Presentation Instructions & Suggested Outline
Invasion Ecology (NRC 590IE)
1. Length
All presentations should be no longer than 10 minutes (**NOTE: This is shorter than noted on
the original syllabus I handed out). At 10 minutes, I will ask you to wrap up and conclude. If you
do not get through all of your materials, your presentation grade will suffer. Use your teams to
help you PRACTICE ahead of time. Hint: memorize what you’ll say for the first slide –
uncertainty about how to begin is the biggest time killer.
If your presentation is going long, take material out (do not talk faster). Better to make a few
points well rather than many points poorly. My default recommendation is no more than one
slide per minute (10 slides max).
2. Questions
Each team will have 2 minutes to answer questions at the end of his/her presentation. Anyone
who asks a question during this time period will receive a bonus point on his/her presentation
grade (max of 2 points).
3. Format & Logistics
Presentations should be written in powerpoint. Please make sure that your presentation
displays correctly on a PC – my laptop runs Windows. Powerpoint files must be emailed to me
(bbradley@eco.umass.edu or bethany.bradley@gmail.com if the file is >10 MB) by 8 am on the
day of the presentation.
4. Presentation style
Using cue cards will not affect your presentation grade. However, I encourage you to try not to
use any sort of prompts. Do not read your presentation from a piece of paper – this can cause a
stilted and distracting speech pattern which will adversely affect your presentation grade.
I personally do not find bulleted lists of texts to be effective communication tools. I recommend
using text to underscore important points, but to use charts, tables, graphs and images to
communicate your overall message.
Suggested Outline for Team Presentation 5
Literature Review & Background
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What sorts of impacts have previously been identified for your taxonomic group? Ecological
(what kinds)? Economic (positive/negative)?
Based on this background information, what is your hypothesis for your analysis?
Methods
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Describe your data – how many species did you have? How many were you able to find impacts
information for?
Where did you find impacts information?
How did you analyze the data you collected?
Results
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What did you find? Include charts or graphs to illustrate your results.
What impacts were most common for your taxonomic group? What impacts were rare?
Did you find any positive impacts? If so, what was the relative proportion of positive to negative
reported impacts?
How do your results compare to your reading? Was your hypothesis supported?
Discussion
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How much of a threat do you think your taxonomic group poses to ecosystems based on your
recorded impacts?
How much of a threat is your taxonomic group to economies?
Give 1-2 examples of species that illustrate an important or unique impact (pick species that you
haven’t presented previously!)
Include 1 take home point that you want your audience to remember about important impacts
of your taxonomic group.