Physics Department

PH2150 Scientific Computing Skills

4. Communication skills 2010/11

4 Communication skills
4.1 Aims and objectives
The aim of this module is to develop further the communication skills introduced in PH1140. The specific objectives are: To practice converting scientific material into a form digestible by an audience. To practice use of computer based data analysis, plotting and presentation tools. To practice presenting and discussing your work.

You will use the outcomes of your teamwork project as the basis of the communication skills module presentations. Each member of a team can take one of the following tasks: 1. Produce a well-structured report using the full range of facilities in a wordprocessing package such as Word, including diagrams, graphs and equations. 2. Produce data projector slides or overhead transparencies for a presentation using PowerPoint or a similar package and give a confident oral presentation on a scientific topic. 3. Produce an informative A0 size poster using PowerPoint or a similar package and present the poster to a knowledgeable audience.

4.2 Organisation
You are expected to spend approximately 24 hours on completing assignments for assessment as listed in Table 4.1 Table 4.1: Assignments and completion dates.
Assignment Prepare and give a 12 minute talk about the teamwork project Write a full report about the teamwork project Prepare and present an A0 size poster about the teamwork project Completion date Thursday 20 January 2011 9am Thursday 20th January 2011 Thursday 20th January 2011
th

Typical hours 24 24 24

4.3 Resources
It is assumed that you are already familiar with the computer packages Word, Excel and PowerPoint from the College IT courses. You may find your notes from the these courses useful for this module.

4.4 The talk

The objectives of this exercise are both to give you additional training and practice in giving a talk and also to develop your skills at preparing and delivering a talk using data projector slides or overhead transparencies. The guidelines to be followed for your talk are:

1. your illustrations should be prepared using a computer based package and displayed using a data projector; 1. the talk should be between 11 and 13 minutes long; 2. you should speak with few, if any, additional notes; 3. give a practice talk in a tutorial at least three days before the full talk. The practice talk is not optional, it is part of the exercise. Some advice: Talk about something you can explain really well. The talk should represent the tip of the iceberg of what you know about a subject. Focus on the principal points you want to get across (ideally just two or three). Consider your audience: what do they know already (where can you pick them up)? What do you want them to take home from the talk (where do you want to get them to)? Content: Science. Identify the key points you want to communicate and streamline your talk to get them across. Don't waste minutes of your time introducing the history of the subject, but do put your topic into a wider context, which shows its relevance. Don't test your audience's attention span with slides full of equations, but do give key definitions and support your assertions with intuitive arguments and diagrams. Appearance: Think carefully about the layout of your slides or transparencies to make them attractive and informative. Sketch out the contents of your slides on paper, ensuring that they are relevant, stimulating to the audience and will act a suitable prompt while you are talking. Do not overload the slides with text. Try to get a diagram as well as words on each sheet. Make sure all labels are large and readable (at least 18pt font size). Delivery: Practice! Ask your tutor to allow a practice talk and react to any advice. One slide for every two minutes is a good rule of thumb although this depends on your style. Assessment: the criteria that will be used to mark the talk are shown in section 4.9. Read these and see that your talk satisfies them. Preparedness on the day: get your illustrations on to the computer well ahead of the start of the talks session and make sure you know how to operate the system.

4.5 The report

The report will be assessed on the basis of both scientific and presentational quality according to the criteria shown in section 4.8. Be sure to read these and see that your report satisfies them.

Prepare your report using the template from the PH1140 Moodle page.

The report should be about 3000 words plus diagrams, tables, results and figures etc. Structuring it well is a prerequisite for success. It should include all the appropriate sections for a scientific report, such as: 1. Title 2. Abstract (summarising key results) 3. Introduction (motivating your work) 4. Theory (defining the context of the work) 5. Method (how did you proceed) 6. Results (what were the outcomes, in particular data and diagrams) 7. Discussion (including analysis of raw data, comparison against similar work, error estimates) 8. Conclusions (in short, what did you do? What would you do next?) 9. References (literature relevant to the work) In a scientific publication you cannot just make unsubstantiated claims. A significant, non-trivial statement has to be backed up by a reference. For example, you might use a statement such as: The quality factor of a damped harmonic oscillator scales inversely with the damping constant [1], followed by an entry such as [1] PH1310 notes, lecture xyz, C. P. Lusher, Royal Holloway 2005. in the References section of your report (a textbook citation would be nicer, of course). On occasion, you may want to resort to copying verbatim from some prior publication. This is legitimate, as long as you highlight the fact that you have quoted by putting quotation marks around the section you have quoted, and as long as you then attribute the quote to a reference. To do this gratuitously is not considered very original, however. You can only receive credit for work which is you own, so the content of quotations does not contribute to your marks. Plagiarism means failing to attribute other people's work. It has serious consequences. Figures are very good at communicating information. Consider spending appropriate effort on presenting your diagrams, in particular plots of results, as clearly as possible. The report must be produced entirely using a computer, i.e. you should be able to produce another copy by simply printing from the computer.

4.6 Preparing a poster

Posters of A0 size can be prepared conveniently using PowerPoint, by setting the paper size to A0. A poster can then be printed out by a commercial company (e.g. www.printroom.co.uk). Half of the printing cost can be reimbursed by the department, but be aware that the poster will take about a week to materialise this way! Some advance planning is necessary! It is convenient, if not very creative, to arrange the poster as if it were a collection of smaller pages glued together in an array (see for example Figure 4.3). It helps to plan out the poster using pen and paper first. Then, position blank rectangles in a precise array by using the guidelines provided by PowerPoint. Finally, fill in the

rectangles with the content you intend to use, following similar rules as in the preparation of overhead slides for a talk. Remember that any material taken from another source or from someone else should be properly acknowledged.

Figure 4.3: A sample PowerPoint poster.

If the administrative and financial burden of getting a poster printed out by a company does not appeal, you can also glue together a poster from smaller sheets (e.g. A4 or A3) printed out on an inkjet printer by sticking them onto an A0 size background, which you can obtain from the Teaching Laboratory Stores. Remember that you will present the poster in a public session and think about the likely audience at the session, while you are choosing the content of the poster. The criteria on which your poster will be judged are listed in section 4.7.

4.7 Assessment criteria for posters

Assessment criterion Quality and appearance Good size (A1 or A0), writing and figures large enough and clearly drawn? Sophistication of figures? Interesting, novel, attractive layout? Structure and clarity of purpose Motivation and context for work? Main point of work clearly brought out and addressed? Further questions and future work? Interest and content Level of science appropriate? Scientific content understood? Content communicated clearly? Novel or original contributions? Live presentation Audible and clear? Main points emphasised? Competent discussion? Total Max. mark 25 Mark awarded Assessors comments (be positive with the aim of helping the student improve)

4.8 Assessment criteria for reports

Assessment criterion Layout and appearance Title page, title, abstract, overall appearance, pages numbered. Max. mark 15 Mark awarded Assessors comments (be positive with the aim of helping the student improve)

Construction Logical subsections, easy for the reader to follow all aspects of the report.

15

25

Quality of English Good use of tenses, spelling, sentence construction, etc. 25 Diagrams, tables, graphs Good quality, clear to read and understand, numbered, good captions.

25

15

25

Scientific content Science correct and wellexplained, calculations correct (including error calculations). Total

30

100

100

PH2150 Communication skills

4.9 Assessment criteria for talks

Assessment criterion Confidence and audibility Confident and fluent? Clear voice and speaking at appropriate level? Body language and stance? Eye contact? Quality of transparencies Right number? Overloaded? Good use of diagrams? Readable? Clear labelling of figures, axes, units? Clarity of purpose of the talk Motivation and context for work? Main point of work clearly brought out and addressed? Further questions and future work? Interest and content Level of science appropriate? Scientific content understood by speaker? Content communicated clearly? Novel or original contributions? Timing Talk roughly within time slot? 15 Start time Within 1 minute Within 3 minutes Within 5 minutes Total 100 End time 15 10 5 25 Max. mark 15 Mark awarded Assessors comments (be positive with the aim of helping the student improve)

15

30

PH2150 Communication skills