Science Research Sophomores - Elements of a Good Sophomore Science Research Presentation
Ms. Spicijaric and Mrs. Jiménez 2009/2010
For a one-article presentation:
Structure
I. Title and Article Citation
II. Necessary Background and Past Studies
III. Objective/Hypothesis
IV. Methodology
V. Results
VI. Discussion/Conclusion
VII. References
IX. Acknowledgements
General Guidelines
1-Presentations should generally last about 10 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. Stand by your presentation screen and point to
any relevant information.
4-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.
5-Don’t present articles that are not studies. If there is no investigation, then it is not ideal for
furthering your science research interests. Also, don’t present clinical studies; we will explain in
class what constitutes a clinical study. Try to present the most recent articles possible, nothing dated
before 2005.
Guidelines for section content
I. Title Slide
On a title slide, give us your name, the title of your presentation, and the citation for your article. A
citation includes author, title, journal, year, volume, and page numbers. The title of your presentation
for now should be the title of your article.
II. Necessary Background and Past Studies
It should take you multiple slides in order to outline this information. This should include important
information and relevant terminology about your topic that was already known before the experiment
was begun. Use diagrams and pictures to do this – pretend like you are the caption as you explain
these to your audience. You must also include a history of past studies that have been done and what
was found. You will need to do a lot of other outside research in order to complete this section of
your presentation. Use other articles, internet sources especially the prep library sites, and texts in
order to accomplish this - do not google. Use as little text as possible. You can even have no text
with your diagrams or pictures. Use titles for your introduction slides that help your audience and
guide them; do not use titles like “Introduction” or “Background” or “Important Facts.” These slides
must be cited in proper APA in-text style using parentheses.
III. Please make sure you end this intro by giving us the objective of the article being presented.
Have this clearly labeled and concisely stated on the slide. Then, make sure that you explain it more
fully and in easier language to the audience before moving on. If the article mentions a hypothesis,
incorporate this as well. The objective/hypothesis should probably be on its own slide since it's so
important.
IV. Methodology
Describe the general materials and procedure necessary in the investigation. On your slides, it is
often best to make either a table to explain the procedure or even a flow chart. Do not merely make
paragraphs and draw boxes around them with arrows. 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. In popular articles, this section may be very brief and general, but when presenting
professional articles, this section will become increasingly complex.
V. Results
Give and explain the actual results of the study in a table or a graph or in pictures. There should
really not be any text in this section. 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. When picking an article, be choosy – if it doesn’t have graphs, tables, or pictures,
then it isn’t a good article to present; maybe it’s not meaty enough. Every table and figure must have
a title. Example: Figure #1: Plant Height vs. Water Consumption 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
Summarize the major findings of the study by clearly explaining the major trends or patterns that
were indicated by the results. Infer the importance of the results relative to previous experiments that
were mentioned in the intro. Infer how this new finding fits back into the background that you gave
us at the beginning. To conclude, reiterate the objective and hypothesis and indicate if the
objective was accomplished and if the hypothesis was supported by the results of the study.
Secondly, tell us what the implications of this study are for the future. Implications include the
significance of the study and where the research might go next. If the article doesn’t say what might
happen next, then this is your chance to be more creative and imagine what the next steps might be.
VII. 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