(this document is http://bit.ly/2mpDoNk)
- Show the examiners, and make them understand, clearly what you have achieved after about 400 hours of work over two semesters.
- Demonstrate to the examiners that you know very well what you have done.
- Keep the examiners happy.
(WING keeps some slide decks by WING-NUS folks on speakerdeck.com. Look for #WING-NUS. https://speakerdeck.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=wing-nus)
- Keep only necessary words on the slides. A general rule of thumb is no more than 6 lines per slide.
- Use figures whenever possible.
- Sometimes, introductions can be done with full slide images (i.e., no need the title+content layout) with an accompanying story told verbally.
- Keep the variety of fonts to minimal. I generally use two fonts at most (one for headers, one for body).
- Publish your slides on the web to allow examiners to review later if needed (e.g., Jovian Lin has very good slides). Use a URL shortener for making shortlinks and embedding those on the slides too.
- Keep a set of backup slides. You should have more things to say about your project than the allocated 25 minutes. For the content that you have to cut from the main presentation, prepare slides for them as well, but keep them as backup. If the examiners ask about it, you can pull up the backup slides and show them.
- It is good to anticipate questions from the examiners and prepare the slides to answer them.
- Corollary: You can led examiners to ask the questions you have answers for: "I don't have time to answer this question now, but I'll be happy to explain more in detail later in the Q/A if you wish". This is a very good strategy if you plant them as part of your (close to) conclusion slide, especially for faculty that don't mind being lead to a question.
- Check for typos. Badly prepared slides leave bad impressions.
- Give handouts of your slides to the examiners. It is useful if they want to refer back to your previous slides.
- Specific types of slides:
- Outline slides: highlight the salient differences in structure your presentation has in contrast with other similar ones. Don't (verbally) say that you start with an introduction and conclude with a conclusion.
- Conclusion slide: End with a contributions slide, so the examiners have a strong positive sense of your work done and suggests a good grade for your project. Don't end on an empty "Thank you" slide, as this says to the examiner that they can decide whatever they want for your grade. Don't end on a future work slide, as this suggests that you didn't finish your assigned project.
- It is always useful to show a short demo (no more than 2 mins) at the beginning of the presentation to give the examiners a concrete idea of what you have done. You can keep a complete or longer demo at the end. Also, in some cases, students run out of time and there is no time for demo at the end. Showing a short demo at the beginning means you at least have a chance to show off you hard work.
- Make sure you explicitly say what YOU have done. Often, you built on top of other’s code, or work with another students on the project, or use someone else’s algorithms. Be very clear about your achievements and contributions. A slide listing your individual contributions is a must.
- It is always good to list the technical challenges you faced. Sometimes examiners may not appreciate your project, but in fact it may take a few months of hard work. Listing the challenges would make the examiners appreciate what you have achieved.
- Do not assume that your examiners read your report. So do not leave out important things from the presentation.
- Tell the examiners explicitly if you leave some parts of the project out from the presentation due to time constraints.
- Keep the presentation of your project technical and academic-oriented as much as possible. This presentation is the pinnacle of your 4 years of bachelor education. Show off what you have learnt and how you applied them in your project.
- Use appendices or website links for auxiliar materials so that you can keep the core of your report lean.
- Note: some examiners will still be upset if they are faced with a large hardcopy report, so now the best practice is to array the auxiliary material in a public website link.
- No examiner likes presentation that goes over time, so please practice and time yourself, and keep your presentation within the allocated time period. Don't get agitated if an examiner's interruption force you to rush -- be prepared and if you feel you are running low on time, politely suggest to move the questions to the end.
- Be adaptive in your presentation — prepare to cut some content if unexpected things happen and you are out of time. Mentally prepare which part of your presentation is important (can score points with examiners) and which part is optional (can refer examiners to the report).
- Be able to jump to key parts of your presentation. Most software allow you to jump to a point in your presentation while in slideshow mode. Memorize slide numbers of key slides marking the beginning of sections of your talk so it's easy to jump without needing to scroll up/down needlessly.
This part is critical. A lot of students fumble on this due to their lack of preparedness for questions. The key part is to listen well (very hard to do when you're nervous, but important to practice).
- Be aware that many professors do not have specific knowledge of your area. They may be smart but they will ask questions that make seem alien ("from the left field"). You have to deal with this by using the tactics below.
- Listen carefully to the questions. If you do not understand the questions, ask the examiners to rephrase the question.
- Answer questions directly.
- If you do not know the answer, just say you don’t know. Do not smoke. (Confucius said: Knowledge is: know what you know, and know what you do not know)
- To lower your nervousness in presentation, suggest that you try to arrange your FYP team to come with you (e.g., professor, Ph.D. student advisor, peer FYP/UROP students). Do support others in your group as well, as you can learn from their defenses as well.
- WING's and SoC's Zhao Jin gives a presentation checklist: http://bit.ly/2nxt2uU
- Susan McConnel’s talk on how to give effective scientific presentation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp7Id3Yb9XQ