Biochemistry Seminar

Conceiving, Preparing, and Presenting Your Seminar

Contents

  1. Introduction and IMPORTANT REQUIREMENTS
  2. Selecting and Developing Your Topic
  3. Preparing Your Poster/Abstract
  4. Preparing and Delivering Your Seminar
  5. Evaluation
  6. Attendance at Seminars

NOTE: Sections 2, 3, and 4 are good general guidelines for seminars in any context, not just this course. Bookmark this page and refer to it whenever you need to make a public presentation.

Introduction

During the last few weeks of the course, you will present a seminar on a biochemical topic of current importance that we have not studied in the course, but that is related to course material. Your main goal is to bring the class up to date on a subject that is an important current topic of biochemical research.

IMPORTANT: I will judge your seminar on how well you accomplish these REQUIREMENTS :

  1. Your topic should be genuinely molecular in nature, or provide insights into molecular mechanisms.
  2. Your seminar should include data and interpretation of data from recent biochemical literature (peer-reviewed journals).
  3. Your seminar should provide evidence in support of the models or conclusions presented by the authors of your source papers. This requires that you explain their techniques, present their data, and tell how they reached their reported conclusions.
  4. The methods on which you focus should be chemical or physical methods (not clinical trials, for example, and not microscopy, unless the targets of observation are specific molecules).
  5. Your seminar should be up-to-date; in other words, it should include findings from papers that have appeared in the biochemical literature since our textbook was published -- within the past two to three years at the oldest.
  • PLEASE NOTE: Your seminar may not be about research you have done yourself or research that is going on at USM.
  • PLEASE NOTE: If you are taking CHY 401 concurrently with CHY 463/563, you may not use the same seminar topic in both courses.

Selecting and Developing Your Topic

You may already be aware of a topic that interests you, and that you would like to pursue in current biochemical literature. If so, make sure that the topic will allow you to meet the requirements listed above. Then conduct a literature search using tools available in the library or online. In the library, try SciFinder. Online, try PubMed (click on Tutorials to get started). If you are not already aware of a research area of current importance, one good way (perhaps the best way) is to find topics is to browse recent copies of Science, Nature, Biochemistry, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of Molecular Biology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proteins, or comparable journals. Once you find an article of interest, begin your pursuit of the necessary background by consulting the list of references at the end of the article.

If you conduct your searches online, your presence on the USM campus will give you access to many full journal articles. Searching from other locations will probably not provide this access.

You should immediately begin thinking and talking with me about a possible seminar topic.

Preliminary Proposal

By the deadline for preliminary topic selection (see Calendar) submit to me a preliminary topic proposal, including the following:

  1. tentative title;
  2. brief written description of your proposed topic;
  3. full copies of one or two of your most important references.

I will let you know at the next class if the topic is acceptable. If not, improve your proposal according to my suggestions and resubmit until satisfactory, and well before the final approval deadline specified on the Calendar.

Final Plan

By the final approval deadline specified on the Calendar, submit your final proposal, including the following:

  • title
  • outline of the seminar, showing plainly how you plan to meet the four requirements, above;
  • full citations of all papers you plan to draw upon in your seminar.

As soon as you define your topic, you should begin to study it intensively; develop your seminar; and prepare the abstract, bibliography, and reading assignment. You may need to obtain papers by interlibrary loan, so start early to allow time to get all the materials you need.

Late Work: You must meet all seminar proposal deadlines in order to get full credit for your seminar. Your final seminar grade will be reduced by 1/2 letter grade for each class day that a proposal or plan is late. An incomplete proposal or plan is considered late until it is complete.

Poster/Abstract

One week before your seminar, provide to each member of the class (including me), a poster (one 8.5 x 11" page) for advertising your seminar, and display some copies of your poster on bulletin boards around the building. Rhonda Schaffer will allow you to post a copy in the display case at the Chemistry Office the day before your talk.

Your Poster/Abstract should including the following:

  1. a prominent title, your name, and the location, date, and time of your talk:
  2. (optional but recommended) an illustration;
  3. a brief abstract or overview of the subject, describing what you plan to talk about in the seminar;
  4. a brief bibliography, including titles of the most important one or two articles you consulted in preparing the seminar (especially ones that are good for further reading on the subject).

Design your poster to attract an audience. Make the title interesting. Use an illustration to draw attention to the poster, and to begin informing your reader about the subject. Make the abstract clear and interesting, and keep it brief. In the bibliography, model your citation format on the citations from a reputable journal like Science, with one exception: include the title of each article, so that readers can tell easily what subjects they can pursue further through the cited articles.

Here's a sample poster (lacking the bibliography). I bet you can do better. (If it's too small to read, drag it to your desktop and open it full size with an image viewer.)

sample poster

OPTIONAL, NOT PART OF POSTER: As on option, you might want to provide—by email to class members, not on the poster—an assignment in the text or a handout of material for all students to read or review in preparation to hear your seminar. The assignment should not be a major undertaking for your audience -- if it is, they won't read it. The most appropriate assignments are material previously covered in the text, or very brief articles.

Please remember to remove your displayed posters after your talk.

Preparing and Delivering Your Seminar

Your seminar should be about 35 or 40 minutes in length, leaving time at the end for questions and discussion. Remember to build your talk around evidence that supports the conclusions or models you present. As you prepare, review the requirements above, and make sure that your plans allow you to satisfy ALL of them. Even if you have difficulty in the presentation itself, you will still make a satisfactory grade if you satisfy all requirements.

Illustrate your talk with overhead slides or computer views, so that you can show and discuss complex diagrams and structures without taking time to draw them on the board. I will instruct you on making slides, provide the blank slides themselves, and allow you to use the chemistry copier to make the slides from your own pasteups of illustrations. All other copying, including copying illustrations from your sources, is your own responsibility, and department policy forbids your using the chemistry copier except to turn your final illustrations into slides.

Here are some additional suggestions to help you give a good seminar:

  1. Practice the talk before a live audience to test your timing and organization. People who know nothing about the subject can sometimes provide great help in improving a presentation.
  2. Preview all your slides in the classroom before your seminar. Make sure they are clearly visible and readable from the worst seat in the room.
  3. If you use an overhead projector that stands in front of the screen (as in many small classrooms), stand at, and point at, the screen, NOT at the projector.
  4. Start your seminar with a text slide showing an outline of your talk. (Tell us what you plan to tell us.)
  5. Do not read from notes; talk to your audience.
  6. Do not read from slides; talk to your audience.
  7. Your slides should be dominated by pictures, graphs, or diagrams, NOT words. Show your audience something to think about, then talk about it to guide them as they study it. Twenty-five words on a slide is too many.
  8. Do not put your entire talk on PowerPoint slides and then read them to your audience (a recipe for the worst seminars I have seen -- some by professionals!).
  9. Project confidence. Do not belittle or apologize for your topic, your slides, or your own performance.
  10. Finish your seminar with a text slide showing the main conclusions of your talk. (Tell us what you told us.)

Evaluation

Your fellow students and I will provide comments and suggestions on your seminar. At each seminar, I will distribute an evaluation form to all students except the speaker. Each student will evaluate the seminar and turn in the form no later than the beginning of the next meeting. I will review all student comments and then pass copies of the evaluations on to the seminar speaker. Student evaluations will not adversely affect the speaker's grade, so please be frank and helpful in your comments.

Your seminar grade will be based on

  1. how well you satisfy the requirements above;
  2. my opinion of the level, quality, and effectiveness of your abstract and talk;
  3. your attendance at other seminars (see next section); and
  4. your promptness in turning in evaluations of each seminar (see next section).

Attendance at Seminars

There will be no examination over the material covered in the seminars. However, you must attend seminars and submit evaluations on time. You should prepare for each seminar by reading the abstract and assignment, and should make an effort to participate in the discussion at the end of each seminar. Insightful participation in seminar discussions may improve your own seminar grade. Absence from seminars or failure to provide evaluations on time will reduce your seminar grade.

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