This isn't about communicating science per se, but the advice is certainly relevant. Carmine Gallo has put together a short essay describing how to give a really, really, really bad presentation.1 As he says,
Giving truly great presentations requires skill, work, and practice. Giving catastrophic presentations is far easier. So if you want to take the easy way out and look like a rank amateur, here are 15 surefire tips to guarantee that you leave a really, really bad impression.
1Just in case you're wondering: No, I'm not a regular reader of Business Week blogs. I would link to the blog that pointed me to this post, but I forgot to save that link, so I can't. Sorry.
I would add - use no graphics, just text and lots of tables. Make that font small when projected - even Times Roman, 12 point, for example, is almost impossible to read in table format, at the back of a big room. Make it black font on white background and your audience will be blinded by the light so much so as not to see those tables.
Save a picture of your study organism for the very last so that your audience has no idea what you're talking about until the very end.
The scary thing is that I've actually seen presentations (yes, even some job seminars) that follow at least some of those 15 points!