Student presentation information
Animal Behavior (ZOL 313), Summer 2008
All students will select one journal article about animal behavior from the primary literature and present the main findings of this article to the class in a 5 to 7 minute presentation. This presentation will be worth 15% of your final grade.
Selecting your article:
· Articles must be from one of three journals: Animal Behaviour, Behavioral Ecology, or Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
· Articles must be a research article, not a review or synthesis (i.e. articles should have an introduction, methods, results, and discussion section).
· Articles must be less than 2 years old.
· Articles may be about any topic in animal behavior that you find interesting and may be about any species, either human or non-human.
· You must have your article approved by Lindsey or Katie by Wednesday, May 21, or you will lose 1 point from your presentation grade for every day it is late. To get an article approved, hand in a photocopy of the first page of your article. We cannot approve articles over email.
· No two students may present the same article. Students will be able to “claim” an article by getting it approved on a first come, first served basis. If someone else has already been approved for the article you want, you will need to select another one, so we suggest you bring us several possible choices in case your first choice is taken.
Presenting your article:
· Presentations will be on Wednesdays starting May 28. Students will sign up for the day they would like to present their article. A sign up sheet will be available starting before class on Thursday, May 15. Students will sign up for a date on a first come, first served basis.
· You may use PowerPoint slides if wish, but they are not required. If you do use PowerPoint, bring your presentation to class on a CD or flash drive. If you use a MAC, make sure to check your presentation on a PC before you come to class.
· In order to make sure we have enough time for everyone, you will not be allowed to continue your presentation past 7 minutes, so make sure to time your presentation when you practice it. Do not expect to get through more than 7 to 10 PowerPoint slides.
· You may not have time to present every result from your article in 7 minutes. If that is the case, you will need to decide what is the most important information to convey. You do not need to present every detail or result.
Grading:
Your presentation should include the following components:
1. Title. Tell us the title of your paper and the authors. It is important to give credit to the researchers who performed the study that you are describing. 1 point
2. Introduction to the topic. Briefly introduce the topic of the article and summarize what we already know about this topic. 2 points
3. Hypothesis/predictions. Explain what the researchers were testing in this study and what they predicted they would find. 2 points
4. Methods. Briefly explain how the researchers conducted their study. This should be a short summary and should not take more than 1 minute of your presentation. Do not worry about explaining complicated statistics. 1 point
5. Results. Explain the main result that the researchers found. You may find it helpful to display a figure from the results section and explain it to us. 2 points
6. Discussion. Explain whether the researchers’ predictions were supported and what the results mean for their hypothesis. 2 points
7. Future directions. Describe what should be done next in this area and what questions remain unanswered. 2 points
Speaking style/overall quality of presentation: 3 points
Total: 15 points