Hints for preparing seminar
presentations
t ti
and
d th
theses
Prof. Dr. Till Requate
Till Requate
1
Issues of this presentation
p
Till Requate
● How
to give a good presentation?
● How
to design my slides?
● How
to write myy seminar thesis?
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2
Overview
General remarks
Oral Presentation
●
●
●
Contents / objectives / requirements
Slides
– Structure
– Formalities (Fonts, Animation)
– Tables
T bl and
d Fi
Figures
– Formulas
Presenting
The written Thesis
● Structure
● Introduction
● Hints
Hi
with
i h respect to style
l
Till Requate
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Oral Presentation
Contents / objectives / requirements
The presenter of a thesis or a talk should always ask
him- or herself:
●
Wh is
What
i the
h iissue/question/problem
/
i / bl
I want (I am
supposed) to deal with?
●
What is the main message to be taken home by the
audience?
Till Requate
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Oral Presentation
General:
● The presentation should be designed in such a way
that the auditor who has not read the underlying
literature is able to follow the presentation.
●
Till Requate
The presentation should not be overloaded with
information For 20 minutes: no more than 15 slides
information.
slides.
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Presenting
g
Style to present :
Till Requate
●
Talking freely is optimal.
●
However small written notes are acceptable.
●
The presenter should not rush through the
presentation.
●
A presentation read from a written manuscript is not
considered a sufficient performance.
p
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Presenting
g
Further Hints:
● You should practice your presentation two or
three times in real time.
● Ask a friend or y
your companion
p
student yyou to
listen to you presentation.
● Maintain eye contact with the audience
audience, not
only with the professor;
● Don‘t
D ‘t ttalk
lk tto the
th screen!!
● Make careful and parsimonious use of your
hands and arms.
● But don’t
don t fidget around with your arms.
Till Requate
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Presenting
g
Further Hints:
●
Avoid displacement
p
activity
y
(Übersprungshandlungen) that may distract the
audience.
Till Requate
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The presentation:
Th slides
The
lid
Structure:
Till Requate
●
Look for a clear structure.
●
Think about what you want to say on each slide.
●
Distinguish between the micro structure
( t t
(structure
off a single
i l slide)
lid ) and
d th
the macro
structure (structure of the whole set of slides).
●
The bullet point structure should follow a clear
structure and logic.
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9
The presentation:
Th slides
The
lid
●
Bullet points contents should contain clear
statements in catchword style
style.
Avoid writing long sentences within bullet points
● A bullet point should not contain more than two
sentences.
sentences
●
Till Requate
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The presentation:
Th slides
The
lid
Example (bad)
●
●
Till Requate
Arguments
g
against
g
nuclear p
power:
–
Radioactivity
–
A reactor meltdown can occur
–
O should
One
h ld b
better
tt use renewable
bl energy
Arguments against nuclear power:
–
Radioactivity
–
Reactor meltdown
–
renewable energy better
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The presentation:
Th slides
The
lid
Example (better)
●
Arguments
g
against
g
nuclear p
power:
–
Increased radioactivity in the vincinity of a nuclear
power plant
–
Ri k off reactor
Risk
t melt
lt d
down
–
Crowding out of clean and safe alternative forms of
energy (renewables) by nuclear power
Till Requate
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The presentation:
Th slides
The
lid
Fonts:
●
Use dark ((black)) fonts on white. Our eyes
y are
used to that.
●
Use sans-serif fonts, such as Arial or Tahoma,
avoid serif fonts such as Times Roman!
Till Requate
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The presentation:
Th slides
The
lid
Comparison of different fonts:
Till Requate
●
This sentence is written in Arial.
●
This sentence is written in Tahoma.
●
This sentence is written in Times Roman.
●
This sentence is written in Verdana.
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The presentation:
Th slides
The
lid
Tables and Figures:
●
If you want to show tables from an article, it is
recommended to reproduce the tables and possibly
leave out irrelevant information. (To scan a table is
sometimes bad to be recognized by the audience
audience.))
●
Show onlyy relevant columns and rows of a table.
●
Also figures should be reproduced instead of scanned
in. Then you will also be able to animate them.
Till Requate
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The presentation:
Th slides
The
lid
Formulas (in theoretical topics):
Till Requate
●
Restrict the number of formulas to the most important
ones.
●
Don‘t
D
‘t copy fformulas
l tto your presentation
t ti that
th t you
don‘t understand.
●
You should be able to explain all formulas that you
show.
h
(Thi
(This also
l applies
li tto ttables
bl and
d Fi
Figures.))
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16
The presentation:
Th slides
The
lid
Formulas (in theoretical topics):
●
Formulas that can be important:
p
–
The involved subjects’ objective functions:
● Firms
Firms’ profits,
profits
● consumers’ utility,
● a regulator’s objective function,
● the social planner’s welfare function;
–
–
Till Requate
First-order conditions for profit/utility/welfare
maximization; in particular if they have a straight
forward interpretation.
Results of comparative statics analysis (here it often
suffices to present the sign (positive or negative),
not the full expression of the formula)
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The presentation:
Th slides
The
lid
Formulas (in theoretical topics):
●
Formulas that usually
y should be ommited:
–
Intermediate transformations and calculations;
–
Second-order conditions etc.
–
C
Complicated
li t d expressions
i
th
thatt the
th audience
di
cannott
grasp quickly.
Till Requate
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The presentation:
Th slides
The
lid
Finally :
● Don‘t mess around with silly animation effects.
(Animations can be useful to develop a figure,
or showing
g what happens
pp
if a curve is shifted
and so on)
●
Till Requate
Please use slide numbers (so that the audience
and
d th
the professor
f
can refer
f to
t it in
i the
th
discussion)
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The written thesis
Structure:
Till Requate
●
Important:
p
to have a g
good logical
g
structure.
●
However: a reasonable outline is no guarantee
for a good thesis
thesis.
●
A good
d outline
tli should
h ld b
be continued
ti
d iin th
the
micro-structure, i.e. within each section and
subsection.
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The written thesis
Introduction:
●
To write a g
good introduction is not an easy
y task:
–
Don‘t jump directly into the middle of the topic out of
the blue.
–
A id platitudes
Avoid
l tit d ((„The
Th XY problem
bl
iis nowadays
d
an
often discussed topic,“
topic, (boring!)).
–
A good start can be a recent event discussed in the
media. (But it has to fit your topic!)
Till Requate
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The written thesis
Important elements of an introduction:
● A good motivation of the problem or the
research question
●
It has to become clear
clear,
what
a ques
question
o you want
a to
oa
answer;
s e;
– what methods are used to address the
research
h question
ti ((e.g. th
theoretical
ti l modeling
d li
and analysis, or an empirical investigation,
notably using econometric methods).
–
Till Requate
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The written thesis
Some hints concerning style:
●
Write clear and relatively
y simple
p sentences.
●
Avoid the passive mode if possible.
(students often use the passive mode if they
want to avoid naming a particular subject. E.g.
„It is often claimed that…“ Who claimed that?).
Till Requate
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The written thesis
Some hints concerning style:
Till Requate
●
Avoid sequences of nouns (substantives); better
make constructions using verbs
verbs.
●
If a sentence has become extremely long, try to
p it up
p into several sentences.
split
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The written thesis
Some hints concerning style:
Till Requate
●
Don‘t mix up positive and normative statements.
●
Normative statements as pure value judgements
should be avoided in all scientific papers (such as
“sex
sex before marriage is morally wrong“)
wrong )
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The written thesis
Some hints concerning style:
●
However: Normative statements following from
accepted value judgements such as the Paretoprinciple are important and part of economic theses
and (If-then-statements).
(Example: To enhance economic efficiency the
competition authority should regulate monopoly
power.)
Till Requate
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The written thesis
Footnotes:
● Don‘t make excessive use of footnotes:
Till Requate
–
Important references should be made in the main
text. E.g. “As Jones (2004) has shown,…“
–
A footnote can be appropriate to mention an
additional paper that contains a model variation, or
gives empirical evidence for a theoretical prediction,
or so.
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The written thesis
Paragraphs:
●
Divide y
your thesis into meaningful
g p
paragraphs.
g p
●
Use a unique style of making paragraphs:
Either insert an empty line
– Or make an indent
Don‘tt mix two different styles . (Many Students make
Don
„small“ und „large“ new paragraphs)
–
●
Till Requate
Avoid paragraphs consisting of one sentence
only.
l
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Literature
For German students:
Walter Krämer: Wie schreibe ich eine Seminaroder Examensarbeit?
Campus Verlag, Frankfurt, New York, 3.
Auflage, 2009.
(Die dort vertretene totale Ablehnung von Fußnoten
muss man nicht teilen!)
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