Formal Oral presentations

Your oral presentations must not be read verbatim from notes. You may wish to write out your complete presentation, but, then, do not bring this material to your presentation.

Good oral presentations make extensive use of visuals. In addition to presenting visual information for the audience, good visuals lead you through your talk so that you almost never have to refer to any notes.

Each student is expected to use visuals. All visuals for the two formal oral reports should be stored on a Zip disk or floppies along with your Powerpoint file or Hypercard stack and brought with as a backup. Before we leave for the industry visit, these should be transferred to the notebook computer we will be using and displayed using Powerpoint or Hypercard during the talk. These visuals will be evaluated as part of your grade for your talk.

In the past, students have prepared presentation files for which the scanned visuals have a very large file size. At presentation time, these visuals don't show up because there is insufficient computer RAM. This is a serious problem with Powerpoint files, but not Hypercard. The presentations should, therefore, be checked out on the presentation computer prior to leaving on the industry visit so that the visuals can be changed if necessary.

Thus, early in the semester, make sure you learn how to make visuals files that are small in size.

Again, bring a backup disk with your visuals and stack. In addition, you must also have back-up presentation materials available in case of computer failures. Black and white overheads will be adequate.

Company engineers request that you forward a copy of your presentation to your advisor/mentor for review. This means that you must complete your presentation earlier than the night before the planned presentation date. Discuss with your advisor what form of the presentation will be acceptable. Hopefully, it will be as simple as emailing him/her your Powerpoint or Hypercard file.