Jean-luc Doumont
May 1, 2008 in Kent 107
Structuring your research paper
1:00-3:00pm
Written papers are a typical outcome, if not the sole tangible deliverable, of the work of academic professionals. Well-designed, they efficiently and lucidly convey potentially unfamiliar information to the reader. Poorly designed, they confuse readers, fail to encourage discussions, or simply remain unread. Yet most of us have learned how to design and write professional documents largely by copying others, and too seldom receive feedback on what we write. As an outcome, bad habits propagate by imitation, and readers must endure sub-optimal documents--think of how difficult it is to understand a research paper not from your specific field. This session proposes a simple yet solid approach to structuring documents at all levels, with a focus on research papers, reports, and theses. It will illustrate this approach wit real-life examples selected from papers in various fields of research.
Making the most of your presentation
4:00-6:00pm
Effective oral presentation skills are key to success for scientists, engineers and other academic professionals. Oral presentations have (potentially) more impact than written documents or electronic exchanges, for they favor a richer rapport with the audience due to the speaker's physical presence and ensuing nonverbal communication (vocal and visual). Yet many speakers are at a loss to tackle the task effectively for lack of suitable reference points. Systematic as they otherwise can be in their work, they go at it intuitively, sometimes haphazardly, with much good will, but too seldom good results. This seminar proposes a five-step methodology that leads to effective presentations: it discusses how to plan, design the presentation, create slides, deliver the presentation, and answer the questions. It also offers tips on how to manage nervousness.
Jean-luc Doumont is an engineer from the University of Louvain and a doctor in applied physics from Stanford University. He provides help with and runs training sessions on effective oral presentations, writing, graphical displays and related topics of scientific, technical, or business communication. He also trains instructors and facilitates any process in need of structuring. In hundreds of sessions, he has addressed audiences of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities in English, French, Dutch and Spanish.
Persons with disabilities who believe they may require assistance should contact the Center by April 21
