Science Research Juniors
Ms. Spicijaric and Miss Parziale 2008/09
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.
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.
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 when needed. 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. Follow the same format as
was used during 4th quarter last year.
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. 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.
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 objectives, methods, and results when possible – it can be a bit general but try to
avoid being vague whenever possible.
VIII. References
These should be complete and in APA style!!
IX. Acknowledgments : As you would like them.