03/26/2017
Starting off with my current feels, I am officially 3 days into my 6-day work week (my last day off was Thursday, and my next day off is this Thursday), and, after filling in my calendar/agenda with my work schedule and my AP Research schedule for the next couple of weeks, I am feeling very overwhelmed! I know that April 14th marks the light at the end of the tunnel, but it is a very, very dark tunnel indeed.
I have finished the first draft of my presentation script and PowerPoint as of about 15 minutes ago. I am feeling pretty confident about the PowerPoint (I think I found some nice pictures and backgrounds and aligned it well with the information in the presentation...I know I might need to put a few more slides in once I practice more and realize how I can better visually convey the information). Regarding the script, I am pretty confident in all the information I included, and I was able to severely cut down the lit review. I have gone through a couple of the sections, and they seem to be in about the right time ranges too. Right now, though, the sentences are still wordy (like they were in the original paper); this week, as I practice, I plan on finding how I naturally say everything and editing the script as I go.
As far as the rubric goes, here is my understanding of each of the rows:
1: Explicitly state the research question, method, and conclusion and ensure that each are tied together/explained thoroughly.
2: All claims must be tied to evidence from the research, and these claims must then lead to implications and significance. Limitations of the evidence collected should also be addressed.
3: Answer these questions: "Why did you hold your initial hypothesis?" "How did your results align with your hypothesis? Why was this the case?"
4: The visual presentation should engagingly bring attention to the main points and aid one's argument by complimenting what the presenter is saying. It should look professional and well-thought-out. The presentation should be well-memorized and well-spoken (the audience should not only be able to hear/understand the speaker, but feel obligated to listen because the speaker seems passionate about his/her topic).
In terms of how I adapted the content of my paper for the presentation, I severely cut down on the lit review -- my explanation of theories behind consumer choice, different studies addressing the health concerns of unnatural makeup, and theories behind branding were either mostly or completely chopped out. I figured that, since the rubric focuses less on justifying the research and more on explaining the research, findings, and conclusions, a lot of the lit review could be cut (I just kept what was necessary to reach the gap and my question). I also ended up cutting a lot of specific details about the procedure from the methods and mainly went into detail on the blind consumption test and how it answered my question. The results and discussion stayed primarily intact, as a lot of the information was important for rubric rows 2 and 3, showing what the research found and how it interacted with previous research, as well as the implications, significance, and limitations of the findings.
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Hey Audrey,
ReplyDeleteI'm just popping in to give you some comments on your script and presentation.
Let me just start with the script. First, I thought you did a really good job with the literature review and methods, but I do think you could cut back on some thing in those sections. A lot of times when you provide counterarguments, you give multiple ones, and for the presentation, you really only need one. I think the big things you need to work on are in the results and the discussion section. Particularly, I think the script that you have has a lot of long sentences which, although, serving a good purpose, are bad for the last rubric row. You should definitely work on rephrasing those sections. You should also explicitly bring up your hypothesis in your discussion section as its easier for the listener to get the things he/she needs to understand from your research.
On you presentation, I think your big issue is using to many words and pictures. A lot of your slides are too crowded and your titles too long. If you deleted some and then scaled some pictures back, the presentation would be much better. I also think you could use some better pictures to convey meaning. For example, in you blind consumption test slide, it might be more useful to provide a picture of a person with a blindfold eating food to get the point across.
Overall, though, I liked everything. Don't get too stressed out with work!
Akash
Hey Audrey!
ReplyDeleteSo I'll start off by saying that I had trouble finding things to fix in your script. It was so thorough and concise at the same time. I think there were just a couple times where I felt the wording of things was clunky and having super long, compound-compels sentences might trip you up, but other than that, it was really great.
So in your presentation, I'm going to echo Akash. I put all of my comments in the notes section of each slide, but my main comments was that there was just way too much going on in some of the slides and that it kind of felt like different presentations at some point because there was not really a pattern in the slides? I don't quite know how to explain that differently, but sometimes they felt like they just didn't go together. So going back to crowded slides: multiple pictures aren't always a bad thing, but it becomes chaotic when they're overlapped and don't look neatly spaced. A lot of the pictures with the different makeup brands made the slide feel overwhelming just because there were so many words crammed into one small area. Also, keep in mind that you don't need a picture on every slide. Maybe take a couple slides and just write out some bullet points - it'll be refreshing for the audience.
Honestly, if you just fix those few couple things on your presentation, you're golden, girl. Great job!!
KT
Hey Audrey!
ReplyDeleteI really liked your literature review, I think you did a really good job summarizing that up really concisely and clearly at the same time. The only thing I think you should do is spend more time establishing that there is a movement towards the natural makeup industry, because you mention it a few times throughout your paper, but you just kind of give a percentage and move on. You should like analyze those numbers and explain exactly how significant it is. Your credibility is really good throughout the paper, only in some tiny places I feel like you should cite things, but I pointed them out in your paper. I think your transitions are really good, and you do a good job of tying everything back to your literature review like throughout your paper, which is really good. Sometimes, you need to explain some stuff more, like what you mean by the makeup is manipulatable, I don’t really get that, but it doesn’t ruin the overall flow of the paper, which is really good!
For your presentation, I the purple bar on the upper right side of every slide just reaaaaaaaally bothers me. Sometimes your pictures don’t really align with the title of your slides, some of your slides are really crowded, and sometimes, the title isn’t even necessary on the slides. I really liked the background of the first few slides, they were really pretty.
Lastly, we’re almost there Audrey!! A few more weeks!! Keep it up! Don’t get too stressed out! The light is at the end of the tunnel and the path isn’t as dark as you think it is! I believe in you, you’re more organized than any of us!! Haha GOOD LUCK DON’T STRESS YOURSELF OUT!