Presentation Instructions

Your in-class presentation will be based on the papers you chose. Additional papers may be used for clarification if need to.
You will be expected to deliver a polished and concise overview of the topic in the allotted 20-minute time frame. You will have
5 minutes for questions and answers following the presentation. You will be expected to fill the complete 25-minute time period,
but no more.

Guidelines and suggestions

Your presentation should generally follow the outline of your paper and should include a brief introduction that provides the
audience with a frame of reference, a main body of the presentation and a strong conclusion. Your goal is to engage the
audience effectively and to get your message across. To do that, they need to be able to focus on the science and not be
distracted from your message by graphics that are needlessly complex or difficult to decipher.

The graphics you project on the screen should be chosen carefully, to support the spoken word. Your slides should help to
clarify your ideas, emphasize important points, show relationships, and to provide the visual information your audience needs to
understand your message.

Planning your presentation

Make sure that you spend an adequate amount of time in planning your presentation. The best way to begin is to create a
template to ensure consistency among your slides. You should also consider your audience, their technical/educational level,
the amount of time allotted to your presentation, and the complexity of the subject matter. Sketching out the flow of the
presentation in story board fashion is generally helpful in deciding what to include or exclude.

Once you have completed your slides, practice your presentation repeatedly. If possible, test your slides on screen to make
sure that your presentation works and your color scheme is not problematic. Make sure that each slide is essential to your
message and non-redundant. Carefully review the content of each slide so that you know which points you want to emphasize
and why. A general rule of thumb is that you should never have more than one slide/minute, including the title, transitional
slides, and the acknowledgments.

The rubric is provided in the following page: