MAKING AN ORAL PRESENTATION

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MAKING AN ORAL PRESENTATION

• We are frequently asked to make various types of
  presentations
• Written
• Proposals
• Technical reports
• Theses
• Etc.

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• Oral
• Lectures (e.g., at your kids school)
• Research reports (e.g., at conferences)
• Demonstrations (equipment, software)

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• Other
• Poster presentations (e.g., at conferences)
• Where you write/print bits of text and figures,
  and post them for people to view (writing
  skills).
• During the viewing period, you often discuss and
  explain your work one-on-one (oral skills).

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• Usually, the poster session coincides with happy
  hour (and/or tea or coffee time in Europe)!
• We may do posters next year in MET 179.
• Example of instructions for a poster session
  http//www.agu.org/meetings/fm04/?pageRequestoral
  _guide

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• This is what a conference poster session looks
  like (I dont know who these guys are)

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• Examples of posters given by our faculty and
  students are posted in the hallway and in my
  office.

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• Oral presentations
• These are almost always accompanied by some
  props, such as
• Overheads (now old-fashioned!)
• Powerpoint slides (very popular)
• Actual slides (usually photos)
• These help you pace your talk and remind you of
  what to talk about!!!

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• In-class oral presentations
• Your task today is to begin to craft a short oral
  presentation, using powerpoint slides.
• Time limit THREE minutes.
• Slides limit no more than FOUR slides.

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• Talks will be given on
• Last Monday of classes?
• Or should we eat pizza that day?
• Last Wednesday of classes?
• Well decide next week!

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• A time limit of THREE minutes is very short.
• This will NOT allow you go to into much detail!
• So imagine this scenario

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• You work at a large company (or in the military
  or at a large university), and your 20-page paper
  is one of 200 that have been delivered to the
  boss.
• You want to give the boss a reason to read your
  paper (perhaps you are up for an award!)
• You have this 3-minute talk to do that!

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• Things to consider
• Should you talk really fast to get everything in?
• This means LOTS of slides and LOTS of information
  on each slide.
• Remember that the slides serve to PACE YOUR TALK.
• Correct answer NO.
• Talk slow?
• Just a few words per slide?
• NO! everybody will doze off especially if you
  are talk 162!

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• Things to consider
• Should you use little tiny font that can only be
  seen from the front row?
• NO!
• Walk to the back of the room and see how your
  slides look!

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• Things to consider
• Should you include a lot of figures and have
  slides that look very busy?
• Probably not too overwhelming.

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• Get started!
• If youve used powerpoint before, you will get
  off to a quicker start.
• If you have not used powerpoint can somebody
  volunteer to help get started?
• You can grab any of the class lectures/ppt files
  and use them as a starting point!
• Due Monday
• resume cover letter
• Evidence of progress on todays task!