Biology Power Point Presentation “Coral Reefs” (Example Included)

Thesis Statement: Unless protected from pollution, climate change, and human activity, Coral Reefs may suffer ___________________ and lose thier status as the most diverse ecosystems in the world .

Expectations for a PowerPoint Presentation

I. Introduction:
     A. College graduates in the work force are often required to prepare, and often present, a PowerPoint presentation to an audience.  This exercise will give you practice.
    B. You will be expected to follow the Writing Assignment Standards and Expectations provided previously in this handout, with the following exceptions to its Assessment paragraph, due to your selection of a digital PowerPoint presentation rather than a traditional term paper:
     C. I have inserted an underlined space, i.e. ___ , in front of some requirements so that you can use that space to “check-off” completion of that item before submission of your work.
     D. I strongly recommend you peruse the PowerPoint example file to ensure you understand what is required.

II. Exceptions to General Directions:
     A. ___ Use Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation format (.ppt or .pptx).  Presentation size must be less than 15 MB.  To reduce the size of your PowerPoint 2003 file:  Open the presentation in PowerPoint 2003. (The procedure does not work in PowerPoint 2000 or 2007.)  Click on one of the first photos to select it. Right click to bring up “format Picture”; and then under the “picture” tab, select “compress.”  That will show that your pictures were originally printable at a high resolution (e.g. 200 dpi).  Check the button to “apply to all pictures in document.”  Under “change resolution,” select “web/screen” which changes the resolution to 96 dpi.   Under “Options,” select “Compress Pictures” and “Delete cropped area of pictures.”  Click OK.  Then Save your document.  Now check to see its size.  It should be much smaller.  Do not compress the PowerPoint file into a zipped file.
     B. ___ Be consistent with your use of font size and color for subtitles, text, and background.   Use appropriate font size for an audience to read your slide from a distance. Dark background, with lighter-colored text, is strongly recommended.
     C. ___ Label your file as: your last name, your first name, the course (substitute for “999”) and section number (substitute for “xxxx”), and the abbreviated assignment name, e.g. jones david NSCI999 sec xxxx WA .  Your software will automatically add the “.ppt” suffix.
     D. ___ To ensure your slide picture can be seen easily by the reader:  click on any slide, Select View => Zoom => Zoom to fit.
     E. ___  To ensure your speaker’s notes can be read easily by the reader:  click in any speakers notes section, then select View => Zoom => 150%.
     F. ___ Include a title page similar to the one in the provided example.
     G. Last slide:
            1. ___ Entitle your very last slide as “Text Content.”  Sequentially copy-and-paste the “speaker notes” section from all your previous slides into the “speaker notes” section of this one last slide and NOT on the slide itself.  As an optional check, you can also paste this same text into a Word document and then use Word’s spelling and grammar checker to locate errors.
            2. ___ For Turnitin.com submission: Turnitin.com will not accept a PowerPoint file.  Therefore your procedure is:  open a new Word document, insert the title of your work (e.g. Bottlenose Dolphins) at the top of the page, copy the “speaker notes” contents of your PowerPoint Text Content slide, paste that text into the Word document below your title, save the Word document (using your title as the filename), and submit that Word document to Turnitin.com instead of the entire PowerPoint file. 
     H. ___Virus scan (and state so in the comment portion of the Assignment Folder submission page), and then submit your PowerPoint file to LEO’s Assignments.

III. Exceptions to Scientific Content:
     A. ___ The PowerPoint software presentation itself consists of two parts: the slides themselves and the “speaker notes” found in the text frame below the slides.  Use a minimum of 20 content slides to a maximum of 30 slides, not including the Title Page, Text References, Image References, optional closing slide, and Text Content slides.  More slides earn more credit. Submissions of less than 20 content slides will earn a zero.  Submitting the minimum number of slides will earn minimal credit.  At least 85% of your content slides must have a different photo, graph, or drawing in them.  Do not use clip art.  An excellent source of digital images is the Google “images” search engine, found at the Goggle search engine. 
     B. ___ Use the window at the bottom of each slide page (where it says Click to add notes) to enter “speaker notes.”   These notes are details which a speaker would state when showing the slide to the audience.  This section would contain MUCH more detail than what is found on the slide itself.  The slide should emphasize the image (with little text) and the speaker notes should emphasize detail (with all text and no image).
     C. ___ These speaker notes should include text in complete sentences, or bulleted sentences, with APA in-text citations.   
     D. ___ Use 4 to 8 paraphrased sentences in each slide’s speakers notes.  If using bullets, use 1 paraphrased sentence for each bullet.  Submitting the minimum number of sentences or bullets will earn minimal credit.  When not bulleted, the notes should be the actual words to be used by the speaker, e.g. “Good Afternoon, my name is Mary Smith and I will be speaking on Whales.  Whales are marine mammals and . . . .”  Single-space in the speakers notes.
     E. ___ Images, not text, should dominate each slide.  Thus, because you will be using significantly less text on the slide itself (as opposed to the slide’s speaker notes), it is imperative that the slide text you do use is accurate and concise.  If you are addressing an animal or plant species, ensure one of your slides shows a global distribution of the species, i.e. where are they found?
     F. ___ Your largest content grade assessment will be on how interesting your images are and how well you present the topic with limited text on the slide and the more detailed text in the “speaker notes.”
     G. ___ Your content evaluation will also include the attractiveness of the visual presentation. 
     H. ___ Include a closing or ending slide that innovatively asks the audience if they have any questions.
     I. ___ Place optional image captions (text which describes the image) as the last bullet in that particular slide’s speaker notes.  I do not require captions.
     J. Hot links cannot be made in the speaker notes section of PowerPoint. Therefore, the hot link requirement is waived for PowerPoint presentations.

IV. Exceptions to Scholarly Referencing:
     A. ___ Do not place in-text citations on the slides themselves; however, you must use in-text citations in the “speaker notes” sections of each slide.
     B. ___ Do not place reference list citations in each slide’s speakers notes.
     C. ___ Place two slides after your closing slide, the first labeled “Text References” and the second labeled “Image References.” 
    D. ___ Place your reference list citations and image reference list (in APA format) in the respective “speaker notes” section of each of these two slides and NOT on the slides themselves.  These two slides would not normally be shown to the audience.  For the image reference slide, your entry would look like: Slide 7: Carson, J. L. (2003). “Box jellyfish” [online image].  Retrieved on May 11, 2006, from http://www.genome.org/box_jellyfish.jpg  (this is a fictitious address).  Do not place reference list citations or image references on each slide in your presentation. 
     E.  ___ The previously described “Text Content” slide comes after the “Text References” and “Image References” slides.
     F. ___ Images may be obtained from any internet site (e.g. “.com” sites) as long as they are referenced correctly in your Image Reference speakers notes.

V. Effective Writing (Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation, and Capitalization): 
     A. No exceptions from the standard for a traditional term paper. 
     B. ___ Use a spell and grammar checker on your Text Content speakers notes.

VI. Grading Weights:
     A. Your grading weights will be the same as for a traditional paper.
     B. Your grading rubric will be essentially the same as for a traditional paper, but will incorporate the above exceptions.

VII. Sound and animation:
     A. I do not require you to include audio and/or animation in your PowerPoint presentation.  However, if you wish to include audio, you will need to embed the sound files in the presentation itself.
    B. If you wish to include audio and/or animation, inform me when you submit so that I can review your work in full screen mode which allows for audio and animation effects to be engaged.

VIII. Example: I provide a PowerPoint presentation example in Course Content, under the Writing Assignment folder.