Presentations

Please review the class schedule and select four papers (or groups of papers) from the list of topics in each class, excluding any “background” classes. Your selections must also be on different dates. Once you’ve identified your papers, note your paper(s) title, authors, your name, and the date of your presentation on the Presentations tab of the Google Sheet here no later than Friday, January 26.

We will have no more than three paper groupings per class day, which means we have to keep each presentation plus discussion to no more than 25 minutes (20 for presentations, 5 for discussion). We’ll have a few extra minutes for discussion on days with just two paper groupings, but even on those days, let’s aim for 20 minute presentations. The presentation should follow a standard conference setup, with some brief discussion of the research question, discussion of the data, empirical analysis, and results and key contributions. You should also prepare two discussion questions to lead a 5 minute discussion after your presentation. Please submit your presentations via Canvas no later than 11:59pm on the day before your presentation.

Your presentation should be no more than 10 slides (including a title slide and your discussion questions at the end). Since the papers have already been motivated from prior classes, you can safely ignore the “motivation” section of a typical presentation. Each presentation is worth 5 points toward your final grade, with one point allocated to each of the following categories:

• Slide length: no more than 10 slides in total (including your discussion questions)
• Slide layout: slides should be clear and concise, with no more than 5 lines of text per slide and at least one figure
• Presentation clarity: the presentation should be clear and well-organized, with a clear description of the research question, data, empirical analysis, and results
• Presentation length: the presentation should be no more than 20 minutes, including clarifying questions
• Discussion questions: the discussion questions should be clear and thought-provoking. Please conclude your presentation with a final slide listing these questions.

Note that a presentation is not just a re-hashing of the paper in slide form. A good academic presentation should have as little information as possible on each slide, and the content on the slides doesn’t necessarily need to follow that of the paper. For example, in a real-time environment, it is much easier to move between different aspects of the empirical analysis and data.