Should I include funny pictures in my slides?

Question

I am preparing slides for a short (10min) talk at the group meeting. The talk is about a fairly serious piece of (pure) mathematics, and it so happens that there is a very relevant one-panel webcomic. A thought appeared to me, and got some support from my fellow PhD students, that it would be cool to include this comic, perhaps at the final thank-you-for-your-attention slide.I am probably not going to do it, so I'm asking mostly out of curiousity: Would this be a bad idea to go ahead and include a comic on the final slide? Note: The comic is genuinely funny (based on a sample of 6 non-randomly selected students). It is not - as far as I can tell - offensive in any way. It could come across as somewhat silly.

Answer 1

Humor is a great way to elevate the mood of an audience, but you're right in thinking there's a time and a place for it. For the needs you described, there's two important considerations:

1) What is the culture of your group?

I once rotated in a lab with a very senior PI who would deem anything but data a waste of time. On the other hand, I knew a computer scientist in college who would walk by the open door of my stats class and trade math puns with my professor. So, if you think your group wouldn't mind humor, and other students think it's funny, there's probably little harm in having it.

2) What is the context of the presentation?

Is this a standard, share-your-results group meeting? Is this for a colloquium? More serious venues often demand a more serious tone from you, as a speaker. However, if this is a routine event, it probably won't cause any harm.

So trust your instincts, but don't be afraid to experiment. One misplaced joke won't destroy your PhD. I come from interdisciplinary biology (where we would listen to physics, chemistry, and sometimes math presentations), and jokes on the final slides were not uncommon.

Good luck!

(As an aside, a comic that is relevant to your research could be an interesting way to lead into your talk. You present the first slide -- the comic -- and then you can motivate the rest of your presentation by stating what in your research is distinct from the comic. If it was funny, you can now make use of the lighter, receptive mood to energize your audience when you want them to be listening (the ideal case).

But if you're talk is finished now, don't go and change it!)