Progress Reports
Due date: Tuesday, November 6th
Presentations due before class; see schedule.
For this assignment, you and your partner will be presenting a 15-minute progress report to the entire class. The subject of this progress report will be the topic you chose for your earlier proposals. In this progress report, you will be informing the class how much work you have done so far on your final report—due during our final exam period and on the same subject as your proposal—and how much work remains to be done before this final due date. A timeline for finishing work on this final report would be helpful.
Before preparing your presentation, make sure that you read Chapter 17 on Oral Presentations, which deals with three type of presentations, one of which is informal presentations. This is the kind you will be presenting in class.
In addition to the PowerPoint presentation, you should also bring at least 12 hand-out copies of your presentation slides for students to share. To save paper, use the print options in PowerPoint to print 3-slides-per-page handout sheets.
File size
During our in-class PowerPoint workshop, we will discuss the need to integrate both text and visuals to convey your ideas to an audience. Depending on how many graphic images you use, the total file size for these PowerPoint presentations will become quite large and require some way for you to transport your files. If you don't own one already, I would suggest buying one of the popular USB Flash drives with at least 500 MBs of storage space.
One way to reduce the amount of storage space needed for your final presentation is to make sure the graphic images you use have a resolution of 72 dpi or less (dpi stands for dots per inch). This is the highest resolution that a computer monitor can project, and since you will be making these reports using PowerPoint, that is the highest resolution you need.
Graphic images
Since most of you aren't graphic artists, you will need to use clip art or Web images to give your presentations visual appeal. PowerPoint comes with a host of clip art, but since these are used quite often, I would encourage you to explore alternative sources of images. A good source of images is the web itself. Many of the popular search engines on the Web have techniques for locating certain graphic images. For example, the Google search engine allows you to search for images on just about any subject.
However, you should avoid excessive and gratuitous use of visual images in your presentation. Make sure the images reinforce the concepts you are discussing. A good rule of thumb is to have a graphic image on every third slide to maintain audience interest, but make sure the image relates to the points being made. Remember, you can also use graphs and charts from other Microsoft programs, such as Word and Excel, to make certain points during your presentation. If you need to make reference to a Web site, we will also have access to the Internet during the presentations.
Organization
The organization of your presentation should follow the general format of a generic report, including a summary of your talk at the beginning and a conclusion at the end. What you do in the middle is entirely up to you, but you should make sure your presentation follows a logical outline that conveys your progress and future plans to the audience.
Criteria for evaluation
As I mentioned in class last week, the criteria on which you will be evaluated consists of mainly two components—how well you have organized and visually displayed your progress report within the PowerPoint environment, and how well you present this information to the audience. Presentation criteria include such things as making eye contact with your audience, maintaining interest in the subject matter, and effectively navigating the PowerPoint environment.
This assignment counts for 15% of your semester grade, so make sure you spend time putting together a logically organized and visually appealing presentation.
If you have any questions, please let me know in class or by email.