ECS 188 - Guidelines for Your Project (Oral and Written)

1. Your presentation should be 25 minutes, assuming not-too-much interruption. Often we'll have a discussion immediately afterwards about what you've just presented. In that discussion you should help answer questions and put in opinions.
2. I suggest you do your presentation in PowerPoint, but other presentation tools are fine, too.
3. Email me your presentation by 12:00 noon of the day you will give your talk. Send .ppt if you will use PowerPoint, .pdf or .html if you will not. I will load it onto my own laptop and set it up for you for class. I will also put it on-line within a day.
4. Your draft written is due at the time of your presentation. Bring a hardcopy for me to your talk.
5. Your written report should be about 5 pages (say 4-6 pages), using the margins, font, and line-spacing from the LaTeX template you were given. I expect it to be carefully written.
6. The final version of your written report is due by 5 pm two days after your talk. Email it to me as .pdf.
7. In your presentation, I want you to focus on what the author thinks, not what you think. If you wish to include some of your own analysis, confine this to the last five minutes of the talk and clearly delineate your own analysis from the author's views.
8. In contrast, your written report may focus either on analysis or your own or it may simply and clearly summarize what you found to be the most interesting ideas from the author's work. You written report must make sense to me assuming that I have not read your book. I will, however, have listened to your presentation. I expect to grade your written report within a couple days of receiving the final version.
9. In both your written and oral presentations, try not to rehash old discussions we have had in class; focus on what's new. But do feel welcome to compare and contrast the author's view from your book you've read to views we have discussed in class from our readings.
10. Most of the books have way too much material to go over comprehensively in a 25-minute presentation or a 5-page paper. In such a case, your job is to select out what you find to be the most interesting and relevant material. Don't "gloss over" things in order to be comprehensive; I would rather see a meaningful treatment of a small amount of material.
11. Have fun!!!

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