Ask HN: What part of your work do you present?

Try to get a tiny part that can stand alone, without too much context. Some context is nice, but the isolated part must be interesting.

It it's a 30 minutes talk, aim for 20 minutes. Times always overflow.

As the other comments say, to give advice it would be nice to know where is the talk, age of the public, and more details...

> Some topics seem too small or obvious to be worth half an hour

You might be surprised. The most common mistake I see in presentations is that their topic isn't nearly narrow enough, so my advice is usually to present one small aspect of the larger subject. I bet you'll find that even something that seems trivial or obvious can easily fill a half hour with worthwhile discussion.

Who are you presenting to? This question is all about the audience and what they need to know, so without that context, this question cannot be answered.