Psychobiology
Group Project Second Option (Oral Presentation)
70 points possible
Hassett
General information: This group project is worth 70 points. Each group member will
receive his/her own grade sheet. Each group member’s grade will depend on his/her selfevaluation and the group members’ evaluations of each person’s work. For the project to
be considered on time, an outline or overheads/power point slides need to be turned in by
the day of your presentation. You will not receive a grade unless you have turned in the
self/group evaluation. That too needs to be turned in on the day of your presentation. It
does not get attached to the project but needs to be turned in separately. This is
confidential, and only I will see it. If all of the paperwork is not turned at the time of
your presentation, it is considered late and will be docked 10 points. For each 24-hour
period it is late it will be docked an additional 10 points. In addition to turning the
paperwork into me, you must also submit your presentation to Turnitin.com. If you use
powerpoint, you must save your presentation as a PDF file first, otherwise you will not be
able to submit it. Projects will not be accepted through e-mail. Presentations will be
presented outside of class time, in the afternoon. I will announce days/times later in the
quarter. You must be available for one of the time slots in order to do a presentation.
Guidelines for your group project
Topic: Your group will choose a topic from Psychobiology with the consent of the
instructor. The list of possible topics is not extensive so I encourage your group to come
up with an original topic. Your topic must be relevant to course content, but it should be
investigated in greater depth. The focus of your topic is important. If your focus is too
broad it will either be a superficial analysis or a presentation that is too long; however if
your focus is too narrow this will lead to a lack of source material and redundancy. Once
your group has decided on your topic, your next step is to agree upon the purpose of your
project. Your project needs to provide more of a purpose than a summary of your source
material. Below are examples of purposes for your project. Your project might have
more than one purpose.
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Research and investigate: seek out obscure and hard-to-find material, and unify it
into a clear presentation
Synthesize: draw together diverse material to show patterns and relations
Organize: give logical continuity and structure to diverse material
Analyze: provide critical analysis in which arguments are examined for evidence,
validity, logic and flaws
Clarify: make evidence and arguments clearer to the audience
Examine in a broader context: show how a specific subject fits into a broader
context
Select and refine: weed out fluff and irrelevancies to get at the main issues of a
complex subject
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Adopt a point of view: show how the prevalence of evidence and reason favors
one side in a controversial issue
Audience: Of course your instructor will be grading your project, but you should gear
your project to an audience that is intelligent but uninformed on your topic. Because of
your target audience, fundamental concepts, like those taught in the course, should be
addressed (if applicable) before moving onto more difficult material. One
recommendation is to have someone outside of the class, such as a friend or family
member, listen to your presentation to see if they understand it.
Research Materials and References: Your first step is to do an extensive review on your
topic. Your research should include material from as many sources as possible including
books, professional journals, internet sources, interviews and media sources. You will be
gathering as much information as possible on your topic. You will gather more
information than you will include in your presentation. Note: the sources you use must
go beyond the internet! Most of the information you find on the internet is NOT
going to be reliable, but occasionally you are pleasantly surprised. There is not a set
number of references, but between 5-10 sources is typical. Of those 5-10 sources, at least
3 need to be from scholarly journals. Textbooks tend to be general and should not be one
of your 5 key sources. Direct quotes must be placed inside quotation marks and should
be used sparingly. Paraphrasing is better in most cases. You must cite references in
your outline. If you are familiar with APA format, please refer to it as guidelines. For
those of you that are not, you will place the author and year in parentheses (e.g., Freburg,
2006). When you use someone else’s ideas or words, you need to cite them (i.e., give
them credit for their work). You need a bibliography (reference sheet) of all cited
sources at the end of your outline with author(s), year, title, publication or publisher,
volume and pages. These need to be in alphabetical order by name of the primary author.
Organization of your presentation: You can be creative with the organization of your
presentation and the focus of your project, but you must include the following:
1) A general outline of what your presentation will cover and/or a copy of your
overheads or power point slides (this will be a hard copy handed in to me prior to
you presenting), along with a reference sheet.
2) Introduction: here you will introduce the topic you are investigating. Briefly
discuss what your presentation will be covering. It might be appropriate to
discuss the purpose of your presentation if it makes sense to do so.
3) Discussion sections: here you will be synthesizing and organizing the information
you have gathered.
4) Conclusion: here you will tie up loose ends. Often times when we do research all
of our questions were not answered. Discuss any unanswered questions or new
questions your group would be interested in finding out more about.
Length and Format: The length of your oral presentation should be about 15 minutes
long, give or take a couple of minutes. If it goes over 18 minutes, you will be stopped
and your grade will be affected. The presentation of your paper needs to be professional.
Mechanics and Style: Before presenting your project carefully edit for correct spelling
and grammar. Read it critically for form and content. I recommend having someone
outside of your group read it as well. If he/she doesn’t understand something, fix it.
Grading: I have posted a grading rubric that I will be using to grade each presentation.
Each member of the group will receive his/her own grade sheet. I will be taking into
account the self/group evaluation when determining each person’s grade.