If you are on the way to do a very serious presentation, seriously, you will need lots of valid data.

An example of valid data. Taken from Wikimedia

Why You Need Valid Data?

People - especially smart ones like those professors don’t want to hear your bullshit about something. They don’t want to hear “I think there are too much competition in this field” coming out from your mouth without any valid numbers of competitors. Shortly, your opinion must comes with fact(s).

So how to look for valid data to impress these kind of people?

1. Look for Numbers First - They are Quantifiable

The most valid kind of data is number. It can be percentage, ratio, or just number.

Why? Because everyone’s perspective of number is same - 1 is 1, 2 is 2, and so on.

So try to look for numbers first, then you can comment on them. Just make sure that you note where you get these numbers.

2. Quote with Caution

I know some of you quoted some words from around the web. I just want to say: quote with caution.

For example, if you want to quote some words from Wikipedia like “FIFA 15 will be released at 15th of October, 2014”, it is better to look from FIFA’s official publisher website first, to make the quote far more valid.

Another dangerous example is: if you quote some words from a low-authority resources like “this year’s competition was already too extreme, I think next year would be extremely extreme” without any numbers of this year’s competition, you are literally quoting a bullshit.

My advice is to quote from high authority resources, support the quote with valid numbers from another resources, and do not forget to note where do you got them.

3. Don’t Just Plainly Take Graphics

You can’t just look for an image, download it, and note the resource - taking graphics is more than that.

When quote is taken plainly with quotes sign (“ “), image has different way to be taken.

I remember when a magazine mistakenly took some images and put them on their article. Their article is actually talking about a tennis athlete. This athlete has a very similar face to Maria Sharapova (another tennis athlete). So these images were totally unrelated to what the article is talking about.

So please, check whatever graphics you took.

Yep, that’s it. I don’t think I have another tips about the validity of a data.

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