understand most of your presentation, your literature review is perfect in a research setting. The point of this presentation is to share all the new information you have learned, so hiding it is helping no one. You still do not want to be reading your slides verbatim and can absolutely add information beyond the slides, but all your main ideas should be on the slides.

4. Read smart

I will admit that I stole this tip from Rosy, but it is a very good tip, so I decided to include it. When you read, you want to read as much as you can, but wasting time reading an irrelevant research study is helping no one. When finding a new study, read the abstract, then the conclusion, then the pictures. If it looks like a good study from those three parts, or you personally find it interesting, you then can go over the actual paper and read it, but by reading the less dense parts first, you can get a general idea of the study without actually having to take a lot of time to read the entire paper. Though textbooks and review papers generally are a little more difficult to read using this method, you can still look at the introduction, pictures, and conclusion and save time reading the rest if the source ends up not being interesting or important.

5. Reading is good for you

As much as you want to read smart when you can, the more you read, the more knowledgeable you become. The goal of the presentation is to become an expert on you topic, so the only way you can do that is by reading as much as you can. You should read more information than you present, since many sources you read probably will not fit in a time-constrained presentation. As Rosy likes to say, in anything research, only about 10% of what you know should actually be shared with the world. By reading more, you are better-suited to answer questions, and you also just generally are able to understand what you are studying better because, chances are, the main purpose of this presentation for you is to help you better understand your research. If something looks interesting and is vaguely related to your topic, read it; it will be beneficial to you, even if you do not end up presenting the information.

6. Let pictures talk for you

When reading research papers, the pictures are usually the best part. Your presentation should be the same way. The best way to be able to show the concept you are trying to explain is to literally show it. The best way to show the results of a research study is usually by showing a graph or infographic, so if the paper has a graph that shows the results, you should absolutely use it. Charts, diagrams, and even videos can also help illustrate a piece of background information that might be difficult to put into words. That being said, you should know and be able to explain every single part of the graphic. Otherwise, it loses meaning and makes the audience even more confused. Captions can and should be used to help explain the graphic, not only to remind you, but also let your audience know what the general idea of the graphic is. Since they keep slides interesting, you should probably have some sort of picture on every slide, otherwise the slides will be not only bland, but also likely less informative.

7. Avoid overcrowded slides

Just because you should have a lot of information in your presentation does not mean that your slides need to show that. In fact, a slide with too much information will only harm your presentation since your audience will be distracted trying to read all of a long slide while you are trying to explain it. Doing anything to make slides less dense will help avoid having the audience focused on the slide, so they focus on you more. Transitions that only show one point at a time or wait to reveal an image can be helpful in breaking up an overcrowded slide. Also, simply adding more slides can help since it accomplishes the purpose of putting less information on your slides while still keeping the exact same amount of information. You still want to share as much information as you can with the audience, but overcrowded slides do not accomplish this purpose.

8. Expect questions

Another thing that might be slightly different about a research presentation is questions. Most presentations have the question section after the presenter has finished. Research presentations are different because they allow for questions during the presentation (assuming it is a presentation to a small group). If you get any questions in the middle of the presentation, it is not someone being rude, but simply a fellow researcher who is legitimately curious about your topic. Of course, there will be a question period after the presentation, but you may be asked questions during the presentation. If you read enough information on the topic, you should be able to answer any question easily, but if the question is completely unrelated to anything you read, then it is perfectly reasonable to answer that you did not research the specific area in question. Overall, the questions related to your presentation should not be your biggest worry, but you should definitely be ready.

These are not all the rules for a literature review presentation nor are they set in stone. These are just some tips that I was told or learned that were the most helpful for me, so I hope they will help you too. I had to rewrite my presentation entirely my first literature review because I did not understand some of these differences, so if you give the presentation when you are scheduled to go, you are already better off than I was. Also, do not be afraid to ask anyone in the research group, even Rosy, if you need help. Chances are everyone in the group has given a literature review presentation at some point, so we would be more than happy to help you if you are confused about something. That being said, we are not experts on your topic, so specific questions about organization and content are going to have to be figured out by yourself. Either way, no matter what you do, do not stress out about this presentation. The goal of the presentation is mostly just to help improve your knowledge on a topic, and the presentation is simply to share with the group some of the information you have learned. Best of luck with the presentation, and I hope these tips help clear up what exactly the goal of a literature review presentation in a research setting is.

Stack Exchange Network

Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow , the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.

Q&A for work

Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.

How to present a review paper at a conference?

I sent an abstract of a review paper for oral presentation to a conference, and it was accepted. The presentation will be about the most important developments and contributions made in the last decade on my specific area of research. Now I am preparing the speech, but I am not sure how to give a 12-minutes speech about all the work that has been done (it's a lot). Can someone give some suggestions on how to do a nice presentation about a review paper?

• presentation
• literature-review

In 12 minutes, the best you can do for your audience is highlight four to six broad observations or conclusions about the state of research. Here are some questions you might address with your observations:

• Are the lines of research diverging and multiplying, or converging and consolidating?
• Has it divided into "factions" or "schools" that define problems, methods, and solutions differently? Or is all research operating under a single paradigm?
• What's the influence and interaction with other fields and disciplines?
• Where has research made progress addressing fundamental questions? Where has research made no meaningful progress?
• Where should researchers look for the most promising research directions and under-explored areas?

Don't try to make more than six observations in 12 minutes. By trying to say more, you are actually communicating less effectively. Any one who wants the full story can read your paper.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for browse other questions tagged conference presentation literature-review ..

• Featured on Meta
• Upcoming initiatives on Stack Overflow and across the Stack Exchange network...
• Announcing a change to the data-dump process

Hot Network Questions

• Is philosophy science or humanities?
• Team member working from home is distracted with kids while on video calls - should I say anything as her manager?
• I want to number two formula in equation, aligned and split environment
• How does BackProp avoid bias for the last input used for training?
• What is this font called and how to study it
• Winload.exe booting process
• How do cache-timing attacks determine the secret keys of encryption algorithms?
• How would you say "He dialed a random number on a telephone five thousand times." in Latin?
• Can natural decreasing temperatures in the world create energy to power it?
• Is there a more concise method to solve the problem of finding tangent lines to curves?
• Why call for Biden to step down now?
• Can a non-symmetrical distribution have the same areas under the PDF in the two sides around the mean?
• Does an attack still succeed if the target is immune to the condition?
• Can a character forego one of their attacks if they have only one?
• Cost of Living/Salary: Sweden vs Germany
• Rambam’s ancient writing spilled on by coffee
• What is the next layers of defence against cookie stealing if GET parameter is vulnerable to XSS and there is no HttpOnly flag in a website?
• What's the easiest way to prove the Riemann Zeta function has any zeros at all on the critical line?
• Was the head of the Secret Service ever removed for a security failure?
• Can a bad paper title hurt you? Can a good one help you?
• Spring potential energy, conversion
• What file format was used for binary executables on Motorola 680x0 Macintoshes?
• Formal written form for a 2x something?
• Need help deciphering word written in Fraktur

• LibGuides Home (current)
• Collections & Services
• General Research
• Resource Specific
• Scholarly & Research
• Subject & Topic
• Course & Assignment

Peer Review and Research

• Annual Library Symposium This link opens in a new window
• Committee Info This link opens in a new window
• Clear Goals
• Adequate Preparation
• Appropriate Methods
• Significant Results

Effective Presentation

Recommended reading.

• Reflective Critique
• Submitting Papers to Peer Reviewed Publications
• Toolbox for Library Researchers

Schedule a Pre or Post Conference Presentation

• Lunchtime brown bag: Noon - 1:00 p.m.
• Late afternoon coffee/tea brown bag: after 3:00 p.m.
• Types of Presentation
• Additional Suggestions for Success

Communication

• The work should clearly communicate the content without calls for clarification.
• If written for the general public, simplification of terms and provision of background information would allow attendees to easily grasp the concepts and research results being reported. 
• If written for fellow scholars and researchers, the content would presume no need for topic education is necessary, that terminology is consistent with the subject area, and research reporting would be at the level of scholarly writing.
• The work should be free of grammatical and punctuation errors.
• Numbers and data, if used, should be presented in a manner which makes understanding easy to achieve.

Ask yourself:

• Does the content wording and use of terms match the intended audience?
• Is evidence presented logically and use appropriately?
• Is the work clearly and succinctly organized?
• Are discussions and research results of subjects, either individual or groups, presented in an objective and respectful manner?
• Are sensitive topics and issues presented with thoughtfulness and courtesy?
• Works submitted for publication in traditional print resources should follow the publisher’s guide to submissions, especially criteria involving relevant value to the readers.
• Works submitted for publication in an electronic format – web site, digital, PDF, etc. – should be cognizant of the type of format and the format’s strengths in appealing to the reader by use of technology, programming, and audio or video motion.
• Is the work suitable to the audience targeted?
• Does the work present an appropriate and suitable style?
• The work should clearly state the purpose of the work, the goals that were designed, the results that occurred, any differences between the goals and the results, and the importance of the research results to the audience or area of interest.
• The author should demonstrate scholarship in the field by the quality of supporting evidence, research method, research results, and interpretation of those results.
• Is the work objective in its content and presentation?
• Are conclusions reached without predeterminations and outside influence?
• Is there sufficient evidence, both in terms of amount and substance, to effectively support the outcome?
• Does the work provide new evidence or research results that would be of interest to the field, practitioners, and scholars?

Blogs, Listservs, and Social Media

Electronic presentations are a great way to gage collegial ideas and opinions about the topic you have selected to pursue.  These formats can be done at varying and convenient times.

• Online brevity is the best – adopt Twitter’s 140 character limit, and select words carefully.
• Use simple statements.
• DON’T SHOUT.
• Seek feedback and comments.

Exhibits consist of a visual display of a collection, program, initiative, or body of work (i.e. paintings, drawings, prints, posters, photography, sculpture, ceramics, video, installation, multi-media).

• Include a general statement of purpose and statements to provide an intellectual context both for the collection as a whole and for its individual pieces.
• Be prepared to respond to comments and questions.

Facilitated Discussions

Facilitated discussions involve the arranging of attendees into groups, such as tables or round chair setup, and provide topics for discussion.  Topics can be the same for all attendees and groups, or vary by group.

• Provide a brief introduction – remember that you are not the presenter, and the discussions are the purpose of this event.
• Develop discussion points, topics, and questions well in advance by polling registered attendees.
• Be willing to accept ad-hoc discussion topics relevant to the content.
• Provide for adequate Q&A and open comment time at the end.
• Ensure that the majority of time allotted for the event is reserved for discussion and report-back.
• Record group report-back’s on flip charts or other method, so that attendees may view the report-back comments as they are read out, and receive a written copy after the event.
• Foster collegial conversational exchange.
• Mingle among the groups or tables to see if attendees are participating, but avoid becoming involved in their discussions.

Keynote Address

The keynote address is perhaps the most challenging presentation.  What you say and how well you communicate your ideas, research, findings, and experience sets the tone for the event.  High level competency and established experience are the minimum content goals.  See Oral Presentations for additional guidance.

• Presentation much be absolutely relevant to the event.
• This is a stand-alone presentation.
• Be prepared to “wow” the audience with a dynamic content, excellent slides, well developed public speaking skills, and inspiration.
• Professional credibility is presumed.

Oral Presentations

Oral presentations involve the presentation of a paper or research project with or without visual aids.  This is an excellent opportunity to share research findings with colleagues, seek comments, listen to advice, and facilitate discussion and comment.

• Focus on the purpose, methodology, challenges, and findings of the research.
• Report laboratory and data results, if applicable.
• Clearly provide the reason that motivated research interest and commencement.
• Disclose the strengths and weakness of the research process, and what was learned from failures.
• PowerPoint presentations should be well done.  See PowerPoint Use in Presentation for more details.
• Subject mastery is presumed.
• Expect questions and comments that indicate doubt or disagreement, and respond collegially.
• Include a Q&A section at the end of the presentation.
• Provide contact information.

Panel Discussions

Panel discussions involve a limited number of panelists, usually 3-5, presenting and discussing their views on a scholarly topic and responding to audience questions.

• Select speakers from different perspectives to give balanced presentations.
• Before finalizing speaker selection, discuss panel content and purpose to ensure that potential speakers understand the purpose of the panel discussion.
• Ask panelists to state their points concisely and clearly, mindful of the limited time for each panelist.
• Anticipate questions from both the audience and panelists.
• Defer comment and questions from the audience to panelists.
• Provide ample time for individual presentations, statements, general discussion, and Q&A.

Peer Review Publications

Poster sessions.

Posters present a visual display of work on poster boards. Presenters should be able to provide a scholarly introduction to their work and be prepared to entertain the viewers’ questions.

• Include both charts and pictures.
• Develop an eye catching format and design.
• Brevity works best, both for what is on the poster and for answering visitors.
• Have a one-sheet handout for the main take-away points, including your contact information.
• Have business cards available.
• Be prepared for many repeats of your 60-second verbal summary.
• Expect fast and furious turnovers.
• Balance the content – not too sparse but not too detailed and complex.

PowerPoint Use in Presentations

Using PowerPoint or any slide programmed should be viewed as a supplemental visual tool for many types of presentations.  They should not be treated as “the” presentation.

• Don’t read from the slides.
• Look at the screen as little as possible.
• Present from knowledge and experience, not from the slides.
• Slides should be limited in numbers and complexity.
• Charts, graphics, pictures, and other inserts should be simple and visually clear.
• Sound, video, and images add value, if content relevant.
• Use bullet points. PowerPoint slides do not need full sentences, and should never have a paragraph full of information.
• Use images effectively. You should have as little text as possible on the slide. One way to accomplish this is to have images on each slide, accompanied by a small amount of text.
• Slides provide focus and guidance, not full details.
• Never put your presentation on the slides and read from the slides.

Workshops consist of a brief presentation followed by interaction with the audience. The purpose of a workshop is to introduce the audience to your subject and involve them in using a skill or technique.  Learning objectives and anticipated outcomes should be clearly stated.

• Content should be timely and relevant.
• Content should be take-away – attendees should be able to leave the workshop, go back to their jobs, and begin brainstorming ideas, developing strategies, and implementing projects soon.
• Go short on theories and long on how-to methods.
• Develop learning objectives and anticipated outcomes, and build content around these goals.
• Develop an agenda that more resembles a syllabus.
• Select preparation materials, such as articles and documents to read before the workshop.
• Include data but do not overwhelm attendees with too much or complex data.
• Provide a bibliography or list of suggested readings.

Academic Presentation Formula

Newbies are strongly encouraged to follow this formula.  Later and with experience, deviation from the formula is more feasible.

• Introduction/Overview/Hook
• Theoretical Framework/Research Question
• Methodology/Case Selection
• Background/Literature Review
• Discussion of Data/Results
• Q&A, if permitted

The Audience Is Ready to Listen

Avoid presenting too much information about what is already known, and provide this information, if needed, in the introduction.  Only discuss literature and background information that relates directly to the topic and research results being presented.  Keep this portion of the presentation to five minutes or less.  More time will be needed for the presentation of the research results and audience questions and comments.

Practice Practice Practice

Practice the presentation from start to finish before delivering the presentation – several times.  Repeated practicing provides delivery confidence, efficient time management, and better speaking skills.  Make sure the presentation fits within the time parameters. Practicing also makes it flow better.

Keep To the Time Limit

If the time allotted for the presentation is ten minutes, prepare ten minutes of material.  Regardless of the amount of time provided, a little or a lot, finish within or at the end of the allotted time.  Practice the presentation with a stopwatch to ensure complicity.

• << Previous: Significant Results
• Next: Reflective Critique >>
• Last Updated: Jun 19, 2024 4:44 PM
• URL: https://library.fiu.edu/PeerReview

Information

Fiu libraries floorplans, green library, modesto a. maidique campus.

Hubert Library, Biscayne Bay Campus

Directions: Green Library, MMC

Directions: Hubert Library, BBC

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• GMS J Med Educ
• v.34(1); 2017

Language: English | German

Accepted standards on how to give a Medical Research Presentation: a systematic review of expert opinion papers

Anerkannte standards zum halten medizinischer vorträge: eine systematische Übersicht publizierter experteneinschätzungen, christine blome.

1 University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), Institute for Health Services Research in Dermatology and Nursing (IVDP), German Center for Health Services Research in Dermatology (CVderm), Hamburg, Germany

Hanno Sondermann

Matthias augustin.

Background: This systematic review aimed to extract recommendations from expert opinion articles on how to give a medical research presentation on a scientific conference and to determine whether the experts agree on what makes an effective or poor presentation.

Methods: Presentation-related terms were searched within article titles listed in PubMed, restricting the search to English-language articles published from January 1975 to July 2015. Recommendations were extracted from the articles, grouped by content, and analyzed for frequency. Ninety-one articles were included. Among 679 different recommendations, 29 were given in more than 20% of articles each. The five most frequent recommendations were to keep slides simple, adjust the talk to the audience, rehearse, not read the talk from slides or a manuscript, and make eye contact.

Results: No article gave advice that was the complete opposite of the 29 most frequent recommendations with the exception of whether a light or dark background should be used for slides.

Conclusions: Researchers should comply with these widely accepted standards to be perceived as effective presenters.

Zusammenfassung

Hintergrund: Ziel dieser systematischen Übersichtsarbeit war es, aus publizierten Expertenstellungnahmen Empfehlungen zur Vorgehensweise bei medizinischen Präsentationen auf wissenschaftlichen Fachtagungen zu extrahieren und abzuleiten, ob Experten in der Frage übereinstimmen, was eine gute oder schlechte Präsentation ausmacht.

Methoden: Präsentationsbezogene Schlagwörter wurden in den Titeln englischsprachiger, in PubMed geführter und zwischen Januar 1975 und Juli 2015 erschienener Artikel gesucht. Aus den gefundenen Expertenartikeln wurden Empfehlungen extrahiert, inhaltlich gruppiert und nach Häufigkeit ausgewertet. Einundneunzig Artikel wurden eingeschlossen. Von insgesamt 679 unterschiedlichen Empfehlungen fanden sich 29 jeweils in mindestens 20% der Artikel. Die fünf häufigsten Empfehlungen lauteten: Einfache Folien verwenden; die Zuhörerschaft kennen; Augenkontakt halten; die Präsentation üben; nicht von Folien oder Manuskript ablesen.

Ergebnisse: In keinem Artikel wurde eine Empfehlung gegeben, die das klare Gegenteil einer der 29 häufigsten Empfehlungen darstellten, bis auf die Frage, ob ein heller oder dunkler Folienhintergrund verwendet werden sollte.

Schlussfolgerung: Wissenschaftler sollten sich an die hier gefundenen, weithin akzeptierten Empfehlungen halten, damit ihre Präsentationen positiv wahrgenommen werden.

1. Introduction

Some presentations at medical conferences are easy to follow, engaging, and even inspire changes in the way patients are treated or scientific work is conducted. Conversely, others induce the audience to check their mobile phones or take a nap because they are so difficult to concentrate on.

What exactly makes great medical research presentations great? Empirical or even experimental data on this question are scarce [ 1 ], [ 2 ], [ 3 ], [ 4 ]. However, more than 80 authors of expert opinion articles have described what they believe a medical presenter should or should not do. The aim of this review was to extract all recommendations from these articles and determine whether the experts agree on what makes a medical research presentation either effective or poor.

Parts of this study were obtained from a previous dissertation by Sondermann, 2014 [ 5 ].

Presentation-related terms were searched within the titles of articles listed in PubMed, restricting the search to English-language articles published from January 1975 to July 2015. The search terms were:

(scientific[ti] AND presentation*[ti]) OR (conference[ti] AND presentation*[ti]) OR (oral[ti] AND presentation*[ti]) OR (research[ti] AND presentation*[ti]) OR (scientific[ti] AND meeting*[ti]) OR (public[ti] AND speaking[ti]) OR (public[ti] AND speech[ti]) OR (Power[ti] AND Point[ti]) OR PowerPoint[ti] OR (scientific[ti] AND talk*[ti]) OR lecturing[ti] OR lectures[ti] OR (scientific[ti] AND conference*[ti]) OR (medical[ti] AND presentation*[ti]) OR (paper[ti] AND presentation*[ti]) AND "1975/01/01"[PDAT]:"2015/07/31"[PDAT] AND English[lang]

The bibliographies of eligible articles were reviewed for further references.

We included expert opinion articles and editorials that provided advice on how to give a medical research presentation at scientific conferences. We excluded articles exclusively referring to lectures to students, continued medical education, or health care management.

Recommendations were extracted from each article, including both direct (e.g., “You should…”) and indirect recommendations (e.g., “Remember the audience’s time (…) should not be abused by presentation of uninteresting preliminary material” [ 6 ]). Mere suggestions were not extracted; these were typically signaled by words such as “consider.” We also excluded recommendations on abstract writing, use of outdated technology (e.g., diapositives), radiologic images (for being too specific), and technical aspects (e.g., choice of software).

Differently worded advice from two authors was regarded as the same recommendation if equal in content (e.g., “initially, rehearse alone” [ 7 ] and “initially, practice the talk alone” [ 8 ]). Similar recommendations were grouped into more general but still concrete advice. For example, “limit the number of lines on a slide to six” [ 9 ] and “no more than seven lines per slide” [ 10 ] were grouped into “limit the number of lines per slide.” Finally, we determined the frequency of recommendations, counting those given in two articles by the same first author only once.

The PubMed search delivered 4,140 hits, 91 of which met the inclusion criteria [ 6 ], [ 7 ], [ 8 ], [ 9 ], [ 10 ], [ 11 ], [ 12 ], [ 13 ], [ 14 ], [ 15 ], [ 16 ], [ 17 ], [ 18 ], [ 19 ], [ 20 ], [ 21 ], [ 22 ], [ 23 ], [ 24 ], [ 25 ], [ 26 ], [ 27 ], [ 28 ], [ 29 ], [ 30 ], [ 31 ], [ 32 ], [ 33 ], [ 34 ], [ 35 ], [ 36 ], [ 37 ], [ 38 ], [ 39 ], [ 40 ], [ 41 ], [ 42 ], [ 43 ], [ 44 ], [ 45 ], [ 46 ], [ 47 ], [ 48 ], [ 49 ], [ 50 ], [ 51 ], [ 52 ], [ 53 ], [ 54 ], [ 55 ], [ 56 ], [ 57 ], [ 58 ], [ 59 ], [ 60 ], [ 61 ], [ 62 ], [ 63 ], [ 64 ], [ 65 ], [ 66 ], [ 67 ], [ 68 ], [ 69 ], [ 70 ], [ 71 ], [ 72 ], [ 73 ], [ 74 ], [ 75 ], [ 76 ], [ 77 ], [ 78 ], [ 79 ], [ 80 ], [ 81 ], [ 82 ], [ 83 ], [ 84 ], [ 85 ], [ 86 ], [ 87 ], [ 88 ], [ 89 ], [ 90 ], [ 91 ], [ 92 ], [ 93 ], [ 94 ], [ 95 ], [ 96 ]. Of the 91 articles, 63 were from the medical field and 28 from related fields such as nursing. We found 3 to 103 different recommendations in each article, totaling 3,135 recommendations. Identification of identical recommendations and grouping similar ones resulted in 679 different recommendations. Of these, 349 were given in only one article each; for example, “remain in the hall from the start of the session until your talk” [ 94 ].

The most frequent advice, given in 62.9% of articles, was to keep slides simple. In particular, authors stated that one should not overload slides or include too much detail, but use clear, concise, simply designed visuals instead. Simplicity of visuals was also the subject of 5 of the 29 most frequent recommendations (see Table 1 (Tab. 1) ), including limiting the number of lines per slide (42.9%) and number of words per line (28.6%), using simple tables and graphs (34.1%), using animations carefully (27.5%), and putting phrases, not sentences, on slides (24.2%).

The second most frequent advice, to know one’s audience (52.7%), referred to who the audience is (e.g., profession, size, age, education), what they already know of the topic, or why they are there (i.e., what their expectations, attitudes, and interests are). Authors advised adjusting the presentation accordingly instead of using canned talks.

Making eye contact was the third most frequent advice (46.2%). This was specified by some authors as making eye contact with many or all persons, making eye contact with persons in all sections of the audience, or making continuous eye contact.

Rehearsal of the presentation was recommended in 44.0% of the articles. In addition, one-third of the articles advised rehearsal in front of other persons. Taken together, 56.0% of the articles gave at least one of these two recommendations. Timing the presentation beforehand – recommended by 38.5% – can ensure that the presenter will stick to the allotted time, an advice given by 40.7%. Further advice calling for thorough preparation was to know one’s topic “like the back of one’s hand” (31.9%), to develop an objective for the talk (28.6%), to and prepare for questions (20.9%). All equipment should be tested beforehand (27.5%).

When delivering the presentation, one should not read the talk from either slides or a manuscript (44.0%). For this purpose (and for simplicity) slides should contain words or phrases instead of complete sentences (24.2%).

The presenter should vary the presentation of his or her voice instead of speaking monotonously (29.7%), not speak too fast (24.2%), face the audience (23.1%), and show some enthusiasm, excitement, or energy (20.9%). To enhance understanding, one should keep the presentation clear and simple (26.4%), be logical (23.1%), and end with a summary (26.4%). The number of slides should be limited (27.5%); most articles specified one slide per minute (n=7, 7.7%).

The slides should be readable (42.9%), referring to both text and visuals. This was probably also the reason for recommending large font sizes (this advice was not included in the 29 most frequent recommendations, however; n=18, 19.8%). Authors generally disagreed regarding the exact size to be used, which ranged from 18 to 32 points; a font size of 24 points was recommended most frequently (n=8, 8.8%).

Authors agreed that the slide design should be consistent throughout the presentation (20.9%) and that contrasting colors should be used (20.9%). Most authors recommended using a dark background (26.4%), while only few recommended using a light background (n=3, 3.3%), arguing that this makes slides easier to read [ 15 ], [ 46 ]; one paper [ 89 ] recommended light background for charts and graphs, but not for text slides (without giving reasons).

None of the included articles gave advice that was the complete opposite of these 29 most frequent recommendations (except for the light versus dark background). However, limiting advice was occasionally given, such as not to practice too much in order to save some enthusiasm [ 62 ] or not to exceed >10% of the original time [ 19 ]. Authors also disagreed on a few topics that did not make it to the 29 most frequent recommendations, including whether clipart or cartoons should be included, whether using a pointer is recommended, and whether information should be added sequentially on a slide.

4. Conclusions

This review extracted recommendations from 91 expert opinion articles on how to give a medical research presentation. We found a high degree of concordance among authors, with 29 recommendations given in more than one-fifth of articles each and very little explicit discordance.

Our findings are limited by the fact that we restricted the literature search to one database and to article titles (without the latter, our search would have yielded 195,766 hits). Nevertheless, we included 91 articles on the presentation of medical research and thus considerably more than two previous reviews, which included 9 expert opinion articles on podium presentations each [ 97 ], [ 98 ].

In addition, the distinction between what authors meant to be recommendations versus mere suggestions was a matter of interpretation; the same is true for decisions on whether recommendations were similar enough to be grouped.

The fact that many authors recommend a behavior does not necessarily mean it will indeed be effective. This can be tested in experimental studies that systematically vary a presenter’s behavior. As in clinical studies, the outcome of interest would need to be defined, which is rarely done in expert opinion articles. We propose as “presenter-relevant outcomes” a) to induce learning effects (i.e., comprehension and retention [ 99 ]), b) to change attitudes, c) to interest and entertain, and d) to improve the presenter’s reputation (e.g., by appearing competent).

To our knowledge, experimental studies have only been done for presentations other than medical research presentations. Surprisingly, the recommendation given most often in this study, “keep your slides simple”, has not been supported with regard to the amount of text on a slide (an aspect also related to further recommendations, like “limit the number of lines per slide”, “limit the number of words per line”, and “put phrases, not sentences, on slides”). A number of studies in students did not find significant differences in retention of information after presentations with concise slides as compared to presentations with more detailed slides [ 100 ], [ 101 ], [ 102 ], as would have been expected by cognitive load theory. This theory states that information will not be encoded adequately if the capacity of our working memory is overloaded [ 103 ], [ 104 ], for example when trying to understand detailed slides and at the same time listen to the presenter. These surprising findings underline the necessity of experimental research on presentation techniques. However, simple slides have been found to be more effective with regard to a different aspect: that is, whether they include pictures not related to the content of the talk. Here, recall was better in students who attended a presentation using slides with irrelevant pictures [ 105 ].

The third most frequent advice, to make eye contact, was found to be effective in one study: Not only did students consider a speaker who made eye contact to be more credible and his talk to be more comprehensible, but they actually learned more as indicated by a subsequent multiple-choice test [ 102 ]. In this study, the “eye contact” condition also differed from the control condition in that the presentation was more lively (recommendation no. 13: “vary your voice“) and in that the presenter did not read from written text only but also made colloquial interjections (recommendation no. 5: “do not read the talk from slides or a manuscript”).

It is quite possible that empirical studies will contradict the advice found in this opinion-based study. For example, there is reason to assume that dark backgrounds (recommended by 24 experts as compared to 3 experts recommending light background) may have disadvantages. For example, they may require dimming the lights so that the audience can read the slides, which in turn may lead to reduced levels of attention due to increased tiredness.

In addition, findings from previous studies may not be generalizable to medical conference presentations where the audience may differ in important aspects from students (which have been the subjects of many of the experiments [ 106 ]) – for example with regard to their reasons for attendance and their prior knowledge of the topic. Future experimental studies should therefore investigate whether the recommendations found in this study are indeed effective, looking at different audiences and contexts, and focusing also on rarely explored aspects related to the preparation of the presentation, like adjustment of the talk to the specific audience (recommendation no. 2) and rehearsal (recommendation no. 4).

Probably one of the main reasons that a particular piece of advice was given in the expert opinion papers is that the authors believed that many presenters did not yet follow it. The 29 most frequent recommendations can thus be interpreted as the 29 most common mistakes made by conference presenters. Most of them appear to be common sense and are generally well known [ 99 ]; therefore, why are flaws so common, even in senior presenters [ 98 ]? Researchers may be unwilling to invest time in thorough preparation [ 107 ], or perhaps they have competing interests such as drawing the audience’s attention away from themselves or using slides as a memory aid [ 104 ]. However, if presenters want their talk to be inspiring and practice-changing, they should adhere to the agreed advice found in this review.

Future experimental studies should investigate the effectiveness of the recommendations found in this opinion-based review.

Funding sources

The authors have no funding sources to declare.

Authors' contributions

CB conceived of the study, participated in its design, conduction, and analysis, and drafted the manuscript. HS participated in the study design, conduction, and analysis and helped draft the manuscript. MA participated in the study design. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

• Locations and Hours
• UCLA Library
• Research Guides
• Research Tips and Tools

Advanced Research Methods

• Presenting the Research Paper
• What Is Research?
• Library Research
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Writing the Research Paper

Writing an Abstract

Oral presentation, compiling a powerpoint.

Abstract : a short statement that describes a longer work.

• Indicate the subject.
• Describe the purpose of the investigation.
• Briefly discuss the method used.
• Make a statement about the result.

Oral presentations usually introduce a discussion of a topic or research paper. A good oral presentation is focused, concise, and interesting in order to trigger a discussion.

• Be well prepared; write a detailed outline.
• Introduce the subject.
• Talk about the sources and the method.
• Indicate if there are conflicting views about the subject (conflicting views trigger discussion).
• Make a statement about your new results (if this is your research paper).
• Use visual aids or handouts if appropriate.

An effective PowerPoint presentation is just an aid to the presentation, not the presentation itself .

• Be brief and concise.
• Focus on the subject.
• Attract attention; indicate interesting details.
• If possible, use relevant visual illustrations (pictures, maps, charts graphs, etc.).
• Use bullet points or numbers to structure the text.
• Make clear statements about the essence/results of the topic/research.
• Don't write down the whole outline of your paper and nothing else.
• Don't write long full sentences on the slides.
• Don't use distracting colors, patterns, pictures, decorations on the slides.
• Don't use too complicated charts, graphs; only those that are relatively easy to understand.
• << Previous: Writing the Research Paper
• Last Updated: May 16, 2024 10:20 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.ucla.edu/research-methods

How to Give Effective Presentation Feedback

A conversation with sam j. lubner, md, facp.

Giving an effective scientific presentation, like all public speaking, is an acquired skill that takes practice to perfect. When delivered successfully, an oral presentation can be an invaluable opportunity to showcase your latest research results among your colleagues and peers. It can also promote attendee engagement and help audience members retain the information being presented, enhancing the educational benefit of your talk, according to Sam J. ­Lubner, MD, FACP , Associate Professor of Medicine and Program Director, Hematology-Oncology Fellowship, at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, and a member of ASCO’s Education Council.

Sam J. ­Lubner, MD, FACP

In 2019, the Education Council launched a pilot program to provide a group of selected speakers at the ASCO Annual Meeting with feedback on their presentations. Although some of the reviewers, which included members of the Education Council and Education Scholars Program, as well as ASCO’s program directors, conveyed information to the presenters that was goal-referenced, tangible, transparent, actionable, specific, and personalized—the hallmarks of effective feedback—others provided comments that were too vague to improve the speaker’s performance, said Dr. Lubner. For example, they offered comments such as “Great session” or “Your slides were too complicated,” without being specific about what made the session “great” or the slides “too complicated.”

“Giving a presentation at a scientific meeting is different from what we were trained to do. We’re trained to take care of patients, and while we do have some training in presentation, it usually centers around how to deliver clinical information,” said Dr. Lubner. “What we are trying to do with the Education Council’s presentation feedback project is to apply evidence-based methods for giving effective feedback to make presentations at ASCO’s Annual Meeting, international meetings, symposia, and conferences more clinically relevant and educationally beneficial.”

GUEST EDITOR

The ASCO Post talked with Dr. Lubner about how to give effective feedback and how to become a more effective presenter.

Defining Effective Feedback

Feedback is often confused with giving advice, praise, and evaluation, but none of these descriptions are exactly accurate. What constitutes effective feedback?

When I was looking over the literature on feedback to prepare myself on how to give effective feedback to the medical students and residents I oversee, I was amazed to find the information is largely outdated. For example, recommendations in the 1980s and 1990s called for employing the “sandwich” feedback method, which involves saying something positive, then saying what needs to be improved, and then making another positive remark. But that method is time-intensive, and it feels disingenuous to me.

What constitutes helpful feedback to me is information that is goal-referenced, actionable, specific, and has immediate impact. It should be constructive, descriptive, and nonjudgmental. After I give feedback to a student or resident, my next comments often start with a self-reflective question, “How did that go?” and that opens the door to further discussion. The mnemonic I use to provide better feedback and achieve learning goals is SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely, as described here:

• Specific: Avoid using ambiguous language, for example, “Your presentation was great.” Be specific about what made the presentation “great,” such as, “Starting your presentation off with a provocative question grabbed my attention.”
• Measurable: Suggest quantifiable objectives to meet so there is no uncertainty about what the goals are. For example, “Next time, try a summary slide with one or two take-home points for the audience.”
• Achievable: The goal of the presentation should be attainable. For example, “Trim your slides to no more than six lines per slide and no more than six words per line; otherwise, you are just reading your slides.”
• Realistic: The feedback you give should relate to the goal the presenter is trying to achieve. For example, “Relating the research results back to an initial case presentation will solidify the take-home point that for cancer x, treatment y is the best choice.”
• Timely: Feedback given directly after completion of the presentation is more effective than feedback provided at a later date.

The ultimate goal of effective feedback is to help the presenter become more adept at relaying his or her research in an engaging and concise way, to maintain the audience’s attention and ensure that they retain the information presented.

“Giving a presentation at a scientific meeting is different from what we were trained to do.” — Sam J. Lubner, MD, FACP Tweet this quote

Honing Your Communication Skills

What are some specific tips on how to give effective feedback?

There are five tips that immediately come to mind: (1) focus on description rather than judgment; (2) focus on observation rather than inference; (3) focus on observable behaviors; (4) share both positive and constructive specific points of feedback with the presenter; and (5) focus on the most important points to improve future ­presentations.

Becoming a Proficient Presenter

How can ASCO faculty become more proficient at delivering their research at the Annual Meeting and at ASCO’s thematic meetings?

ASCO has published faculty guidelines and best practices to help speakers immediately involve an audience in their presentation and hold their attention throughout the talk. They include the following recommendations:

• Be engaging. Include content that will grab the audience’s attention early. For example, interesting facts, images, or a short video to hold the audience’s focus.
• Be cohesive and concise. When preparing slides, make sure the presentation has a clear and logical flow to it, from the introduction to its conclusion. Establish key points and clearly define their importance and impact in a concise, digestible manner.
• Include take-home points. Speakers should briefly summarize key findings from their research and ensure that their conclusion is fully supported by the data in their presentation. If possible, they should provide recommendations or actions to help solidify their message. Thinking about and answering this question—if the audience remembers one thing from my presentation, what do I want it to be?—will help speakers focus their presentation.
• When it comes to slide design, remember, less is more. It’s imperative to keep slides simple to make an impact on the audience.

Another method to keep the audience engaged and enhance the educational benefit of the talk is to use the Think-Pair ( ± Share) strategy, by which the speaker asks attendees to think through questions using two to three steps. They include:

• Think independently about the question that has been posed, forming ideas.
• Pair to discuss thoughts, allowing learners to articulate their ideas and to consider those of others.
• Share (as a pair) the ideas with the larger group.

The value of this exercise is that it helps participants retain the information presented, encourages individual participation, and refines ideas and knowledge through collaboration.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SLIDE DESIGN

• Have a single point per line.
• Use < 6 words per line.
• Use < 6 lines per slide.
• Use < 30 characters per slide.
• Use simple words.
• When using tables, maintain a maximum of 6 rows and 6 columns.
• Avoid busy graphics or tables. If you find yourself apologizing to the audience because your slide is too busy, it’s a bad slide and should not be included in the presentation.
• Use cues, not full thoughts, to make your point.
• Keep to one slide per minute as a guide to the length of the presentation.
• Include summary/take-home points per concept. We are all physicians who care about our patients and believe in adhering to good science. Highlight the information you want the audience to take away from your presentation and how that information applies to excellent patient care.

Speakers should also avoid using shorthand communication or dehumanizing language when describing research results. For example, do not refer to patients as a disease: “The study included 250 EGFR mutants.” Say instead, “The study included 250 patients with EGFR -mutant tumors.” And do not use language that appears to blame patients when their cancer progresses after treatment, such as, “Six patients failed to respond to [study drug].” Instead say, “Six patients had tumors that did not respond to [study drug].”

We all have respect for our patients, families, and colleagues, but sometimes our language doesn’t reflect that level of respect, and we need to be more careful and precise in the language we use when talking with our patients and our colleagues.

ASCO has developed a document titled “The Language of Respect” to provide guidance on appropriate respectful language to use when talking with patients, family members, or other health-care providers and when giving presentations at the Annual Meeting and other ASCO symposia. Presenters should keep these critical points in mind and put them into practice when delivering research data at these meetings. ■

DISCLOSURE: Dr. Lubner has been employed by Farcast Biosciences and has held a leadership role at Farcast Biosciences.

Adjuvant Therapeutic Regimens for Gallbladder Cancer

Stage i her2-positive breast cancer: long-term follow-up of adjuvant t-dm1, surveillance for pancreatic cancer in high-risk individuals, 40 percent of cancer cases and almost half of all cancer deaths in the united states linked to modifiable risk factors, predicting taxane-induced peripheral neuropathy after breast cancer therapy.

• Editorial Board
• Advertising
• Disclosures
• Privacy Policy

Newly Launched - AI Presentation Maker

Researched by Consultants from Top-Tier Management Companies

Powerpoint Templates

Icon Bundle

Kpi Dashboard

Professional

Business Plans

Swot Analysis

Gantt Chart

Business Proposal

Marketing Plan

Project Management

Business Case

Business Model

Cyber Security

Business PPT

Digital Marketing

Digital Transformation

Human Resources

Product Management

Artificial Intelligence

Company Profile

Acknowledgement PPT

PPT Presentation

Reports Brochures

One Page Pitch

Interview PPT

All Categories

10 Best Literature Review Templates for Scholars and Researchers [Free PDF Attached]

Imagine being in a new country and taking a road trip without GPS. You would be so lost. Right? Similarly, think about delving into a topic without having a clue or proper understanding of the reason behind studying it. 

That’s when a well-written literature review comes to the rescue. It provides a proper direction to the topic being studied. 

The literature review furnishes a descriptive overview of the existing knowledge relevant to the research statement. It is a crucial step in the research process as it enables you to establish the theoretical roots of your field of interest, elucidate your ideas, and develop a suitable methodology. A literature review can include information from various sources, such as journals, books, documents, and other academic materials. This promotes in-depth understanding and analytical thinking, thereby helping in critical evaluation.

Regardless of the type of literature review — evaluative, exploratory, instrumental, systematic, and meta-analysis, a well-written article consists of three basic elements: introduction, body, and conclusion. Also its essence blooms in creating new knowledge through the process of review, critique, and synthesis.

But writing a literature review can be difficult. Right?

Relax, our collection of professionally designed templates will leave no room for mistakes or anxious feelings as they will help you present background information concisely. 

10 Designs to Rethink Your Literature Reviews

These designs are fully customizable to help you establish links between your proposition and already existing literature. Our PowerPoint infographics are of the highest quality and contain relevant content. Whether you want to write a short summary or review consisting of several pages, these exclusive layouts will serve the purpose. 

Let’s get started.

Template 1: Literature Review PPT Template

This literature review design is a perfect tool for any student looking to present a summary and critique of knowledge on their research statement. Using this layout, you can discuss theoretical and methodological contributions in the related field. You can also talk about past works, books, study materials, etc. The given PPT design is concise, easy to use, and will help develop a strong framework for problem-solving. Download it today.

Download this template

Template 2: Literature Review PowerPoint Slide

Looking to synthesize your latest findings and present them in a persuasive manner? Our literature review theme will help you narrow relevant information and design a framework for rational investigation. The given PPT design will enable you to present your ideas concisely. From summary details to strengths and shortcomings, this template covers it all. Grab it now.

Template 3: Literature Review Template

Craft a literature review that is both informative and persuasive with this amazing PPT slide. This predesigned layout will help you in presenting the summary of information in an engaging manner. Our themes are specifically designed to aid you in demonstrating your critical thinking and objective evaluation. So don't wait any longer – download our literature review template today.

Template 4: Comprehensive Literature Review PPT Slide

Download this tried-and-true literature review template to present a descriptive summary of your research topic statement. The given PPT layout is replete with relevant content to help you strike a balance between supporting and opposing aspects of an argument. This predesigned slide covers components such as strengths, defects, and methodology. It will assist you in cutting the clutter and focus on what's important. Grab it today.

Template 5: Literature Review for Research Project Proposal PPT

Writing a literature review can be overwhelming and time-consuming, but our project proposal PPT slides make the process much easier. This exclusive graphic will help you gather all the information you need by depicting strengths and weaknesses. It will also assist you in identifying and analyzing the most important aspects of your knowledge sources. With our helpful design, writing a literature review is easy and done. Download it now.

Template 6: Literature Review for Research Project Proposal Template

Present a comprehensive and cohesive overview of the information related to your topic with this stunning PPT slide. The given layout will enable you to put forward the facts and logic to develop a new hypothesis for testing. With this high-quality design, you can enumerate different books and study materials taken into consideration. You can also analyze and emphasize the technique opted for inquiry. Get this literature review PowerPoint presentation template now.

Template 7: Literature Review for Research Paper Proposal PowerPoint Slide

Lay a strong foundation for your research topic with this impressive PowerPoint presentation layout. It is easy to use and fully customizable. This design will help you describe the previous research done. Moreover, you can enlist the strengths and weaknesses of the study clearly. Therefore, grab it now.

Template 8: Literature Review for Research Paper Proposal PPT

Download this high-quality PPT template and write a well-formatted literature review. The given layout is professionally designed and easy to follow. It will enable you to emphasize various elements, such as materials referred to, past work, the list of books, approach for analysis, and more. So why wait? Download this PowerPoint design immediately.

Template 9: Literature Review for Academic Student Research Proposal PPT

With this exclusive graphic, you'll have everything you need to create a well-structured and convincing literature review. The given design is well-suited for students and researchers who wish to mention reliable information sources, such as books and journals, and draw inferences from them. You can even focus on the strong points of your study, thereby making an impactful research statement. Therefore, grab this PPT slide today.

Template 10: Literature Review Overview for Research Process PPT

Demonstrate your analytical skills and understanding of the topic with this predesigned PowerPoint graphic. The given research overview PPT theme is perfect for explaining what has been done in the area of your topic of interest. Using this impressive design, you can provide an accurate comparison showcasing the connections between the different works being reviewed. Get it right away.  

Creating an effective literature review requires discipline, study, and patience. Our collection of templates will assist you in presenting an extensive and cohesive summary of the relevant works. These PPT layouts are professionally designed, fully editable, and visually appealing. You can modify them and create perfect presentations according to your needs. So download them now!

P.S. Are you looking for a way to communicate your individual story? Save your time with these predesigned book report templates featured in this guide . 

Download the free Literature Review Template PDF .

Related posts:

• How to Design the Perfect Service Launch Presentation [Custom Launch Deck Included]
• Quarterly Business Review Presentation: All the Essential Slides You Need in Your Deck
• [Updated 2023] How to Design The Perfect Product Launch Presentation [Best Templates Included]
• 99% of the Pitches Fail! Find Out What Makes Any Startup a Success

Liked this blog? Please recommend us

Top 11 Book Report Templates to Tell Your Inspirational Story [Free PDF Attached]

6 thoughts on “10 best literature review templates for scholars and researchers [free pdf attached]”.

This form is protected by reCAPTCHA - the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

--> Digital revolution powerpoint presentation slides

--> Sales funnel results presentation layouts

--> 3d men joinning circular jigsaw puzzles ppt graphics icons

--> Business Strategic Planning Template For Organizations Powerpoint Presentation Slides

--> Future plan powerpoint template slide

--> Project Management Team Powerpoint Presentation Slides

--> Brand marketing powerpoint presentation slides

--> Launching a new service powerpoint presentation with slides go to market

--> Agenda powerpoint slide show

--> Four key metrics donut chart with percentage

--> Engineering and technology ppt inspiration example introduction continuous process improvement

--> Meet our team representing in circular format

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Peer Review Presentation

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

This presentation is designed to acquaint your students with the concept of peer review. This presentation will include the who, what, where, when, and why of peer review. The slides presented here are designed to aid the facilitator in an interactive presentation of the elements of peer review. This presentation is ideal for any level of writing, including freshman composition.

Academic paper review and improve the scientific writing to publish in a high-impact journal

€250-750 eur, about the project, place your bid, benefits of bidding on freelancer.

About the client

Client Verification

Similar jobs.

Introduction to Science Research (SCIE1200)

Course overview.

SCIE1200 aims to promote the breadth of scientific endeavour, the integrated nature of scientific disciplines, and the importance of scientific process and critical thinking. Students will work in groups, examining a series of real scientific issues, dealing with medical, environmental and social issues. Students will learn more about the associated scientific research, integrate expert knowledge, and build on their own new university knowledge and experiences. This is a face-to-face course, using a combination of scientific discussion, self-directed learning, student presentations, class activities and a practical component.

SCIE1200 provides students with a grounding in the multidisciplinary nature of modern scientific research. Lectures by practising UQ researchers show how scientists are tackling a range of cutting-edge research topics, with broad societal relevance. Students also spend time undertaking activities to deepenﾠtheir understanding of inter-disciplinaryﾠthinking at a more focused level relevant to their intended major.ﾠThe course provides students with opportunities to develop skills that will be invaluable in their future research careers, includingﾠdelivering oral presentations, writing research reports, and collaborating in teams.ﾠ

Course requirements

Recommended prerequisites.

We recommend completing the following courses before enrolling in this one:

This course assumes a general science sophistication, equivalent to having studied a branch of science in Years 11 and 12.

Incompatible

You can't enrol in this course if you've already completed the following:

SCIE2011 and SCIE2111

Restrictions

Enrolment restricted to students in BAdvSc(Hons) program.

Course contact

Course coordinator, course staff.

Professor Benjamin Schulz +61 7 3365 4875 [email protected]

Associate Professor Jacqui Romero +61 7 3346 7031 [email protected]

Dr Alan Huang +61 7 3365 2315 [email protected]

Dr Daniel Harris +61 7 3365 6084 [email protected]

Associate Professor Mark Kendrick [email protected]

Associate Professor Sean Millard +61 7 3365 2991 [email protected]

Dr Timo Nieminen +61 7 3365 2422 [email protected]

Dr Natalee Newton [email protected]

The timetable for this course is available on the UQ Public Timetable .

Additional timetable information

Some contact classes are divided according to discipline area (biology, biomedical, chemistry and molecular biology, maths, physics).ﾠStudents should sign up to the contact class that best aligns with their intended area of study.ﾠ Contact sessions for other discipline areas may be organised depending on demand and staff availability.

Contact classes will not be held every week: the schedule of discipline activities will be specified on Blackboard by the discipline coordinators. Check your online timetable regularly.

Aims and outcomes

SCIE1200 aims to promote the breadth of scientific endeavour, the integrated nature of scientific disciplines, and the importance of scientific process and critical thinking. Students will work in groups, examining a series of scientific issues across various disciplines. Students will learn more about the associated scientific research, integrate expert knowledge, and build on their own new university knowledge and experiences.

Learning outcomes

After successfully completing this course you should be able to:

Draw on a diverse range of scientific ideas to critique a scientific issue.

Demonstrate integration of prior and current university learning into a cohesive scientific context.

Appreciate the breadth of real world problems to which scientific research offers potential solutions, and be able to discuss how different scientific disciplines integrate to seek solutions to these problems.

Appreciate the crucial role of creativity and innovation in the research environment, and the diverse contributions different individuals make to a scientific problem.

Discuss scientific problems with different audiences at appropriate levels.

Conceptualise the skills pertinent to scientific research.

Develop analytical skills to critically review scientific literature.

Work collaboratively and ethically in interdisciplinary teams.

Assessment summary

A hurdle is an assessment requirement that must be satisfied in order to receive a specific grade for the course. Check the assessment details for more information about hurdle requirements.

Assessment details

Team oral presentation on seminar.

• Team or group-based

20/09/2024 2:00 pm

Task description

Group assessment.

In this part of the course, UQ scientists from a variety of areas will deliver seminars to students.  

Students will be assigned to interdisciplinary groups. Each group will prepare and record an oral presentation on the topic of one of the research seminars. The delivery should be shared amongst all group members. Each group should also submit a one-page `fact sheet' summarising the evidence supporting the main claims in the presentation and including relevant references.

Detailed guidelines will be issued with the assignment task sheet on Blackboard.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides emerging tools that may support students in completing this assessment task. Students may appropriately use AI in completing this assessment task. Students must clearly reference any use of AI in each instance.

A failure to reference AI use may constitute student misconduct under the Student Code of Conduct.

Hurdle requirements

Submission guidelines.

One group member should submit your Team oral presentation on seminar through the course Turnitin submission point in Blackboard. Before submitting your assessment item to Turnitin please name your file in the following way. Group_GroupNumber_Team oral presentation on seminar For example: Group 1 would name their Team oral presentation on seminar in the following way. Group_1_Team oral presentation on seminar

Deferral or extension

You may be able to apply for an extension .

Applications for Extensions

Information on applying for an extension can be found here: my.UQ Applying for an extension .

Extension applications must be received by the assessment due date and time.

If you are unable to provide approved documentation to support your application by the due date and time, you must still submit your application by the deadline but with an attached Word document that outlines why you cannot provide the approved documentation by the deadline. You will then need to acquire and upload the approved documentation to your request within 24 hours. Please note: When an extension request has been submitted and is pending, students are expected to continue to work on the assessment item, with the aim of submitting by the requested due date and time.

Prolonged Absence

If you have been ill or unable to attend class for more than 14 days, we advise you to carefully consider whether you are capable of successfully completing your courses this semester.

Extensions with Student Access Plans (SAP)

For extensions up to 7 days, your SAP is all that is required as documentation to support your application. However, extension requests longer than 7 days (for any one assessment item) will require the submission of additional supporting documentation e.g. a medical certificate.

Late submission

A penalty of 10% of the maximum possible mark will be deducted per 24 hours from time submission is due for up to 7 days. After 7 days, you will receive a mark of 0.

You are required to submit assessable items on time. If you fail to meet the submission deadline for any assessment item, then 10% of the maximum possible mark for the assessment item (assessment ‘marked from’ value) will be deducted as a late penalty for every day (or part day) late after the due date. For example, if you submit your assignment 1 hour late, you will be penalised 10%; if your assignment is 24.5 hours late, you will be penalised 20% (because it is late by one 24-hour period plus part of another 24-hour period). 10% will be deducted per day for up to 7 calendar days, at which point your submission will receive a mark of zero (0) unless an extension has been approved.

In most instances one or more hurdles will apply to your assessment item so you will need to submit it to fulfil the requirements of the course regardless of how late it is and the mark you are likely to be awarded.

Literature review and paper critique

11/10/2024 2:00 pm

Individual assessment.

In this part of the course, UQ scientists from a variety of areas will deliver seminars to students. Furthermore a selection scientific papers from a range of science disciplines will be nominated for reading. 

There are two components to this assessment:

• Part A. Students will write a report on the topic of one of the research seminars.
• Part B. Students will provide a structured critique of aspects of one of the nominated papers.

Detailed guidelines and templates will be issued with the assignment task sheet on Blackboard.

Submit your assessment item through the course Turnitin submission point in Blackboard. Before submitting your assessment item to Turnitin please name your file in the following way. FAMILY NAME_GivenName_StudentID_CourseCode_AssignmentName For example: Bob Smith (ID: 54329876) would name his ABCD1234 essay 1 in the following way. SMITH_Bob_54329876_ABCD1234_Essay1

Final report on Discipline Activity

25/10/2024 2:00 pm

Students will work on activities in their nominated discipline during the contact sessions. These activities may comprise a computational project, laboratory work, or other research as specified by the discipline coordinator.

Students will be required to write a report on their discipline activity. Depending on the discipline, the report may be on a topic, project, or experiment that students have worked on during the Discipline Activity. 

Detailed guidelines will be issued by the discipline coordinator during semester.

Short Writing task

30/07/2024 - 8/10/2024

Tuesdays 2 pm, in weeks 2-11 (10 in total)

Each week students will be tasked with writing a short summary of the seminar or nominated paper for that week. 

This assessment task evaluates student's abilities, skills and knowledge without the aid of Artificial Intelligence (Al). Students are advised that the use of Al technologies to develop responses is strictly prohibited and may constitute student misconduct under the Student Code of Conduct.

Online via Blackboard

You cannot defer or apply for an extension for this assessment.

You will receive a mark of 0 if this assessment is submitted late .

Course grading

Full criteria for each grade is available in the Assessment Procedure .

Additional course grading information

Assessment Hurdles

In order to pass this course, you must meet ALL of the following requirements (if you do not meet these requirements, the maximum grade you will receive will be a 3):

1. Students must obtain an overall course mark of 50% or more; and

2. You must achieve a minimum of 40% in each assessment item (Journal, Literature Review Report, Video, and Discipline Activity Report(s)); andﾠ

3. Students must complete and submit ALL learning tasks and assessment items.

The total course mark (percentage) will be determined by combining the results for each assessment item, weighted by the respective weighting for each item. The final course grade will be determined by comparison of the total course mark with the cut-offs described above. The overall grade will be capped at 3 if the student fails to meet the hurdles.

Supplementary assessment

Supplementary assessment is available for this course.

Should you fail a course with a grade of 3, you may be eligible for supplementary assessment. Refer to  my.UQ  for information on supplementary assessment and how to apply. 

Supplementary assessment provides an additional opportunity to demonstrate you have achieved all the required learning outcomes for a course.  

If you apply and are granted supplementary assessment, the type of supplementary assessment set will consider which learning outcome(s) have not been met.  

Supplementary assessment can take any form (such as a written report, oral presentation, examination or other appropriate assessment) and may test specific learning outcomes tailored to the individual student, or all learning outcomes. 

To receive a passing grade of 3S4, you must obtain a mark of 50% or more on the supplementary assessment. 

Additional assessment information

Assessment Submission

It is the responsibility of the student to ensure the on time, correct and complete submission of all assessment items.

Please ensure you receive and save the submission confirmation for all submitted items, you may be asked to produce this as evidence of your submission.

By submitting work through Turnitin you are deemed to have accepted the following declaration “I certify that this assignment is my own work and has not been submitted, either previously or concurrently, in whole or in part, to this University or any other educational institution, for marking or assessment”.

All students must ensure they receive their Turnitin receipt on submission of any assessments. A valid Turnitin receipt will be the only evidence accepted if one or more of your submissions are missing. Without evidence, the assessment will receive the standard late penalty, or after seven days, will receive zero. In the case of a Blackboard outage, please contact the Course Coordinator as soon as possible to confirm the outage with ITS.

Assessment/Attendance

Please notify your Course Coordinator as soon as you become aware of any issue that may affect your ability to meet the assessment/attendance requirements of the course. The my.UQ website and the Electronic Course Profile (ECP) for your course also provide information about your course requirements, the rules associated with your courses and services offered by the University.

A note for repeating students in this course

Any student who enrols in a course must not be given exemption or partial credit from their previous attempt(s) for any individual piece of assessment. Instead, the student must successfully complete all of the learning activities and assessment items within the study period of enrolment (PPL Assessment - Procedures Section: Assessment integrity).

If the same assessment item is set from one year to the next, repeating students are allowed to submit the same work they submitted in previous attempts at the course. Where possible SCMB recommends that you use the feedback you received in your last attempt to improve parts of the item where you lost marks. Resubmission of an altered or unaltered assessment item by a repeating student (where the same assessment has been set) will not be considered as self-plagiarism.

Important Note

Turnitin is to be used for assignments/laboratory reports to check for plagiarism. Penalties can be severe for plagiarism.

The University has adopted the following definition of plagiarism: Plagiarism is the act of misrepresenting as one's own original work the ideas, interpretations, words or creative works of another either intentionally or unintentionally. These include published and unpublished documents, designs, music, sounds, images, photographs, computer codes and ideas gained through working in a group. These ideas, interpretations, words or works may be found in print and/or electronic media.

Students are encouraged to read the UQ Academic Integrity and Plagiarism policy.

Learning resources

You'll need the following resources to successfully complete the course. We've indicated below if you need a personal copy of the reading materials or your own item.

Library resources

Library resources are available on the UQ Library website .

Additional learning resources information

For the modules you will be expected to workﾠin a self-directed learning approach, making effective use of the library and online resources to increase your general knowledge of the subject area and to contribute to your group's work.

Additional material (including the Turnitin portal) may be found on the Blackboard site at learn.uq.edu.au

Check the Announcements section of the Blackboard site regularly for information updates.

Learning activities

The learning activities for this course are outlined below. Learn more about the learning outcomes that apply to this course.

Filter activity type by

Policies and procedures

University policies and procedures apply to all aspects of student life. As a UQ student, you must comply with University-wide and program-specific requirements, including the:

• Student Code of Conduct Policy
• Student Integrity and Misconduct Policy and Procedure
• Assessment Procedure
• Examinations Procedure
• Reasonable Adjustments - Students Policy and Procedure

Learn more about UQ policies on my.UQ and the Policy and Procedure Library .

• Current Students

First study to measure toxic metals in tampons shows arsenic and lead, among other contaminants

• By Elise Proulx
• 3 min. read ▪ Published July 3
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Facebook
• Share on X (Twitter)

Tampons from several brands that potentially millions of people use each month can contain toxic metals like lead, arsenic, and cadmium, a new study led by a UC Berkeley researcher has found.

Tampons are of particular concern as a potential source of exposure to chemicals, including metals, because the skin of the vagina has a higher potential for chemical absorption than skin elsewhere on the body. In addition, the products are used by a large percentage of the population on a monthly basis—50–80% of those who menstruate use tampons—for several hours at a time.

“Despite this large potential for public health concern, very little research has been done to measure chemicals in tampons,” said lead author Jenni A. Shearston , a postdoctoral scholar at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and UC Berkeley’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy, & Management. “To our knowledge, this is the first paper to measure metals in tampons. Concerningly, we found concentrations of all metals we tested for, including toxic metals like arsenic and lead.”

Metals have been found to increase the risk of dementia, infertility, diabetes, and cancer. They can damage the liver, kidneys, and brain, as well as the cardiovascular, nervous, and endocrine systems. In addition, metals can harm maternal health and fetal development.

“Although toxic metals are ubiquitous and we are exposed to low levels at any given time, our study clearly shows that metals are also present in menstrual products, and that women might be at higher risk for exposure using these products,” said study co-author Kathrin Schilling , assistant professor at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Researchers evaluated levels of 16 metals (arsenic, barium, calcium, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, iron, manganese, mercury, nickel, lead, selenium, strontium, vanadium, and zinc) in 30 tampons from 14 different brands. The metal concentrations varied by where the tampons were purchased (US vs. EU/UK), organic vs. non-organic, and store- vs. name-brand. However, they found that metals were present in all types of tampons; no category had consistently lower concentrations of all or most metals. Lead concentrations were higher in non-organic tampons but arsenic was higher in organic tampons.

Metals could make their way into tampons a number of ways: The cotton material could have absorbed the metals from water, air, soil, through a nearby contaminant (for example, if a cotton field was near a lead smelter), or some might be added intentionally during manufacturing as part of a pigment, whitener, antibacterial agent, or some other process in the factory producing the products.

“I really hope that manufacturers are required to test their products for metals, especially for toxic metals,” said Shearston. “It would be exciting to see the public call for this, or to ask for better labeling on tampons and other menstrual products.”

For the moment, it’s unclear if the metals detected by this study are contributing to any negative health effects. Future research will test how much of these metals can leach out of the tampons and be absorbed by the body; as well as measuring the presence of other chemicals in tampons.

Additional authors include: Kristen Upson of the College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University; Milo Gordon, Vivian Do, Olgica Balac, and Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou of Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health; and Khue Nguyen and Beizhan Yan of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.

Funding was provided by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; and the National Institute of Nursing Research.

In the Media:

• A study found toxic metals in popular tampon brands. Here’s what experts advise  – NPR
• Lead, Arsenic, Other Toxic Metals Found in Dozens of Tampon Products – Los Angeles Magazine
• Lead and other toxic metals found in tampons, study finds – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Toxic Metal in Tampons Risks Brain’s Cognitive Function, Scientists Warn – Newsweek
• New study finds lead and arsenic in tampons. But don’t panic, experts say – TODAY
• Tampons contain toxic metals such as lead and arsenic, UC Berkeley study finds – San Francisco Chronicle
• Toxic Tampon Warning As Arsenic and Lead Found in Common Menstrual Products – Newsweek
• Some tampons found to contain LEAD and other toxic metals that could be absorbed into the body, alarming study suggests – Daily Mail

More in category “Research Highlights”:

How reddit helps one expert understand post-roe abortion access in america, wildfires increasingly threaten oil and gas drill sites, compounding potential health risks, study says, the legacy of eugenics, study: sodium intake associated with severe eczema.

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• Review Article
• Published: 02 July 2024

Integrating organoids and organ-on-a-chip devices

• Yimu Zhao   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8265-8647 1 , 2   na1 ,
• Shira Landau   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3514-3656 1 , 2   na1 ,
• Sargol Okhovatian   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2565-7397 1 , 2 ,
• Chuan Liu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7309-1095 1 , 2 ,
• Rick Xing Ze Lu 1 ,
• Benjamin Fook Lun Lai 1 ,
• Qinghua Wu 1 , 2 ,
• Jennifer Kieda   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4748-3460 1 ,
• Krisco Cheung 3 ,
• Shravanthi Rajasekar 4 ,
• Kimia Jozani 5 ,
• Boyang Zhang 4 , 5 &
• Milica Radisic   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1249-4135 1 , 2 , 3 , 6  

Nature Reviews Bioengineering volume  2 ,  pages 588–608 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

1469 Accesses

11 Altmetric

Metrics details

• Induced pluripotent stem cells
• Tissue engineering

Organoids and organs-on-chips are two rapidly emerging 3D cell culture techniques that aim to bridge the gap between in vitro 2D cultures and animal models to enable clinically relevant drug discovery and model human diseases. Despite their similar goals, they use different approaches and exhibit varying requirements for implementation. Integrative approaches promise to provide improved cellular fidelity in the format of a device that can control the geometry of the organoid and provide flow, mechanical and electrical stimuli. In this Review, we discuss recent integrative approaches in the areas of intestine, kidney, lung, liver, pancreas, brain, retina, heart and tumour. We start by defining the two fields and describe how they emerged from the fields of tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and stem cells. We compare the scales at which the two methods operate and briefly describe their achievements, followed by studies integrating organoids and organ-on-a-chip devices. Finally, we define implementation limitations and requirements for translation of the integrated devices, including determining the differentiation stage at which an organoid should be placed into an organ-on-a-chip device, providing perfusable vasculature within the organoid and overcoming limitations of cell line and batch-to-batch variability.

Organoids and organs-on-chips (OoCs) aim to improve drug testing and disease modelling, but integration examples are still scarce.

The benefits of integration include organ-specific cellular hierarchy and structural fidelity; microscopic features from OoCs guiding tissue morphological formation; better reproducibility and scale-up capacities; and biocompatible built-in sensors for in situ functional readouts and industrially compatible culture formats.

A key challenge is vascularizing organoids with tissue-specific endothelial cells and aligning different cell types in organoids with appropriate flow in scalable, integrated devices.

In parallel, advances in computer vision and deep learning will be needed to enhance data processing and analysis. Addressing cell line variability and establishing validation criteria for OoC–organoid integrated devices is critical for commercial and translational success.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles

92,52 € per year

only 7,71 € per issue

Buy this article

• Purchase on Springer Link
• Instant access to full article PDF

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Similar content being viewed by others

Organs-on-chips: into the next decade

A guide to the organ-on-a-chip

Engineering organoids

Loskill, P., Hardwick, R. N. & Roth, A. Challenging the pipeline. Stem Cell Rep. 16 , 2033–2037 (2021).

Google Scholar  

Fogel, D. B. Factors associated with clinical trials that fail and opportunities for improving the likelihood of success: a review. Contemp. Clin. Trials Commun. 11 , 156–164 (2018).

Hwang, T. J. et al. Failure of investigational drugs in late-stage clinical development and publication of trial results. JAMA Intern. Med. 176 , 1826–1833 (2016).

Birgersdotter, A., Sandberg, R. & Ernberg, I. Gene expression perturbation in vitro-a growing case for three-dimensional (3D) culture systems. Semin. Cancer Biol. 15 , 405–412 (2005).

Debnath, J. & Brugge, J. S. Modelling glandular epithelial cancers in three-dimensional cultures. Nat. Rev. Cancer 5 , 675–688 (2005).

Hu, W. & Lazar, M. A. Modelling metabolic diseases and drug response using stem cells and organoids. Nat. Rev. Endocrinol. 18 , 744–759 (2022).

Huch, M. & Koo, B. K. Modeling mouse and human development using organoid cultures. Development 142 , 3113–3125 (2015).

Vunjak-Novakovic, G., Ronaldson-Bouchard, K. & Radisic, M. Organs-on-a-chip models for biological research. Cell 184 , 4597–4611 (2021).

Pasca, S. P. et al. A nomenclature consensus for nervous system organoids and assembloids. Nature 609 , 907–910 (2022).

Sato, T. et al. Single Lgr5 stem cells build crypt-villus structures in vitro without a mesenchymal niche. Nature 459 , 262–265 (2009).

Aloia, L. et al. Epigenetic remodelling licences adult cholangiocytes for organoid formation and liver regeneration. Nat. Cell Biol. 21 , 1321–1333 (2019).

Wilson, H. V. A new method by which sponges may be artificially reared. Science 25 , 912–915 (1907).

Weiss, P. & Taylor, A. C. Reconstitution of complete organs from single-cell suspensions of chick embryos in advanced stages of differentiation. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 46 , 1177–1185 (1960).

Martin, G. R. Isolation of a pluripotent cell line from early mouse embryos cultured in medium conditioned by teratocarcinoma stem cells. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 78 , 7634–7638 (1981).

Thomson, J. A. et al. Embryonic stem cell lines derived from human blastocysts. Science 282 , 1145–1147 (1998).

Takahashi, K. et al. Induction of pluripotent stem cells from adult human fibroblasts by defined factors. Cell 131 , 861–872 (2007).

Eiraku, M. et al. Self-organized formation of polarized cortical tissues from ESCs and its active manipulation by extrinsic signals. Cell Stem Cell 3 , 519–532 (2008).

Mariani, J. et al. FOXG1-dependent dysregulation of GABA/glutamate neuron differentiation in autism spectrum disorders. Cell 162 , 375–390 (2015).

Pasca, A. M. et al. Functional cortical neurons and astrocytes from human pluripotent stem cells in 3D culture. Nat. Methods 12 , 671–678 (2015).

Eiraku, M. et al. Self-organizing optic-cup morphogenesis in three-dimensional culture. Nature 472 , 51–56 (2011).

Takebe, T. et al. Vascularized and functional human liver from an iPSC-derived organ bud transplant. Nature 499 , 481–484 (2013).

Little, M. H. & Combes, A. N. Kidney organoids: accurate models or fortunate accidents. Genes Dev. 33 , 1319–1345 (2019).

Yoshihara, E. et al. Immune-evasive human islet-like organoids ameliorate diabetes. Nature 586 , 606–611 (2020).

Lee, J. H. et al. Anatomically and functionally distinct lung mesenchymal populations marked by Lgr5 and Lgr6. Cell 170 , 1149–1163.e12 (2017).

Drost, J. et al. Organoid culture systems for prostate epithelial and cancer tissue. Nat. Protoc. 11 , 347–358 (2016).

Roth, J. G. et al. Advancing models of neural development with biomaterials. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 22 , 593–615 (2021).

Qazi, T. H. et al. Programming hydrogels to probe spatiotemporal cell biology. Cell Stem Cell 29 , 678–691 (2022).

Ao, Z. et al. One-stop microfluidic assembly of human brain organoids to model prenatal cannabis exposure. Anal. Chem. 92 , 4630–4638 (2020).

Andersen, J. et al. Generation of functional human 3D cortico-motor assembloids. Cell 183 , 1913–1929.e26 (2020). This article describes how to build a mutli-organ system using the assembloid approach to connect the cerebral cortex or the hindbrain or spinal cord organoids with human skeletal muscle spheroids.

Birey, F. et al. Assembly of functionally integrated human forebrain spheroids. Nature 545 , 54–59 (2017).

Huh, D. et al. Reconstituting organ-level lung functions on a chip. Science 328 , 1662–1668 (2010). This article was the first to define the ‘organ-on-a-chip’ term, describing a microfluidic device that recapitulated endothelial–epithelial interface for studies of barrier function.

Viravaidya, K., Sin, A. & Shuler, M. L. Development of a microscale cell culture analog to probe naphthalene toxicity. Biotechnol. Prog. 20 , 316–323 (2004).

Phan, D. T. T. et al. A vascularized and perfused organ-on-a-chip platform for large-scale drug screening applications. Lab Chip 17 , 511–520 (2017).

Ma, L. D. et al. Design and fabrication of a liver-on-a-chip platform for convenient, highly efficient, and safe in situ perfusion culture of 3D hepatic spheroids. Lab Chip 18 , 2547–2562 (2018).

Zhao, Y. et al. A platform for generation of chamber-specific cardiac tissues and disease modeling. Cell 176 , 913–927.e8 (2019).

Lind, J. U. et al. Instrumented cardiac microphysiological devices via multimaterial three-dimensional printing. Nat. Mater. 16 , 303–308 (2017). This article describes how to instrument an OoC device via 3D printing to measure contraction force via non-invasive electrical readouts.

Jalili-Firoozinezhad, S. et al. A complex human gut microbiome cultured in an anaerobic intestine-on-a-chip. Nat. Biomed. Eng. 3 , 520–531 (2019).

Musah, S. et al. Mature induced-pluripotent-stem-cell-derived human podocytes reconstitute kidney glomerular-capillary-wall function on a chip. Nat. Biomed. Eng. 1 , 0069 (2017).

Booth, R. & Kim, H. Characterization of a microfluidic in vitro model of the blood-brain barrier (muBBB). Lab Chip 12 , 1784–1792 (2012).

Lee, J. H., Gu, Y., Wang, H. & Lee, W. Y. Microfluidic 3D bone tissue model for high-throughput evaluation of wound-healing and infection-preventing biomaterials. Biomaterials 33 , 999–1006 (2012).

Carson, D. et al. Nanotopography-induced structural anisotropy and sarcomere development in human cardiomyocytes derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 8 , 21923–21932 (2016).

Mandrycky, C. J., Howard, C. C., Rayner, S. G., Shin, Y. J. & Zheng, Y. Organ-on-a-chip systems for vascular biology. J. Mol. Cell Cardiol. 159 , 1–13 (2021).

Somers, S. M., Spector, A. A., DiGirolamo, D. J. & Grayson, W. L. Biophysical stimulation for engineering functional skeletal muscle. Tissue Eng. Part. B Rev. 23 , 362–372 (2017).

Cook, D. et al. Lessons learned from the fate of AstraZeneca’s drug pipeline: a five-dimensional framework. Nat. Rev. Drug Discov. 13 , 419–431 (2014).

Zhao, Y., Wang, E. Y., Lai, F. B. L., Cheung, K. & Radisic, M. Organs-on-a-chip: a union of tissue engineering and microfabrication. Trends Biotechnol. 41 , 410–424 (2023).

McKinley, K. L., Longaker, M. T. & Naik, S. Emerging frontiers in regenerative medicine. Science 380 , 796–798 (2023).

Reza, H. A., Okabe, R. & Takebe, T. Organoid transplant approaches for the liver. Transpl. Int. 34 , 2031–2045 (2021).

Xiang, Y. et al. Fusion of regionally specified hPSC-derived organoids models human brain development and interneuron migration. Cell Stem Cell 21 , 383–398.e7 (2017).

Rajasekar, S. et al. IFlowPlate — a customized 384‐well plate for the culture of perfusable vascularized colon organoids. Adv. Mater. 32 , e2002974 (2020).

Fuchs, S. et al. In-line analysis of organ-on-chip systems with sensors: integration, fabrication, challenges, and potential. ACS Biomater. Sci. Eng. 7 , 2926–2948 (2021).

Aleman, J., Kilic, T., Mille, L. S., Shin, S. R. & Zhang, Y. S. Microfluidic integration of regeneratable electrochemical affinity-based biosensors for continual monitoring of organ-on-a-chip devices. Nat. Protoc. 16 , 2564–2593 (2021).

Li, T. L. et al. Stretchable mesh microelectronics for the biointegration and stimulation of human neural organoids. Biomaterials 290 , 121825 (2022).

McDonald, M. et al. A mesh microelectrode array for non-invasive electrophysiology within neural organoids. Biosens. Bioelectron. 228 , 115223 (2023).

Zachos, N. C. et al. Human enteroids/colonoids and intestinal organoids functionally recapitulate normal intestinal physiology and pathophysiology. J. Biol. Chem. 291 , 3759–3766 (2016).

Kim, H. J., Huh, D., Hamilton, G. & Ingber, D. E. Human gut-on-a-chip inhabited by microbial flora that experiences intestinal peristalsis-like motions and flow. Lab Chip 12 , 2165–2174 (2012).

Kasendra, M. et al. Development of a primary human small intestine-on-a-chip using biopsy-derived organoids. Sci. Rep. 8 , 2871 (2018).

Sontheimer-Phelps, A. et al. Human colon-on-a-chip enables continuous in vitro analysis of colon mucus layer accumulation and physiology. Cell. Mol. Gastroenterol. Hepatol. 9 , 507–526 (2020).

Gjorevski, N. et al. Tissue geometry drives deterministic organoid patterning. Science 375 , eaaw9021 (2022). This paper describes how to control organoid shape and patterning by confined culture in photo-patterned structures from adhesion peptide-modified poly(ethylene glycol) hydrogels.

Nikolaev, M. et al. Homeostatic mini-intestines through scaffold-guided organoid morphogenesis. Nature 585 , 574–578 (2020).

Faria, J., Ahmed, S., Gerritsen, K. G. F., Mihaila, S. M. & Masereeuw, R. Kidney-based in vitro models for drug-induced toxicity testing. Arch. Toxicol. 93 , 3397–3418 (2019).

Xie, R. et al. h-FIBER: microfluidic topographical hollow fiber for studies of glomerular filtration barrier. ACS Cent. Sci. 6 , 903–912 (2020).

Lin, N. Y. C. et al. Renal reabsorption in 3D vascularized proximal tubule models. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 116 , 5399–5404 (2019).

Vriend, J. et al. Flow stimulates drug transport in a human kidney proximal tubule-on-a-chip independent of primary cilia. Biochim. Biophys. Acta Gen. Subj. 1864 , 129433 (2020).

Vormann, M. K. et al. Nephrotoxicity and kidney transport assessment on 3D perfused proximal tubules. AAPS J. 20 , 90 (2018).

Sakolish, C. et al. Predicting tubular reabsorption with a human kidney proximal tubule tissue-on-a-chip and physiologically-based modeling. Toxicol. In Vitro 63 , 104752 (2020).

Wang, J. et al. A virus-induced kidney disease model based on organ-on-a-chip: pathogenesis exploration of virus-related renal dysfunctions. Biomaterials 219 , 119367 (2019).

Takasato, M. et al. Kidney organoids from human iPS cells contain multiple lineages and model human nephrogenesis. Nature 526 , 564–568 (2015).

Morizane, R. et al. Nephron organoids derived from human pluripotent stem cells model kidney development and injury. Nat. Biotechnol. 33 , 1193–1200 (2015).

Freedman, B. S. et al. Modelling kidney disease with CRISPR-mutant kidney organoids derived from human pluripotent epiblast spheroids. Nat. Commun. 6 , 8715 (2015).

Homan, K. A. et al. Flow-enhanced vascularization and maturation of kidney organoids in vitro. Nat. Methods 16 , 255–262 (2019). This paper is an example of an integrative study, which demonstrated that kidney organoids cultured under flow had more mature podocytes and tubules with enhanced polarity than static culture had.

Lee, H. N. et al. Effect of biochemical and biomechanical factors on vascularization of kidney organoid-on-a-chip. Nano Converg. 8 , 35 (2021).

Schutgens, F. et al. Tubuloids derived from human adult kidney and urine for personalized disease modeling. Nat. Biotechnol. 37 , 303–313 (2019).

Aceves, J. O. et al. 3D proximal tubule-on-chip model derived from kidney organoids with improved drug uptake. Sci. Rep. 12 , 14997 (2022).

Dye, B. R. et al. In vitro generation of human pluripotent stem cell derived lung organoids. eLife 4 , e05098 (2015).

Chen, Y. W. et al. A three-dimensional model of human lung development and disease from pluripotent stem cells. Nat. Cell Biol. 19 , 542–549 (2017).

Tindle, C. et al. Adult stem cell-derived complete lung organoid models emulate lung disease in COVID-19. eLife 10 , e66417 (2021).

Li, C. et al. Human airway and nasal organoids reveal escalating replicative fitness of SARS-CoV-2 emerging variants. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 120 , e2300376120 (2023).

Stucki, A. O. et al. A lung-on-a-chip array with an integrated bio-inspired respiration mechanism. Lab Chip 15 , 1302–1310 (2015).

Benam, K. H. et al. Small airway-on-a-chip enables analysis of human lung inflammation and drug responses in vitro. Nat. Methods 13 , 151–157 (2016).

Park, S. & Young, E. W. K. E-FLOAT: extractable floating liquid gel-based organ-on-a-chip for airway tissue modeling under airflow. Adv. Mater. Technol. 6 , 2100828 (2021).

Park, J. Y. et al. Development of a functional airway-on-a-chip by 3D cell printing. Biofabrication 11 , 015002 (2018).

Soleas, J. P. et al. Assembly of lung progenitors into developmentally-inspired geometry drives differentiation via cellular tension. Biomaterials 254 , 120128 (2020).

Martignoni, M., Groothuis, G. M. & de Kanter, R. Species differences between mouse, rat, dog, monkey and human CYP-mediated drug metabolism, inhibition and induction. Expert Opin. Drug Metab. Toxicol. 2 , 875–894 (2006).

Jang, K.-J. et al. Reproducing human and cross-species drug toxicities using a liver-chip. Sci. Transl. Med. 11 , eaax5516 (2019).

Sung, J. H. & Shuler, M. L. A micro cell culture analog (microCCA) with 3-D hydrogel culture of multiple cell lines to assess metabolism-dependent cytotoxicity of anti-cancer drugs. Lab Chip 9 , 1385–1394 (2009).

Tao, T. et al. Microengineered multi-organoid system from hiPSCs to recapitulate human liver-islet axis in normal and type 2 diabetes. Adv. Sci. 9 , e2103495 (2022).

Jin, Y. et al. Vascularized liver organoids generated using induced hepatic tissue and dynamic liver-specific microenvironment as a drug testing platform. Adv. Funct. Mater. 28 , 1801954 (2018).

Bovard, D. et al. A lung/liver-on-a-chip platform for acute and chronic toxicity studies. Lab Chip 18 , 3814–3829 (2018).

Natarajan, V. & Simoneau, C. R. Modelling T-cell immunity against hepatitis C virus with liver organoids in a microfluidic coculture system. Open Biol. 12 , 210320 (2022).

Skardal, A. et al. Multi-tissue interactions in an integrated three-tissue organ-on-a-chip platform. Sci. Rep. 7 , 8837 (2017).

Teng, Y., Zhao, Z., Tasnim, F., Huang, X. & Yu, H. A scalable and sensitive steatosis chip with long-term perfusion of in situ differentiated HepaRG organoids. Biomaterials 275 , 120904 (2021).

Takebe, T. et al. Massive and reproducible production of liver buds entirely from human pluripotent stem cells. Cell Rep. 21 , 2661–2670 (2017).

Rajasekar, S. et al. Subtractive manufacturing with swelling induced stochastic folding of sacrificial materials for fabricating complex perfusable tissues in multi-well plates. Lab Chip 22 , 1929–1942 (2022).

Koui, Y. et al. An in vitro human liver model by iPSC-derived parenchymal and non-parenchymal cells. Stem Cell Rep. 9 , 490–498 (2017).

Kang, Y. B., Eo, J., Mert, S., Yarmush, M. L. & Usta, O. B. Metabolic patterning on a chip: towards in vitro liver zonation of primary rat and human hepatocytes. Sci. Rep. 8 , 8951 (2018).

Huch, M. et al. Unlimited in vitro expansion of adult bi-potent pancreas progenitors through the Lgr5/R-spondin axis. EMBO J. 32 , 2708–2721 (2013).

Shik Mun, K. et al. Patient-derived pancreas-on-a-chip to model cystic fibrosis-related disorders. Nat. Commun. 10 , 3124 (2019).

Tao, T. et al. Engineering human islet organoids from iPSCs using an organ-on-chip platform. Lab Chip 19 , 948–958 (2019).

Aamodt, K. I. & Powers, A. C. Signals in the pancreatic islet microenvironment influence β-cell proliferation. Diabetes, Obes. Metab. 19 , 124–136 (2017).

Lancaster, M. A. et al. Cerebral organoids model human brain development and microcephaly. Nature 501 , 373–379 (2013).

Eichmuller, O. L. & Knoblich, J. A. Human cerebral organoids — a new tool for clinical neurology research. Nat. Rev. Neurol. 18 , 661–680 (2022).

Camp, J. G. et al. Human cerebral organoids recapitulate gene expression programs of fetal neocortex development. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112 , 15672–15677 (2015).

Nascimento, J. M. et al. Human cerebral organoids and fetal brain tissue share proteomic similarities. Front. Cell Dev. Biol. 7 , 303 (2019).

Giandomenico, S. L., Sutcliffe, M. & Lancaster, M. A. Generation and long-term culture of advanced cerebral organoids for studying later stages of neural development. Nat. Protoc. 16 , 579–602 (2021).

Kelley, K. W. & Pașca, S. P. Human brain organogenesis: toward a cellular understanding of development and disease. Cell 185 , 42–61 (2022).

Sakaguchi, H. et al. Generation of functional hippocampal neurons from self-organizing human embryonic stem cell-derived dorsomedial telencephalic tissue. Nat. Commun. 6 , 8896 (2015).

Kiral, F. R. et al. Generation of ventralized human thalamic organoids with thalamic reticular nucleus. Cell Stem Cell 30 , 677–688.e5 (2023).

Ozone, C. et al. Functional anterior pituitary generated in self-organizing culture of human embryonic stem cells. Nat. Commun. 7 , 10351 (2016).

Nickels, S. L. et al. Reproducible generation of human midbrain organoids for in vitro modeling of Parkinson’s disease. Stem Cell Res. 46 , 101870 (2020).

Muguruma, K., Nishiyama, A., Kawakami, H., Hashimoto, K. & Sasai, Y. Self-organization of polarized cerebellar tissue in 3D culture of human pluripotent stem cells. Cell Rep. 10 , 537–550 (2015).

Xiang, Y. et al. hESC-derived thalamic organoids form reciprocal projections when fused with cortical organoids. Cell Stem Cell 24 , 487–497.e7 (2019).

Abud, E. M. et al. iPSC-derived human microglia-like cells to study neurological diseases. Neuron 94 , 278–293.e9 (2017).

Pham, M. T. et al. Generation of human vascularized brain organoids. Neuroreport 29 , 588–593 (2018).

Sun, X.-Y. et al. Generation of vascularized brain organoids to study neurovascular interactions. eLife 11 , e76707 (2022).

Wang, Y. I., Abaci, H. E. & Shuler, M. L. Microfluidic blood–brain barrier model provides in vivo-like barrier properties for drug permeability screening. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 114 , 184–194 (2017).

Wolff, A., Antfolk, M., Brodin, B. & Tenje, M. In vitro blood–brain barrier models — an overview of established models and new microfluidic approaches. J. Pharm. Sci. 104 , 2727–2746 (2015).

Park, W., Lee, J. S., Gao, G., Kim, B. S. & Cho, D. W. 3D bioprinted multilayered cerebrovascular conduits to study cancer extravasation mechanism related with vascular geometry. Nat. Commun. 14 , 7696 (2023).

Wang, Y., Wang, L., Zhu, Y. & Qin, J. Human brain organoid-on-a-chip to model prenatal nicotine exposure. Lab Chip 18 , 851–860 (2018).

Salmon, I. et al. Engineering neurovascular organoids with 3D printed microfluidic chips. Lab Chip 22 , 1615–1629 (2022).

Karzbrun, E., Kshirsagar, A., Cohen, S. R., Hanna, J. H. & Reiner, O. Human brain organoids on a chip reveal the physics of folding. Nat. Phys. 14 , 515–522 (2018).

Skylar-Scott, M. A. et al. Biomanufacturing of organ-specific tissues with high cellular density and embedded vascular channels. Sci. Adv. 5 , eaaw2459 (2019).

Cui, K. et al. Brain organoid-on-chip system to study the effects of breast cancer derived exosomes on the neurodevelopment of brain. Cell Regen. 11 , 7 (2022).

Ao, Z. et al. Understanding immune‐driven brain aging by human brain organoid microphysiological analysis platform. Adv. Sci. 9 , 2200475 (2022). This article describes the incorporation of immune cells within the microfluidic chip with brain organoids to mimic immune-driven brain ageing.

Ao, Z. et al. Human spinal organoid-on-a-chip to model nociceptive circuitry for pain therapeutics discovery. Anal. Chem. 94 , 1365–1372 (2022).

Marcos, L. F., Wilson, S. L. & Roach, P. Tissue engineering of the retina: from organoids to microfluidic chips. J. Tissue Eng. 12 , 20417314211059876 (2021).

Achberger, K. et al. Merging organoid and organ-on-a-chip technology to generate complex multi-layer tissue models in a human retina-on-a-chip platform. eLife 8 , e46188 (2019).

Lindsey, S. E., Butcher, J. T. & Yalcin, H. C. Mechanical regulation of cardiac development. Front. Physiol. 5 , 318 (2014).

Drakhlis, L. et al. Human heart-forming organoids recapitulate early heart and foregut development. Nat. Biotechnol. 39 , 737–746 (2021).

Lewis-Israeli, Y. R. et al. Self-assembling human heart organoids for the modeling of cardiac development and congenital heart disease. Nat. Commun. 12 , 5142 (2021).

Shirure, V. S., Hughes, C. C. & George, S. C. Engineering vascularized organoid-on-a-chip models. Annu. Rev. Biomed. Eng. 23 , 141–167 (2021).

Garreta, E. et al. Rethinking organoid technology through bioengineering. Nat. Mater. 20 , 145–155 (2021).

Lemoine, M. D. et al. Human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived engineered heart tissue as a sensitive test system for QT prolongation and arrhythmic triggers. Circ. Arrhythmia Electrophysiol. 11 , e006035 (2018).

Riaz, M. et al. Muscle LIM protein force-sensing mediates sarcomeric biomechanical signaling in human familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Circulation 145 , 1238–1253 (2022).

Mills, R. J. et al. BET inhibition blocks inflammation-induced cardiac dysfunction and SARS-CoV-2 infection. Cell 184 , 2167–2182.e22 (2021). This article describes how a two-post heart-on-a-chip platform can be rapidly adopted to mimic cytokine storm conditions and rapidly screen cardioprotective drugs in the settings of COVID-19-induced inflammation.

Leonard, A. et al. Afterload promotes maturation of human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes in engineered heart tissues. J. Mol. Cell. Cardiol. 118 , 147–158 (2018).

Hinson, J. T. et al. HEART DISEASE. Titin mutations in iPS cells define sarcomere insufficiency as a cause of dilated cardiomyopathy. Science 349 , 982–986 (2015).

Tiburcy, M. et al. Defined engineered human myocardium with advanced maturation for applications in heart failure modeling and repair. Circulation 135 , 1832–1847 (2017).

Nunes, S. S. et al. Biowire: a platform for maturation of human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes. Nat. Methods 10 , 781–787 (2013).

Mathur, A. et al. Human iPSC-based cardiac microphysiological system for drug screening applications. Sci. Rep. 5 , 8883 (2015).

Lai, B. F. L. et al. InVADE: integrated vasculature for assessing dynamic events. Adv. Funct. Mater. 27 , 1703524 (2017).

Hoang, P. et al. Engineering spatial-organized cardiac organoids for developmental toxicity testing. Stem Cell Rep. 16 , 1228–1244 (2021).

Abilez, O. J. et al. Micropatterned organoids enable modeling of the earliest stages of human cardiac vascularization. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.07.08.499233 (2022).

Article   Google Scholar  

Hoang, P., Wang, J., Conklin, B. R., Healy, K. E. & Ma, Z. Generation of spatial-patterned early-developing cardiac organoids using human pluripotent stem cells. Nat. Protoc. 13 , 723–737 (2018).

Silva, A. C. et al. Co-emergence of cardiac and gut tissues promotes cardiomyocyte maturation within human iPSC-derived organoids. Cell Stem Cell 28 , 2137–2152.e6 (2021).

Hofbauer, P. et al. Cardioids reveal self-organizing principles of human cardiogenesis. Cell 184 , 3299–3317.e22 (2021).

Ma, Z. et al. Self-organizing human cardiac microchambers mediated by geometric confinement. Nat. Commun. 6 , 7413 (2015).

Kupfer, M. E. et al. In situ expansion, differentiation, and electromechanical coupling of human cardiac muscle in a 3D bioprinted, chambered organoid. Circ. Res. 127 , 207–224 (2020).

Liu, C. et al. Drug screening model meets cancer organoid technology. Transl. Oncol. 13 , 100840 (2020).

Arima, Y., Nobusue, H. & Saya, H. Targeting of cancer stem cells by differentiation therapy. Cancer Sci. 111 , 2689–2695 (2020).

LeSavage, B. L., Suhar, R. A., Broguiere, N., Lutolf, M. P. & Heilshorn, S. C. Next-generation cancer organoids. Nat. Mater. 21 , 143–159 (2022).

Sun, Y. Tumor microenvironment and cancer therapy resistance. Cancer Lett. 380 , 205–215 (2016).

Pinho, D., Santos, D., Vila, A. & Carvalho, S. Establishment of colorectal cancer organoids in microfluidic-based system. Micromachines 12 , 497 (2021).

Shin, T. H., Kim, M., Sung, C. O., Jang, S. J. & Jeong, G. S. A one-stop microfluidic-based lung cancer organoid culture platform for testing drug sensitivity. Lab Chip 19 , 2854–2865 (2019).

Fang, G. & Lu, H. Enabling peristalsis of human colon tumor organoids on microfluidic chips. Biofabrication 14 , https://doi.org/10.1088/1758-5090/ac2ef9 (2021).

Haque, M. R. et al. Patient-derived pancreatic cancer-on-a-chip recapitulates the tumor microenvironment. Microsyst. Nanoeng. 8 , 36 (2022).

Miller, C. P., Tsuchida, C., Zheng, Y., Himmelfarb, J. & Akilesh, S. A 3D human renal cell carcinoma-on-a-chip for the study of tumor angiogenesis. Neoplasia 20 , 610–620 (2018).

Shirure, V. S. et al. Tumor-on-a-chip platform to investigate progression and drug sensitivity in cell lines and patient-derived organoids. Lab Chip 18 , 3687–3702 (2018).

Schuster, B. et al. Automated microfluidic platform for dynamic and combinatorial drug screening of tumor organoids. Nat. Commun. 11 , 5271 (2020).

Lai Benjamin, F. L. et al. Recapitulating pancreatic tumor microenvironment through synergistic use of patient organoids and organ-on-a-chip vasculature. Adv. Funct. Mater. 30 , 2000545 (2020).

Mazzocchi, A. R., Rajan, S. A., Votanopoulos, K. I., Hall, A. R. & Skardal, A. In vitro patient-derived 3D mesothelioma tumor organoids facilitate patient-centric therapeutic screening. Sci. Rep. 8 , 2886 (2018).

Betge, J. et al. The drug-induced phenotypic landscape of colorectal cancer organoids. Nat. Commun. 13 , 3135 (2022).

Usman, O. H. et al. Genomic heterogeneity in pancreatic cancer organoids and its stability with culture. NPJ Genomic Med. 7 , 71 (2022).

Miura, Y. et al. Generation of human striatal organoids and cortico-striatal assembloids from human pluripotent stem cells. Nat. Biotechnol. 38 , 1421–1430 (2020).

Son, J. et al. Electrophysiological monitoring of neurochemical-based neural signal transmission in a human brain–spinal cord assembloid. ACS Sens. 7 , 409–414 (2022).

Kim, E. et al. Creation of bladder assembloids mimicking tissue regeneration and cancer. Nature 588 , 664–669 (2020).

McAleer, C. W. et al. Multi-organ system for the evaluation of efficacy and off-target toxicity of anticancer therapeutics. Sci. Transl. Med. 11 , eaav1386 (2019). This paper describes a pumpless multi-organ platform used to predict drug efficacy and metabolic conversion in liver, tumour and heart systems while recirculating serum-free medium between the compartments.

Yin, F. et al. HiPSC-derived multi-organoids-on-chip system for safety assessment of antidepressant drugs. Lab Chip 21 , 571–581 (2021).

Wikswo, J. P. et al. Scaling and systems biology for integrating multiple organs-on-a-chip. Lab Chip 13 , 3496–3511 (2013).

Ronaldson-Bouchard, K. et al. A multi-organ chip with matured tissue niches linked by vascular flow. Nat. Biomed. Eng. 6 , 351–371 (2022). This article describes a body-on-a-chip system in which matured human heart, liver, bone and skin tissue niches are linked by recirculating flow through an endothelialized channel.

Radisic, M. et al. Oxygen gradients correlate with cell density and cell viability in engineered cardiac tissue. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 93 , 332–343 (2006).

Mansour, A. A. et al. An in vivo model of functional and vascularized human brain organoids. Nat. Biotechnol. 36 , 432–441 (2018).

Revah, O. et al. Maturation and circuit integration of transplanted human cortical organoids. Nature 610 , 319–326 (2022).

Zhang, S., Wan, Z. & Kamm, R. D. Vascularized organoids on a chip: strategies for engineering organoids with functional vasculature. Lab Chip 21 , 473–488 (2021).

Chiu, L. L., Montgomery, M., Liang, Y., Liu, H. & Radisic, M. Perfusable branching microvessel bed for vascularization of engineered tissues. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109 , E3414–E3423 (2012).

Haase, K. et al. Physiologic flow-conditioning limits vascular dysfunction in engineered human capillaries. Biomaterials 280 , 121248 (2022). This paper demonstrates the importance of interstitial flow in promoting early blood vessel formation and continuous flow through the vessels for maintenance and remodelling of the formed vasculature.

Zhang, B. et al. Biodegradable scaffold with built-in vasculature for organ-on-a-chip engineering and direct surgical anastomosis. Nat. Mater. 15 , 669–678 (2016).

Barrile, R. et al. Organ-on-chip recapitulates thrombosis induced by an anti-CD154 monoclonal antibody: translational potential of advanced microengineered systems. Clin. Pharmacol. Ther. 104 , 1240–1248 (2018).

Schulla, L. S. et al. Development of a novel microfluidic co-culture model to study organoid vascularization. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.03.25.485813 (2022).

Landau, S. et al. Tissue-level mechanosensitivity: predicting and controlling the orientation of 3D vascular networks. Nano Lett. 18 , 7698–7708 (2018).

Ingber, D. E. Human organs-on-chips for disease modelling, drug development and personalized medicine. Nat. Rev. Genet. 23 , 467–491 (2022).

Korolj, A., Wu, H. T. & Radisic, M. A healthy dose of chaos: using fractal frameworks for engineering higher-fidelity biomedical systems. Biomaterials 219 , 119363 (2019).

Doi, K. et al. Enhanced podocyte differentiation and changing drug toxicity sensitivity through pressure-controlled mechanical filtration stress on a glomerulus-on-a-chip. Lab Chip 23 , 437–450 (2023).

Zhang, S. Y. & Mahler, G. J. A glomerulus and proximal tubule microphysiological system simulating renal filtration, reabsorption, secretion, and toxicity. Lab chip 23 , 272–284 (2023).

Roth, J. G. et al. Spatially controlled construction of assembloids using bioprinting. Nat. Commun. 14 , 4346 (2023).

Misun, P. M., Rothe, J., Schmid, Y. R., Hierlemann, A. & Frey, O. Multi-analyte biosensor interface for real-time monitoring of 3D microtissue spheroids in hanging-drop networks. Microsyst. Nanoeng. 2 , 16022 (2016).

Gebreyesus, S. T. et al. Streamlined single-cell proteomics by an integrated microfluidic chip and data-independent acquisition mass spectrometry. Nat. Commun. 13 , 37 (2022).

Takahashi, K. & Yamanaka, S. Induction of pluripotent stem cells from mouse embryonic and adult fibroblast cultures by defined factors. Cell 126 , 663–676 (2006).

Burridge, P. W., Holmstrom, A. & Wu, J. C. Chemically defined culture and cardiomyocyte differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells. Curr. Protoc. Hum. Genet. 87 , 21.3.1–21.3.15 (2015).

Rausch, V., Sala, V., Penna, F., Porporato, P. E. & Ghigo, A. Understanding the common mechanisms of heart and skeletal muscle wasting in cancer cachexia. Oncogenesis 10 , 1 (2021).

Petersson, C. et al. Current approaches for predicting human PK for small molecule development candidates: findings from the IQ human PK prediction working group survey. AAPS J. 24 , 85 (2022).

Gintant, G., Sager, P. T. & Stockbridge, N. Evolution of strategies to improve preclinical cardiac safety testing. Nat. Rev. Drug Discov. 15 , 457–471 (2016).

Han, J. J. FDA modernization act 2.0 allows for alternatives to animal testing. Artif. Organs 47 , 449–450 (2023).

Landon‐Brace, N. et al. An engineered patient‐derived tumor organoid model that can be disassembled to study cellular responses in a graded 3D microenvironment. Adv. Funct. Mater. 31 , 2105349 (2021).

Barker, N. et al. Lgr5 +ve stem cells drive self-renewal in the stomach and build long-lived gastric units in vitro. Cell Stem Cell 6 , 25–36 (2010).

Xia, Y. et al. Directed differentiation of human pluripotent cells to ureteric bud kidney progenitor-like cells. Nat. Cell Biol. 15 , 1507–1515 (2013).

Zhang, L. et al. Establishing estrogen-responsive mouse mammary organoids from single Lgr5 + cells. Cell Signal. 29 , 41–51 (2017).

Miller, J. S. et al. Rapid casting of patterned vascular networks for perfusable engineered three-dimensional tissues. Nat. Mater. 11 , 768–774 (2012).

Ronaldson-Bouchard, K. et al. Advanced maturation of human cardiac tissue grown from pluripotent stem cells. Nature 556 , 239–243 (2018).

Wu, Q. et al. Flexible 3D printed microwires and 3D microelectrodes for heart-on-a-chip engineering. Biofabrication 15 , 035023 (2023).

Zhang, B. & Radisic, M. Organ-on-a-chip devices advance to market. Lab Chip 17 , 2395–2420 (2017).

Homan, K. A. Industry adoption of organoids and organs-on-chip technology: toward a paradox of choice. Adv. Biol. 7 , 2200334 (2023).

Download references

Acknowledgements

Our work is funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Foundation grant FDN-167274, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery grant (RGPIN 326982-10), NSERC-CIHR Collaborative Health Research grant (CHRP 493737-16), US National Institutes of Health grant 2R01 HL076485 and a Stem Cell Network Impact Award (IMP-C4R1-3). M.R. was supported by the Killam Fellowship and Canada Research Chair. Y.Z. was supported by a CIHR postdoctoral award. S.L. was supported by a Rothschild, Zuckerman, and EMBO (ALTF 530-2022) fellowship.

Author information

These authors contributed equally: Yimu Zhao, Shira Landau.

Authors and Affiliations

Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Yimu Zhao, Shira Landau, Sargol Okhovatian, Chuan Liu, Rick Xing Ze Lu, Benjamin Fook Lun Lai, Qinghua Wu, Jennifer Kieda & Milica Radisic

Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Yimu Zhao, Shira Landau, Sargol Okhovatian, Chuan Liu, Qinghua Wu & Milica Radisic

Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Krisco Cheung & Milica Radisic

Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Shravanthi Rajasekar & Boyang Zhang

School of Biomedical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Kimia Jozani & Boyang Zhang

Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Milica Radisic

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

Conceptualization: M.R., Y.Z., S.L. and S.O. Writing – original draft: Y.Z., S.L., S.O., C.L., R.X.Z.L., B.F.L.L., Q.W., J.K., K.C., S.R., K.J., B.Z. and M.R. Writing – review and editing: M.R., Y.Z., S.L. and S.O. Visualization: Y.Z., S.L., S.O. and K.C. Supervision: M.R. and B.Z. Project administration: M.R. Funding acquisition: M.R. and B.Z.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Milica Radisic .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

M.R., Y.Z. and B.Z. are inventors on an issued US patent for Biowire technology that is licensed to Valo Health; they receive royalties for this invention. B.Z. and S.R. are co-founders and hold equity in OrganoBiotech. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information.

Nature Review Bioengineering thanks Kimberly Homan, who co-reviewed with Julien Roth; Ryuji Morizane; and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Related links

Bioconvergence hub: https://bico.com/what-we-do/

Comprehensive In Vitro Pro-arrhythmia Assay (CIPA): https://cipaproject.org/

Human Cell Atlas: https://www.humancellatlas.org/

IQ consortium: https://iqconsortium.org/

United Network for Organ Sharing: https://unos.org/

Valo Health, an AI company, acquiring the heart-on-a-chip company TARA Biosystems: https://www.valohealth.com/press/valo-health-acquires-tara-biosystems-creating-first-of-its-kind-vertically-integrated-cardiovascular-platform

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Zhao, Y., Landau, S., Okhovatian, S. et al. Integrating organoids and organ-on-a-chip devices. Nat Rev Bioeng 2 , 588–608 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-024-00207-z

Download citation

Accepted : 11 April 2024

Published : 02 July 2024

Issue Date : July 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-024-00207-z

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Translational Research newsletter — top stories in biotechnology, drug discovery and pharma.