Guidelines for Presentations
Presentations
General Guidelines for Presentations
You have to prepare one presentation for this class. You can base your presentation on any of the chapters that we have covered in class. You can use the textbook as the main source, but you are also welcome to incorporate material from other textbooks or academic papers. If you are going to use a journal article, I suggest that you use a specialized search engine like Google Scholar (scholar.google.com). This article or articles may not be accessible from your home. You will need to download the article(s) for any FIU campus. Alternatively, you may have to use a VPN. FIU uses AnyConnect. You can find it here (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..
Preparing the presentation
Once you have chosen the chapter and/or paper(s) you can start preparing your presentation. These are some guidelines that can help you improve your presentation:
Your presentation should contain at least 20/25 slides.
Only include two or three bullets per slide, four at most.
First, develop a script for the presentation where you can have all the relevant details. Then, create the presentation using the script as your source. You only have to submit the presentation, but you are welcome to submit the script as well.
Use an attractive template. You can use any of the templates that come with Microsoft PowerPoint. You can find more templates here (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..
There are several web sites that will teach you how to prepare a successful presentation. They include, but are not limited to:
https://prezi.com/
This link contains additional resources to prepare a professional presentation
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-ab&q=websites+to+learn+how+to+make+presentations&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiJ4OPhkPLcAhUI0lMKHY3DDTMQBQgmKAA&biw=1680&bih=908 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Choose the one that works best for you.
If you use a presentation program other than Microsoft PowerPoing (e.g., Google Slide, Keynote, etc.) make sure to save your work in .ppt, pptx or .pdf format.
Content
If you choose to use an academic paper to be the basis or a supplement to your presentation, bare in mind that the paper(s) you are going to use are peer-reviewed scientific papers published in reputable journals. They are divided into several sections. The first part typically contains an introduction with the basic intuition, the idea that the author wants to present and prove. There are going to be several sections in the middle that are highly technical in nature, and there will be a final section with the conclusion. If the technical part is too much for you, concentrate on the first and last one. You only need to communicate the topic of the paper and the conclusion(s) that the author(s) arrived at.
Final thoughts
Why Presentations? Most of the students in this course will graduate soon. Whether you go to Graduate School or the corporate world, you will be required to prepare presentations either for your professors or for clients, coworkers, regulators, etc. This course is a safe way for students to develop their presentation skills.
This document contains essential guidelines. I hope I have covered all the important points. If you need additional help, please let me know. We can discuss your specific needs via email or Canvas messages.