How to Present a Seminar Paper: A Speakers Guide

1
How to Present a Seminar PaperA Speakers
Guide
From How to Present a Technical Paper By Dr.
Ian Parberry, UNT, Denton Presentation by Dr.
Ranette Halverson, MSU
2
Presenting a PaperMy Pet Peeves

• Reading to the audience
• Running over the time limit
• Slides too small to read
• Speaking to the wall
• Tracing Code

3
Lengths of Talks

• Be fully aware of your time limit
• Conferences
• 15 20 minutes
• 50 minutes
• Classroom
• 15 45 minutes
• Allow time for
• questions

4
Rules for Presentations

• Intro Tell them what you are going to tell them
• Body Tell them
• Conclude Tell them what you told them

5
Outline of Presentation

• Introduction
• Body
• Technical Issues
• Conclusion

6
Introduction

• Start with anecdote
• Define the problem/issue
• Motivate the audience
• Introduce the terminology
• Discuss earlier work
• Remind, Dont assume
• Provide a road map

7
Body

• What is happening?
• What is going to happen?
• Social, legal, cultural implications?
• At least one set of statistics
• Use several pictures

8
Technical Issues

• What is the state of the technology?
• What are potential solutions?
• The point is to provide a flavor of the technical
  details

9
Conclusion

• Briefly review the talk, indicating the important
  concepts
• Hindsight is clearer than foresight
• Give open problems
• Indicate your talk is over

10
Reaching the Audience

• Use Repetition
• Dont get bogged down in details
• Know your audience!!!!
• Dont run over your time limit

11
Power Point Guidelines

• Do not use complete sentences
• Do not overload slides
• Do not use too many slides
• Do use diagrams, tables, pictures
• Do not use too much motion in PowerPoint

12
Projector

• Test your slides with a projector
• Pale tends to fade out (e.g. yellow on light
  background)
• Keep a high contrast
• See how this looks
• See how this looks

13
Fonts (44 pt)

• Arial - 32 point font - bold
• Arial - 36 point font
• Arial - 40 point font
• Times New Roman 40 point
• Verdana -36 point
• Georgia 40 point
• BethsCute Hnd 40 point

14
Animation - Motion

• Use very judiciously
• Can be distracting to audience
• Can distract speaker from the talk
• Use occasionally for effect

15
Conclusion

• Thank you for your attention!
• Any questions?