Guidance Notes On Presenting a Paper
Each week we will discuss two or three papers in our two-hour timetable slot.
Thus, we have about half an hour for each one. We should plan to
have time for a lively discussion of each paper; your job in giving a
presentation is to initiate this discussion. You should plan to talk for
around 15 minutes.
Outline:
- Objective
- what is the goal of
this work, what problem is addressed, what was the current state of the
art, who is the work aimed at?
- Proposal
- if this paper
presents a new idea, what, in a nutshell, is it?
- Contributions/claims
- what contributions
does the paper claim to make? Which one is the most significant?
- Evidence
- how does the paper
support its claims? Theorems? Case studies?
Simulations? Benchmarks?
- Does the evidence
presented address the key issues needed to support the claims being made?
- Shoulders of giants...
- what previous
research does this work build on? What are the key underlying
theoretical ideas? What software infrastructure made the
experimental work possible? Could this work have been done earlier
- if not, why not?
- Impact
- has this work been
influential? When later research papers cite it, what contribution
is being referred to? Has the work influenced engineering practice?
Is money being made from this idea? Could it be? If
not, why not? Has the work been superceded? Is it still relevant or
have events passed it by?
- Discussion points
- End your presentation
with a slide giving a number of questions which you think should arise in
the discussion that follows. Try to include a range of questions,
technical and non-technical, so that there is something for everyone to
think about regardless of background.
Hints for giving a presentation
- Use powerpoint, use the
video projector, and put your presentation on the web so you can access it
without having to log in. If you hate powerpoint, this is your
opportunity to see how the other half lives; your views on the evil empire
will be more convincing for the experience.
- Point at the projector
screen, facing the audience
- Don't be embarrassed about
taking time to think
- Don't be shy about reading
the words written on the slide
- Never use Powerpoint's
animation feature (if you want the slide to change, use the "insert
duplicate slide" feature)
- Never use animated bullet
points
- If there are slides which
you have prepared, but which you think we won't have time for, move them
to the end of the presentation, after a blank slide. Then you can
refer to them if discussion/questions require it (actually I am suggesting
this in order to ease the pain of removing a slide which turns out to be
too complicated, detailed or exceeds the time available).
Other people's (no doubt better) hints on giving a talk: