Tips on giving your talk on your proposed research

Overall format:

Time: 15 to 20 min. with 5 to 10 min. of discussion

Audience: primarily neuroscience graduate students (20 to 30), a few faculty (3 to 6), your advisory committee (3 to 4), the course coordinator (1). Each evaluation has an equal weighting. Take home message: aim your talk at your fellow students. There are more of them.

Check list of things to include in your talk:

• What is the question(s) you will be asking in your research?
• Why is this interesting?
• What do we know now? (i.e. background, current issues, unanswered questions)
• How do you plan to answer your question? (i.e. methods )
• What might you find? (list the possibilities)

If you are further along in your research, add

• preliminary data
• tentative conclusions
• plans for further experiments

Try to schedule your advisory committee meeting in the week after your talk so that the topics will still be fresh in their minds.
Make sure you personally invite each member to your talk.