PhD interview - short (!) presentation I got invited for a PhD interview to the University of Edinburgh. I was asked in the email to prepare a 10 mins presentation on a recent research I was involved in. I did a sandwich placement year and it just so happened that this week I just gave a presentation about my placement project. I was given 30mins, which was still barely enough to cover everything. Now with 10mins, I might struggle to convey everything. What's more, what should I focus on in such presentation? I believe it's not to manage to show everything possible within the given (I don't want to try to squeeze too much data and speak ridiculously fast), but is it perhaps to show that I can present in scientific way? That's what my university tutor has told me. What exactly does it mean? Should I show that I fully understand what I present (which I believe I do), explain well my graphs etc? Any tips? What are they looking for in this short presentation? 

I struggle a lot with presenting/public speaking, which is why I might worry too much over it but then again, I need to prepare twice as much as a person who is good at presenting.

Many, many thanks for help! 

Edit: I realise that I'm still a bit stuck in the format of presentations I have given at the university and I wanted to ask what I should change to make this 10mins presentation as good as possible.

The format that I usually follow is:

introduction to the topic --> should I make it as short and simple as possible?

aims/objectives

methods/materials --> I wonder if I should skip it or make it very short?

results --> I believe I need to select most relevant ones

discussion --> this part usually takes some time in presentations, maybe I could combine it with conclusion to prevent repetitions maybe?

conclusion

further experiments

acknowledgement

references
Definitely don't try to cover everything. This is certainly not expected, and as you noted, is just not possible in a limited amount of time. What they likely would want to see is if you can explain the main points of your research in a succint way. Trying to cover too much will force you to rush trhough the material, making it difficult to follow. You can still show that you master a subject without getting into all the technical details. Indeed, it takes a good understanding of a research problem/project to be able to place it into perspective, to explain the main motivations and the most important results.

So what should be in the presentation? Different people will give different advice, but I think the following guidelines are sensible. First of all, you should identify the one or two main results of your research. Make sure that you have enough time to cover them, for example by addressing the main points in the beginning of your talk. You can go into the details (such as the methods you used) later on. Another important item is the motivation behind the research. Why did you research this particular problem, and why should people care about it? This might also be a good point to briefly mention the state of the art of the field, and explain how your work extends this. Towards the end of your talk you could go more into the technical details, but take into account that most of your audience may not be an expert on your topic.

And finally, make sure you practice your talk a few times. Ask a few more experienced people whom you trust (and can give good feedback) to attend a practice talk to give suggestions on how your presentation can be improved. Don't worry if it seems like you would have to redo the entire thing: this will only make it better.