Guidelines BSc Professional Training Oral Presentations
You will be expected to provide an oral presentation to your appointed Visiting
Academic Tutor (and a selected audience including your Industrial Supervisor and
other members of the company) for each of your Industrial Visits.
First Oral Presentation
The first Professional Training Oral Presentation should be prepared for delivery by
PowerPoint (with associated handouts) and must have been checked by your
industrial supervisor for confidential issues. The expected length of delivery is
approximately 15 to 20 minutes with questions to follow.
Your Visiting Academic Tutor has been instructed to request that all the members of
the audience are invited to ask questions. After this a review will be made of the
important points relating to the delivery of your presentation. Please note these
comments are made to help you with your oral presentation skills and it is hoped that
you address these issues at the time of your next oral presentation.
The general structure for your first oral presentation should be:
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Title page (your name, University coat of arms/UniS, company,
supervisor);
Outline of presentation;
Details about company;
Details about your work area;
Details about the work you have been doing;
Summary of a forward plan of work to do before next visit;
Summary of skills and competencies gained;
Timetable (see Chem-PT document 4.11);
Summary: Review above; and
A brief statement focusing on what is novel or new about the work you
are doing and how it relates to why the company have employed you!
Second Oral Presentation
Your second oral presentation should be prepared and delivered as a major Technical
Report, focusing on any research projects, major instrumental methods or
computational programmes you have been using. The length of the presentation
should be 25 to 35 minutes with questions to follow. You should attempt to
incorporate different modes of presentation into what you deliver, for example, the
use of flip-charts, handouts that do not just report what is the PowerPoint content,
maybe even facilitate a question and answer period within the presentation. Visiting
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Academic Tutors have been instructed to also ask a series of standard chemistry
questions relating to the general chemistry subject areas of your work. These
questions are asked so as to provide some experience of the types of questions which
may be asked during your Level M viva voca presentation or if you are examined by
the External Examiners.
Third Oral Presentation
Your third presentation is really to be designed by you, using the many skills you
have learnt over the year, and also incorporating most of the suggestions made by
those present at your previous presentations. The length of delivery is from 20 to 40
minutes, and some ideas which you may want to include are as follows:
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a brief focused overview of the pros and cons of the placement (being
constructive and any controversial subjects already discussed with your
Industrial Supervisor);
a focused report of the achievements of the year, especially research
project outcomes and the IMPACT in terms of the company and your
own personal development;
your final management timetable reporting what the strengths of the
programme were and any areas worth considering for improvement
(like Health and Safety training, skills courses, etc).
Summary
It is very important that you take every opportunity to gain experience through
presenting your work. Those of you in overseas placements, it is important to think
about including some foreign language usage into the presentation, especially if you
have been on a sponsored language course funded by the EU or the company. On
returning to the university your will be requested to prepare and deliver an oral
presentation on Industry Day and for your Level M viva voca presentation. More
importantly, good oral presentation skills may be the success story of the job you get
after graduation!
Dr Neil I. Ward 12/05
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