FAQ

Here are some FAQs about your final presentation.

Q.
 What are my deliverable?
A.
 You have six deliverable mentioned in the following four points.  .pdf format is preferred for deliverable.
  1. One page summary for the paper you are assigned to present.  It should not be longer than 500 words and could be as short as one line or word.
  2. Presentation slides of your final presentation.
  3. Abstracts for each of the two paper assigned to you for Q&A.  These abstracts should not be longer than 300 words and could be as short as one line or word.
  4. Three questions for each of the two papers assigned to you for Q&A.  You are not required to submit answers of these questions.


Q.
 When is the deadline for submitting the deliverable?

Note that the deadline for submitting all of the aforementioned deliverable is 15th February, 2009.  However, you should try to submit them as soon as possible e.g. a week before your presentation.  In case you are not able to submit them until 15th February, 2009 then you might have some marks deduction.


Q.
 How long should my presentation be?

You have 40 minutes for your presentation, followed by 15 minutes of Q&A session.


Q.
 What kind of summary could give me a good grade?

You should not write summary as the authors of the paper but as the paper critics.  Hence try to find mistakes or shortcomings of the paper. Furthermore, do also highlight the contributions of the authors and suggest any possible future improvements for authors. This is the kind of summary that will get a better grade.


Q.
 What kind of Q&A will give me a good grade?
A
 Your Q&A should challenge the presenter and expose him if he is not well-prepared.  However, he should be able to answer all questions easily if he has read the whole paper.  It implies that you should not ask questions that are too obvious or questions without answers in the paper.


Q.
 What is the venue of the final presentations?

SR 01-016, Building 101


Q.
 What is the schedule of the final presentations?
A.
 See here.


Q.
 Will my presentation be recorded?
A.
 Yes.  We hope that will help you improve your future presentation.


Q
 Any successful presentation tips?
A.
 Here are our 13 lucky tips for you.

1. Know your stuff: Read your paper several times and be sure that you have understood it fully before you start preparing your presentation.

2. Finish it within the scheduled time: Before making the actual presentation, do some rehearsals and time your presentation.  In this way you will be sure that you will end your presentation on time. Furthermore, rehearsals let you prepare the things you want to tell others and you do not have to think hard during presentation.

3. Speak slowly and clearly: In case you are running out of time, it is better to skip few slides than to quickly finish your presentation.  Your aim should be that everybody understands what you are presenting instead of trying to present the whole paper, even that it is not possible within the allocated time slot.

4. Talk to the audience: Loot at the audience and try to engage them in your presentation.

5. Do not let anyone sleep or lose interest: It is good to have some figures, animations, or stories illustrating important points to help you getting the attention of your audience.  Sometimes a change in your voice tone for stressing important points during presentation could also help. A good presenter makes uninterested people interested in his presentation.  In contrast, a bad presenter makes his audience lose their interests.

6. Choose the presentation background and layout carefully: If you are a gifted artist, you will make the right choices.  Otherwise, try to use existing templates of your presentation editor software, keep it simple and get feedback from your friends (especially female friends).

7. Be careful of your body language: Sometimes your body could speak louder than your mouth.  Hence do not overuse your hands or put them in your pocket.  Do not play with your pen, paper or any other things during presentation.  Lastly, do not block the presentation screen :)

8. Avoid making it complicated: Try to explain hard things in simple way.  Your goal is to make sure that most audience understand you, instead of only a small percentage of them.

9. Keep text to a minimum: It is recommended that each slide should have at most 5 bullet points and every point should not contain more than ten words.  You do not need to write full sentences but only short forms.

10. Do not read your slides or notes: Your slides should only give you hints about what you have to speak there.  They are not supposed to have full explanations.  Furthermore, reading from the slides or notes is not a good idea during the presentation.

11. Observe and learn: Observing other presenters and learning from their mistakes is always a good strategy in the long run. However, it could also help you on the presentation day if your presentation is not the first one.

12. Avoid plagiarism: Do not copy figures with unknown copyrights.  Write everything with your own words unless they are in quotations.  Your text should have reference(s) unless it is your original idea.

13. Prepare your answers in advance: You might not be able to tell everything during a short time and know many questions you would like to ask yourself. Therefore, you should accept that other people who have read your paper will also ask similar questions.  Be prepared to answer such questions.  Furthermore, you may prepare some back-up slides (not presented in original presentation) that could serve as answers and consequently impress your audience.
-originally prepared by Faisal Aslam