Give an oral presentation on an interesting issue or recent development in your subject area to a non-specialist audience.
Contemporary Global Issues 3: Oral Presentation
Task: Give an oral presentation on an interesting issue or recent development in your subject area to a non-specialist audience.
Timing: Your oral presentation must last for 7-8 minutes followed by 2-3 minutes for
questions.
Instructions: Your presentation must be related to a recent development or issue that you have chosen and researched independently. You must also be clear in your
introduction about whether your issue is:
- an application of this subject to everyday life
- a new development
- c. a problem people are trying to solve
- d. a controversial issue.
You must agree on the content you are proposing for the presentation with your tutor.
The content of your presentation must match the abstract you are submitting.
You will need to state the aim of your presentation clearly. You are going to present this topic/issue to non-specialists so it should not be anything too in-depth or technical.
You must include a slide with a list of references at the end of your presentation.
Your presentation will be recorded for assessment and moderation purposes.
You must submit your PowerPoint Slides (pdf) to Turnitin on the day of your presentation. Please ensure that your full name and student ID number are on your first slide.
Reflection (submit one reflection to cover both the presentation and abstract):
There is no specified word limit for the reflection task. On completion of your abstract AND presentation, you should write a reflection on how easy/difficult you found it, (ie. What did you think were your strengths and weaknesses?) which skills you feel were tested, and what you think you need to work on to make this type of task easier in future. You should submit this within 24 hours of completing the presentation via the Turnitin tool in the Assessment/Submit my work area of Minerva.
This presentation with reflection is worth 20% of your mark for this module
Please refer to the assessment criteria on Minerva
Guidelines:
- In your introduction don’t forget to introduce yourself, explain which degree programme you are studying next year (with a very brief definition if you think it is needed. For example, what does a degree in ‘medical chemistry’ cover? Also mention what type of issue you are focusing on – a new development, a controversial issue, a problem to be solved, an application of your degree subject to everyday life, or perhaps it is a combination of these.
- The marking criteria ask for ‘excellent coverage & balance in the presentation’, which means that you need to look critically at your ‘issue’ and try to analyse rather than just describe, wherever possible. Are there any drawbacks to the new development you have chosen, for example? How might a new development compare to the older development it is replacing? If you are looking at a ‘controversial issue’, are you giving a balanced viewpoint supported by evidence so that you don’t alienate your audience?
- Make sure you give evidence to support what you are saying and examples to illustrate (‘examples / statistics presented to support ideas’) Remember that your audience don’t know the topic as well as you do and therefore it needs to be explained clearly and with reference to helpful examples. Do not overload with too much subject-specific vocabulary, and explain any terms that you think the audience won’t know (‘the content is appropriate for a non-specialist audience’).
- Finally, try to choose something you are interested in so that this interest is communicated to the audience. Try to get the audience on your side from the start with a hook where it might be a good idea to try and link your topic to something the audience might relate to (‘attempt to interest the audience and to gain and establish rapport’).
- Remember that the list of references for the presentation and abstract should be the same, apart from any which refer to pictures/graphs/charts which you use in your presentation.
