North Jersey Section Specific Paper Presentation Guidelines

PURPOSE

This contest offers undergraduate student IEEE members an opportunity to exercise and improve their communication skills. Throughout an engineer's career, he or she will constantly be called upon to communicate ideas to others. This event gives students a chance to practice presentation skills in front of an astute, supportive audience of local IEEE members from diverse fields and backgrounds.

The North Jersey Presentation Night is based around a written paper, however, the actual paper will not be used (and does not have to be submitted) for judging criteria. The North Jersey effort concentrates on the oral presentation and slide materials only.

ELIGIBILITY

UNDERGRADUATE and GRADUATE Students attending any school or college in the North Jersey Section are invited. Students are welcome from schools with or without an active student branch on campus. Please forward to any interested students.

SUBJECT MATTER

Presentations should cover technical, engineering, management, or social aspects of subjects related to the areas with which the IEEE is concerned, and with which the presenter is familiar, either from courses, hobbies, summer work, or similar experience. The work need not be original in content, since the primary function is to improve the student's communication skills. The work should, however, be original in treatment and concise in coverage of the student's contribution to the subject.

ABSTRACTS

The student shall submit a written abstract (between 100-150 words) on the topic to be presented. This abstract shall be approved by the Student Branch Counselor (if available) and submitted no later than the deadline specified by the organizers.

BASIC PRESENTATION RULES

1.
Fifteen (15) minutes shall be allotted for the presentation and five (5) for questions from the audience.
2.
The timing system shall proceed as follows:
- A signal will be given at the beginning of the presentation.
- A Warning signal will be given at the end of 13 minutes.
- A Stop signal will be given at the end of 15 minutes. The student shall cease speaking when the Stop signal is given. The judges will assess a penalty for continuing to speak beyond the 15 minute time limit.

3.
Individuals asking questions during the question and answer period shall state their name and affiliation. At the end of 5 minutes, questions will be stopped, and a few minutes will be spent filling out the score and comment sheets for each presentation.

4.
Demonstrations or display apparatus may NOT be employed as part of the paper presentation. Visual aids may be used, but these are limited to slides (powerpoint/PDF) , placards, charts. The following equipment shall ordinarily be available: laptop computer with latest version of presentation software, LCD projector and screen, overhead projector, pointer, podium, and blackboard.

JUDGING

A good presentation, especially technical ones, takes into account many factors. Among them would be the effective use of supporting information, background and examples, deliberate introduction,body,conclusion speech organization, cohesive blending of individual topics, relative advantages/disadvantages of chosen approach, etc. The presentation should be planned out carefully to maximize the alloted time.

Presentations shall be judged on a point system for the purpose of awarding cash prizes. The audience will judge by a system where 80% of the criteria are related to the student's communication skills, emphasizing this contest's primary function of improving and helping the engineering student in this area. The tally sheets used by the audience for points and comments will be gathered and passed along to the students at the end of the evening.