Guidelines BSc Professional Training Oral Presentations

You will be expected to provide an oral presentation to your appointed Visiting Academic Tutor (and a selected audience including your Industrial Supervisor and other members of the company) for each of your Industrial Visits.

First Oral Presentation

The first Professional Training Oral Presentation should be prepared for delivery by PowerPoint (with associated handouts) and must have been checked by your industrial supervisor for confidential issues. The expected length of delivery is approximately 15 to 20 minutes with questions to follow.

Your Visiting Academic Tutor has been instructed to request that all the members of the audience are invited to ask questions. After this a review will be made of the important points relating to the delivery of your presentation. Please note these comments are made to help you with your oral presentation skills and it is hoped that you address these issues at the time of your next oral presentation.

The general structure for your first oral presentation should be:

·  Title page (your name, University coat of arms/UniS, company, supervisor);

·  Outline of presentation;

·  Details about company;

·  Details about your work area;

·  Details about the work you have been doing;

·  Summary of a forward plan of work to do before next visit;

·  Summary of skills and competencies gained;

·  Timetable (see Chem-PT document 4.11);

·  Summary: Review above; and

·  A brief statement focusing on what is novel or new about the work you are doing and how it relates to why the company have employed you!

Second Oral Presentation

Your second oral presentation should be prepared and delivered as a major Technical Report, focusing on any research projects, major instrumental methods or computational programmes you have been using. The length of the presentation should be 25 to 35 minutes with questions to follow. You should attempt to incorporate different modes of presentation into what you deliver, for example, the use of flip-charts, handouts that do not just report what is the PowerPoint content, maybe even facilitate a question and answer period within the presentation. Visiting Academic Tutors have been instructed to also ask a series of standard chemistry questions relating to the general chemistry subject areas of your work. These questions are asked so as to provide some experience of the types of questions which may be asked during your Level M viva voca presentation or if you are examined by the External Examiners.

Third Oral Presentation

Your third presentation is really to be designed by you, using the many skills you have learnt over the year, and also incorporating most of the suggestions made by those present at your previous presentations. The length of delivery is from 20 to 40 minutes, and some ideas which you may want to include are as follows:

·  a brief focused overview of the pros and cons of the placement (being constructive and any controversial subjects already discussed with your Industrial Supervisor);

·  a focused report of the achievements of the year, especially research project outcomes and the IMPACT in terms of the company and your own personal development;

·  your final management timetable reporting what the strengths of the programme were and any areas worth considering for improvement (like Health and Safety training, skills courses, etc).

Summary

It is very important that you take every opportunity to gain experience through presenting your work. Those of you in overseas placements, it is important to think about including some foreign language usage into the presentation, especially if you have been on a sponsored language course funded by the EU or the company. On returning to the university your will be requested to prepare and deliver an oral presentation on Industry Day and for your Level M viva voca presentation. More importantly, good oral presentation skills may be the success story of the job you get after graduation!

Dr Neil I. Ward 12/05

2