# Project Presentations **Dates: April 27–29 (schedule posted on Blackboard)** The presentation is your opportunity to share what you've built and learned with the class. This isn't a polished product demo — it's a research talk. Your audience wants to understand your question, your approach, and what you found out, including the complications. Each presentation slot is 35 minutes. You must present for **at least 20 minutes**, and you should be prepared to foster **up to 15 minutes of discussion** if you finish at the 20-minute mark. Leave a minimum of 10 minutes for questions and discussion — this is not optional. Plan your talk and practice accordingly. --- ## Structure Your talk should cover the following, roughly in this order. Approximate time budgets are suggestions, not rules — weight your talk toward what's most substantive in your project. ### Introduction and Motivation (~3 min) What is the linguistic question you're investigating, and why does it matter? Give enough context that someone unfamiliar with your specific domain or phenomenon can follow the rest of the talk. You don't need to exhaustively review prior literature, but situate your question in its broader context. End your introduction with a clear statement of your research question. The audience should leave the introduction knowing what you set out to find out. ### Data (~3 min) Describe the dataset(s) you used: where the data comes from, what it contains, how much there is, and any relevant preprocessing steps. If you had to make meaningful choices about how to clean, filter, or operationalize your data, say so. Be specific. "A corpus of social media posts" is less useful than "a dataset of 10,000 Reddit comments from the r/linguistics subreddit, from 2018–2022." If there were interesting challenges in obtaining or working with your data, mention them briefly — data work is part of the project. ### Hypothesis (~1–2 min) State your testable hypothesis explicitly. Your audience should be able to hear it and know what evidence would support or refute it. If your hypothesis evolved from what you wrote in M3, you can briefly note that. ### Methodology (~5–6 min) Describe how you conducted your analysis. Your methodology section should answer: - How did you process or prepare your data for analysis? - What statistical test(s) did you use, and why are they appropriate for your data and research question? - What were your conditions or comparisons (e.g., groups, time periods, variables)? - How did you evaluate or interpret the results? You don't need to walk through every line of code, but you should give enough detail that a classmate could understand what you did and why you made those choices. ### Results (~4–5 min) Present your results with visualizations where possible. Plots, tables, and figures make results much easier to follow than numbers alone. Present results objectively — describe what you observe without editorializing yet. "Group A had a significantly higher mean than Group B (p < 0.05)" is a result; "surprisingly, Group A did much better" is analysis (save that for the next section). If your results are preliminary, incomplete, or null, present them honestly. Null results are results. Unexpected findings are interesting. What matters is that you've run meaningful analyses and can show what happened. ### Discussion and Analysis (~4–5 min) What do your results mean? Connect your findings back to your hypothesis — does the evidence support it, refute it, or is it inconclusive? If the picture is complicated, explain why. This is also the place to discuss limitations, surprising findings, and what you'd do differently or next. Some of the most valuable scientific content lives here. --- ## Presenting Work in Progress Presentations are scheduled before the final writeup is due, and your project doesn't need to be complete by then. But you should have enough done to speak substantively to every section above. "We haven't gotten to results yet" is not acceptable at this stage — you should have at least some analysis to show and discuss, even if it's preliminary. Use feedback from your presentation to improve your final writeup. Classmates and I may raise questions or point out gaps you hadn't noticed — take notes and address them. --- ## Facilitating Discussion Because the slot is 35 minutes, there is time for meaningful class discussion beyond just Q&A. If you finish your prepared talk in 20 minutes, you are responsible for facilitating discussion for the remaining time. This means more than just answering questions — it means actively drawing the class into a conversation about your topic. Come prepared with a few backup discussion questions in case the floor goes quiet. Some options: - A methodological choice you were uncertain about, opened up for class input - A limitation or confound you noticed, and how you'd address it in future work - A related question you didn't have time to investigate but that the class might find interesting --- ## Slide Design A few practical notes: - **Keep slides sparse.** Dense text slides are hard to read and encourage you to read off the screen. Aim for one idea per slide, with visuals doing as much work as possible. - **Make figures readable.** Axes should be labeled, fonts should be large enough to see from the back of a room, and color choices should be legible. - **Include a slide with your hypothesis.** Put it on the screen so the audience has a reference point when you get to results. - **Show your statistical output.** At least one slide should display your actual test results (e.g., a summary table, model output, or annotated plot) — not just your interpretation of them. Submit your slides (as a PDF) to Blackboard by the morning of your presentation day. --- ## Questions and Discussion The discussion period is a normal part of a research talk. A few things to keep in mind: - It's okay to say "I don't know." "That's a good question — I'm not sure, but here's how I might investigate it" is a perfectly valid answer. - If a question is about something you haven't tried yet, you can acknowledge it as a direction for future work. - If a question is unclear, ask for clarification before answering. - If discussion slows down, use your prepared backup questions to keep the conversation going. --- ## Logistics - Talks are 35 minutes total. You must speak for at least 20 minutes, and you must leave at least 10 minutes for questions and discussion. - The presentation schedule is posted on Blackboard — let me know if you have conflicts with any of the April 27–29 dates. - Submit slides as a PDF on Blackboard by the morning of your presentation day. - If working with a partner, both of you are expected to contribute to the talk.