Oral Presentations

Visuals

Your oral presentations must have appropriate, effective visuals. We've already discussed that appropriate visuals, such as tables, charts, graphs, pictures, etc., enhance the message you're communicating. Incorporate a few visuals into your presentation. PowerPoint or your web-based presentation outline is a visual. You'll have the overhead projector to work with, so use your techno skills to come up with a visually effective presentation. Your visuals and their incorporation will be ranked 1-5 based on the following criteria:

• Visuals Exist--do you have a visual component to your presentation
• Relevance--do the visuals match your research topic
• Enhancement--did the visuals add to the presentation or were they simply outlines you read
• Aesthetics--did you incorporate a decent visual or one of poor quality
• Citation(s)--did you properly cite your visuals if you "borrowed" them from other sources

Remember, the visuals and this oral presentation is your way of showing us that you highlighted appropriate areas of your topic to give us a glimpse at what you researched. You can't possibly show us everything in 4-5 min--be selective.

Oral Presentations

Since each of you needs to do an oral presentation (whether you’re in a group or by yourself), I want us to go over some important aspects of public speaking. Although your presentations for this class aren’t the exact format you can expect throughout your careers, it’s important to practice public speaking whenever you can. Your classmates want you to do well, so the classroom setting is great for practicing oral presentations.

I have some questions about oral presentations for a class discussion:

1. What are some common presentation pitfalls?

2. Why is understanding your purpose so important?

3. What are some questions you should ask about your audience?

4. What type of delivery method will work best for you or you and your group—memorized, reading (scripted), notes, or impromptu?

5. What are some advantages and disadvantages of the above delivery methods?

6. What’s important to keep in mind about visuals (which you must use?

7. How should you manage your presentation style? 

Finally, what should you include in your presentations? Obviously, you can’t discuss every detail of your project, and some parts of a project lend themselves better to oral presentations than others, depending on the following:

• Background information

• The need of the project

• The steps in the project

• What your project explains

• General information about costs and timeframes--if applicable

Instead of being overly precise about your project’s budget, “We will need $20,000 for materials, $10,000 for labor, $50,000 for overhead…”  Simply be general in your budget discussion, “We need a budget of $500,000, most of which will go to hiring contractors.”

Please have an overview. Spend 15-20 secs telling the audience (us) what you're going to discuss in your presentation. Introduce us to the topic.

Don't just jump into your presentation like this guy...

Technology Issues

PowerPoint is fairly easy to use, so that might be the best option for your presentation. You only need one visual for your presentation, but some people like to put their outline in PowerPoint and have the audience follow along. Just bring in your file and use the instructor’s computer to present. Or you could just use part of your website for a group oral presentation. Let me know if you have any questions.

Workshop and Presentation Issues

Remember, each of you (regardless of whether or not you’re in a group) must have an oral presentation that is between 4 and 5 minutes—don’t go under and don’t go over. You’ll be graded on the following:

I will score your particular 4-5 minute block of the presentation on a scale of 1 to 5 based of the following criteria:

• Appearance of preparation

• Eye contact

• Voice Projection

• Relevance

• Time—don’t go over five minutes and don’t go under four minutes (practice so you get it just right)

Although it may seem like too much extra work, you should practice your oral presentations in order to gauge how long your part will take. Whether you’re finished talking or not, I’ll cut you off if you or your group goes longer than your time limit (4-5 min per person). I will stop you mid sentence if need be.  Again, preparation is crucial. I can’t stress enough how important it is to be prepared for all oral presentations, but I might be able to show you...

Remember, you don't have to have your project finished to do a presentation. You can't possibly convey your entire project in the time you have.  Therefore, you must choose your points wisely.  I will set a timer for 5 min 5 sec. As soon as it goes off, your time WAS over. For those of you combining your presentations, I'll set the timer for the appropriate time plus 5 sec. For instance, if there are 3 of you, I'll set the timer for 15 min 5 sec. However, that doesn't mean you can have one person do more than 5 min; it means you have to police you partners and group members. It would be a good idea to have a code word or something if one group member Bogarts too much time.

Presentation Schedule

I want all of you to present on either Wednesday (4/27) or Monday (5/02).

Below is the schedule for presentations (groups/partners shown on the same line):

We need to have at least 12 to go on Wednesday, April 27th. Whoever we don't get to will have to go before the final exam on Wednesday, May 11th.

PowerPoint for Presentation

Who got to see the 5th Fast and Furious movie? Awesome.

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