CSCI 8990                       Research Seminar                      Fall 2009 

                              Guidelines for Talks


For all talks :

     As a member of the audience pay attention, ask or answer questions
  (at least one for each talk).  Arrive by 12:20 and stay until 1:10.
  Paying attention implies no texting, web surfing, reading emails, etc.
  
     As a presenter, be prepared with plenty of material for the planned 
  duration of your talk (usually 25 or 50 minutes.)  Stop several minutes 
  before the end of your time slot to give the audience a chance to ask
  questions or offer observations.  But don't end early if the audience
  has too few questions; if necessary you should fill in the last few minutes
  by asking the audience questions about your topic and how it might relate
  to their interests.  To end close to your target itime you should omit
  details which you select judicially so as not to disrupt the overall
  structure of your talk.
 
    If you show slides in your presenttion don't read them and don't
  rush (2 minutes per slide is recommended).  Slides should not be 
  cluttered, and should just provide an outline to anchor that part of
  your talk. 
  
    Test out in advance any technology you plan to use in your talk. 
  Any faculty member can let you into room 306 Boyd for this purpose
  when it is not in use for classes or meetings.

    Presenters should email the instructor a title for their talk, their
  name as it should appear in an announcement, and an abstract for the
  talk.  This email should be in plain text and sent by Tuesday evening
  prior to the talk (or by Friday Dec. 4 if the talk is to be given on
  Dec. 8).

For your research talk :

    Your research talk is to take 50 minutes.  It is to present a 
  description and analysis of some research paper, or two or three
  closely related research papers.  The research paper(s) you are 
  reporting on and the outline of the talk should be agreed upon by
  you and some CS faculty member.

    The paper(s) you choose to report on will generally be about a topic
  you are already interested in, or one which you would like to become
  acquainted with.  Your talk must be aimed at non-experts, so you will
  need to devote a significant portion of your time to filling in
  background so as to provide a context for the paper(s) you are 
  reporting on.  You should understand your topic in sufficient depth
  so that you can answer questions from non-experts which come up in
  your talk.
  
    Be sure to reference properly the paper(s) you are reporting on,
  and any other sources of information for your talk.  If you show
  slides, prepare most of them yourself and reference individually
  the sources of graphs, data, etc. that are included from external
  sources. 

    If you are reporting on research you've been involved in then be
  sure to thank the other members of the research team.  At a minimum
  you'll need to thank the faculty member who worked with you in 
  arriving at the topic and outline for your talk.

Expository talks : 

    In order to hold at least 12 class meetings during the semester,
  it may be necessary to have the participants give shorter, less formal
  talks in addition to their research talks.  For example an expository
  talk could describe some software package and give a demonstration of
  how to use it.  These shorter expository talks can be approved by the
  instructor.
  
    Again, be sure to reference any external sources of information used
  in your talk.