Organize
Your Presentation
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Choose a topic.
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Know your audience (General or Specialized).
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Be aware of the allotted time for your presentation
and allow five minutes for questions. One slide per minute is a good starting
estimate, but practice with a clock.
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Research your topic.
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Outline the information to be put in the seminar
(double check for accuracy and gaps).
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Write the presentation.
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Edit -- Is the presentation clear and concise?
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Choose an easy to read and attractive format
for the presentation.
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Choose
a Topic
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All of your work should directly relate to
your topic thesis, hypothesis, objective or question.
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If you are presenting a research seminar then
the topic is naturally your research. Your title should directly state
the hypothesis you were testing or the key result of the research.
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If you are giving a seminar in a course then
you may be assigned a topic, or asked to pick a topic. It is important
to choose a topic with enough available background material to make the
seminar factual and interesting, but not so broad that you cannot discuss
the topic well in just a few minutes.
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Go to section on Choosing
a Topic
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| Research
Your Topic |
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If you are doing a research seminar you should
do a thorough survey of the current literature related to your research
and integrate this into the background section of your talk.
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If you are doing a course seminar, first collect
the data relevant to your hypothesis or thesis and then sit down and analyze
the data.
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Which studies support your hypothesis?
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Do other studies support alternative hypotheses?
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Is there controversy in the scientific community
over this topic, or general agreement?
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Collect relevant graphs, figures or tables
that can be used in your presentation.
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Go to section on Researching
a Topic
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| Research Seminars |
Research Seminars typically
include: Introduction, Objectives, Methods, Results, Summary, and Conclusions. |
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Background material that
provides the justification for the study. |
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A bulleted list of the objectives
of the study or the hypothesis being tested. |
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A brief description of the
techniques used in the research being presented |
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Graphical depiction of the
experimental results. Graphs and diagrams provide a clearer statement of
your research results than tables. If you cannot graph the data use
a bulleted list. |
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A bulleted list of the key
findings. |
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Draw legitimate conclusions
instead of speculating. |
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see Primary
Literature |
| Classroom
Seminars |
Classroom Seminars typically
include: Introduction, Body of the Seminar, Summary, and Conclusions. Different
courses may have specific items to include in your seminar. The order of
topics in these seminars are not as clearly defined as in traditional research
seminars. |
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A summary of key points in
current research and figures or images to support these points. It is important
to always keep the topic thesis, hypothesis or question in mind as a
common theme during the body of the seminar, otherwise you might wander
and lose your audience. |
| Key
Points
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All sections should directly relate to your
topic thesis, hypothesis or question.
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Transitions between different concepts should
be smooth. When outlining your seminar keep transitions in mind.
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Balance between figures, and text.
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Figures (images, graphs and tables) should
be used whenever possible.
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Text is only used to state the problem, frame
the problem in the appropriate context, summarize results, and state major
conclusions.
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A slide with more than a few lines of text
will bore your audience. Summarize the key concepts on your slides and
cover the details verbally.
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Quickly readable from a distance. Lower Case
is easier to read (Readability vs. READABILITY).
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