CHAPTER 4

Writing Research Papers and Making

Presentations
4.1 Structure of Good Quality Papers, Citations
and References
What are the steps in writing a research paper?
Steps to follow:
 Choose a topic.
 Find information.
 Identify the issues related to your topic.
 Locate books, articles, and reports that give you
background information and more.
 Create and state your thesis.
 Organize your thoughts and notes.
 What are the qualities of a good paper?

everything in the writing should make sense to

a reader.
A paper should be written in generally correct
standard English, with complete
sentences, and be relatively error-free.
 One additional quality, not part of this list, but
nevertheless, very important, is creativity.
 What is the purpose of citations and references?

When you use information from sources, you need

to tell the readers where the information came
from and where the readers can locate the sources.
This is what citations and references are for.
A citation tells the readers where the information
came from. In your writing, you cite or refer to the
source of information
A reference gives the readers details about the
source so that they have a good understanding of
what kind of source it is and could find the source
themselves if necessary. The references are
typically listed at the end of the lab report.
 Citations and References
 Generally speaking, there are three basic systems of
documentation in science and engineering: the name-
and-year system, the alphabet-number system, and
the citation-order system.
1. The name-and-year system.
 Citations: When you cite the source of information in
the report, you give the names of the authors and the
date of publication.
 Jenkins and Busher (1979) report that beavers eat
several kinds of herbaceous plants as well as the leaves,
twigs, and bark of most species of woody plants that
grow near water.
 Beavers have been shown to be discriminate eaters of
References: The sources are listed at the end
of the report in alphabetical order according to
the last name of the first author, as in the
following book and article.
 Crawford, H.S., R.G. Hooper, and R.F Harlow.
1976. Woody Plants Selected by Beavers in
the Appalachian and Valley Province. Upper
Darby, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture.
 Jenkins, S.H., and P.E. Busher. 1979. Castor
canadensis. Mammalian Species. 120:1-8
 2. The alphabet-number system.
 Citations: When you cite the source of information in the
report, you give a number in parentheses that corresponds to
the number of the source in the alphabetical listing in the
"References."
 Jenkins and Busher report that beavers eat several kinds of
herbaceous plants as well as the leaves, twigs, and bark of most
species of woody plants that grow near water (4).
 Beavers have been shown to be discriminate eaters of
hardwoods (3).
 References: The sources are listed in alphabetical order and
numbered accordingly, as in the following book and article.
 3.Crawford, H.S., R.G. Hooper, and R.F Harlow. 1976. Woody
Plants Selected by Beavers in the Appalachian and Valley
Province. Upper Darby, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture
 4.Jenkins, S.H., and P.E. Busher. 1979. Castor canadensis.
Mammalian Species. 120:1-8
3. The Citation-Order System
Citations: When you cite the sources of
information in the report, you give a number
in brackets that corresponds to the number of
the source listed in the order in which they
appear in the report, the source listed first as
[1], the next source [2], etc.
 Jenkins and Busher report that beavers eat
several kinds of herbaceous plants as well as
the leaves, twigs, and bark of most species of
woody plants that grow near water [1].
 Beavers have been shown to be discriminate
References: The sources are listed in the order
in which they are cited in the report, as in the
following book and article.
[1] S.H. Jenkins and P.E. Busher, "Castor
canadensis,"Mammalian Species. Vol. 20, Jan.
1979.
[2] H.S. Crawford, R.G. Hooper, and R.F
Harlow, Woody Plants Selected by Beavers in
the Appalachian and Valley Province. Upper
Darby, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture,
1976.
 When To Cite?

A citation is a reference to the source of

information used in your research.
Any time you directly quote, paraphrase or
summarize the essential elements of someone
else's idea in your work, an in-text citation should
follow.
An in-text citation is a brief notation within the
text of your paper or presentation which refers the
reader to a fuller notation, or
end-of-paper citation, that provides all necessary
details about that source of information.
 4.2 Making Excellent Presentation

30,000,000 PowerPoint presentations are made

around the world daily. How many more bad
ones should we have to sit through?
Follow these 15 PowerPoint presentation tips to
create a presentation that is out of this world.
1. START WITH YOUR AUDIENCE
Who are the people that you are going to be
presenting to? What is their age, who are they, what
is their income and occupation? These things will
help you to craft your PowerPoint presentation.
2. YOUR MESSAGE IS IMPORTANT
 Tailor the message to your audience to help them understand why
you are presenting and to reach your goal. This infographic is a
great source to use when deciding how to craft a presentation.
3. KEEP YOUR SLIDES SHORT AND TO THE POINT
 Each slide should only be about one key point or take away. If
you put too much information on one slide it will become
confusing to the viewer. Try to focus on putting one point and
then some bullets explaining it on each slide.
4. YOU DON’T HAVE TO USE POWERPOINT
 If you don’t have PowerPoint you don’t have to worry! There are
some great free options that you can make a great presentation
with as well.
 Prezi and Google Slides are both web-based, free options that
allow you to give a presentation anywhere from the web.
5. USE THESE POWERPOINT PRESENTATION TEMPLATES
 They will help you create a presentation with style. You don’t have to
use every single tool that PowerPoint provides you with. These are
some that you can definitely use to take your presentation to the next
level.
6. USE PICTURES AND VISUALS WHEN THEY ADD TO THE
PRESENTATION
 Use visuals in your presentation that help get your point across. Know
your audience. Here is a great Slideshareon creating visual
presentations.
7. USE BULLET POINTS RATHER THAN PARAGRAPHS
 When you use bullet points on your slides, it gives your audience key
points from your presentation. It also gives you speaking cues, incase
you lose your train of thought. Don’t overload your slides with
bullets. This will keep your audience engaged with you and not
reading slides.
 Your slides shouldn’t do the talking for you. Limit your words to 6
words per line, and 6 lines per slide.
8. DON’T READ YOUR SLIDES WORD FOR WORD
 Your presentation should help to supplement what you have to say and
give key points. You are the presenter, use your slides to get your key
points across keep them simple. Elaborate on the information in your
slides, don’t read them word for word. With each point, if you are using
bullets, you can then elaborate by telling an interesting story, or a joke.
9. USE EASY TO READ TEXT
 Use text that is easy to read for your audience when you are giving
your presentation. Use text such as Arial, or Helvetica. Save text that is
fancy for large headlines in your presentation.
10. BRING YOUR OWN HARDWARE
 Formatting is important if you bring your own USB.
 It’s best practice to bring your own laptop that you want to use.
 Just make sure you have prepared how to connect it.
 Bring your presentation on a USB flash drive as a backup just in case.
It is also possible to email the presentation to yourself, or save it on
dropbox.
11. TRY TO KEEP IT UNDER 20 MINUTES
 Try to keep your presentations under this amount of time or
give your audience a break by showing a video or demo to
keep them interested.
12. USE VIDEOS TO ADD ENGAGEMENT
 Sometimes a video will add a little something extra to your
presentation. Use them when they are beneficial.
 Communicate your idea in a 2-4 minute video.
 Ensure that the production value of the video is good.
 The video should directly relate to your presentation.
13. QUALITY OVER QUANTITY
 Don’t waste your audience’s time with fluff and nonsense.
 Use your slides for quality information and only use them to
enhance your presentation.
14. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE
 Preparation is the key to giving an effective presentation. So, write a
complete outline of your talk in bullet point detail. Don’t write it word for
word, but write it out as bullet points.
 Next, dictate your talk into a voice recorder or cell phone, and then listen
to it. It’s amazing how much different it sounds when you hear your own
voice. You’ll see ways that you could have presented it differently.
15. LEARN FROM THE BEST POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS
 Some presentations are better than others. Look at other presentations for
ideas before creating your own.
 Keep an eye on how the use of visuals and layouts.
16. MAKE IT ACTIONABLE
 Provide something at the end of your presentation that your audience can
do immediately to take action. This is the exclamation point at the end of
your talk. It’s where you wrap everything up and bring everything
together. What can your audience do when they walk out of the room to
put what they learned into action?
Thank
Thank You
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