LOGISTICS

You will prepare a 15-20 minute (MAXIMUM) oral presentation based on your analytic paper.
Virtually everyone does a Power Point presentation and the program is on our class machine.

Place your presentation on an external device: e.g.,  a CD or usb drive and bring it to class. I will upload it to Blackboard.
Alternatively, you can send it to the Discussion Board two days in advance!

Bring handouts! Some people simply print their Power Point presentation. Others have a blank lined front page (a lot of audiences like to take notes) with some references at the end.
This gives people something to hold in their hands and look at! That way people are not staring at you all the time.

PLEASE INCLUDE BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES IN YOUR HANDOUT!

REHEARSE your presentation. This helps in several ways:

• You will really know how long it takes.
• You can spot the rough edges and need for transitions.
• You will be less nervous.

PRESENTATION SCHEDULE

 .

TOPICS

 

	Topic
Addy: Tuesday 4-25
Brian Tuesday 4-18
Chena Tuesday 4-25
Fanny Tuesday 4-25
July Tuesday 4-18

SUBSTANCE

Know your audience and your purpose. Since we are an analysis course, the bulk of your presentation should be directed at the logic and justification for your choice of an analysis and the results and interpretation of your analysis.

Set the stage.

Briefly describe your "research problem" in a couple of paragraphs (your topic, its importance, and what your analysis can add). Briefly describe your major concepts (another couple of paragraphs?).

Will you be using a causal model? If so, before you begin the description of the empirical dataset and how you will operationalize these concepts, sketch out your causal model with the conceptual variables and the links among them.

Methodology.

Describe your choice of dataset (perhaps it's the only one available that deals with the research topic; perhaps it is the best choice known; perhaps it is an underexplored dataset, etc.) and why it is a good choice for your topic (another couple of paragraphs).

Describe how you will operationalize your constructs. What are the specific measures you will use? Give enough description so your audience knows what you did or how they were concretely measured. Pay particular attention to the measurement level of each variable (nominal? potentially ordinal?) and the number of categories in each one. If you have recoded to collapse categories, you must mention that and how you recoded the categories.

What kind of analysis did you do? Why was this the best choice for your analysis for this research problem and these data?

This is a good time to mention any particular problems you have found with the data. (There are ALWAYS problems!) Was it the nature of the sample? The number of cases? The way variables were measured? The amount of missing data? Or whatever was the case for you. With a couple of exceptions, most of you are working with secondary analyses--i.e., sets of data collected for an original purpose that may have differed from yours and by another individual or institution. Therefore, it can be frustrating because you have different intentions for the data, there may be too few questions on your topic or the sample may be the wrong age, or there may have been biases in collecting the data.

Results.

What were your analytic results? These are NOT your output (in your paper, please append output at the end for your paper; for your presentation, the output is basically invisible!) Analytic results include:

• summaries of your findings
• tables (e.g., "regression" like tables)
• charts and figures (they are usually fun to read and can be colorful)
• causal diagrams with the logits along the flanges of the arrows

Discussion, Limitations, Implications.

What were your SUBSTANTIVE conclusions? This is where you put your findings into WORDS and you say what the results MEAN.

Gosh, is there ANY time left? Well, if there is, this is the space for your limitations and implications. You already touched on some of the empirical limitations above. Maybe there are some issues it is tough to surmount (try to figure out the gender in a drawing by a first grade boy...could another measure be used instead?) Do your results have any policy decisions (make exercise more appealing; help parents get their chikl ready for school, relax math anxiety.)?

Call your audience's attention to the reference list you have provided for more information and ask for questions.

Wait for the applause!
 
 

OVERVIEW

READINGS

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Susan Carol Losh
Aril 13 2017