Guidelines for Oral Presentations

Professor Bob Hicks UCLA Chemical Engineering

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Outline
Talk organization Format Bullet lists Tables, figures, graphics and equations Tips for presenters Conclusions
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Talk Organization
Title (first author and group members, class and date) Outline (optional) Experimental methods Results Conclusions
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Talk Format
15 minutes with 15 slides maximum. Arial or times new roman fonts. Font size: 40-44 headers, 28-32 body, 20 is absolute minimum. One graphic per page. Use color with strong contrast to background.
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Bulleted Lists
Bulleted entries are 2 lines maximum. Capitalize first word only. No more than 8 bullets per slide. Use consistent sentence structure. Short entries can accompany figures to emphasize results obtained.

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Table Format
Tables are simple and easy to read. Minimum font size is 20 pt. Double (or single-thick) horizontal lines top and bottom. Single horizontal line below column headings. Units in column headers. Use significant figures only.
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Example Table
Properties of Atmospheric Pressure Plasmas
Type of Discharge Torch Corona Dielectric barrier discharge RF capacitive discharge Plasma Density (cm-3) 1016 109 109 1012 O Atom Density (cm-3) 1017- 1018 1012 1013 1016- 1017

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Figure Format
Provide short, descriptive heading at the top. Border is a single thick line on all four sides with inside tick marks. Axis labels and inset text are same size and easy to read, with minimum 20 pt font. Data points are easily seen symbols (e.g., , & ). Smooth trend lines through data with semi-thick line. No grid lines. Add one or two bullets to emphasize result.
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Example Figure
100 Water Contact Angle ()
(b)

80 60 40 20 0

Polysulfone Polyphenylsulfone

Contact angles drop below 30o in < 0.2 s. Trends follow exponential decay.
2.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

Exposure Time (s)

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Drawing Format
Make simple, illustrative drawings of the apparatus. Lines should be thick enough to be easily seen. Label each part using minimum 18 pt font.

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Example Drawing
LEED
IR

OM Doser Sample Storage

MS

Main Chamber

Central Transfer Chamber (R2P2)

Doser

RDS

UHV STM Interface Chamber

Vacuum analysis system: IR: infrared spectroscopy LEED: low energy electron diffraction XPS: x-ray photoemission spectroscopy STM: scanning electron microscopy

Load Lock

Vertical-flow MOVPE Reactor

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S XP

Equation Format
Only introduce equations when they are essential to understand results. Simplify where possible to minimize terms. Use 28 pt font or larger. Define every term in the equation. Introduce units if they are important.
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Example Equations
Adsorption Kinetics for t-Butylphosphine
Adsorption:

1 Rad v CTBP S 0 (1 p ) 4

Desorption:

RdP N s k dP P
Ns d p dt Rad RdP
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Material Balance:
Ri [=] moles/cm2s

Tips for Presenters

Make your point 3 times: in title/intro., main body, and conclusions. Practice your presentation to yourself and in front of your group at least once. Take no more than 1 minute per slide. Do not embellish, stick with the message on the slide.
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More Tips
Dress neatly and professionally, so that you exude confidence and success. Face the audience not the slides. Speak loudly so everyone can hear you. Try to make eye contact with the audience. Do not block anyones view of the slides. Use the laser pointer sparingly, and dont shake it around. Avoid repeated ums or any other random, filler sounds.
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Day of Presentation
One hour before presentations begin, bring PowerPoint file to Prof. Hicks. Bring two printed copies of presentation for Drs. Hicks and Williams. Please everyone be on time.

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Conclusions
Carefully follow these guidelines in your presentations. Practice, practice, and practice again. Your career will be greatly advanced by having outstanding presentation skills!

Plasmas are cool!