Science Research Sophs
Ms. Spicijaric and Miss Parziale 2008/09
Elements of a Good Sophomore Science Research Presentation
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.
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-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, certainly nothing dating back
before 2004.
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
This 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. Use titles for your introduction slides that
help your audience and guide them; Do not use titles like “Introduction” or “Background” or “Important
Facts.”
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.
V. 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. 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.
VI. 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
VII. 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. 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.
IX. References
These should be complete and in APA style!!
X. Acknowledgments: As you would like them.