Guidelines for coursework 1

General information

The goal of coursework 1 is to critically review a book chapter, essay or another piece of writing on a topic of the module. Your task is to summarize the paper, identify and define the key concepts, discuss it critically and develop some review questions aimed at understanding the concepts adressed in the text, and which will be discussed in class.

The topics of the chapter are either repetitions of the content in class, or an extension on of the topics. Finally, working with scientific literature should strengthen your critical thinking on key aspects of scientific working.

The overall objective is to practice the competency of giving a powerful presentation to others. Giving presentations is now part of many jobs, and it is a craft (see tips below) and also improves with experience.

Tips for making the slides and giving the presentation

Take the mindset of a young scientist given a presentation at a scientific meeting. Usually, the available time is rather limited, 10 or 15 minutes. Therefore one needs to be concise, not focus on unimportant details and come up with a few key messages that stimulate discussion.

Some general tips:

• [ ] Use outlining techniques to identify and summarize the key message(s) of the text. Don’t use AI to do this.
• Take the position of the audience: I you refer a statement or concept of the
• [ In your presentation, not only present the content of the chapter but also a short critical and well-argued review of the content and style of the author. Show that you are an independent, critical thinker.

The presentation slides

The presentation slides should support your talking. Therefore make sure that you as the presenter are first, and the presentation slides second.

The most important principle is KISS - Keep it simple, stupid.

A few other points are worth considering:

• Avoid any fancy animations on the slides, they distract and may lead to technical problems on different versions of Powerpoint, LibreOffice, Apple Keynote…
• Save your slides as PDF for the presentation, and not as .pptx or .odp etc files, because this may also lead to technical problems (missing fonts, non-working animations, wrong size of fonts, etc.). PDF is by far the most robust format.
• Reduce the number of words on slides as much as you can. A large number of words forces the audience to either listen to you or read the slides, reading lots of text and listening at the same time is not efficient and creates stress. In additions, lots of text makes you want just to read the slides instead of speaking freely.
• A single message on every slide is sufficient. Provide further details by talking.
• Use only images with a clear connection to the content
• Avoid stockphotos or AI-generated images just to “fill” your slides. Any generic image without any connection to the content of the slide is a distraction and useless. It is perfectly fine to have a slide with a short message in words only.
• A hand-drawn sketch is fine if you want to present a concept as an image.
• Stick to a consistent slide design: You may deviate from the provided template. But don’t change font sizes, font type, slide style between slides. It distracts the attention of the audience.
• The last slide on the content of the chapter should either be a short summary or a key (critical) conclusion
• Limit the number of slides. A useful rule of thumb is to calculate at least one minute of time for a single slide.
• Reference all external materials you are using. This includes images, quotes, etc.
• Consider whether it makes sense to provide an outline.

Guidelines for the oral presentation

The purpose of the oral presentation is to demonstrate that you have thought about the are able to provide a comprehensible summary and critical evaluation of a book chapter/paper to a non-expert audience.

Furthermore you are expected to identify and present the key concepts and/or hypotheses and transfer them into the context of crop science.

• The presentation should last 10 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of discussion, which you are leading.
• Prepare two questions for the discussion in which the key concepts of the chapter/paper are transferred to crop science. The questions should be specific (i.e., based on an example from crop science) and allow to apply the main concept(s) of the discussed text. Don’t ask generic, broad questions.
• When asking the questions, endure the silence from the audience. Don’t answer the question yourself after 5 seconds. Wait much longer, to stimulate a discussion.
• It is perfectly fine to ask a quick question during your presentation.
• Always make clear what content you present is a 1:1 copy of an idea or concept from the text, or what is your opinion, statement, evaluation.
• Rehearse your presentation.
• Be as user friendly as possible: Think about your audience, and ask yourself, whether they can understand the concepts.

Evaluation criteria of the presentation

1. Design and clarity of slides: Minimize the number of words and use visualizations (sketches, etc.) whenever possible.
2. Do not read the words on the slides but speak freely
3. Structure of presentation, which should roughly follow the written paper
4. Ability to answer questions about the chapter, your presentation and related concepts as presented in the module classes
5. Duration of your presentation.
6. Overall quality of presentation and ability to lead a discussion.

For the design of the slides, please use the official Powerpoint template of the University of Hohenheim: https://www.uni-hohenheim.de/en/template-powerpoint

Submission of the coursework 1 presentation slides

Please upload your coursework 1 presentation slides to the Coursework 1 presentation folder on ILIAS either in Powerpoint, Libreoffice or PDF formats.

Name the pdf file as LASTNAME_coursework1_presentation.pdf where LASTNAME is your last name (no spaces in the file name).

Please upload the presentation the evening before the presentation!