Class 19: Presenting Papers

Held: Thursday, 30 October 2003

Summary: Today we will consider the key characteristics of successful presentations.

Related Pages:

• Wilson, Suzanne (2003). Preparing to Serve as a Discussant. Online document available at http://www.aera.net/divisions/k/knews/win03/discussant-winter03.html. Undated. Visited 29 October 2003.

Assignments

• Reading Assignment 9: Liberal Education.
• Miscellaneous Assignment 9: The Diebold Case.

Notes:

• Work returned today: Comments on your presentations. Your presentation essays.
• Work to be returned tomorrow or later: Introductions.
• No convocation today. Enjoy the extra time.
• Meetings today will focus on the work I returned today.
• Mr. Stone would like to visit our class on Tuesday since we'll be talking about two topics he finds particularly interesting (the Diebold case and liberal education).

Overview:

• The Discussion Essays.
• Presenting Work.
• Fun Detour: Pirates.

The Discussion Essays

• Your discussion essays (which I returned today) raised a number of issues that I think we must consider as a group.
• These issues include the quality of your writing, the term discussant, and problems with students who lack interest in the materials.
• I'll note that it was an interesting task grading the essays. Some were quite compelling, but lacked careful structures. Others were structurally correct, but revealed little careful reflection.

Writing Issues

• Please, please, please do not use this as a pronoun. Almost invariably, readers find it difficult to determine what noun the this refers to. Ask yourself This what and then fill in the what.
  • Only when this is done can you truly mesmerize them and get their honest feedback. This explains why ...
  • Sometimes it would have been nice to have more background, but I could have done some background research on my own. However, this sometimes did prevent me from participating ...
• I'm still seeing many too many nominalizations in your essays.
• A few of you like to write "Overall". I'm not sure what purpose it serves. Drop it.
• Avoid meta-writing.
• Please avoid contractions in academic essays.
• In spite of me reminding you that your essays needed points, many of the essays lacked clear points. Some of the few that had clear points did not make those points the focus of the essays.
• Many of you had awful concluding paragraphs. (Of course, those of you who attempted concluding paragraphs did better than those of you who just let your essays peter out.)
• My wife wants to remind you that I read the readings and I didn't read the readings don't scan very well.

The Term Discussant

• A few of you used the term discussant. I invariably marked such use with a w.c. for word choice.
• Unfortunately, discussant is used in two very different ways inside and outside of academia.
• Outside of academia, a discussant is simply one who takes part in a formal discussion (or so Merriam-Webster OnLine tells us).
• Inside academia, a discussant is a person who plays a formal role in the presentation of one or more papers. The discussant is responsible for providing commentary on a presented paper.

Disinterest

• Far too many of you wrote that you were having trouble participating in the discussions because you lacked interest in the topic being discussed. (One of you noted that many topics were Wholly uninteresting.)
• Unfortunately, not everything you study at Grinnell will immediately grab your interest.
• You have a responsibility to find ways to involve yourself in topics that do not immediately compell you to consider them.
• We'll spend a little while discussing how you might do so.

Presenting Work

• Goal: To establish the characteristics of a successful discussion.
• Primary aspects: Preparation, Process, and Outcomes.
• We'll spend about 40 minutes on this topic.

A Bit of Fun: Unpredictable Russian Pirates

• Evan will lead discussion on this topic.
• We'll spend about fifteen minutes on this topic.

Coherence

• TBD.