Format

The presentations will be in PechaKucha format. This is a style of group presentation designed to keep talks focussed and brief, and to allow a number of people to present in a constrained time.

Each presentation will consist of exactly 20 slides, each of which will be displayed for exactly 20 seconds. Each presentation therefore lasts six minutes and forty seconds. While this seems like a very short time to present a complex statistical analysis, it allows presenters to focus on the ‘big picture’ of their project and to leave out the less important details.

Because these presentations are so short, you should feel free to leave out details that you do not think will contribute to conveying your project to your classmates. That said, your presentation will be expected to contain at least the following five components:

1. Title and name: Your presentation must include a title and your full name. This information can be on your first slide (e.g. as a title slide) or included as a footer on all your slides..
2. Research question(s): Include a brief motivation for your project and a description of exactly what question or questions you are trying to answer.
3. Statistical model: You should show the class the full specification for your model (or for at least one of your models if you use several), outcome distribution, model structure, and priors. You do not need to discuss every component of your model—that could end up taking up your entire allotted time.
4. Results: You should show the class the relevant estimated results from your model. You can do this with tables, figures, or a combination. You do not need to talk about the estimates for every parameter in your model, just those that are important for addressing your research question(s).
5. Interpretation: Tell us how your model and its results pertain to your research question, whether they help you answer that question, and what you have learned by performing your analysis.

Logistics

You will need to send me your slides by 23h59 the day before your presentation. I will put all of the day’s slides together into one presentation to facilitate the transition between talks.

While in-person presentations are preferred, you may present remotely over Teams if necessary. If you are presenting online I will show your slides on the main projector and share that screen over Teams. If you plan to present remotely you should let me know at least 24 hours in advance.

Please send me your presentation in PDF format (if this is a problem get in touch and we can figure out an alternate format). What you send me needs to have at most 20 slides. If you have more than 20 I will only include the first 20 in the presentation. If you include fewer (no fewer than 18, please), your talk will end sooner.

Tips

• These presentations are short by design. One strategy is to structure your talk around one main takeaway, and focus on the details that support that point.
• If you want a particular image or slide to stay on the screen longer than twenty seconds (very likely), you can duplicate slides in your presentation. Just make sure that they show up as separate slides in the file you send to me.
• Since the slideshows automatically advance every 20 seconds, I strongly recommend that you rehearse your talk several times. If you do fall behind during your presentation this will help you get back on track.