Systematic oral and writing reports

1. Systematic oral and writing reports Jiu-jenq Lin

2. Presentation skills • Plan, prepare, practice, and present • Why, who, what, how, when, and where

3. Scope of the report • You will need to provide evidence that you have read a certain amount of relevant literature • You have some awareness of the current state of knowledge on the subject.

4. Impact on audience • Who is your audience? • Size, age/gender, background, • Talk to them rather than at them • Similar interests?

5. Structure of talk • Introduction • Tell them what you are going to tell • Interesting, need, title, objectives • Strong opening • Body • Tell them • Summary • Tell them what you told them

6. Power point slide • Whole slides • Theme of structure • Focus, logical flow • Each slide • One concept for each slide, keep it simple • Must know, should know, and nice to know • Focus, logical flow • Appropriate table, figure, and text • Clear tables or figures • Avoid unnecessary skills • Practice, and practice

7. End • Tell them what you told • Draw conclusions • Forward thoughts • Impressive closing statement • questions

8. Delivery • Nice voice • Body language • Other aids • Timing • Pace

9. Writing is important • Good ideas are lost by poor communication • Good writing is crucial to your future success

10. Academic writing style • Know before you write • Organize your information • Main sentence of each paragraph • One topic per paragraph • Use short sentences • Reduce errors • Paragraphs connection • Focus on your topic • Repeated writing and reading • Appropriate citation, tables and figures

11. Writing the Seminar Paper • The style should be scientific • Formal, Logical, Coherent and Internally consistent • Critical and Convincing • Simple, Clear, Precise and Readable • Clearly separate your own ideas, opinions and experiences from those of others

12. About the Writing Process • Start early • Do a lousy first draft • Rewrite • Good writers rewrite more • Writing is thinking • Many authors recommend writing every day

13. Interest, inform, and persuade Write for the reader Write clearly Eliminate unnecessary redundancy Use the precise word Prefer simpler to complicated words Use consistent terms Write clear and readable sentences Start and end strong Write to be interesting Write for a broad audience Use summary statements Rules for writing...

14. Tables and Figures • Information in them should stand alone • Title should adequately describe information • References cited • Refer them to somewhere in text. • Order them

15. Don’t be afraid to fail • Take 3-7 drafts • Personal records of graduate students • 13 major and 27 minor rewrites • Draft helps you organize and clarify your thinking • Outlining can be effective • Clear thinking leads to clear writing

16. Are you ready?