Sara Stoudt explains how to glean presentation tips from the small screen and win over even the most statistics-anxious audienc

Stoudt, Sara

English

Bucknell University

Bucknell University Bucknell Digital Commons Other Faculty Research and Publications Faculty Scholarship 8-2023 Can TV Make You a Better Stats Communicator? Sara Stoudt Bucknell University, sas072@bucknell.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/fac_pubs Recommended Citation Stoudt, Sara, "Can TV Make You a Better Stats Communicator?" (2023). Other Faculty Research and Publications. 190. https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/fac_pubs/190 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Bucknell Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Other Faculty Research and Publications by an authorized administrator of Bucknell Digital Commons. For more information, please contact dcadmin@bucknell.edu. When watching TV is not wasted time: gleaning presentation tips from the big screenSara Stoudt (sas072@bucknell.edu)I don’t know about you, but the dark, cold winter finds me cozying up under a blanketrewatching many of my old favorite shows. Watching everything unfold the second time aroundhas made me more aware of decisions made by the show writers to foreshadow and set upparticular plot lines. I have been paying particular attention to the pilot episode of each series.This first episode needs to grab the attention of the viewer and make them want to spend moretime watching the show. The episode has to orient the viewer quickly to the setting and premise,introducing the characters and their relationships with one another and the potential conflictsthat will arise.The writers do not have a lot of time to make this all happen: approximately 20 or 40 minutes,depending on the show format. This task reminds me of a statistics talk - whether it’s apresentation for a class or at a conference, or as part of an interview for a job. You have toconvince an audience who has just met you that they should invest in you. You need to makethem want to keep watching what you are up to. We have all been at a talk that was, well…, notso inspiring; how can we avoid those pitfalls?If we first break down a pilot episode into its essential elements, structure, and pacing, and findanalogies between these components and the statistical components we want to communicateto our own audience, we can create a roadmap for an engaging talk. Instead of reading to write,we are watching to present.The first thing we see in a pilot episode is the “cold open” where we are plunged directly into ascene and left to get oriented from the context clues presented. Consider the very beginning ofThe Big Bang Theory, a hit show in the late aughts and throughout the 2010s (we want somecharacters who can appreciate a statistic after all). We are dropped into a fast-paced discussionbetween two stereotypically dressed male “nerds”, Leonard and Sheldon, about photons. Asthey walk into an office, their smartypants-ness continues as they solve the rest of thereceptionist’s crossword puzzle. Within a few minutes Leonard and Sheldon are back at theirapartment where they discover a new neighbor, an attractive blonde woman. The analogousstart to a talk would be jumping right in with a concrete example that exemplifies the big pictureof the types of problems that you work on. Part of this talk opening involves making sure youraudience understands the setting of your data as well. For example, if you work in public health,you might start with a description of the health concern and the potential treatment that yourstudy is determining the effectiveness of while showing the distribution of a particular symptomor outcome. As you talk about the big picture, the audience will start to wonder what kind ofstatistical questions are relevant to this context question that motivates your work. This wouldbe a good time to start introducing your “characters”.As The Big Bang Theory opening scene continues, personality traits of the initial characters arerevealed, and more characters appear. We learn that Sheldon is very particular about where hesits in the apartment and that there is a friendly rivalry between him and Leonard about theirwork. We meet their friends Raj, who cannot talk to women, and Howard, who is plenty friendlywith women as he shows off the many languages he knows. We learn that Penny moved fromthe midwest and is an aspiring actress and playwright who is waitressing in the meantime. Shejust broke up with her long-term boyfriend because he cheated on her. The “characters” in yourtalk will be your statistical methods. They have strengths and weaknesses just like characters ina television show. Maybe a particular statistical model is known to be robust to skewness in thedata but not model mis-specification. Or perhaps there are two methods whose strengths andweaknesses complement one another that you are going to combine in some way; that soundslike a statistical method “couple” waiting to happen!This all may sound a bit corny, but the goal of a presentation is not necessarily to get in theweeds. Yes, you are often talking to a room of your peers, but they are not necessarilyspecialists in your sub-field. Talks are also often used to assess your ability to explaincomplicated topics to a more general audience (e.g. for teaching purposes). The more you canmake your work relatable and accessible to your audience, the more engaging your story willbe.Now that we know what the characters are like, we are ready to learn about the essentialtension or problem they will navigate throughout the series. In The Big Bang Theory we learnthat Sheldon is very particular, and Leonard’s attempt to bring a new person into their friendgroup disrupts Sheldon’s fully optimized and routine lifestyle. We also learn that the group isaware of a level of awkwardness that they present to the world, which is in tension with themtrying to befriend Penny, someone “out of their league”. Building on the strengths andweaknesses of your statistical characters, you will now want to explain to your audience whatmakes your problem hard. One approach works better but takes longer to compute: a raceagainst time conflict. We need an approach that is comparable to a proprietary method: aspy-ish conflict. We need an approach that can handle lackluster data because thedata-collection process is expensive: a rags to riches conflict. Again, lean into that corniness asyou plan the structure of your talk. You can be less literal in the actual delivery of the talk onceyou have a compelling story in your mind to guide you.In the middle of the pilot episode we bounce back and forth across subsets of the friend groupand see more character development as we watch the characters in action. Sheldon andLeonard try to retrieve a television from Penny’s ex-boyfriend (bullying ensues) while Raj andHoward keep Penny company back at the apartment (it does not seem like a match). Themiddle of your talk will include a similar mix of methodological development and presentation ofresults that reveals some highs and lows of your research process. You might show your firstapproach and show why it did not work to motivate your next pivot. You might highlight aparticular success story where your approach helped a stakeholder. A compelling talk will tellboth the story of your research and the story of you as a researcher.The last few minutes of the pilot episode leave the viewers with a sense of hope. Penny feelsbad about her ex-boyfriend’s treatment of Leonard and Sheldon and hugs them. This re-sparksLeonard’s crush on her after initially being deterred by his visit with her ex-boyfriend. The showends with the whole group in the car heading to dinner. Everyone’s personality traits are in fullforce, making Leonard seem the most normal of the bunch. Maybe there is hope for him yet.You want your audience to leave with a similar glimmer of hope. What is next for you? What doyou hope to work on in the future, ideally at their institution? You want your audience to leaveknowing that you have a plan for the rest of the series that is your research agenda.Now that we have seen the major elements and overall structure of a pilot television episodeand mapped out analogies to the content we want to cover in a talk, we need to have a strategyfor telling that story in a given time frame. Determining the pace of the talk requires breakingdown the content into “beats” or stand-alone sub-units of the story. For example, Figure 1outlines the timeline of the pilot episode of The Big Bang Theory and shows some keymoments. The show lasts 22 minutes and is roughly broken into four, five minute segments anda short ending scene. At a high level we see that the first ten minutes is crucially focused ongetting the viewer up to speed with the characters and premise, the second ten minutes showssome action that reinforces the character personalities and initial tension, and the ending isshort but packs an emotional punch. Within those main time segments are shorter segmentsthat have a more targeted role in the overall story. For example, Leonard’s attempt to relate toPenny’s feelings about her break up by making a comparison to the paradox of light being botha particle and a wave shows his burgeoning role as bridge between nerd world and Penny’sworld. A beat might translate to a single slide or short series of slides that work together to movethe story along. A commonly stated rule of thumb is that you have about one minute per slide.This implies that each slide is not packed full of content though; less is more. Consider whatfigures and text are essential and what might be unnecessary padding by lining up groups ofslides such that they are proportional to the corresponding timing and roles in the television pilotmap. Do you have too much setup and not enough character development? Do you run out oftime before your hopeful moment? Prune, prune, prune! For more guidance on breaking a storyinto beats, check out the screenwriting advice book “Save the Cat!” by Blake Snyder.Figure 1Feeling inspired? Figure 2 provides a prompt to help you go through this mapping processyourself with a favorite television show. Want to go beyond television series or job talks? Wecan make other analogies between the screen and academic oral presentations. A “tight set” ofcomedy can teach us a lot about giving a lightning talk: how to make strong transitions tomaximize the punchiness in a short time frame. Adapt Figure 2’s prompt for your favoritestand-up set. A movie trailer can teach us about giving a conference talk: how to leave thelistener wanting to “watch the movie” or in our case read your paper or talk to you further. Forexample, Phi Do provides resources for data journalists who want to learn from screenwriters,including decisions about what to reveal and what to leave out in a scene.Figure 2You do not have to be a world-renowned actor to give an engaging talk, but you can learn fromscriptwriters about what elements, structure, and pacing make for a good story. Break a leg!AcknowledgmentsThank you to Amelia McNamara for her encouragement in developing more resources forteaching the oral presentation part of “communicating with data” and to Phi Do for first lendingme “Save the Cat!” as a resource for storytelling.

Can TV Make You a Better Stats Communicator?

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Can TV Make You a Better Stats Communicator?

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