Animal Systems Presentation Prep

You and your partner will be required to give a 5-minute presentation with each member presenting the same amount of time. Your presentation must be done using standard poster size paper 27 X 40 approximately. Your group will be given a grade for the quality of your oral presentation. It is important that you;

  • Outline your talk as early as possible
  • Get together to organize and practice the presentation so the timing is accurate and you do not repeat information
  • Remember that your goal is to present material in a clear, succinct and interesting manner.

Suggestions for Content and Structure:

  • Plan a strong, clear beginning and ending.
  • Provide a clear context for your work. Your introduction should include the objective and biological context of your study.
  • Include your hypotheses and prediction.
  • Present your materials and methods in a simple or streamlined manner. Keep it short and simple.

Presentation pointers for you:

  • Practice over and over and over again until you can flow through the material without any hesitation. This will help ensure you have a handle on the material when you are nervous up at the front of the class. Take the opportunity to practice your presentation in the class
  • Get ready to perform. This is a performance! Know your lines and your subject.
  • Memorizing your lines can be problematic as you may start to sound too scripted. Use bullet points to help tell you what to talk about instead. Remember you are telling a story.
    • In order to help deal with nerves before a presentation work out slowing your breathing, visualize yourself giving a relaxed talk and even tell yourself you are confident. You may even want to “power pose” it! For those that don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy this is when you stand like superman or superwomen right before attempting something that makes you nervous. There are studies indicating this is very successful but at the very least it’s not going to hurt right?
  • Walk confidently to the front of the room to get you in the right frame of mind
  • Stand tall when you are up there and keep your chest lifted. Remember you totally got this!
  • Above all…smile! You will instantly appear more relaxed and research shows that smiling can actually reduce your stress level. Plus, there is the added benefit of people enjoying the interaction more as you don’t look like you are totally miserable up there ☺.
  • Speak up. People want to hear what you have to say so make sure they can.
  • Take your time. For you it’s going to feel like its lasting forever but for your audience you may come across like you just had two coffees and a Red bull. Allow for those “awkward” pauses as for the audience it will actually sound more normal.
  • Talk to the audience and not your screen or cue cards. You should know the information so well that all you need is a quick bullet point to get you talking.
  • Keep to the time frame. This is where giving yourself lots of practice time will help out. Use the rubric provided to ensure you have covered all requirements of this assignment in order to attain the best possible outcome.