Report on Undergraduate Course

CSE 300: Technical Writing and Presentation

Name1 (Student ID 1) and Name 2 (Student ID 2)
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
email: email-1@mail-1.com, email2

January 27, 2013

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Outline of the Presentation

Introduction and Motivation

Course Information
Writing Styles
Presentation Styles
Introduction to LATEX, Xfig and Beamer
Conclusion

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Introduction and Motivation

Good presentations, both writing and oral, are very important to
express something to others
Only knowledge/learning is not enough
Because, different types of audience
More important for students and professionals of science, engineering,
and technology, as there are complex maths, logics, proofs, etc.
Good scientists, good engineers, and good technicians do not mean
good presenters
Not all tools give similar flexibility for preparing documents and
presentations (like not all languages suitable for a particular
programming problem)
So, also good tools are required
Thats why, BUET CSE Department introduces a course CSE 300:
Technical Writing and Presentation
Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET)

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Introduction and Motivation

Good presentations, both writing and oral, are very important to
express something to others
Only knowledge/learning is not enough
Because, different types of audience
More important for students and professionals of science, engineering,
and technology, as there are complex maths, logics, proofs, etc.
Good scientists, good engineers, and good technicians do not mean
good presenters
Not all tools give similar flexibility for preparing documents and
presentations (like not all languages suitable for a particular
programming problem)
So, also good tools are required
Thats why, BUET CSE Department introduces a course CSE 300:
Technical Writing and Presentation
Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET)

Report on CSE 300

January 27, 2013

3 / 12

Introduction and Motivation

Good presentations, both writing and oral, are very important to
express something to others
Only knowledge/learning is not enough
Because, different types of audience
More important for students and professionals of science, engineering,
and technology, as there are complex maths, logics, proofs, etc.
Good scientists, good engineers, and good technicians do not mean
good presenters
Not all tools give similar flexibility for preparing documents and
presentations (like not all languages suitable for a particular
programming problem)
So, also good tools are required
Thats why, BUET CSE Department introduces a course CSE 300:
Technical Writing and Presentation
Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET)

Report on CSE 300

January 27, 2013

3 / 12

Introduction and Motivation

Good presentations, both writing and oral, are very important to
express something to others
Only knowledge/learning is not enough
Because, different types of audience
More important for students and professionals of science, engineering,
and technology, as there are complex maths, logics, proofs, etc.
Good scientists, good engineers, and good technicians do not mean
good presenters
Not all tools give similar flexibility for preparing documents and
presentations (like not all languages suitable for a particular
programming problem)
So, also good tools are required
Thats why, BUET CSE Department introduces a course CSE 300:
Technical Writing and Presentation
Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET)

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Course Information of CSE 300

Compulsory sessional course, credit hours: 0.75, suggested for Level 3

Term 1 students
Course content from CSE Undergraduate Syllabus:
Issues of technical writing and effective oral presentation in Computer
Science and Engineering; Writing styles of definitions, propositions,
theorems and proofs; Preparation of reports, research papers, theses and books: abstract, preface, contents, bibliography and index;
Writing of book reviews and referee reports; Writing tools: LATEX;
Diagram drawing software; presentation tools.

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Course Information of CSE 300

Students perform in groups, two in each group

Each group is assigned one topic: a CSE undergraduate course (like
CSE 100: Introduction to Computer Systems) or a CSE topic (like
Linked List)
Each group give one report and one presentation on the topic
(guidelines coming later)
Finally, students give a quiz on basics of LATEX, writing and
presentation

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Course Information of CSE 300

Marks distribution:
Attendance: 10%
Project: 30%
Presentation: 30%
Quiz: 30%

Texts and references:

Texts for learning how to write documents:
1
2

The Elements of Style, by Oliver Strunk

Mathematical Writing, by Knuth, Larrabee, and Roberts

Web resources for how to give a good presentation

Web resources for LATEX, Xfig and Beamer
Course web of February 2013 Semester
[http://teacher.buet.ac.bd/masudhasan/outline-cse300-feb-2013.htm ]

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Course Information of CSE 300

Marks distribution:
Attendance: 10%
Project: 30%
Presentation: 30%
Quiz: 30%

Texts and references:

Texts for learning how to write documents:
1
2

The Elements of Style, by Oliver Strunk

Mathematical Writing, by Knuth, Larrabee, and Roberts

Web resources for how to give a good presentation

Web resources for LATEX, Xfig and Beamer
Course web of February 2013 Semester
[http://teacher.buet.ac.bd/masudhasan/outline-cse300-feb-2013.htm ]

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Technical writing styles

We follow the two books mentioned earlier. The first books tells more
about general writing in English. Some of them are as follows.
Choose a suitable design and hold to it throughout the writing
Write into paragraphs, use easy English
Avoid fancy words like these: Oh Sheet!

Oh my God!

Use figures to explain easily

Do not explain too much to clarify or do not take short cuts at the
cost of clarity
Revise, rewrite, spell-check; revise on printed document
Keep related words together, otherwise meaning of a sentence may
change. For example, the sentence All the cases have not been
examined may be confusing, whereas the sentence Not all the
cases have been examined or None of the cases have been
examined is clear.
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Presentation styles
There is no fixed text for this. An informal guideline is followed. Link:
http://teacher.buet.ac.bd/masudhasan/good presentation.pdf
Some guidelines are as follows:
Make presentation clear, use bullet, less text, add figures
Use fonts that have solid lines (e.g, use Arial rather than Times New
Roman)
Speak loudly and slowly, use easy English, keep the time limit in mind
Stay while in a slide, do not move too fast. Do not move back and
forth between slides
Practice few times before you present
Do not obstruct the display board
If there is a Question and Answer session, then carefully listen to the
questions, try to answer honestly
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LATEX, Xfig, Beamer

LATEXis like programming, so lot of flexibility
Widely available in the Internet in all platforms.
Xfig is a complementary tool to LATEXfor drawing figures. It gives
better quality and flexibility in drawing figures.
a2 + b

This figure is drawn in XFig

(Maths and arrows are embedded
ATEXcommands)
by L

Figure: This figure has been reused here.

Beamer is a LATEXpackage for preparing presentation. A sample

presentation is this one
Other details of LATEX, Xfig and Beamer are Self Study
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LATEX, Xfig, Beamer

LATEXis like programming, so lot of flexibility
Widely available in the Internet in all platforms.
Xfig is a complementary tool to LATEXfor drawing figures. It gives
better quality and flexibility in drawing figures.
a2 + b

This figure is drawn in XFig

(Maths and arrows are embedded
ATEXcommands)
by L

Figure: This figure has been reused here.

Beamer is a LATEXpackage for preparing presentation. A sample

presentation is this one
Other details of LATEX, Xfig and Beamer are Self Study
Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET)

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LATEX, Xfig, Beamer

LATEXis like programming, so lot of flexibility
Widely available in the Internet in all platforms.
Xfig is a complementary tool to LATEXfor drawing figures. It gives
better quality and flexibility in drawing figures.
a2 + b

This figure is drawn in XFig

(Maths and arrows are embedded
ATEXcommands)
by L

Figure: This figure has been reused here.

Beamer is a LATEXpackage for preparing presentation. A sample

presentation is this one
Other details of LATEX, Xfig and Beamer are Self Study
Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET)

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LATEX, Xfig, Beamer

LATEXis like programming, so lot of flexibility
Widely available in the Internet in all platforms.
Xfig is a complementary tool to LATEXfor drawing figures. It gives
better quality and flexibility in drawing figures.
a2 + b

This figure is drawn in XFig

(Maths and arrows are embedded
ATEXcommands)
by L

Figure: This figure has been reused here.

Beamer is a LATEXpackage for preparing presentation. A sample

presentation is this one
Other details of LATEX, Xfig and Beamer are Self Study
Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET)

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Getting LATEX, Xfig, Beamer

Platform
How easy to install?
Advantage

Disadvan- tages

Space requirement

Linux
Unix/Linux
Not easy like
Windows
Most robust,
true
applications.
Cannot have
both Windows
and Linux at
the same time
Should be OK
in todays
computers

MikTex + JFig
Windows
Easy, like Windows
applications
Easy to use. Most of
the people use this.
Many user friendly
editors available.
JFig may not give full
options

CygWin
Windows
Easy, Windows
applications
You get both Windows
and Linux at the same
time. Windows file
system used in both
Download and
installation may be
complex

VMWare + Linux
Windows
May not be easy

Should be OK in
todays computers

Should be OK in todays
computers

Should be OK in
todays computers

You get both

Windows and Linux.
(May be Windows file
system used in both)
Once installed
correctly, you get
advantages like Linux

Table: This table has been borrowed from the LATEXdocument.

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Conclusion

We have described the BUET CSE Undergraduate course, CSE 300:

Technical Writing and Presentation.
We have covered:
Motivation behind this course
Course information
Writing styles
Presentation styles
LATEX, Xfig and Beamer

In future, this course can be made 1.5 credit

can be moved to Level 4 Term 1 along with the thesis

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Questions?

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