Hints and Rules

Hints and Rules:

 

  • The regular participation in the seminar is required for all participants. In the event a participant is unable to attend with solid reason, prior notice must be given to the chair. Whoever has an unexcused absence loses his/her claim to receiving the seminar certificate. The commitment to give a presentation is self-evidently mandatory. A later (possibly short-term) refusal or cancellation counts as a failed attempt and will be forwarded to the examination office.
  • In contrast to 'normal' lectures, seminar presentations are given by the students. Accordingly, the seminar also pursues other goals. First, the participant has the opportunity to aquire presentation skills and practices the presentation before a discerning audience. Furthermore, the participant learns by preparing the report, independently investigating, and developing a (short) scientific dissertation. Hence, the participants themselves are responsible for the success of the seminar. For example, on the one hand, someone who holds a poorly prepared presentation wastes the time of the audience. On the other hand, an unconcentrated and/or passive audience may not provide the speaker with tips regarding the success or possible weaknesses of the presentation.
  • The presentation time should be (max.) 40 minutes, followed by about 30 minutes time for asking clarification questions and a discussion. It is expected that every participant follow the talk and to take part in the discussion. Every participant should at least be able to ask sensible questions. The speaker is not expected to be able to answer every question. Hence, as a rule, it is better to admit that one does not know the answer to a question than to dance around a subject or to speculate.
  • One week after the talk a 5 page long elaboration of the talk must be handed in.
  • 50% of the final grade is comprised of the talk, 25% of the elaboration and 25% of active participation in class.

 

Checklists:

1 Checklist - Preparation

  • Contact your supervisor for the required materials/ literature.
  • In this Hauptseminar you are expected to look for additional materials and integrate them into your work.  In order to make sure that you stay within the expected topic, co-ordniate with your supervisor. (Make an appointment to discuss the content.)
  • If you have questions relating to the subject during the preparation, do not understand something, or have questions to the choice of the contents / construction of your talk, please contact your supervisor.
  • Start on time!!
  • Two weeks before your talk you must have an appointment with your supervisor. It is your initiative to fix the date for this. By this time, the slides should be finished. The supervisor can give you tips or proposals for amendment which you can then include.

 

2 Checklist - Talk

  • Practice, practice, practice!!
  • Watch the time (40 minutes for the Hauptseminar-talk).
  • Speak slowly and clearly.
  • Speak to the audience, not the screen!!
  • In addition to your slides, you can also use the blackboard and/or the overhead projector.

 

3 Checkliste - Slides

  • The font size must be at least 18pt.
  • Use no font with Serifen and avoid center justification.
  • The available space should be used, but not be overloaded. The so-called 5 plus-minus 2 rule has turned out to be a good rule of thumb for visual representations, i.e. 5 plus-minus 2 bullet points per slide.
  • The talk of the speaker is outlined by bullet points.
  • Full sentences should be used rarely, only for definitions or similar.
  • Avoid too extravagant layouts and shrill colours. In particular, a well-arranged edge should be preserved and the used colours contrast.
  • Animations, if any, should be used in moderation.
  • Complicated interrelationships can be explained with help of examples.
  • Graphics should always have a title and a clear labelling of the axes, so that they could be understood easily without any explanations of the speaker.
  • It looks better to draw the grafic of a badly scanned picture manually.
  • References should be cited according to scientific conventions already in the presentation, i.e. title, author, journal, date of release, or editor and publisher. In doing so, publications being subject to a review process should be favored.
  • Please number the slides consecutively, so that everyone knows on which slide his/her remarks or questions refer to.

 

4 Check list - Elaboration

  • elaboration in LaTeX (www.latex-project.org) or Word
  • In contrast to the slides, full sentences should be used.
  • Use the provided templates of the journal "bioinformatics" for

  • Then the following points arise by themselves:

    • Block sentences allow longer text passages to appear uniformly.
    • Fonts with Serifen generate a nice typeface.
  • Please, also specify your references - especially if using citation. This can be done most elegantly with the bibtex-format (http://www.bibtex.org/) provided by Latex
  • Please, check the text for spelling mistakes before submission!
  • Provide all pictures with a number / name as well as a legend.
  • The elaboration for Hauptseminar should not be longer than 5 pages.
  • Write the elaboration to the talk promptly and submit the elaboration no later than one week after the talk.
  • Put your name on the elaboration. This facilitates the association and keeps from arousing the wrath of the supervisor. ;-)