Suggestions for seminar preparation and presentation
1.	Start preparing your seminar as soon as possible. It will take much longer than you expected for you to prepare a good seminar. Make a rehearsal presentation to your topic advisor at least one week before the seminar date. This will give you time to make major revisions.
2.	Consider you audience. You should be able to provide an over-view of the key concepts and information in a way that everyone in the targeted audience can understand. This means that those that are not familiar with that particular discipline should gain a general understanding as a result of your presentation, while those that are familiar with that discipline should learn some technical information.
3.	Determine some very specific concepts (objectives) and knowledge you wish to impart to your audience. Design your seminar around these detailed and explicit objectives. Stay focused on the objectives and do not try to teach everything about this topic. The objectives will help you organize your presentation and provide a way for you to evaluate whether you are achieving your goals.
4.	Provide just enough detail to support your objectives, but remember that the audience is not going to be able to remember a lot of detail from a verbal presentation.
5.	Visual aids should not be presented so rapidly that the audience cannot process the information. Too much information on a table or slide is overwhelming to the audience.
6.	People discuss topics that they do not fully understand. At the end of your seminar you should state what we do not yet know about that topic or what is controversial about that topic. This will lead to discussion with the audience.
Timeline (from today till seminar presentation day)
Organizational meeting (August 26, 2005) Topic chosen and (deadline for submission: Sept. 2, 2005) Topic accepted by instructors and decision communicated to student (within a week) Preparation (30 hours minimum for a good seminar): Topic advisor is your major guide. He/she has no responsibilities for your seminar. Make sure that the topic advisor is available to you when you need him/her. Put the seminar together and then practice, practice, practice. Present seminar (dry run) to friends/family/etc. Present seminar (dry run) to topic advisor. Present seminar (dry run) and abstract to instructors (final corrections).
Dry runs:
Reserve equipment and schedule a room (usually Loftsgard rooms 260, 262, or 380) for your dry run with Eileen Buringrud (166 Loftsgard). Consult Instructors and moderator when you schedule the time for your dry run. Do the dry run. Moderator will reserve and pick up the camera from Eileen and tape the dry run. The dry run will be placed on a CD which I will give you prior to the seminar day so that you can view yourself in readiness for your presentation.