Week 9: Emphasizing key ideas All scientific presentations have a ‘key idea’: a crucial element or a main character on which the storyline is built. Because your story also includes many other players and elements, a frequent problem is that the audience has trouble determining what elements are crucial and what elements are merely serving a supporting function. In this unit you will learn several strategies to emphasize the key idea that you would like the audience to focus their attention on. By carefully selecting information and strategically arranging it, you can even guide the audience to “expect” where you are taking them to, and elevate the level of attention and appreciation to your presentation.