CS 7390 -- Software Visualization
Winter 1998
Oral Presentation Overview
Student presentations of class papers and topics are an important
component of this class. Both the speakers and audience have
responsibilities. First, let's review what a good talk entails.
- Purpose --- What were the goals of the work? What do the
authors seek to accomplish?
- Description --- What was done? What was particularly
unique or interesting about the approach?
- Evaluation --- What were the strong and weak points of the
work?
- Open Problems --- What did the authors suggest, or what did you
infer, as the next step?
- Opinions --- Please provide your opinion of the research
and the articles.
Plan to make your formal presentation run an absolute maximum of 30
minutes. Practice, so this is achieved. Any accompanying materials
or slides that you prepare for the talk should be able to be
displayed/transmitted over the Web. Talk to the people in class, not
to your slides or to the board. Don't do examples in gory depth.
Interact with your audience. Provide an overview of the ideas in the
papers, don't regurgitate what was already written. To finish off
your talk, you must provide 2 discussion questions. These should
motivate a lively discourse for the second half of class. Finally,
prepare a summary report (equivalent of about 3-5 pages) of the papers
you presented. Do this in HTML.
When someone else is the primary speaker in class, you must prepare 2
discussion questions of your own to be turned in at the beginning of
class. You must do this for every talk; however, you are allowed 1
``pass'' during the quarter when you do not have to turn in
questions. You must notify me when you are going to use your pass.
When someone else is primary speaker, you must also email me a
paragraph critique of their presentation by noon the next day. I will
then forward the collection of these to the speaker. At the top of
your critique, put a numerical rating from 1 - 10 that indicates an
overall assessment. After that, give some constructive advice to the
person who made the presentation. Tell them what they did well and
what they didn't do so well. (You should not put your name anywhere
in the body of the text.) Remember that the idea is to try and help
everyone improve their oral presentation skills.
For each speaker, one other person will also be chosen as the special
``moderator.'' This moderator should also do a very detailed read of
the papers for that day and be able to discuss them in depth. The
moderator should help lead the post talk discussion.
Back to CS 7390 home page