Guidelines and marking scheme for Psych3BN3 presentations

1. Presentation Guidelines

• Meeting with your instructor: It is required that you set up a meeting with your instructor to go over your paper and your presentation outline at least one week prior to your presentation. A hard-copy of your outline is due at this time. This is to ensure that you are clear on the details in the paper, and to agree on a plan for presenting those details. If you leave this until the last minute it may be difficult to arrange, so it is advisable to set up your pre-presentation meeting well in advance.
• Content:Your major aims should be:
  1. to provide a broad background to your topic
  2. to present the most relevant points in the paper, with clear explanations
  3. to cast the findings within the broader context of the overall topic covered in that section of the course, ideally by developing your own overall theme or thesis that provides structure to the entire presentation.
  It is not your job to critique the paper or debate its findings, as that is the goal of the subsequent class discussion. It is not necessary to cover everything in the paper. You might decide for reasons of clarity or time to focus on one part of a paper and omit another. An ideal presentation would also provide some new insights into the paper, perhaps in comparison to other related work that you've read, and also suggest questions to guide the discussion. You are strongly encouraged to include information in your background/intro that goes beyond that presented in the paper, particularly from the relevant textbook chapter, in order to connect it to the broader topic in the course. You are also expected to structure your presentation around a major theme or thesis, typically going beyond the scope of the paper, and present the material in the article in a logically flowing, coherent story that supports your thesis.
• Figures and graphics:
You can incorporate visual information such as figures into your slides to help illustrate a point, even if the image is from a source other than your paper (e.g. a figure illustrating the brain region in question); don't forget to credit the source of the figure (a brief citation in small font at the bottom of the slide is sufficient). (Tip: in MS-Windows, use ctrl-Print Screen to capture the image of a figure you are viewing e.g. in Acrobat reader, then open Accessories->Paint and select 'Paste' and then select the desired region of the image and cut/delete this desired region, then paste into your poweroint slide. Or even simpler, if you have the Adobe Acrobat software, just use the "camera icon" to capture the region of the image that you want, and paste directly into powerpoint.)
• Text:
Sometimes a complex concept is best explained by going through an illustrative example on the blackboard. If you are including your own text on your slides, use a very large font and keep the text to a bare minimum -- just an outline to guide your audience through your major points. Your audience should not be reading a lot of text from the display while listening to you talk.
• How many slides?
A very approximate rule of thumb is one slide per minute, although some slides could take 5 minutes or more if they deal with a complex issue or data set.
• Organizing your material:
If you are nervous about forgetting your material, rather than writing it all on your slides, try first writing out your presentation word for word, then summarize it, then condense it down to the major points. Your final, most condensed version might end up being what you put up on your slides. You will likely find that by this point you no longer need to consult your text at all during your presentation. (This is also a great study technique.) Another good way to cue yourself to discuss some key point is to make a condensed printout of your slides (e.g. 3 or 4 slides per page) and write the words out on a little sticky note on top of that slide, which you will remove during your presentation as you come to that point.
• Bells and whistles:
are generally not a good idea, e.g. too many colours, irrelevant graphics, text zooming around or fading in/out, flashing/bouncing/talking icons. They are distracting to your audience and will use up your valuable preparation time which is much better spent focusing on the material.
• Laptops:
You must bring your own laptop for your presentation, or arrange well in advance with your TA's if you would like them to bring one for your presentation.

2. Marking scheme for presentations: (out of 25)

1. Outline: /1
   (must be submitted during meeting with your instructor at least 1 week prior to presentation)
2. Spoken component: Style and clarity: /3
3. Visual component: Style, clarity, appropriate level of detail: /5
   (Slides must be submitted via email to Prof on day of presentation)
4. Cohesiveness of presentation: /6
   
5. Content/Educational value: /10
   

10 or lower: Fails to satisfy most or all aspects of minimum expectations (detailed below)

11-13: Falls considerably short of minimum expectations.

14-16: Approaches minimum expectations

17-19: Meets minimum expectations.

20-22: Meets minimum expectations and goes above and beyond some of the minimum expectations.

23-25: Goes considerably above and beyond most or all of the minimum expectations.

Minimum expectations:

1. Spoken component: Style and Clarity
   • explanations are clear and cohesive
   • speaking style: clearly audible, well paced
2. Visual Component: Style, clarity, appropriate level of detail
   • clearly designed slides, text is in a large font, readable from the back of the room
   • not too much text on slides, just enough to cue to listener to where the presenter is at; does not require listener to read and listen at the same time
   • graphs or other visual displays large enough to be clearly visible at the back of the room
3. Cohesiveness:
   • an overall theme or thesis is introduced in the introduction (what is the main point being argued about the broader topic in question)
   • the theme is apparent throughout the presentation, there is a clear structure and progression of ideas (ideally following an outline given at the beginning), the presentation "tells a good story"
   • ideas are presented in a logical progression
4. Content/Educational value:
   • the introduction conveys why the topic in the article is interesting and how it relates to the broader topic (one of the 6 topics in the course) being studied
   • the presentation conveys the key points in the article, why the results might be important or significant, and what implications they have for the neural basis of the psychological process in question
   • the presenter uses good judgement in deciding which details to focus on and which are unimportant details to be given brief mention or skipped altogether

Ways in which one might exceed the minimum expectations (not an exhaustive list):

• Exceptional educational value combined with exceptional entertainment value, audience is riveted with interest.
• Presents a broad perspective that integrates material well beyond the scope of the article and corresponding textbook chapter (provided that the article is still the primary focus of the presentation)
• Interesting examples are brought in, either from everyday life, or from the scientific or popular literature, that illustrate the points and contribute to our understanding of the topic
• Exceptional level of insight into the topic, either during presentation of the material or in suggested questions for discussion; evidence of critical appraisal of the material may be demonstrated in the suggested discussion questions (but note that the goal of the presentation is not to give critical evaluation; the main objective is to give a clear presentation, and leave the critical comments for the discussion).
• Presenter is able to generate outstanding questions that stimulate an exceptionally informative discussion