Science Research Juniors
Ms. Spicijaric and Mrs. Jiménez 2009/10
Elements of a Good Junior Science Research Presentation
Structure
I. Title and Intro
II. Necessary Background/History
III. Objective/Hypothesis
IV. Methodology
V. Results
VI. Discussion - Link
VII. Future Research – Your Project
VIII. References
IX. Acknowledgements
General Guidelines
1-Presentations should generally last about 15 minutes.
2-You should only use your slides as a supplement to what you are saying. DO NOT read from your
slides!!! Instead, you should know your topic well enough to speak about it as if you were having a
sophisticated conversation. Speak to your audience and engage them in your topic. You should only be
reading from your slides if you are quoting exact results, perhaps numbers from a data table.
3-Maintain eye contact with us and use hand gestures.
4-Stand by your presentation screen and point to any relevant information.
5-Don’t rush through your slides. Your topic may not be familiar to everyone and they need some time to
absorb what you are saying before rushing on to your next point. A good way to slow yourself down and
make sure that your audience understands your presentation is to practice different ways to explain the
same thing; it’s a way of repeating yourself without boring people.
6 – You are presenting multiple articles as well as your own research just as you did for your posters last
year. Make sure that you highlight the results of at least 2 articles in addition to any article cited in the
intro and in addition to anything you can tell us about your own project. Your intro should have what we
need to understand both articles. For the Methods and Results, treat each article individually. Finally, for
the discussion, go back to speaking about both articles at the same time.
Guidelines for section content
I. Title Slide
On a title slide, give us the project title, your name, mentor, and institution. Also cite the main articles that
are being highlighted in your presentation. The title should be just general enough to tie in both articles
and your possible project.
II. Necessary Background
Give us all necessary terms and explanations. Also, make sure that you are giving us a summary of all of
the research leading up to the articles you are presenting and/or your project. Try to use as little text as
possible – avoid sentences. Diagrams, flow charts, pictures are best!! Just use your voice to put the text in
rather than actually type it in!! You will be using information and background from other articles besides
the ones you are highlighting; you must cite on these slides in APA in-text format. Please make sure you
end this intro by giving us the general combined objective of the articles being presented.
III. Objective
Take 1 article at a time. State the study’s objective. Be as specific and clear as possible. It is often good to
put the article title, objective, and methods all on one slide for a given article. This is similar to what you
did on your symposium boards.
IV. Methodology
Describe the general materials and procedure necessary in the investigation. Be summative here – you
don’t have a lot of time to spend on methods. On your slides, it is often best to make either a table to
explain the procedure or even a flow chart. Think about making it a concept map that branches off to
show different parts and steps in the procedure and even the analysis. Please be as step-wise as
possible so that the audience can follow what is sometimes the most technical part of an article. Explain
WHY a step is happening! Relate the steps to the bigger picture.
V. Results
Give and explain the actual results of the article’s study in a table or a graph or in pictures. Try using
minimal text in this section. No captions! You will be using your voice to explain the tables, graphs, and
pictures. If it is confusing where the results came from, refer back to the part of the methodology that
produced them. Be sure to have an appropriate title for all tables and figures, however. Tables have raw
data with columns and rows. Everything else is called a figure – graphs, pictures, photos, diagrams,
etc. Nothing should be labeled “Picture,” “Graph,” or “Chart.”
VI. Discussion/Conclusions/Implications
This is your time to combine what you have learned from all presented articles, make inferences, reiterate
trends, etc. Make sure that you relate all of the articles together. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT
PART OF THE PRESENTATION since it should lead directly to what YOU are going to do in your
research. Please make sure you show us the LINK between what you have learned in the literature and
where you are taking the research. This part of the presentation should naturally flow into the next
section.
VII. Future Research
Tell us as much as possible about your current project. As you go along in the year, your presentation
might be more focused on this as you get more into your projects. Please treat your work almost as if it is
a new article. Label objective, methods, and results when possible – it can be a bit general but try to
avoid being vague whenever possible. Try to make this into multiple slides and give details!! Tell us the
significance of the work you are/will be doing and why it will be novel. Use diagrams and graphic
organizers when possible rather than all text. End on a strong note.
VIII. References
These should be complete and in APA style!!
IX. Acknowledgments : As you would like them.
APA QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE
Examples of proper in-text citation for articles, textbooks, and books:
One author
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs. He did so in 1943 (Grech, 2007). Then you
either continue writing your paragraph or start the next paragraph accordingly. Note that the first
initial/first name of the author is NOT INCLUDED IN TEXT.
Two authors
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs. He did so in 1943 (Grech & Loeser, 2007).
Then you either continue writing your paragraph or start the next paragraph accordingly. Note the use of
the & rather than “and.” This is mandatory for APA.
Between three and five authors
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs. He did so in 1943 (Grech, Loeser, Kunk,
Freeman, & Portsy, 2007).
More than five authors
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs. He did so in 1943 (Grech et al., 2007). Note
the exact format of the et al. Note the proper punctuation and capitalization surrounding it.
In text-citing of internet source/webpage – works the same as above unless…
No author can be found (Look hard before deciding this!)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs. He did so in 1943 (“Story of the Brown Fox,”
2007). The title at the top of the webpage has been substituted for the author’s name. This should be the
specific title of the document, not the general homepage name, nor should you ever give the url (www.)
address here.
No date can be found (Look hard before deciding this!)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs. He did so in 1943 (Grech, n.d). n.d. has been
substituted for the date as it means “no date.”
No author nor date can be found (Look hard before deciding this!)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs. He did so in 1943 (“Story of the Brown Fox,”
n.d.). The title at the top of the webpage has been substituted for the author’s name. This should be the
specific title of the document, not the general homepage name, nor should you ever give the url (www.)
address here. n.d. has been substituted for the date.
Examples of end of report References page:
*For articles, it follows the basic format of:
Author Last Name, Author First Initial. (Year). Title with only the first word and proper names
capitalized. Publisher in italics, volume # in italics, page numbers.
One author
Grech, L. (2007). Knowing about the quick brown fox. Science Magazine, 17, 23-32.
Two authors
Grech, L. & Kursch, J. (2007). Knowing about the quick brown fox. Science
Magazine, 17, 23-32.
More than six authors
Grech, L., et al. (2007). Knowing about the quick brown fox. Science Magazine, 17, 2332.
*For textbooks or book, it follows the rules above for authors. The format, however, changes to:
Author Last Name, Author First Initial. (Year). Title with only the first word and proper names
capitalized and italicized. Location: Publisher.
Grech, L. & Kursch, J. (2007). The World of Physics. Washington, D.C.: Prentice Hall.
*Online documents (These can be very tricky depending on the source.) Use the class homepage link for
more detailed, specific ways to cite different online sources. Generally, titles of the page are italicized,
unless there is no author. Bigger source names would be italicized in place of the title in these cases. See
the examples below.
Online document with an author and a date
Grech, L. (2007). Knowing about the quick brown fox. Retrieved August 20, 2009 from
http://www.foxworld.com.
Online document with no author
Knowing about the quick brown fox. (2007). In Chemical Heritage Society. Retrieved
August 30, 2009 from http://www.chemicalheritage/fox
Online document with no author or date
Knowing about the quick brown fox. (n.d). In Chemical Heritage Society. Retrieved
August 30, 2009 from http://www.chemicalheritage/fox
*Omit the foundation or more general source if there is none. The retrieval date was omitted by
the APA in 2007. However, it was only omitted for webpages that are most reliable that will not change
or be edited. For our purposes, I believe most of the website your will be citing may not be permanent
and thus, we will continue to use the retrieval date.
General guidelines for a References Page
1 – The title of the page is: References
Then skip a couple of lines.
2 – List the references in alphabetical order according to what comes first.
3 – Do not number them.
4 – Indent the opposite way that you would a paragraph.
Grech, L. (2007). Knowing about the quick brown fox. Retrieved September 25, 2009 from
http://www.foxworld.com. If need be continue typing and then even the next line is
indented as well. Only the first line is flushed all the way to the left.
5 – References are double spaced between them, but single-spaced within them.
Knowing about the quick brown fox. (2007). In Chemical Heritage Society. Retrieved September
25, 2009 from http://www.chemicalheritage/fox
Knowing about the quick brown fox. (n.d). In Chemical Heritage Society. Retrieved September 25,
2009 from http://www.chemicalheritage/fox