A Part of the CURO 2011 Symposium
Workshop Series







Oral Session Guidelines
Purpose and Audience (What and who)
Content and Organization
Visual Presentation (balance, balance,
balance)
Oral Presentation
“How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”
Things to remember




Sessions are 50 minutes in length (per the
M/W/F class schedule)
Sessions will begin and end on time
Presenters per session
15 minutes per presenter (strictly enforced)
 2 minutes for convener/faculty to introduce
 10 minutes for presentation
 3 minutes for questions

CURO’s Purpose: Multidisciplinary undergraduate
research conference and premiere academic event
of the year, showcasing accomplishments of
undergraduate researchers.

YOUR Purpose: To share your research in this
forum.
 To achieve your purpose, you must convey your research
to a general audience; however, you must also be aware
of your co-presenters and the audience who choose to
attend a session with these presenters.
Introduction and Background
Hypothesis
Methodology - Picture, Diagram, Schematic
Results - Graph, Picture, Chart, Table
Conclusions and Q&A

Introduction
 State of the field OR context of topic
 Terminology and vocabulary
 Questions addressed by research

Background
 All relevant information needed to understand
questions
 Purpose and significance of research


Central point around which your presentation
pivots
Clear and concise statement
 “If…then” statements
 Question
 Topic/comment


Present as few experiments at a time as
possible
Clear description of the methods used to
obtain results

All pertinent information to experimental
procedure is given
 Purpose
 Controls
 Independent/dependent variables
 Unimportant conditions or variables are excluded

Diagrams/flow charts/graphics are better than
text
Bad Method Slide Example
Protocol:
 Pathogen and normal flora cultures
were grown in appropriate media.
 9.0-9.9 ml of cell suspension was mixed
with 0.1-1ml amounts of stock psoralen
to give final psoralen concentrations of
1,3,5,7, and 10 mg/L.
 Mixtures were allowed to sit for 10min
and placed under UVA lamp.
 Number of surviving cells were
determined at 20s intervals by removing
0.1ml with a Gibson pipette and
preparing serial dilutions in MRD.
 After last extraction, survival of the cells
was calculated using n/no x 100.
n=number recovered at time t
no=initial number
Good Method Slide Example
The Efficacy of Psoralen Assay



Concise description of results/discussion
Graphical/visual representation with
appropriate labels
End with the summary of results



Answer questions asked in introduction
Relate results/conclusions with hypothesis
Identify new questions created by your
research



Tell them what you’re going to tell them
Tell them
Tell them what you told them

No more than 6 lines of text per slide
 Bullet points, not sentences




Font no smaller than 20
Use as many figures, diagrams, and
illustrations as possible
Keep slides simple and clear
REMEMBER TO CITE when appropriate






Project voice
Pace
Enunciate
Body control, placement, and language
Eye contact
Laser pointer usage

Before the day of the Symposium:
 Practice with live audience
▪ Get feedback
▪ Answer questions: your friends’ questions will likely be
the same as your audience

The night before the Symposium:
 Check equipment
 Backups of presentation
 Check slides for errors and formatting

The day of the Symposium:
 Make certain you have:
▪ Your equipment
▪ Back-up presentation
 Arrive at the Classic Center at least 15 minutes before the
beginning of your session.
 Check-in at the main table and pick up your packet.
 Find your assigned room.
 When the room is open, enter and find the room convener
and introduce your self. Make certain the convener know
how to pronounce your name and, if they are introducing
you, your abstract title, mentor’s name and department.

You are the expert on your research. If not, fake it ‘til
you make it.

Become comfortable with “I don’t know.” Being an
expert on your research efforts, doesn’t guarantee
omniscience about the whole field.

It’s okay to postulate or speculate as long as you
make it clear you are doing so.

Postulate doesn’t mean ‘ramble on incoherently.’