Before the symposium
Preparing your individual presentation
Logistics of the presentations
After the symposium

Before the symposium

• By or on Monday, April 27, e-mail me a rough draft of your project report. I will use this to determine the schedule of presentations. If you don't submit a rough draft, you won't be on the schedule.
   
• On Tuesday, April 28, you will receive rough draft project reports from two of your colleagues. Read these before the symposium and have one or more questions ready.
   
• By 11:30 AM (or earlier!), Thursday, April 30, e-mail me your individual presentation file. There will be no group presentation (this differs from previous years.
   
• On Tuesday, April 28, leave wherever you are in time to arrive Oliver Room 2122 (our usual classroom) by 1:00 PM, ready to present and interact with other presenters.
   

Preparing your individual presentation

• Please see General suggestions for presentations for hints as to how to prepare a presentation.
   
• The amount of time you have for your presentation will depend on the number of rough drafts I receive. It will probably be around 8 minutes.
   
• 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.
   
• Present at least one result (not conclusion) with a description of how you obtained it.
   
• 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.
   

Logistics of the presentations

• Don't wait to be invited. Go to the podium as soon as it is your turn to present, so that the time needed to change from one presentation to the next is minimal.
   
• One minute before the end of your allotted time you will hear a distant tinkling. A minute later you will hear a thunderous crash impossible to ignore. At that moment, you're time is up.
   
• If you are a critic of the presenter, take notes. Take LOTS of notes.
   
• 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. After that, anyone is welcome to chime in.

After the symposium

• By or on Monday, May 4, return critiques of the two presentations you were assigned. Presentations will be posted so that you can refer back to them.
   
• Feel free to schedule consultations with Nick or me between the presentation and your submission of your final report.
   
• By or on Saturday, May 9, e-mail the final version of your project report.