Presentation Guidelines for Speakers and Audience

1. CS 6640 Sample Presentation G. S. Young Computer Science Department Fall 2018

2. Outline • Purpose • Presentation Guidelines • For Speakers • For Audience • Question/Discussion Session • Evaluation • Conclusion • References

3. Purpose • Give some guidelines to speakers as well as audience • Explain some do’s and don’ts in making a presentation or listening to a presentation

4. Guidelines for the Speakers • Preparation • Know your audience • Know your equipment and environment • Power point file • Use a large font • Do not clutter your slides • Do not use too many colors • Rehearsal • Pace yourself • Everything on the slide should be explained • Do not read your slides • Talk to the audience, maintain eye contact

5. The Format of a Session • 30-35 minutes talk • 5 minutes question/discussion

6. Organization of Your Talk • Brief introduction • What is the current state of the art • Why you are interested in this topic • High-level description of the main results • Background and Definitions • Technical Depth • Describe the methods/techniques to solve the problem • Suitable to the level of audience • Conclusion • Contributions, applications, future trends • References

7. Presentation Content • When change topics, summarize what have discussed thus far and how that relates to what you are about to discuss next. • For complicated algorithms, • Introduce concrete examples before formal algorithms • For complex software system, • Do a demo before discussing a software system in depth, such as implementation decisions

8. More Do’s and Don’ts • Do not put too much mathematics on the slides. • Just enough mathematics to bring the key points across • Use figures and intuitive examples • All symbols and acronyms must be defined and explained before you use them. • Avoid cluttered graphics with lots of text and complex legends • If there is difficulty with a particular question, do not be overly defensive. • Sometimes difficult questions can be turned into an idea for future work

9. Guidelines for Audience • Active listening • Write down comments during talk • Asking questions • You may interrupt the talk if you just don’t get it or would like to correct some mistake • Follow-up questions or questions expect to have a long answer or discussion should wait until the end

10. Guidelines for Question/Discussion Section • Everyone is required to participate • Formulate your questions or comments • Raise your hand and wait your turn • Please don’t be shy to participate • No question is a silly question • If you don’t quite understand the talk, ask the speaker to give a brief summary • If you are not quite sure about some details, ask the speaker to explain more on some particular slides

11. Discussions • For any question raised • Let the speaker answers the question first • Audience may add more or bring up other related discussions • Speaker may ask audience some questions too • To warm-up the discussion session • To test if audience really understand the talk

12. Guidelines for Evaluations • Give a score in each required section • Be objective • Comments • Be specific and constructive • Don’t write same comments again and again • Will be sent back to the speaker anonymously • Your evaluation will be scored towards your final grade

13. Conclusion • Attendance is mandatory • Please come on time and attend every session • No make-up presentations is allowed except for emergency • If needed, the class will meet on the final exam week

14. References • Every talk must include a reference list • Li, Victor, “Hints on Writing Technical Papers and Making Presentations”, IEEE Transactions on Education, vol. 42, no. 2, May 1999. • Zanden, Brad, “Preparing an Effective Presentation”, http://www.cs.utk.edu/~bvz/presentation.html (accessed December 23, 2010). • Special thanks to Dr. Srinivas, Dr. Yang and Dr. Sang for sharing their CS664 teaching material with me