All speakers are requested to recruit an individual who will introduce them to the seminar audience at their presentation. The speakers are also requested to provide an abstract of their presentation to Dr. Weinberg at least two weeks prior to the date of their talk. The seminar session is scheduled each week for a maximum of 50 minutes and will contain the following components:

Program

General Departmental Announcements
Introductions
Presentation
Question time and Discussion

With this in mind, actual presentation should be no more than 40 minutes. Optimum time is 30-40 minutes with 10-15 minutes of discussion.

Recording your presentation for our archive

We realize that you may be presenting some new unpublished material and will respect your desire to keep this secure, but as far as is reasonably possible we would like to make an audio recording of your seminar and collect a secured pdf of your slides as a package that can be archived for others to listen to/view in the future. Please let the seminar co-ordinator know if you would prefer not to participate in this - we can certainly work with some blanked out slides on the pdf if you don't want these to be archived and none of the material will be available for printing, copying or downloading off the archive.

Visual Aids Resources

Your Presentation can use visual aids. The following are available:
Overhead projection
Slide projection
Video projection

Computer generated overhead projection either from your own portable computer, one loaned from the audio/visual (a/v) department, or from a remotely controlled location is possible. Speakers are strongly urged to discuss their needs with a/v services in room 233, Rosenau (tel #919-966-6536) well in advance of their presentation and to become comfortable and acquainted with the electronic operations in the seminar room. You are encouraged to make equipment reservations well in advance of your presentation to help ensure their ability to meet your needs. You may reserve equipment online at http://www.sph.unc.edu/forms/av/avrequest.html.

One of the aims of the student presentations is to provide students with the experience of fine-tuning their oral skills in front of their peers. To assist in this goal, we can provide a video camera to record your presentation, which you can later review in private. You should bring your own VHS blank tape and ask one of your friends/colleagues to take charge of positioning the camera. Again if you wish to take advantage of this facility, please inform the a/v services as far in advance as possible. Make certain visual aids can be read clearly from the back of the lecture room. It is best not to use tables copied from a text.

On-line Resources for Preparation of your Presentation

The best all-around site about making professional presentations is from the Kansas University Medical School:
http://www.kumc.edu/SAH/OTEd/jradel/effective.html

Content

Presentations should be aimed at a general audience remembering that students in attendance will come from a a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. They should all expect to gain something from your presentation so please have an expanded background or introductory component. Make a strong effort to minimize specialty prose or use of acronyms without introducing them both audibly and visually. Finally, put your presentation in the context of global environmental sciences and emphasize the contribution of your work in a broader perspective.