Presentation

The difference between screwing around and science is writing it down. -- Adam Savage

What is a Presentation

An oral presentation is typically prepared to summarize or disseminate work. They can serve as a an accountability checkpoint for an organization funding research, or as a means to share discovery with a variety of technical and non-technical audiences.

Rules of the Presentation

  • After you have been invited/accepted to give an oral presentation, outline and prepare your presentation.
  • Know your audience and determine the style of presentation that suits them best
  • Remember, this presentation is an advert for your work
  • Try to spend around two minutes per slide
  • Present the body of your talk with slides titled as summaries or guiding questions
  • People will remember your figures, not your bullets (a generalization, but well founded)
  • Never put something on a slide you do not thoroughly and consistently, understand

Writing the Presentation

  • All grammatical and technical errors must be eliminated per the writing checklist
  • Do not leave a bulleted list hanging (i.e. without a title or lead-in sentence)
  • Stick to simple backgrounds, one to two fonts, and use color as a secondary delimiter not a primary one
  • Use a sans serif font for all text
  • Use equations as a last resort (or sparingly if you are presenting a method), a plot/figure is much better at telling the whole story qualitatively
  • Do not be afraid to put enlarged boxes over small text in images

Presentation Review

  • Make sure you allot adequate time for run-throughs (plural!), and revisions from the group
  • When the document has been thoroughly checked, request a review from Prof. Huff and the group

Using the Presentation Template

In the ARFC Github organization, there are several template repositories designed to aid the writing/creating process by giving you a starting place for formatting. To use the report template, select the Use this Template option next to Code.

Use this Template will generate a repository on your GitHub account with copies of all the files in the original, including the Readme file. The Readme will serve as your point of reference for how to initialize the documents and some common errors that occur upon initial startup. Keep in mind that this template has a CC-BY-4.0 License. This license is the standard for written works and reports; however, there are cases where the use of material containing viral or copyleft licenses (such as GPL) can affect the type of license you can use in your report.