Paper Presentation

Give a presentation (25 minute) of a topic presented in a research paper to the class and then lead the class discussion. The papers should be high quality (i.e. published journals, conference proceedings, theses, etc.) and recent (within the past 5 years).

The presentation assignment must be completed in three stages: selection, summary, and presentation.

Stage 1 - Selection

Pick a paper to present. You must send me a paper citation to complete this step. Some places to look for interesting papers:

Stage 2 - Summary

Write a brief (1-2 page) summary of the paper.

Stage 3 - Present

Present your selected research paper. You will have ~20 minutes for presentation and ~5 minutes for questions. You should strive to explain the most interesting or difficult parts in the 20 minutes, while still making sure your audience understands the overall idea.

Questions that have been asked in the past:

How exactly will our grade for the presentation be determined?

About half for your presentation and about half for participating on other people's presentations (i.e. asking questions, getting involved in the discussion, etc.). The half for your presentation will be based mostly on the initial presentation. A small portion will be for how you handle the question period. Anticipating some questions (particularly the tough ones) and have answers in your hip pocket will count in your favor.

You want us to have a Powerpoint ready, but do you think I should put the images on the slides if they are already on the document I will hand out?

You don't have to use powerpoint. Use whatever presentation method you are comfortable with. What counts is how effective the presentation is, not the tools you use. It may be useful to have the images that you specifically want to refer to in your talk handy.

Do I need to make copies for the class, or is putting it online prior to the presentation necessary or sufficient?

Putting the paper on-line (in my book) is equivalent to handing it out in class. If you provide me the document in electronic format (or point me to it), I'll post it on the course webpage. If the paper is not available in electronic format, give me a copy and I'll have copies made for the class.