Day 10

Saturday, March 26^th, 2011

Today I woke up at 9am ready to start working on my Question Presentation. I have to admit that I am extremely nervous about it because of how shaky I felt on the mini presentation yesterday. I worked on 3 different outlines for the presentation, each one being a different presenting style. In the first one, I use a very formal style, aiming to present in the style of an honor thesis. I worked on this outline for about an hour, and spent another half an hour creating a rough draft of the corresponding PowerPoint presentation. I rehearsed for about 15 minutes, however, I did not feel confident enough to keep a straight face during the whole presentation and not be boring. I discarded this approach and moved on to a scientific approach. I worked on this outline for only 45 minutes, because I was aiming to explain very technical terms and I don't think that I could use this style throughout 20 minutes of presentation and keep the audience engaged.

I moved on to another style, which I identify myself with the best. A more relaxed, comical style that will allow me to interact with the audience and entertain them at the same time. I decided to take Alex Czuckor's advice on using drawings made by myself for the visual component of my presentation, as it will allow me to remember the points I intend to get across without having to write so much on my cue cards. Best case scenario, I will not need to use cue cards. I sketched drawings by hand for my slides, and planned to go to the library to scan them. However, I then used the software Paint to do the drawings and they turned out pretty well. I am content with this presentation style, and will stick to it. The sketching and drawing took me about 2 hours, but it was very fun.

I went up to the academic building to meet with Brian and get advice on the presentation, as I was unsure on aspects such as the length of the presentation. I also wanted to get feedback on my draft proposal, however, there was not enough time to go over it. I went back to my room and worked a for another hour on my sketches and started working on the PowerPoint presentation.