Presentation
When you are the presenter of a paper, you should go beyond just summarizing it. Every student in class has already read the paper, and some have even written reviews for it. Explain the necessary background material, put the paper in its proper context with respect to related work, highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the paper, bring up questions, and in general aim to create the environment for a lively discussion of the paper. We will spend 50 minutes on each paper. The presentation should be 25 minutes long, and the remaining 25 minutes will be for discussion. When you are the presenter, prepare slides for your presentation and send them to me in PowerPoint (or PDF if you are not using PowerPoint)
at least one day (by Sunday 1pm)
before your presentation. I will post these slides on the course web page.
All students (not just the presenter) should participate in the discussion of the paper. This will count towards part of your grade for the course. Come prepared with some questions, comments, examples, objections, suggestions, or anything else that will enrich the discussion.
When giving a good presentation, the following are usually considered
important:
Clarity
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Is your presentation understandable by everyone in the audience?
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Have you given enough background for anybody in the class to understand?
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Are you explaining subtle concepts at a sufficiently high level for everyone to undertand the big picture?
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Is good use made of examples to illustrate the problem, definitions,
important concepts, and solutions?
Content
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Have you clearly defined the problem that is being tackled?
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Have you given enough background for everyone to understand the problem?
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Have you described the main results by others in the area?
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When describing your paper, are you making clear what the big picture is for everyone, while providing enough details for those more technically inclined?
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Have you summarized the contributions?
Structure
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Is there a clear introduction, body and conclusion?
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Does the introduction make clear what the presentation is about
and why the topic is important?
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Are the ideas in the body organized in a logical sequence?
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Does the conclusion reinforce the important ideas/results?
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Have you budgeted some time for questions at the end of your talk?
Mechanics
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Are your slides easy to read and not overcrowded?
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Are you speaking loud enough?
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Are you avoiding any distractive gestures?
Practice
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Have you shown your slides to others to get feedback
before giving your talk?
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Have you practiced your talk?
Additional advice
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