Oral Presentation

Lots, if not most, research gets presented orally at conferences, department colloquia, or thesis/dissertation defenses. Therefore, you’ll present your proposal to the class and receive feedback from me and the class on your work.

Requirements

You will have 25 minutes to present your proposal. During your presentation you should cover all the areas in your prospectus. I’m going to ask your colleagues to ask questions, during and after, to help you think on your feet and answer questions about your work.

As you prepare your talk, consider the following:

1. Are you going to use slides? If not, which is fine, how are you going to communicate your ideas?
2. This is a talk and you’re the presenter. If you use slides or handouts, how are you going to make sure the attention is on you and not on bullet points on slides or lengthy text in a handout?
3. Consider talks you enjoy or that you believe are effective. What makes them effective? How can you implement similar strategies in your own work?
4. I want you to engage the audience in some manner. This may be a little different than your typical defense or conference talk. Get them thinking and participating. Don’t just lecture at them.

You’ll be graded on how well you communicate the justification and design of your research. This includes describing how you tackled challenging design problems or threats to validity and how you handle questions. Be sure to also include your colleagues in the discussion.