By Communication Consultant Xinyi Cui (Accounting and BIS, ’22)

Professor Muzhe Yang: Professor Yang is an Economics professor for Statistical Methods (ECO045) and Econometrics (ECO357) at Lehigh University’s College of Business. He is currently conducting several ongoing research projects aiming to provide empirical evidence on causal relations that have significant policy implications.

At its core, communication is an information exchange, but more importantly it goes two ways. For the audience, it is about listening and understanding, but for presenters and writers, communication is more complex. Instead of showing off their intelligence, they aim to make their ideas known to listeners. Sharing ideas is the most important goal of academic communication.

I spoke with Professor Muzhe Yang about the importance of communication in academia. In addition to communicating about his research through writing, Professor Yang gives oral presentations to share his ideas at conferences, similar to what we do in our classes as students at university. He shared some valuable advice for giving presentations.

According to Professor Yang, “The beginning part, or more specifically the first five minutes, is critically important.” Paying more attention to the first slide and the introduction brings the audience on board before the speaker loses their attention. Yang suggests using the first slide to talk about the motivation of the presentation. The audience will tend to resonate with your message if they understand it from the start by making a clear statement and narrowing your topic for a clear focus.

After the first five minutes, one way to keep the audience’s attention is to have a Q&A session in the middle. The questions should touch on important topics, and the answers should be relevant. If possible, surprise the audience with answers that broaden their understanding.

Professor Yang provided a final crucial tip for presenters: finishing slides is not the last stage; instead, it is a beginning. Take time to refine the storyline of the presentation. Your job as a presenter is to be a storyteller, so you need to organize your speech notes and break down “complex communication into multiple and logical steps” that build a narrative.

Get information and resources about our center at The Philip Rauch Center for Business Communication.