If you missed parts 1 and 2 you should click here and here to catch up. For those of you who’ve been keeping up lets move forward in our quest of researching and presenting!
Last time we equated the notion of telling a story with structure. If you tell a story about the research you’re instantaneously creating something interesting because stories are interesting. We want to know “how things turn out” or “why things turned out the way they did” (especially if we already know the ending… like the film Titanic). The boats gonna sink… people are gonna die, but how did those events occur? What makes them important and interesting? These are questions you need to ask yourself when preparing a presentation. But how to tell the story?
This is where things get interesting. One of the primary principles for telling a story is to keep things focused. One of the keys of that focus is identifying not only “important” information, but important information for the story you are going to tell. While the film Titanic could have been about the technical specifications of the ship (which might have been boring) it was instead focused on the lives of two characters. These two characters are the primary focus of a story that just happens to take place on a soon-to-sink ship.
So selecting important information is also about focusing information. While the information about the technical specifications of the Titanic may be historical and factual, they may no be relevant for the story you are going to tell in your research. Make sure to focus on your story. While you need to do all of the research (to make sure there isn’t anything important in the boring technical info) you should also be sure to streamline your research towards one specific topic. This will lead to a successful presentation because your audience will be interested, engaged, and impressed.