Presentations and Reports

Third Week (2/2/12)  Meet at the Albertsons Library in room LIB 203  Beth Brin will demonstrate the use of several databases suitable for searching for computer science journal articles.

Goal: to Communicate  Both presentations and reports should have a purpose  to inform  to convince  The content should support that purpose  The content of a 10 page paper and a 10 minute presentation cannot be the same

Format for communicating  Introduction: Tell the audience what you are going to say  Purpose of talk  Organization  Content: Tell the audience what you want them to know  Conclusions: Tell the audience what you said

Before you start writing  Allow yourself time to think about what you want to say  write down any thoughts you have about things you want to say  Do any necessary research in advance  you may need time to follow up on details  Make an outline  Think about who your audience is

Presentation Tips  Visual aids should supplement the presentation.  The medium is not the message  Start with ideas  Use visual aids to reinforce them  Limit text in slides  Use slides for pictures and graphs which can't be easily put into words

Papers vs. Presentations  Different media have different needs  Listeners need more repetition than readers  Look at posting 918 at ctl/tomprof/posting.php for suggestions about converting a paper into a talk ctl/tomprof/posting.php

Design Issues  Using PowerPoint does not automatically make your presentation good  Each slide should make a point  Pictures and graphs are information rich  Make your slides easy to read

Use reasonably big fonts  32 point  28 point  24 point  20 point  16 point  It needs to be readable by everyone in the audience

Limit amount of text on slide  Don’t make your bullets too long; the audience won't have time to read the whole thing  Consider handouts for large amounts of text  Short bullets can be read quickly  Everything doesn't have to be on the slide  You can elaborate as you speak  Don't put too many on one slide

Use Color Carefully  Contrast  too high is jarring  too low makes it hard to read  Complementary colors

Special effects get old fast  This  animation  does not  really  add anything useful  to the presentation

Some references  PowerPoint Presentations: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly  ts/powerpoint.htm ts/powerpoint.htm  Is PowerPoint Evil?  Wired Magazine, September 2003, page 112, 118  In Defense of PowerPoint, Computer July 2004, page 100

More References  Kode Vicious: Presenting Your Project, Communications of the ACM 53 # page 33  Technical Writing Tools for Engineers and Scientists, Computing in Science and Engineering, Sept/Oct 2010 page 98

Reports  You need to write your report in a format suitable for a journal or conference publication  Format for submission to ACM journals  ission ission  Templates available for LaTex and Microsoft Word

laTex  A page formatting language commonly used for scientific papers  Based on Tex which was created by computer scientist Donald Knuth  kile provides a user interface for creating and viewing laTex documents

Rubrics  Rubric used to evaluate reports and presentations are in handouts directory  ndouts/ ndouts/  We use these rubrics to assess how well students are learning communication skills

Report Requirements  Use a format suitable for a journal or conference publication  pages  6-8 references that should be cited in the body of the paper

Rubric for Report  Report Contents  Introduction  Body of Report  Conclusions and recommendations  References  Purpose Stated  Accurate and relevant information  Logical Presentation of of Material  Grammar & Composition  Grammar  Spelling  Punctuation  Sentence Structure  Efficient Wording

Presentation Requirements  minutes for presentation, 3 minutes for questions  Appropriate use of visual aids  Presentation should include  Introduction  Logical presentation of the information being conveyed  Conclusions

Rubric for Presentation  Contents  Opening and introduction  Supports central idea  Is well organized  Ties presentation together  Invites discussion or questions  Stays within time limits  Visual Aids clear & easy to read  Delivery  Appropriate volume, clear pronunciation  Responses to questions  Doesn't read slides  Eye contact with audience