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Instructions for your seminar lecture

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General information

• Select a topic you are interested in! Besides the topics offered by the professors you may of course choose one yourself! However, you must consult one of the institute's professors to see if the new topic satisfies the scientific requirements of the program.
• Remember, in your lecture you will be teaching your audience. This self-evident realization means that you must be convinced of the importance of the topic. You must therefore really get into the ”message” of your topic! Your audience will detect within a few seconds, if you have picked your topic just because you could not find a better one at the moment or did not care which one you got. Unfortunately, the result is that student lectures are often so tedious the course's organizers are obliged to put pressure on the class's participants to listen to it! Make it your goal to get people to attend your lecture because it is going to be interesting and not because the course regulations made them come! If you start your lecture with the words, ”Today I am supposed to talk about ...” you are already fighting a losing battle, because people will hear your own lack of committment to the topic. If you find that the selected topic does not interest you, give it back in time and look for another!
• First attend some seminar lectures, before you give one yourself! Try to find out the reasons, why the presented lecture was good or bad and think how you can make it better, when it is your turn.

Preparation

• If you are doing the lecture together with someone, then share the topic meaningfully! You may consult your advisor (professor) or the instructors in the lab.
• Strictly keep to the given time! Notice the time you are starting your lecture. Possibly you can control the time better, if you put your wrist watch (or any other clock) on the table. Prepare time marks in your concept to adjust the rest of the work, if you begin to run out of time.
• Sketch your lecture with a clear structur which at every time enables your listeners to see how the thread runs through the story.
• Each lecture is combined with a treatment of the topic. You may never be able to grabble with a topic in the way, it is described in the literature. Extract the essentials and avoid what is not important! Remember, your lecture must contain a ”message”! Outline a concept clearly showing the essentials! The advisors will mostly agree to discuss your concept with you. Contact your advisor, if you are not sure. The instructors in the lab can help, too.
• Try to state only the main points in your manuscript and deliver your lecture freely. You should only read out text out loud, if your knowledge of the language is so poor that you cannot say even a sentence without making mistakes. If you have strong stagefright you may have a full text of your introduction ready at hand if needed. Instead of a manuscript you may use file cards as well, which you can have at hand inconspicuously. (Think of a quiz master in a TV show.) It is important, that the cards are numbered, so that they may be sorted quickly if they should have been mixed.
• Make sure that your (hand)writing is big enough for your to be able to read it even if you are standing at the table on which your manuscript is spread.
• When you have finished your preparations, check if everything you want to talk about has an appropriate amount of the available time. See if the number of your illustrations fit the importance of each of your topics and if the "thread" is visible. It might prove helpful for you to spread all your documents on the floor.
• If you are using overheads or slides: Pay attention that the characters and pictures have an adequate size and your pictures are not overloaded. The appropriate size of characters and pictures depends on the size of the projection area and the greatest distance of the listeners. As a rule the greatest distance to the projection area generally does not exceed eight fold of the size of the projection area. With a length of a projection area of about 2 m the listeners generally sit at a distance not greater than 8 x 2 m = 24 m. This means that on preparing your 30-cm-overhead foils you should be able to read them at a distance of 8 x 30 cm = 2,40 m.
• Overhead foils look better, if you make the layout on paper and then copy it onto a foil. Make sure to use foils which are suitable for copying! Other foils will melt in the xerox machine and cause bad damage. Ask your instructor in the lab how to get the appropriate foils! For a 20 minute lecture you should not use more than 10 to 15 foils. If you have series of pictures, you may increase this number a little.
• Most of the overhead projectors cannot fully show a DIN A4 sized foil. Designate appropiate margins on your foils!
• For overheads consider different presentation techniques:
  • Overlay technique: Several foils (ca. 5 max) are gradually put one over the other to give the finished picture. This technique is difficult, because you have to lay the foils down so that they immediately fit in place and do not move the previous ones. Exercise this intensively! The application of this technique is easier, if you enclose the first foil in a frame which all the other foils can be exactly inserted into. You can buy such frames in a stationer's shop, but you may also prepare them yourself from a piece of strong cardboard. In simple cases you can stick the foils together with scotch tape on one edge and then open them like a book during your lecture. Take care to keep your ”book” still while using it on the projector!
  • Labeling during the lecture: You can label a foil effectively using colored felt tip pens. If you want to restore the original state of the foil after your lecture, then fix a second foil using scotch tape on top of the first one. The labeling now written on the blank foil can be easily removed by wiping it off with a little ethanol. This way the original information remains unchanged. Use a ”normal” foil, one which is not suitable for xeroxing or laser printing as a blank, because it is cheaper.
  • Underlying colors: In a good stationer's shop you can buy colored, adhesive foil which will stick on your overhead when placed on its surface. Unfortunately these foils are not cheap. Cut them to the appropriate size with a sharp knife in order to make individual parts of your overhead foil colored. Another way is to make a colored copy to an overhead foil. (But this is not cheap, too.) If you have access to a color laser printer you may of course directly print to a foil.
• Of course you are not forced to use all these techniques. They are just stated for your stimulation. Try to use them sensitively. Your overhead presentation may look too playful, if the application of these techniques is misplaced or overdone.
• Consider if it is meaningful to combine certain presentation technics. For instance if you talk about the synthesis of a target molecule, it might be helpful to write down the formula of this molecule on the blackboard so you can refer to its structure whenever you need it. If you have things on your foil instead, which you will need to use later a second time, then make a copy of this foil! For instance, do not rummage around for the 3rd foil, if you need to show it again after the 12th foil. Make an additional a copy of it and have it ready after the 12th one!
• If you have only little experience in doing a lecture: Do one (or even more) test lecture(s) with some colleagues. Let them judge your lecture! At least do the lecture alone by yourself to get a good feeling about the required time!
• Test the room beforehand (for instance the light) and see if you have all the things you need in your lecture (for instance the projector).
• Anyway keep chalk, eraser, and pointer ready, even if you planned to exclusively use foils and slides.
• Make yourself familiar with ventilating systems and possibilities of darkening the room.

During your lecture

• Do not be overhasty at the beginning of your lecture! Have all your documents ready in exactly the same sequence as needed! Pay attention that they are not blown away by the fan of the overhead projector! Foils do not stick to each other, if they are separated by a sheet of paper.
• The first seconds are most important for the success of your lecture! The way you look at your audience, signals if you have something to say or not! Do not look over your audience and do not fiddle around with your documents! Keep eye contact as much as possible!
• Try to be relaxed! A suitable amusing remark, a graphic rhetorical question, a quotation or a reference to the current situation show your sovereignty! Take care, that these remarks ”fit”! If they do not they will take your audience aback.
• Try to make a relationship between you and your audience by using phrases like:
  • ”These reactions have also been carried out in the lab course.”
  • ”Exactly this is also the research area from ...”
• Give a precise introduction and come straight out to the point
• When presenting foils you have generally two possibilities to show essential things: either point to the surface of the projector or to the projection wall. Both methods have their own advantage and disadvantage. If you sit beside the projector and point to the foil, the advantage is that you need not to turn away from your audience. Possibly you will look calmer, because you won't have to keep walking back and forth between the projector and the wall. On the other hand, you cannot see the projected picture, because it is behind you. So you have to make sure that the total content of your foil is projected properly, the picture is focused and you do not cover parts of the picture with your body especially when pointing! It is best to use a suitable pointer, for instance a pencil. With a long pointer you do not fiddle around as much in the projection area. Additionally you can keep a better distance from the projector which reduces the risk of covering the projected picture by mistake. Practice this technique before your seminar! Note that your audience will pay full attention to the projected picture when using this technique. Use only your voice and avoid distractive gestures.
• Pointing at the projection wall avoids the described disadvantages. Your speech possibly has more access to your audience, because now you are working with the same things which can be seen by your audience. Since the projection wall and you are now one unit, you may use body language. Walking here and there may be useful in reducing some stress. The disadvantage of this method is that it is more difficult to keep eye contact with your audience. So do not make the mistake of only talking to the projection wall, but turn around at least halfway to the audience and look at it as much as possible!

  Make your decision with good reflection and consider the local equipment. You may also use a mixture of both techniques to structure your lecture.

• Do not fussily discuss the entire arrangement of your lecture on your first foil, but straight out come to the point instead! But it is legitimate to name things in a starting sentence you want to talk about. A well arranged lecture is structured distinctly by itself.
• Speak with clear and graphic words and make simple, not too long sentences! Keep in mind, that you have to impart a message! Speak slowly and with clear enunciation, but try not to be boring.
• Do not hide important things in subordinate clauses. Instead of: "The NMR-spectrum shows that ..." you should better say: "According to the NMR-spectrum the ... is ..."
• Your audience will be grateful if you repeat difficult statements at an appropriate opportunity of your lecture. Have a concept for these repetitions! If you "simply" repeat your statements again and again you are demonstrating that you did not understand the subject and that you are just playing for time.
• Give your audience enough time to look at your pictures and texts. (General rule: 1 - 2 minutes) Remove them if you do not talk about them any more. The reversal conclusion is, that you should talk 1 - 2 minutes about every foil (or slide). If you need a longer period of time, your foil is possibly overloaded. If, on the other hand, you are ready within a very short period of time, your foil probably contains too little information.
• Keep your foils steady on the surface of the overhead projector, especially if you intend to cover parts of the foil with a sheet of paper or do the overlay technique. You should have a special reason for covering parts of your foil, if you decide to do so. This kind of presentation makes a restless impression and your audience may feel spoon-fed, if you generally only release your foils line by line for viewing.
• Only darken the room, if the projected foils or slides are otherwise illegible. Switch on the light again as soon as possible! In the dark your audience gets tired! But avoid switching the light on and off too frequently!
• A summary at the end of your lecture makes only sense, if the essentials are to be highlight tersely. If you only repeat your lecture in a short form, you look clumsy, appear to be playing for time, and you bore your audience! Your summary should be as short as possible.
• Take care that the end of your lecture can be clearly recognized! The end of your lecture is very important as well as the beginning. Again try to address your audience directly! If you have no better idea then at least thank for it for its attention! Take care that the room is lit up again in the end! Offer a discussion yourself, if your superviser does not do this for you!