Antonn Zita

Ready, Set, Go A Three-Part Seminar on

Effective Presentations, Simplifying Academic
Writing, and a Case Study of Course Creation

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Ready Presentation Tips

VV064: Academic and Professional Skills in English for

IT

Different context = different presentation

Not everything works as a visual

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Ready Are you truly ready?

Your presentation starts before you walk into the room

Does everything work?

Do you have backups?

4
Ready Steve Jobs & iPhone

Apple 2007 keynote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hUIxyE2Ns8

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Ready Audience Defines Presentation

Audiences
experts

topic specialists

area specialists

academics

public
lay
Ready Other Presentations to Watch

David JP Phillips How to avoid death by PowerPoint.

TEDx talk. 2014.
Hans Rosling: The best stats you've ever seen. TED talk.
2006.
David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization.
TED talk. 2010.

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Feb 1, 2003: Columbia Shuttle Disintegrates Upon Re-
entering Earths Atmosphere

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Results
All 7 astronauts aboard killed

$4 billion spacecraft is destroyed

Debris scattered over 2000 sq-miles of Texas

NASA grounds shuttle fleet for 2-1/2 years

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Causes I

Insulating foam (SOFI) separates from external tank

during lift-off
Foam breaches thermal protection system (TPS) tiles
under left wing
Superheated air enters wing during re-entry
Aerodynamic stresses destroy weakened wing

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Causes II

On several occasions pieces of insulating foam broke off

at launch and hit the thermal protection system
NASA had observed it many times
Not considered as a serious problem

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Causes III

Terrible PowerPoint slides!

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Ready Use PowerPoint Well

As information gets passed up an organization

hierarchy, from people who do analysis to mid-level
managers to high-level leadership, key explanations and
supporting information are filtered out. In this context,
it is easy to understand how a senior manager might
read this PowerPoint slide and not realize that it
addresses a life-threatening situation.

Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Report, vol. 1 (Aug

2003), 191.

Define footer - Name of the presentation / Your name / Unit, Office 17

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Set Academic Writing and Computer Science

Academic writing
=/=
difficult to read

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Set Academic Writing

Longer words
Noun-based phrases
Grammar complexity
Subordinate clauses
Passive voice

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Set Academic Writing

Exact
Clear
Compact
Smooth
Set Problems in CS Writing

Overuse of a specific sentence structure

Unclear empty verbs, obfuscation, vague
Complex sentence structure

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Set Overuse of Sentence Structure

Several object codes are available for existing

programming languages. LLVM IR is available for many
languages, including C, C++, Objective-C, Swift and
several others. Java bytecode is available for Java and
other JVM based languages (like Scala). Common
Intermediate Language (CIL) is available for .NET based
languages such as C# and Visual Basic

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Set Overuse of Sentence Structure

Eclipse is based on OSGi2 technology. Eclipse plugins

are packaged as OSGi bundles. OSGi bundle is very
similar to standard JAR package.
Eclipse is based on OSGi2 technology and Eclipse
plugins are packaged as OSGi bundles, which are very
similar to standard JAR packages.

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Set Overuse of Empty Verbs

Local packet transmission was performed to test error

rates.
Vs.
Error rates were tested by local packet transmission.

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Set Overuse of Empty Verbs

Regardless of the fact that the device malfunctioned, the

test was completed with great success.
In spite of the malfunction, the test was a great success.

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Set Obfuscation

In respect to the relative costs, the features of memory

mean that with regard to systems today disk has greater
associated expense for the elapsed time requirements of
tasks involving access to stored data.
Vs.
Memory can be accessed more quickly than disk.

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Set Obfuscation

Experiments, with the improved version of algorithm as

we have described, are the step that confirms our
speculation that performance would improve. The
previous version of the algorithm is rather slow on our
test data and improvements lead to better performance.
While the previous version of the algorithm was relatively
slow, the improved version lead to better performance
during testing.

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Set Complex Sentence Structure

The results show that, for the given data, less memory is
likely to be required by the new structure, depending on
the magnitude of the numbers to be stored and the
access pattern.
Vs.
The results show that less memory was required by the
new structure. Whether this result holds for other data
sets will depend on the magnitude of the numbers and
the access pattern, but we expect that the new structure
will usually require less memory than the old.

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Set Complex Sentence Structure

eHealth cloud, while at the beginning of its initial run, has

a very promising future, as such technology is poised to
be supported by modern solutions which are able to
react ahead of technological curve, thus significantly
prolonging the possible use of the technology.
Despite being at the beginning of its initial run, eHealth
cloud has a very promising future. The technology
eHealth cloud uses is poised to be supported by modern
solutions which are able to react ahead of technological
curve, thus significantly prolonging the possible use of
the technology.
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Set Simplifying Sentences

Be exact
Be clear
Be compact
Be smooth

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Go VV070: Seminar on Masters Thesis Writing

Inter-faculty cooperation beneficial

Meeting goals important

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Go MU Strategic Plan
Internationalization in Education.
3.1
Introduce foreign languages as an inseparable component of studies in
all study types and stages
3.2
Expand the number of foreign languages on offer while also increasing
the number of courses taught in foreign languages by both local and
international academic employees
3.3
Develop a range of degree programmes taught in foreign languages
while increasing the number of students enrolled in such programmes
3.4
Improve the quality of activities associated with international student
mobility
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Go Faculty of Informatics Strategic Plan

Faculty of Informatics: significant increase of English

use in Masters and doctoral classes
increase the number of courses only taught in English
create degree programs only taught in English
Increase the number of theses in English

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Go VV070 General Information

Modular course
Classes (5x)
Individual sessions (3x)
Course Completion Requirements
Attendance
Submitting assignments
Thesis drafts (not a proofreading service)
Conclusion
40 students, 3 did not complete the course

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Go Student Feedback

rekl bych ze je to paradoxne jeden z nejuzitecnejsich

predmetu na magisterskem studiu
Tento pedmt mi pomohl napsat velkou st diplomov prce
bhem semestru, a pomohl mi celkov zvednout rove mho
akademickho psan v anglitin. Rozhodn bych ho
doporuil vem, kte plnuj zvrenou prci v anglitin.

Students recommend the course to other students.

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Go Number of Theses in English on the Rise

PS 2011 JS 2012 PS 2012 JS 2013 PS 2013 JS 2014 PS 2014 JS 2015 PS 2015 JS 2016

Bachelors Theses

English 7 26 7 29 8 24 6 34 11 45

Total 92 227 80 198 95 195 79 214 77 189

English/Total 8% 11% 9% 15% 8% 12% 8% 16% 14% 24%

Masters Theses

English 18 32 26 73 35 83 43 89 39 83

Total 86 143 128 280 124 277 116 234 97 215

English/Total 21% 22% 20% 26% 28% 30% 37% 38% 40% 39%

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Go Number of Theses in English on the Rise

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Sources
Day, Trevor. Success in Academic Writing. New York: Palgrave, 2013
Fowler, Henrey Ramsey; Aaron, Jane E., and Janice Okoomian. The Little, Brown Handbook. 10th ed.
New York: Longman. 2007.
Ghebrekidan, Robiel. Columbia Disaster. SYSM 6309: Advanced Requirements Engineering, Summer
2013. UT Dallas.
Greenberg, Saul. Writing a Masters Thesis. University of Calgary, AB, Canada: Grad Tips ,
http://saul.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/saul/
Smith, Jeffrey. Suing PowerPoint Well. Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Arts,
Masaryk University. Presentation.
Swales, John M. and Christine B. Feak. Academic Writing for Graduate Students. 3rd ed. Michigan. 2013.
Tufte, Edward. PowerPoint Does Rocket Science: Assessing the Quality and Credibility of Technical
Reports. Edward Tufte.
Williams, Joseph M. and Joseph Bizup. Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace. 11th ed. New Jersey:
Pearson, 2014.
Writing Guidelines for Engineering and Science Students. Leonhart Center, Penn State.
<http://writing.engr.psu.edu/exercises/>.
Zobel, Justin. Writing for Computer Science: The Art of Effective Communication. Singapore: Springer,
2000

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