Biology 3998–3 Seminar II Fall 2006
Organize your information.
The information you
collect should be organized into the following sections:
Introduction
- A brief
description of your topic, indicating why it is an important and
interesting topic
- Your thesis
statement
- Outline of where
you plan to go in the talk (say what you are going to say)
Body
- Background
information to catch your audience (of undergraduate seniors) up to speed.
This will include vocabulary, descriptions of important processes, and
basic methodological techniques used. You should also consider including a
brief history of the research done in the field.
- Your story is
persuading the audience of support for your thesis. Use the information
you have collected as evidence – this will include describing the
methodological setup of important studies and their results (figures
and/or tables)
- For most topics
there is still debate among scientists about how and why certain things
happen. You should present all sides of the story, and then provide
your own interpretation and evaluation of that information. Describe to
the audience why you feel like the research supports your thesis.
Conclusions
- Summarize your
findings and the support for your thesis (say what you have just said)
- Discuss further
questions that need to be answered in order for your topic to be more
fully understood
Your seminar
should be scientific in nature and should be based on primary references
(original research published in refereed journals). Don't simply
report the results of peoples' research, but indicate how the science was
done. Data and experimental methods should be a major part of your
seminar.
Modified from L. Shannon