English Seminar

English Seminar Guidelines

The purpose of the English Seminar is to give the NJU Paleontology Team’s graduate and advanced undergraduate students an opportunity to practice their presentation skills in a supportive environment and in a manner that both simulates the format of professional presentations given at international meetings. In order to fulfill this remit the English Seminar has been divided into two parts: (i.) an initial set of timed presentations that include a question-and-answer session following each presentation proper and (ii.) a general discussion section during which the questions, concerns and views of all seminar attendees regarding the presentation topics can be heard and considered as well as providing an opportunity to explore more in-depth issues surrounding these topics. In order to encourage active participation by all students, faculty members will not ask questions or raise issues during the question-and-answer session immediately following each presentation. Rather it is expected that student members of the seminar will ask questions of the presenters during this interval. Following a short break a general discussion of the presentation topics will then commence. During this part of the seminar faculty members will be allowed to make comments and observations on the presentations and topics. Questions can be asked of the presenters during this discussion section, but it is expected the seminar will broaden from a specific presentation-based focus to a more general discussion-based focus during this interval.

While the responsibilities of the presenters during the English seminar are obvious, the seminar audience has responsibilities as well. In particular, all audience members are expected to give their full attention to the presenter and the presenter’s electronic slides as those are projected on the large monitor in the seminar room. No member of the audience should be looking at their computer or mobile phone screens during the presentations. The reason for this restriction is straight-forward. Each presentation is a performance and the presenter a performer. All performers rely on feedback from their audience during their performance. This helps them adjust their performance to the needs of the audience, especially recognizing and responding to issues the audience is having difficulty understanding. Clues regarding individual audience members’ response to the points being made are given by facial expressions, posture, gestures, and other forms of body language. If audience members are looking at their computers or phones during the performance it’s very difficult for the performer to determine how their audience is responding to their performance. Thus, it is inappropriate — indeed, disrespectful — for any audience member to be doing anything other than attending to the presentation while the presentation is being made. Compliance with this requirement will be monitored by the moderator who may stop the presentation if any audience member is being distracted by their electronic device. If some students simply cannot bring themselves to avoid looking at their computer or phone during the seminar they are encouraged either not to bring such devices to the seminar room or to forego attending the seminar. However, all invited students, post docs, faculty members, etc. are expected to attend the seminar in person unless they have good reason for an occasional absence (e.g., illness, family responsibilities). Those not able to attend in person (e.g., students or faculty not on campus on the seminar date) may attend via video link.

Owing the character of the seminar as an “English” seminar, and to the format of presentations given at international meetings, all presentations, questions and discussion will be expected to be conducted in English. I realize this may be challenging for some students. However, students should view this as an opportunity to practice their English skills in a supportive environment. An advanced knowledge of English is essential for an internationally recognized career in scientific research and will be undoubted an advantage no matter what career track individual students might pursue. On rare occasions the moderator may allow a student to respond to a particularly complex question in Chinese, but this will be very much the exception and only be offered at the moderator’s discretion.

Two categories of presentation topic will be allowed: (i.) a critical review of one or more published research article(s) that the presenter finds relevant to their personal research interests and (ii.) a progress report on research the presenter is conducting currently. A presumption will exist that research-article reviews will be contributed by undergraduate students and/or graduate students at the beginning of their research projects, but that students should move to providing research progress reports as soon as possible. If any advanced graduate students wish to present a research-article(s) review he/she should seek guidance from the seminar moderator well in advance of their presentation date.

Any student wishing to undertake an article review must make a copy of the article(s) available to the moderator for distribution to the seminar participants at least two weeks before the seminar. All seminar participants should read and be familiar with these articles prior to the seminar and arrive with an understanding of the article’s content. Accordingly, the presenter of an article review should assume the audience is already familiar with the article’s content and so focus on their critical review of that content. In other words, there should be no need to devote all, or most of the presentation to describing what information the article contains. Rather, such presentations should focus on (i.) what the presenter finds important about the article, (ii.) whether the data collected and analyzed in the article were appropriate, (iii.) whether the conclusions drawn from the data analysis were supported by the data and warranted logically, (iv.) what implications the appropriately justified conclusions (if any) have for future paleontological research in this specific area and/or more generally.

Abstracts should be prepared and submitted for review and approval at least two weeks prior to the seminar date. This will allow the abstracts to be read, commented on, and returned to the presenter for revision (if necessary). Abstracts are an important aspect of all formal scientific presentations. Accordingly, the same rules that apply to the submission of international presentation abstracts will be applied to all English Seminar abstracts. The specific formats and general rules for organizing these abstracts are listed below.

Title – Your title should be short and to-the-point. It should identify the general topic of your presentation as well as the aspect of that topic you will consider in your presentation. Remember, many will decide whether your presentation will be of any interest to them based on your title alone. Strive to make your title informative and memorable.

Author – List the full names of all presentation authors in whatever order seems most appropriate. [Note: if you plan to use the pronoun “we” at any point in your presentation you are best advised to list more than one author. Single-author presentations employ the pronoun “I”, not “we”.] List the institutional affiliations of all authors after their names including: institution name, campus (if appropriate), city, county/district, and country. Include your e-mail address at the end of the institution listing. Identify the presenter with a * superscript.

Body – Write your abstract using terms a general reader with a basic knowledge of the topic will understand. Provide sufficient background information for the reader to understand what aspect of the topic your presentation will address and why the information you present will advance understanding of that topic. Describe (briefly) any data and data-analysis methods you have employed in your investigation. Describe your major empirical results and the interpretation(s) you have drawn from those results. You may include figures, tables and/or references in your abstract, but this is not required. If you do decide to include any of these items be aware that all associated text will be included in the abstract’s character count (see below).

Format

Use the Arial or Helvetica font throughout the abstract except for special characters. Single spacing between text lines throughout.
List the title in a 16-point bold font.
List the author’s names in a 12-point bold font, surname first, given name(s) second.
List the authors’ institutional affiliations in a 12-point regular font.
List the abstract body in a 12-point regular font. If you wish to include more than a single paragraph in your abstract use a blank line to separate the text.
The maximum size of your abstract body will be limited to 2,000 characters not including spaces. Any abstract that exceeds this limit will be rejected automatically.
All standard formatting, scripting, punctuation etc. rules/conventions that apply to writing scientific works in English should be respected and incorporated into your abstract.
It is up to you to check the spelling and punctuation of your own abstract. This will not be checked and/or corrected for you.
Prior to submission read your entire abstract over carefully and make sure it is something you want the whole world to see. Seminar/meeting organizers cannot (and will not) be held responsible for any mistakes that appear in your abstract.
Submit your abstract as a MS-Word document to Ariana two weeks prior to the seminar/meeting date. This lead time is necessary for the abstract size limits, content, style, etc. to be reviewed and either accepted or rejected by the seminar/meeting organizer. Rejected abstracts will have a single opportunity to bring their abstracts up to the required standard.

The graphic aspect of scientific presentations is also an important skill to develop and practice. The electronic slide sets most researchers use to illustrate the points of their presentations play a key role in the delivery of an effective scientific presentation. Moreover, one of the primary goals of the English Seminar is to provide students with an opportunity to practice their slide-design skills. There are many references and other resources available to assist you in this task, including articles, websites, videos and books. Consult them. In my opinion some of the best works on using graphics to make effective scientific points have been written by the statistician Edward Tufte (e.g., Tufte, 1983; 1990; 1997; 2006a; 2006b; 2020; see also https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/). You could do much worse than reviewing some of his work in this area.

In an effort to share my knowledge and opinions regarding what constitutes effective graphic support for a scientific presentation, as well as how such a presentation should be sequenced, I will be happy to review any student’s draft slide set and provide comments. Taking this offer up is strictly voluntary; no student needs to submit their slides to me for review unless they want to and, over time, there should be less need for individual students to do so. Regardless, I am happy to provide this service to any and all English seminar participants. Anyone who wishes to have me review their draft slides should submit them to me as either .pptx, .key or .pdf files no later than one (1) week before their presentation date.

Ms Shuyi (Ariana) Xu (ariana.xu@nju.edu.cn) will be handling all administrative aspects of the English Seminar. All students participating in the English Seminar will be assigned to presentation groups with the dates of these groups’ English-seminar presentations listed on a rolling schedule. Please consult that schedule, or Ms Xu, to learn when your next presentation is due to be given. Final titles for all presentations should be sent to Ms Xu no later than two (2) weeks prior to the presentation date. For presenters wishing to review an article, a reprint of the article should also be submitted to Ms Xu by that deadline. Ms Xu and I will assemble a seminar agenda from these submissions and that agenda will be distributed at least one (1) week prior to the date of the English seminar. If these deadlines present a problem for any student the student should seek guidance from the Seminar organizer as soon as the problem is recognized. Any student who fails to submit their materials by these deadlines without authorization will have their presentation canceled.

English seminars will normally be held once a month on Thursday evenings and commence at 18:30 in Room A212 of the Zhu Gongshan Building. A UMeet address will be provided on the agenda for those eligible to join via video link. I will be moderating each English seminar unless I cannot be available, in which case I will ask another faculty member to assume the moderator’s responsibilities.

If anyone has any questions about their presentations, seeks advice, or has constructive comments to make regarding any aspect(s) of the English seminar they are encouraged to contact me by any of the means listed below or to schedule a face-to-face meeting during my office hours when I am on campus.

Prof. Norman MacLeod
School of Earth Sciences & Engineering
Zhu Gongshan Building, Room 464
Nanjing University
163 Xianlin Avenue
Nanjing, Jiangsu 210023
China
Phone: +86 198 5280 0990
E-mail: NMacLeod@nju.edu.cn

References

Tufte, E.R., 1983, The visual display of quantitative information: Cheshire, Connecticut, Graphics press, p. 197.

Tufte, E.R., 1990, Envisioning information: Cheshire, Conn, Graphics Press, 126 p.

Tufte, E.R., 1997, Visual explanations: images and quantities, evidence and narrative: Cheshire, Conn, Graphics Press, 156 p.

Tufte, E.R., 2006a, Beautiful evidence: Cheshire, Conn, Graphics Press, 213 p.

Tufte, E.R., 2006b, The cognitive style of PowerPoint: pitching out corrupts within: Cheshire, Conn, Graphics Press, 31 p.

Tufte, E.R., 2020, Seeing with fresh eyes: meaning, space, data, truth: Cheshire, Connecticut, Graphics Press LLC, 176 p.