Presenting technical content in an engaging and precise manner is a useful skill you will have the opportunity to practice during this course. This page gives guidelines for a successful presentation, including a suggested outline for paper presentations, and additional tips for effectiveness.
Paper presentations serve a dual purpose in this course. While you are learning to present technical content, your peers in the class are depending on you to share the material in an accessible way. In addition to the actual presentation, you are responsible for leading a discussion of the important points in the paper, and relating them to the material in the rest of the course. To facilitate this, you should prepare three questions for the class that will generate a lively discussion. Think of questions that get at the main ideas of the paper, or help to relate it to previously studied concepts. Perhaps there is a weakness in the paper that the class might identify and discuss? Aim for a level of question that is neither too simple to answer, nor too hard. Open-ended questions are often better than ones with a definite answer, although occasionally a well-posed factual question can illuminate some important point. One way to develop questions is to contrast the paper with other similar work, and have people identify the differences. You can also draw connections to other work we have studied and ask about those.
Outline
- Optional: Background on authors, history of paper, etc.
- Introduction: What is the problem to be solved?
- Motivation: Why do we care?
- Obstacles: What is stopping us?
- Previous work, if any
- Summary of new approach/contribution
- Method (includes technical details)
- Results & evaluation
- Conclusion: How does this relate to everything else we have learned?
The presentation will be followed by Q&A and a discussion. You have 25 minutes. Aim to complete the presentation component in 15-20 so as to leave time for conversation. Remember, this is a seminar class!
Additional Tips
- When choosing a paper to present, read these guidelines for how to assess quality.
- Before your presentation, schedule a meeting with the professor to discuss the paper and the material you plan to share.
- Be sure to include plenty of motivating/orienting information. Say not only what the paper does, but why it does it. This applies at every scale -- if a certain algorithmic choice is made instead of another one, you should point that out and explain. Your goal is to help your classmates to understand how the research was developed.
- Try to include at least one graphic element on every slide!
- Clarity trumps completeness. If there are details you don't understand, it is better to say so up front. (This will be a topic for later discussion!) But at least do your best to give a cogent description of how the piece in question relates to the rest of the work, even if you have to gloss over the details.
- The other students in class are your target audience. Pitch your presentation at a level that they will understand.