Before the symposium
The general introduction
Preparing your individual presentation
Logistics of the presentations

Before the symposium

• You and your group will present at the final Symposium on Genome Analysis, Thursday, May 1, 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM, Oliver Room 2122 (our usual classroom)
   
• By noon of that day (NO LATER!), each group should send me a single file (e.g. Powerpoint), consisting of a general introduction and the presentations of each individual member. Earlier is better.
   

The general introduction

• The general introduction should be no longer than one minute. That's not a lot of time.
   
• The goal of the general introduction is to present concepts that are needed to understand multiple individual introductions. That way individual presenters don't have to cover the same ground.
   
• A secondary goal is to provide a rationale for why each individual project is part of the whole.
   
• It may be that the topic of one of the presenters doesn't fit will with the rest. That's OK. Briefly mention that and move on.
   

Preparing your individual presentation

• Please see General suggestions for presentations for hints as to how to prepare a presentation.
   
• You will have up to five minutes for your individual presentation.
   
• Presume your audience to be people much like yourself before taking this course.
   
• You may presume some familiarity with tools that have arisen repeatedly within the course, e.g. Blast. Do not presume familiarity with other tools, even though they may now be second nature to you.
   
• In particular, you should presume only basic familiarity with BioBIKE. People have learned different slices of it, probably different from your own.
   
• However, there's generally no point in displaying BioBIKE code. It's better to explain the algorithm behind the code to make your procedure intuitively clear.
   
• If time is short (and it probably will be), focus on your most interesting result.
   
• More important than WHAT you believe is WHY you believe it. Within the time available, give your audience an idea of how you arrived at your conclusion(s).
   
• Your primary responsibility: BE INTERESTING. Tell a brief scientific story that describes your journey to discovery, including thought processes and reasons.
• More important than WHAT you believe is WHY you believe it. Within the time available, give your audience an idea of how you arrived at your conclusions.
   

Logistics of the presentations

• The group will go to the front of the room together, so that the time needed to change from one individual presentation to the next is minimal.
   
• The group will present the 1-minute general introduction in any way it seems fit. Then individual presentations will follow, in any order you choose.
   
• Four minutes into your individual presentation, you will hear a distant tinkling. At five minutes you will hear a thunderous crash impossible to ignore. At that moment, you're time is up.
   
• A short question/answer period will follow each individual presentation. The lead critic (see Symposium Schedule on the calendar, when available) will ask the first question.