ME 195: Senior Project Progress Presentations Raghu Agarwal October 5, 2011 Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department San Jose State University

Topics of Discussion 1. Preparing the Presentation 2. Making Slides 3. Audience Interaction 4. Contents 5. Handling Questions

1. Preparing the Presentation Go through a dry run Just the planning and thinking don’t work Many new thoughts and ideas interfere with the substance Hard to keep track of the time It’s hard to distill everything in 15 minutes. Did you practice the talk with your group before the presentation?

2. Preparing Slides Make the slide uncluttered and easy to read. No flashy colors! Use between bullets Use the bullets to expand on them Do not present long equations, tables, charts Do not include long sentences for your reading Make your talk entirely centered around the bullet

3. Audience Interaction Connect with the audience Look at them Avoid monotone, vary the pitch Do not block the screen, stand on one side of the screen Not everyone understand all your points Not everyone is interested in your topic, so make it interesting and simple Did you leave the audience with a clear picture of the progress you have made?

4. Contents Title page Agenda: items to be presented Brief introduction of the project leading to the presentation Progress made Detailed description of the work done Supporting documents Planned Future Work

5. Handling Questions Be very brief and precise in answering Do not deviate from the question Keep the question in focus when answering

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