Bridging Course 2015 Feedback on first presentations

General remarks:

Some of you had clearly put a lot of effort into preparing the presentation, not only in preparing the PowerPoint slides, but also in researching the content.

Using your research in presentations:
Note that if you are explaining, or applying, the theories of an expert, you should make this clear to the audience. For example, in the introduction you could say:
"In this paper I am using X's ideas about Y to examine Z." Or when you are explaining a particular point that has been made by an expert, you can say:
"According to B..." Explain X and B's ideas in your own words! If you think that X or B has expressed something so well that it is better to use their original words, you must make sure that the audience realizes that you are quoting X or B. You should write the quotation on your PowerPoint slide, using quotation marks, and giving the source. You can introduce the quote by saying, "To quote X..." or "B's actual words were..." You can also indicate that you are quoting by making quote signs with your hands. The sources that you have used should also be listed in your final side. Do not close this slide until the audience has been able to look at it properly!

What not to do:
A: Do not just copy-paste from your source and read it to the audience. This is plagiarism, an academic crime, similar to theft! If there is a sentence or part of a sentence that is so well expressed that you want to use it, you can quote it (see above).

B: Do no research at all but just give your own opinion. If you want to talk about your favorite anime or manga, it is fine to use the analytic tools that we studied at the beginning of the course to make a careful examination of the images and/or narrative. However, you should also search to see what experts have said. This will help you to check the strong and weak points of your ideas. You may also need to give background information about the anime or manga that is not common knowledge...

Sometimes, the purpose of a presentation will be to summarize the opinions of experts. This is normally the case when a lecturer is teaching an introductory course. However, it is better practice for you to evaluate an expert's opinion by examining the evidence/looking for new evidence, or to apply what an expert has said about A to B, which is similar to A in some respects, but different in others...



Body language:

Some people had gestures. If used well, they can be effective. Some people held devices, including computers (!). I am not sure about this...

Eye contact 1: Face the audience as much as possible! Do not stand sideways all the time. You make need to look at the screen, or down at your notes, but do this as little as possible. (Why?)
Eye contact 2: Do not read from a prepared text unless it is a very formal occasion. You may feel that you need to write out the whole text. This is fairly easy to do if you are only speaking for six minutes but not if you are meant to be speaking for twenty minutes or more. As you get more practice with the phrases used in presentations, you should be able to make notes rather than prepare a full text. If you want to begin by preparing the full text at the moment, please do so. BUT:

Practice making the speech many times. Each time you practice, cross out part of the full text and write it as a note instead.

For example:
Full text version:

My talk today is a comparison of two famous film directors: John Ford and Kurosawa Akira.

Notes:

When you have practiced enough times, your full text should have become short notes. You may be able to make the notes even shorter. If you are afraid that you might be too nervous to use the notes properly during the actual performance, take the full text with you just in case.

You should be able to glance quickly at your notes and then go back to looking at the audience. Therefore, you must make sure that your notes are easy to read. Make sure that they are neat. If necessary, write them again. Make sure that there are clear spaces between each part. Practice using them!

Notes 1: You wrote the whole text. Even though you did not appear to be reading the text during the performance, it would still be better to prepare notes rather than the whole text, especially if your speech is meant to take longer than six minutes. See Eye contact 2 above.

Voice 1: A speech is different from a normal conversation. You should speak more slowly and clearly than when you are talking informally to a small group of people who are standing near to you. This is because the audience cannot interrupt you or use subtle body language to show whether they understand.

Introduction 1: After giving the topic, you need to make sure that the audience will listen to you. This will involve telling them what you will say about the topic (your main idea) and why this is important. Doing this will also help to you as a speaker because it will force you to develop a clear focus. (In some cases, you can introduce your topic by actually asking a question, as long as you give the audience a chance to answer the question. For example, if your topic is X you could ask the audience a Yes/No question about X that is related to your main idea. However, this approach may not be suitable for academic audiences.)
Introduction 2: When you read something, you can control your reading. If you decide that you do not understand something properly, you can go back to the beginning to check the main idea etc. But in a speech, it is the speaker not the audience (the equivalent of the reader) that is in control. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the speaker to make the structure of the speech clear at the end of the introduction. You should show list each part of the body of the speech on a slide, and also explain it in words. (You should not expect the audience to read the slide without explaining it yourself. This is because they should be paying attention to the speaker rather than merely reading the slides.) Of course, once you have started the body of the speech, you should also make sure that the audience know when you are moving from one point to the next one.

Body 1: The speech should have a logical structure. All the points that you make must be a) linked to the main idea, and b) arranged in a logical order, for example from least important to most important. It is not enough to tell us all sorts of interesting things about your topic. (Why?)

Visuals 1: Do not use too much text. The audience is meant to listen to the speaker rather than read the PowerPoint slides. Avoid full sentences. Write key words and phrases instead.

Graphs etc. should be in English!!! If the information in a visual is based on sources, you should give the source.