Presentations

March 15
The topic for today was the presentation.  Not only are each of the student researchers presenting in their defense at the end of the semester, but several students are presenting at conferences (RCCSRC, NCUR, etc.)  The purpose of this session was to teach everyone what to include in the presentation and the slides, how to present the material, and how interact with the audience in the presentation.

We had two visitors with us: Gio Forte and Nomin Baasandavaa.  Gio and Nomin are presenting their papers from Kassens' econometrics class at the 2011 Virginia Association of Economists' (VAE, http://www.vaecon.org/) annual meeting and needed to develop a presentation for the conference.

I brought a presentation that I had used in several presentations (2009 APPAM and SEA; 2010 ASHE).  I needed to modify the slides for my own presentation at VAEs, and I was able to point out these modifications.  I started with some tips, which included:

1) practice, practice, practice
2) make sure the practice falls within the time limits of the conference presentation
3) talk slowly
4) look at your audience and not at your slides or notes
5) use charts and graphs when ever possible rather than tables
6) less is better on the slides
7) remember that YOU are the expert in this tiny area of research


I then went through my sample PowerPoint pointing out the typical ordering of slides, the use of graphics rather than tables, etc.

I later saw some of the presentation used by the students at RCCSRC and was impressed!