AST 221: Stars & the Solar System

Fall 2008, Marten van Kerkwijk

Presentation requirements

1. Two people in the group should partition their work equally. Easiest is for one to give the presentation and for the other to answer questions. The total time alloted is 24 minutes, out of which at most 12 minutes are for the presentation and at least 12 minutes are for questions/discussions. You will be penalised if your talk runs overtime.
2. Be physical and quantitative in your discussion -- this is a presentation by a science major so I expect more than just descriptive words. Ask whys and hows, and answer them synthesizing the information you found.
3. You will fare better if you can produce an estimate -- an estimate that discloses the essence of the phenomonon and gives your audience a good quantitative understanding.
4. I would discourage using computer slides -- you have only 12 minutes and have to be physical in your discussion. If you insist, however, you can email a presentation to me and I can project using my laptop (in thinking about it, consider essential figures, not bullet points). Transparencies usually work better for short presentations; you can get ones suitable for copiers from me.
5. The audience is encouraged/required to ask questions. You can get up to 2 bonus marks (above the full 10 marks for presentation) if you ask particularly interesting questions. In the past, this has been the most fun part and both the audience and the speakers learn from it.