How to Create a Power Point Presentation from a Finished Paper

Academic presentations are often based on research in progress or unfinished work. However, sometimes we may find ourselves creating presentations based on full drafts of papers.

What happens when you have completed your 8 or 10,000 word article and now you have to create a 15-minute presentation on the basis of your paper? Luckily, there is a fairly straightforward system you can use to create a presentation from a full paper.



I once heard someone say that a presentation should be viewed as an advertisement for a paper, rather than an attempt to present all of the information in the paper. Keeping this in mind will help you to focus on what’s important and avoid the temptation to attempt to convey all of the rich information in your paper in a brief presentation. Unfortunately, trying to cover too much often means you fail to highlight what’s important.

In my field – Sociology – there is a straightforward formula for giving presentations. I am sure that there is one in your field as well, and it may be very similar to the formula in Sociology. In Sociology, presenters often use Power Point, and presentations often look like this:

• Introduction (1 slide)
• Research Questions/Hypotheses (1 slide)
• Literature Review/Theory (1 slide)
• Methods & Data Collection (1 slide)
• Data Presentation/Findings (3-5 slides)
• Conclusion (1 slide)

Admittedly, many people use many more slides than this, but I advocate for sticking to the rule of no more than one slide per minute. I also think it is important to focus most of your attention on your findings, and as little as possible on other people’s theories and findings. And, you will bore people tremendously if you spend too much time on your methods and data collection. There are many exceptions of course – if your paper is all theory or primarily methodological, then it will look quite different.

To create a presentation from a full-length paper or article, you can pull out the most important parts of the article, based on the above list – or based on the subheadings in your own article.

For the introduction, you can use the same compelling introduction you use in your paper. If you are using Power Point, try and find a provocative image that conveys the point of your paper.

Your next slide should contain your research questions – which your introduction should point to.

Then, spend no more than a minute contextualizing your research questions and project within the literature. Don’t make the mistake of spending too much time reviewing what others have written about your topic. Spend just enough time on the existing literature to make it clear that your work contributes to existing research in the field. People don’t come to conferences to hear literature reviews – they come to hear about new research like yours. The purpose of the literature review is to establish the importance of your work, not to show you have read every relevant article.

Once you have established the importance of your project, explain just enough of your methods and data collection to establish your ability to speak on the topic. Think about the questions people might have – what data set did you use? How many interviews did you carry out? How many months of participant observation did you complete? How many newspaper articles did you code? What is the timeframe for the data? Give just enough information to validate your findings.

Try to get through all of the above in the first five minutes so that you can spend as much of your time as possible sharing the rich detail of your own data and analyses. If you have ethnographic data, you can tell one story from the field for each point you want to make. For statistical data, you can present a table with findings for each finding you wish to highlight. For interview data, you can use one interview quote for each theme you plan to highlight.

Once you have chosen the parts of your findings you wish to highlight, you can leave a minute or two for your conclusion.

As you make each slide, remember to put as few words as possible on each slide, and place an image on each slide to convey your points visually.

Get Your Goals and Projects out of Your Head and onto Paper

Like many academics, I often have several ongoing projects and it can be overwhelming to figure out when I will have the time to make progress on each of my projects, tasks, and goals.

Sometimes, just thinking about all I have to do is overwhelming, and it seems I may never finish my books and articles. I find writing everything I have to do down onto paper to be very helpful when I begin to feel overwhelmed.

At important milestones during the year – the beginning or end of the summer, fall, spring, or annual year – I like to sit down and map out where I am on all of my projects and when I expect to finish them. This is a great exercise to complete because it is a reminder that each of my projects is, in fact, terminable.

Today is August 5, which means that the beginning of the Fall semester looms ahead. For me, it is helpful to separate out what must be done before the semester begins and which projects can wait until I am back from my extended research trip in Peru. Unlike when I was doing my dissertation research, I now have to keep up with my other ongoing research projects and professional responsibilities even when I am collecting new data in remote locations.

Just thinking about all I have to do can be overwhelming. That’s why putting my goals and projects down on paper can be comforting. Even though it can also be scary to see all that I have to do, writing the tasks, goals, and projects down is the first step towards making a workable plan to complete them.

So, what do I actually need to do before the semester starts?

My discipline is Sociology. We sociologists have our annual meeting each year just before the beginning of the semester. This means that each year, in addition to planning classes and meeting other deadlines, I have to prepare for the annual meeting. This year, I have agreed to present three papers and serve as a discussant on one panel. Here are my four meeting-related tasks that must be completed before I leave Peru on August 15:

• Prepare race and humor presentation
• Prepare due process denied presentation
• Prepare human rights and international migration presentation
• Read and prepare comments on four paper for my role as discussant

Like most other academics on a semester system, I also have to prepare for my classes, which begin on August 24. This Fall, I am teaching just one class, and it is a class I have taught before. However, I have changed the syllabus considerably, and am teaching at a new university. I need to finalize the syllabus before the semester begins. Thus, we can add to the list:

• Finalize syllabus for race class

As the semester starts fairly late in August, and I am dedicated to writing every day, in addition to these responsibilities, I also hope to finish up two other writing projects in August. These two projects are:

• Complete tasks for R&R for LS project.
• Complete Chapter 5 of DEP book.

Now, I have a complete list of what I will focus on until August 31. There are quite a few things on this list, but having this list permits me to stay focused, and ensures I will not work on any other projects during the month of August.

I do have several other things that I could work on, but I have moved all of these other projects off of my current priority list and onto my “Fall Semester Goals” list.

My Fall Semester Goals include:

• OUP Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15
• DEP Chapters Intro, 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, Conclusion
• ERS R&R
• Intro to SI for ERS
• Papers with YI and SD
• SWB Paper

Now that I have a list of all of the projects I hope to complete during the Fall Semester, I can work on a semester plan. It is clear that when I do that, I will again have to prioritize and decide what can actually be completed in the Fall and what will have to be moved to the Spring. But, having everything I have to do in front of me permits me to make a realistic assessment of what can and cannot get done. Thus, when my editor emails me to ask when I will be finished with Chapter Six or my co-author wants to know if I can finish the R&R by October 15, I can give them a reasonably accurate answer.

What about you? What do you need to finish today? this week? this month? this semester? this year? Does writing it all down help you?

How to Thrive in the Academy … With or without saving the world first

This blog is about thriving, not just surviving in academia. There is an inherent contradiction to that, though. I believe that it is important to be happy, yet I am also well aware that the world (including the academy) is unjust. How can one be happy amidst widespread injustice?



As you may or may not have been able to tell from my posts, I am deeply committed to social justice. I think that the world needs fundamental changes and favor such things as open borders, universal health care, the elimination of private property, and other drastic measures that I am unlikely to see happen in my lifetime. Although I know the world needs to be changed, I still try to be happy in the world I live in. The reason: my being sad and depressed will not do a single thing to change the things I believe should be changed.

Being mad (as opposed to sad) can sometimes lead to change, but that happens only when there are specific actions anger can inspire you to take, and when change is possible. For example, I just got a call from my husband letting me know he got a speeding ticket. I am doing my best not to be angry because being mad about the ticket is not going to change anything. We already will have to pay the fine. Why also waste precious emotional energy on things I can’t change? You see, I just need to let it go. (This isn't always easy, but it's better than being mad all day!)

I don’t like feeling sad or mad, especially when those feelings are associated with a sense of helplessness. I can’t change the fact that my husband got a ticket. I can’t make universal healthcare happen right now. What, then, can I do? What is within my control? Being happy, it turns out, is usually within reach. And, I like being happy.

I separate out my day-to-day happiness from my long-term vision for how the world should be. Kerry Ann Rockquemore, for example, once told me that one criticism she gets from her book “How to Win Tenure without Losing Your Soul” is that the book doesn’t advocate for structural changes in the academy, or even for fighting racism and sexism in the academy. Well, that is not what the book is about. It is about how to do well in the academy, despite racism and sexism. We have to survive the academy in order to change it.

Similarly, this blog is about how to be happy on a daily basis, despite all of the structural problems with the academy and widespread injustice in the world. It also seems to me that, once we have our own lives together, we can do a better job of saving the world.

No matter what situation you find yourself in, you deserve to be as happy as you can be. This is another reason I have this blog – academics often seem to think that suffering and being insanely busy are job requirements. I am here to say that, from my perspective, this is not true. I am here to provide a model for academics who want to have a life, who want to be happy, and who don’t want to feel guilty for that.

Instead, we should own our happiness. In a recent blog conversation with Jonathan and Thomas, I came to the conclusion that happy academics are actually better writers. We need time to think, to muse, to ponder, and to spend with our creative spirit to do the best we can.

So, next time you heart leads you to spend the afternoon at the Art Museum, or to go for a long run in the park, or to laugh with your kids, or go to the opera – do it! We all deserve to be happy and to live life to its fullest. Although these actions won’t fix human suffering, they may do a bit to alleviate it – one person at a time.

How to choose a dissertation topic

Note: This week, I am sharing with you a great post by Vilna Bashi Treitler, which has been posted over at the SREM Mentoring blog.

Are you struggling with choosing a dissertation topic?

Choosing a topic can be one of the most important choices you will make in your professional career because it determines the first major piece of research for which you’ll be known, provides a focus for the group of professors you wish to solicit for your dissertation committee, and it is the first thing (along with the text of your letters of recommendation) that future colleagues will scrutinize when considering you for a job in their department.

The bad news is that all this can make choosing a dissertation topic pretty overwhelming. The good news is that I try to make the process somewhat easier by explaining to you how you might get started and avoid certain pitfalls. I have four pieces of advice to offer that I hope you follow, plus a tidbit that is not mandatory.

First, “push the envelope.”

You’ve probably heard a gazillion times that new research should “push the envelope,” but I’d bet that the likelihood that you had a clear explanation of what that means has not been given to you. Well, I’m going to explain it, right here, right now.

It is a phrase with a mathematical reference. An envelope is a term for the curve that encloses all other curves in a family of curves. When the term was used in aeronautics, it referred to the outer curve describing the limit of an aircraft’s performance. Test pilots were encouraged to push the envelope in order to test the aircraft, and the phrase made it to the common lexicon in Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book about test pilots, The Right Stuff. (Thanks, for the info, Michael Quinion, at http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pus1.htm!)

Envision the whole of sociological knowledge as contained in one big dataset, complete with keywords and subject headings. Surely, you would contribute something to the dataset that would ostensibly fit under a subject heading, and possibly a set of existing keywords, but to push the envelope your topic should meet meet three criteria.

• It doesn’t repeat something that’s already in that dataset.
• It is something that sociologists interested in the topic will want to read when searching on information on the topic. That is, your research is not just different from the other work on the issue, but also has an interesting take.
• It is research that actually teaches researchers in your area of interest new information and will be useful to them when they are framing their own research projects. That is, not only is your research interesting, it shouldn’t be ignored if other sociologists want to do research in the same areas.

Honestly, you need only come up with a question that, when answered, would shed new light on what others have done before – but the idea is for that new light to truly have us look at things in a whole new way.

Read the remainder of the advice here: http://srem-mentoring.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-to-choose-dissertation-topic-four.html

Can you buy a house in a 3-day house-hunting trip?

In August, I will be moving to a new academic position – I will be an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Merced. This news is very exciting. It also means I have to move myself and my family from Lawrence, KS to Merced, CA.

Our home in Lawrence, KS - now for sale or rent.

We own a home in Lawrence, and would like to own one in Merced. Thus, UC Merced offered to pay for me to make a trip to Merced to look for houses. They specified that they would pay for two or three nights in Merced – which they presumed would be enough time to find a place to live. I was not sure if I agreed, but figured I would give it a shot.

I did know two things: 1) Life would be much easier if I did in fact find a house; and 2) Finding a house would require some research beforehand.

Before my house-hunting trip, I talked with several colleagues about desirable neighborhoods and schools. I mostly consulted with one colleague who has done research on schools in Merced and who has two young children. I decided to trust her judgment and look in the neighborhoods she suggested.

Another colleague recommended a real estate agent. I contacted him, told him I was planning a house-hunting visit. He asked me to let him know the parameters of my search and I told him my preferences in terms of

• School district
• Number of bedrooms
• Price range

I also told him that I preferred a house that had hardwood floors, a pool, a big yard, and in a neighborhood with large trees.

The real estate agent sent me an online list of about 80 houses that met those specifications. I looked at the list and selected those that I wanted to see. It was a bit daunting, as there were so many houses, and they ranged in value from $115,000 to $300,000. As I was looking at the houses, it became clear that there were a couple of neighborhoods where I probably did not want to live – as the houses were all brand new and cookie cutter and there were no large trees. Still, it was hard to know without seeing the houses and neighborhoods.

I arrived in Merced on Sunday evening, and had dinner with fantastic new colleagues. I should note that I was already exhausted after attending a four-day conference in San Francisco. So, I tried to get back to the hotel early and sleep.

The real estate agent met me at 9am and we began to view houses. I had chosen 26, and he brought printouts with color photos and we set out to look at each of them. The first house on his list was one that I thought I was going to love. It was one of the more expensive ones, and I really liked it from the pictures. However, when we got there, I realized that the layout was not actually ideal, and that maybe it wasn’t the perfect house.

As I saw more and more houses, it became clearer to me what I liked and what I did not like.

I do not like:

• Wallpaper
• Linoleum
• Houses that are too wide open – meaning there is no quiet space.
• Houses that are too closed – where you can’t see everyone else
• Small yards
• Neighborhoods with no trees – too much sun!
• Houses with little or no natural light.

I do like:

• Houses with a pool.
• Hardwood floors – except in Merced there really weren’t any houses with real hardwood floors.
• Houses that have a study – or a separate family room.
• Houses with open kitchens.
• Large yards.
• Large windows.
• Big bathtubs.
• A house where you don’t have to get in a car each time you leave the house.
• Fireplaces.

Towards the end of the day, we went to a house that had a separate family room, an open kitchen that looked out onto a large family room with a fireplace, four bedrooms, a pool, and a hot tub. It was not as nice as some of the other houses we had seen, but the issues it had were not that difficult to fix – the kitchen floor has linoleum and the front entrance has a fairly unattractive tile. My husband knows how to fix both of those issues. I decided that I probably liked that house.

Later that afternoon, my wonderful new colleagues invited me over for a cook-out. I took the piece of paper with the house description on it and asked for their feedback. They all agreed that it was in a great location. I found out that the house is next door to a great elementary school where my younger daughter could go, and just one mile from the middle school where my twin daughters could go. It is also just a few blocks from a great park and an awesome bike path. You also could walk to a coffee shop and a grocery store from the house.

The house in Merced, California!

I called up my real estate agent and told him I wanted to see the house one more time. He picked me up and we went back over there. I looked it over, took some pictures to show my husband, called my husband, and we decided to put an offer on the house.

I met with a lender, and got pre-approved for a loan. I also reviewed some options with her and decided on a low-interest 15-year loan. I couldn’t believe how low the rate was – 2.75 percent! The UC system also offers loans for faculty, but it appears those are variable interest rates, so I went with this loan – an FHA loan. By putting down 10 percent, the mortgage insurance is fairly low - $40 a month, and it seemed like a great deal.

I left town the next day and heard from the real estate agent that the sellers had a counter offer. I reviewed it and it was reasonable, so I accepted it. The next step was to order the inspection and appraisal. I did that. The house passed inspection with relatively few issues and the house appraised just above the asking price. Things were looking good.

Now, we are in the final stages, and it looks quite likely that this will go through. At this point, we are just waiting for the sellers to agree to make some repairs and for the loan to finalized. If this actually works, we will be very happy to be the proud owners of a new home in Merced, California!

Feeling Overwhelmed? Take a break!

Are you feeling overwhelmed this summer with deadlines looming, your email inbox bursting, and obligations piling up? If so, I suggest you take a counterintuitive action: take a break!

You need to pull yourself out of a cycle of overwork and regain a sense of control over your life and work. The best way to do this is to take a break.



It is simply not true that you have to work all day, every day to be a successful academic at a research intensive university. In fact, trying to work beyond your personal limits, not taking days off, and not getting enough sleep are counterproductive. You cannot do excellent research when you are sleep-deprived, cranky and overworked.

Unfortunately, this is a cycle many academics fall into. They get behind, struggle to catch up, and fall deeper and deeper into a hole of exhaustion. This strategy does not work. If you are over-extended, drowning in deadlines and haven’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks, my first suggestion to you is to stop working. Take the weekend off. Do something entirely unrelated to work on Saturday. On Sunday, relax, have breakfast with friends or family. Take a long walk. Go to the museum. Revitalize your creative connections. On Sunday afternoon, sit down and make a plan for the rest of the week.

Make a reasonable plan, one that has you going to sleep at 11pm and waking up at 7am. A plan that leaves time for meals, for exercise, for friends, for family. A plan that leaves time for life.

Trying to work all day, every day will not work. Not sleeping enough so that you can grade more papers, finish that book chapter, or file one more receipt is counter-productive. Instead, get a good night’s rest, and approach the tasks with new vigor in the morning.

Coming to terms with one’s own limitations can be hard. But, it can also be enlightening and liberating. Once you realize that you really cannot work all day, every day, there will be no more guilt about not doing so. If you know that opening up that laptop at 11pm does not mean that you will sneak in one more task, but instead will lead to a bad night’s sleep and a harried tomorrow, it makes much more sense to turn the laptop off, turn on some soothing music and go to sleep. Tomorrow morning, you will finish in five minutes that task that would have taken your exhausted mind 30 minutes to complete at the end of a long day.

If taking a break sounds like the most counterintuitive thing possible, that is probably all the more reason you should take one.

How to have a productive summer by working four hours a day

It’s summertime and the living is pretty…. Or, at least it should be!

How can you have a remarkably productive summer and return to the school year feeling refreshed and like you had a break? To do this, you need to plan to be productive and to  plan to leave time to enjoy life. The thing is, if you plan to work all  the time, you are likely to feel guilty every moment you aren’t  working. And, who wants to feel guilty all of the time?

Plan to be productive

To plan to be productive, first you have to decide what you will accomplish over the summer. Make a list of all of the things you would like to do this summer. Include everything – from revising book chapters to analyzing data to submitting articles to finalizing your syllabi.

Once you have your list, decide when you are going to complete these things. Start with the most important items first. How long do you think it will take you to turn that dissertation chapter into an article? How long will it take for you to come up with a draft for your next book project or grant proposal? Now, map those tasks onto the remaining summer weeks. What will you do between May 29 and June 2? Between June 5 and June 9?

Prioritize your Tasks

Once you map your tasks onto your calendar, you likely will realize that you have more tasks than time. But, believe me, it is better to realize this now than at the end of the summer. At this point, you still have time to prioritize. What is most important? What items have deadlines? What can wait until the Fall or until next summer? What can’t wait? What can you delete, defer, or delegate?

Make a Schedule – and stick to it

The next step is to come up with a work schedule. When will you work and when will you play? Many people work best in the mornings; others are best late at night. How many hours will you work each day? How much time will you spend writing each day? When and where will you do your writing?

If you wish to return to the semester relaxed and refreshed, I recommend trying to work every day for just four hours. That’s right – just four hours! You see, academic work is mentally exhausting and if you try to work all day, every day, you most likely will get burned out. Instead, if you try to work for just four hours every day, you will have the rest of the day to re-energize and are less likely to burn out.

Limit your working hours

Believe me - you can have a very productive summer if you work for four focused hours each morning. The thing is – you do have to focus during that time. And, it works best if your time really is limited. Last summer, for example, I worked early in the mornings before the kids got too restless. This meant that I had from 7am to 11am each day to work. My husband and I have agreed that, during that time, I will be allowed to concentrate and focus on my work, and that the kids could not bother me. I had all the rest of the day to complete household tasks, surf the Internet, hang out with the kids, got to the beach, and to relax.

Make time for yourself each day

As academics, we all need time to process our ideas, thoughts, plans, emotions, and experiences. It is crucial that you carve at least an hour out of each day for yourself when you can process all of your thoughts. This time allows you to make plans, to come up to solutions to theoretical puzzles, and to relax your mind.

If you have children, finding alone time can be tricky. But, there usually is a way. When my children were small, I took them to the gym each day – where they had a daycare where I could leave the children while I exercised. Now that they are older, I take them to the park where I can walk around the track while they play. Other ideas would be to put a DVD on for the children while you meditate or run on your treadmill. In my mind, me-time each day involves exercise, but others may prefer to garden, sew, crochet, knit, paint, or work on model airplanes. So long as it is an activity that allows you to think and reflect, it should work.

If you doubt my suggestion that you can be productive working just four hours a day, I encourage you to try it and see what happens.  And, let me know how it goes….