Final Project Guidelines
Your preliminary organizational plan must explain how you will
present your project and must contained a detailed talk outline.
Your final project will be a 15-20 minute presentation.
You may present your project on the blackboard, on transparencies, or
as a powerpoint presentation.
The day of the talk
If you are doing a powerpoint presentation, you must turn it in as an
attachment on WebCT by 2:30 on the 16th, and you should also bring a backup
with you. In addition, bring a printed copy with you to give to Dr. Sarah
at the start of your talk.
If you are presenting your project on transparencies, bring a paper copy
of them to give to Dr. Sarah at the start of your talk.
If you are presenting your project on the blackboard, create detailed notes
of what you will write, and bring a copy to give to Dr. Sarah at
the start of your talk.
In addition, everyone will create and turn in a
final list of references with a
summary of what is in each reference and how you used the reference.
You must also prepare
presentation notes and/or index cards on what you will say during the
presentation, and you will turn these in when you are finished.
Talks are 3-5:30 on Tuesday. Part of your final project
grade will be determined by
the quality of the peer review you fill out for each other.
Your presentation needs to be in your own words.
If you take a quote from somewhere, then you need to give reference where
it is due.
Your presentation will be
15-20 minutes in length total
- practice the length carefully!
Your project will be graded based on
the depth of the mathematics and topological ideas,
the clarity (spelling counts too!) of your explanations,
your presentation style. your final list of references, and your
peer review
Speaker Guidelines
A quote:
Practice, practice,
practice! Practice in front of
others. Practice in front of a mirror. Time your talk to be sure it fits
into the time frame allotted. Use visual aids if they help make the talk
clearer. Be sure to go very slowly since others will not have seen the
material before. Do not flip through slides
or transparencies quickly -
instead, leave them up for a while
to give the audience a chance to read them and let the material sink
in.
Your presentation should include the following:
Introduction
Your introduction must explain what your final project is about, and summarize the contents of the rest of the presentation.
Background Material
You should explain any background material that is necessary. You should also review and
summarize important ideas from class that are related.
The Body of Your Talk
Conclusion
This might also contain questions / ideas for further exploration.
References
You should spend a reasonable amount of time on
your final project, but you should not spend excessive time on your project.
For example, you might find that your original goal is unobtainable.
That is ok. The purpose of this report is for you to research an area that
is interesting and related to topology,
and report back to us on what you were able to find in your own words.
Depth of content and topological ideas
does matter, but you should not feel as if your project
needs to contain everything there is to say on the subject (this would be
impossible to do for many of the topics). You might wish to include a
section on what you thought you might find before you started out, and how
it differed from what you actually ended up doing.
I am happy to give you feedback if you bring your work
into office hours.