Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering Guidelines for Oral Presentations and Written Reports Revised: January 2012 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgments .................................................................................................... 3 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 4 Oral Presentations ................................................................................................. 5 What to Present ............................................................................................. 6 How to Present .............................................................................................. 6 What to Say ................................................................................................... 7 Using Visual Aids .......................................................................................... 8 Example of a PowerPoint Slide Layout ......................................................... 9 General Organization and Style .......................................................................... 10 Writing Principles ......................................................................................... 11 Organization ................................................................................................ 11 Parallel Construction ................................................................................... 12 Lists ............................................................................................................. 13 Punctuation ................................................................................................. 14 Capitalization ............................................................................................... 21 Pronoun Reference ..................................................................................... 22 Dangling Modifiers ....................................................................................... 23 Details .......................................................................................................... 24 Sentence Length ......................................................................................... 28 Word Selection ............................................................................................ 29 Word Demons .............................................................................................. 29 Word Order .................................................................................................. 31 Avoid Nominalization ................................................................................... 31 Set the Stage ............................................................................................... 31 Word Choice ................................................................................................ 32 Word Clutter ................................................................................................ 32 Editing .......................................................................................................... 32 Literature Cited ............................................................................................ 33 Pet Peeves .................................................................................................. 34 General Peeves .................................................................................... 34 “Notation” Peeves ................................................................................. 35 Font Peeves .......................................................................................... 36 Table Peeves ........................................................................................ 36 Figure Peeves ....................................................................................... 37 Word-Choice Peeves ............................................................................ 37 Selections from Edited Student Reports ...................................................... 41 Proofreading and Revision Symbols ........................................................... 52 Suggested Readings ................................................................................... 53 Literature Cited ............................................................................................ 53 3 Acknowledgments The writers of the original Report Preparations Guidelines thank several Texas A&M faculty members for their creative input and editorial advice: Dr. Ron Darby and Dr. Mark Holtzapple, Department of Chemical Engineering, and Dr. Elizabeth Tebeaux, Department of English. A special note of gratitude goes to Mr. Jerry Bradshaw, Unit Operations Laboratory Director, without whose continued support and participation these guidelines would not exist. In its various incarnations, this guide has benefited from the contributions of the following chemical engineering and English grading assistants: Seth Adelson Kathryn Alexander Julie Campbell Lynda Green Betty Haley Jeromy Hollenshead Marjorie Hong Kevin Lunsford Phyllis McBride Steve McCluney Brian McDaniels Rich Spitzer Ya-Jun Wang Sam Wu The revisions of August 2005 were based on input from the following faculty members: Dr. Rayford Anthony, Dr. Charles Glover, and Dr. David Ford. Mr. Jerry Bradshaw once again led the way with insight and diligence. English grading assistant Jackie Womack compiled ideas and researched changes to bring the Guidelines up to date. Additional revisions were completed in August 2007. In August 2010, additional revisions were made at the suggestion of Dr. Tebeaux. In December 2011, extensive additions were made by Dr. Mark Holtzapple. 4 Introduction In addition to utilizing the principles of physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, and engineering, engineers must be excellent writers and communicators. Research shows that engineers continually face the difficulties of clearly communicating technical information at many levels and to a variety of audiences. The following statistics provide some insight into how engineering graduates view the importance of good writing skills. Robert Bataille of Iowa State University surveyed graduates from six different fields: the engineers surveyed rated writing skills at 73 on a scale of 1 (least important) to 99 (most important). For comparison, sociologists rated writing skills at 72, and English majors rated them at 70. Bataille concludes, “If nothing else, the responses should slay the seemingly ever-enduring myth that engineers do not have to write to be successful.” In addition, Bataille notes that all the groups surveyed viewed writing as important both to their present and future job success. In other words, good writing skills were a consideration for promotions and raises.1 Carol Barnum and Robert Fischer of Southern Technical Institute report that 91% of the engineers surveyed stated that their writing was “very important” or “important” to their jobs. About 80% noted that the ability to communicate has helped their career advancement.2 The optimum place for engineers to begin honing their professional writing skills is in the university setting. With that in mind, your Texas A&M chemical engineering professors urge you to develop good technical communication skills. This guide includes advice specifically for students who are planning and drafting written reports, and presenting oral reports. The information and examples in this guide present good general rules to follow concerning form, content, organization, documentation, editing, and presentation of reports. Study these guidelines carefully before beginning your projects, and use them as reference tools throughout the process of compiling, writing, and presenting your work. 5 Oral Presentations 6 To prepare an oral presentation, you should prepare an outline of the major points you wish to cover and practice your actual presentation in front of others. Chapter 6 of your freshman text Foundations of Engineering provides helpful information on preparing and giving oral presentations. Before facing your audience, carefully consider the following general suggestions. What to Present When looking over your written report to determine how you are going to present the information orally, remember that you do not want to overload your audience. In other words, do not stand up and read the written report; choose the most important information: • introduction and problem statement, • relevant theory, • experimental method (including discussion of the apparatus and procedure), and • results. However, do not limit yourself to a rigid pattern of organization; remember that your oral presentation needs to emphasize clarity. In some cases, you may need to discuss equipment and procedure before theory. You will generally have 30 minutes maximum in which to present your report, but check with your instructor to be certain of the time limit. How to Present When speaking, maintain eye contact with audience members and speak clearly, calmly, and loudly enough so that everyone in the room can hear you. You should NEVER turn your back on your listeners (that's rude!). If you must refer to a visual aid, use a pointer to keep your body (as far as you can) oriented toward your audience. When using a laser pointer, practice to insure accuracy. Do not leave the laser on while gesturing, and only use one if you can do so in a non-distracting way. If you practice with the group, other members can tell you if you have any mannerisms that will distract your audience from what you say. For example, random motions or 7 behaviors—like jingling coins in a pocket, waving a pointer, clearing your throat continuously, or playing with your hair—or habitual sounds—like uh, ah, um, er, ok, you know—cause an audience to pay attention to you rather than to your message. What to Say Most oral presentations fall naturally into three parts: the introduction, the body, and the conclusion: The Introduction – Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Create a friendly atmosphere and announce the subject, purpose, and scope of your talk. Remember to introduce all members of the group at the beginning and the topics each one will discuss. NEVER apologize (about the report results, your expertise, or your ability as a public speaker); you want your audience to be as positive about you and your work as you are! The Body – Tell them. This is the “heart” of the presentation. Visual aids should reinforce what you are saying, not detract from it. During the presentation, create transitions from one topic to the next. Use “chapter designators” to let the audience know when you have changed topics. Because the spoken language is rarely as formal as the written, you may use the personal “I” or “we” when appropriate; you won't want to sound stiff or artificial even when discussing technical material. The Conclusion – Tell them what you told them. Don't conclude your presentation by finishing abruptly and sitting down. Let the audience know when you are about to finish—you can use obvious tag phrases like “in conclusion” or “to summarize” when you review the specific results you discussed earlier. The conclusion is not just a repeat of the introduction because your audience has a new understanding of your topic. Now is also the time for all good speakers to ask their audience if there are any questions. You want to leave your audience with the impression that you're smart, polite, and able to handle the exchange of professional discourse. Additional considerations follow: • do not present new material in the conclusion, • keep your delivery strong and avoid the deadly “trailing off”, and • maintain eye contact and speak directly to your listeners instead of reading from your notes. 8 Using Visual Aids Take the time to prepare appropriate PowerPoint slides; that is, do not simply paste pages from a written report. Visual aids should help your audience understand your presentation, not distract them from it. Therefore, make sure they clarify your information and aid your presentation, not just decorate it. Also, your slides should not have too much text, print that is too small, or too many illustrations on one sheet. (See an example layout of a slide at the end of this section.) Refer to the following guidelines to help you: • For text, use a font like Helvetica (sans serif) and a font size greater than 18 point. • For equations, use Times New Roman (serif) font, which clearly shows the italics used to identify mathematical variables and constants (e.g., T, P, R, Q). • When defining a mathematical variable or constant, use the same serif font that appears in the equation. This avoids “mental gymnastics” associated with translating from one font to another. (Note: The definition itself can be a sans serif font.) • Use color where appropriate to highlight (but not overshadow) information. • Use brief action statements rather than complete sentences. • Place only one equation (unless it's very brief) on each slide. • Draw a neat schematic or show a photo of the apparatus. Highlight its main features. • Label axes of graphs and include data points and confidence intervals where appropriate. To ensure readability of any text, print the slide and view it from six feet away. If you can easily read the slide, the print is large enough. This picture shows bad form. Either the pointer should be in the left hand, or the presenter should be standing on the other side of the slide. 9 s d t n l u i o e o t p k u h a e e s r o m r r o u s j e y t a g e m o i h La ull e nt t e f e b h h a g t e t w e t a s e u d e t u o s a i h t o b s l T S Y A S e • • • • m e v y i t a c w e a f f e E d k n ais e a aler oe t A ugh s e i V h T 10 General Organization and Style