Talks on Current Reading and Research
Ground Rules

By Per Mykland, 12 October 1995
(This document is currently being revised 7/07.)

The Department is continuing the series of "mini-seminars" in which each student is asked to present a short talk on current reading and research. Also continuing is a series of "mini-workshops" to be given by students who are or should be in serious research toward the dissertation. Regular workshops remain an option for students whose research work is approaching completion.

The general plan is that third-year students are expected to give two talks, a mini-seminar in the autumn quarter and a mini-workshop in the spring quarter, second-year students are expected to give one mini-seminar, usually in the winter quarter and first year students give one mini-seminar in the spring quarter. Students in their fourth or later years are generally expected to present a mini-workshop in the autumn quarter, unless they have already presented a full workshop on their research during the academic year. For a variety of reasons, such as entering with advanced degrees, students may be placed in different categories than that based on the number of years in the program.

Especially for the mini-seminars, emphasis will be on the presentation and on the response to questions. The hope is that the talks and ensuing discussion will help inform the faculty and other students in the Department about the student's work, will give practice to the student in public speaking and responding to questions, and that the preparation and the discussion will help advance the progress of the research. Recent journal articles will be likely topics for those students who have not begun research. Talks arising from consulting projects are welcomed.

Format for the Mini-Seminars

The format for the mini-seminar talks is modelled in part on the "Contributed Paper Sessions" at statistics meetings. First talks at meetings are likely to be in one of these sessions. Time limits for speakers, often as short as 15 minutes, are strictly enforced. (the announcement for the Iowa 1995 meeting of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics is attached.) Communicating your important message in the short time is a challenge - much harder than giving a 40-minute talk.

Students must plan for a presentation not longer than 12 minutes, with another 3 minutes allowed for questions and discussion. The speaker will be stopped at the end of 12 minutes. (If substantial questions or discussion occurred during the 12 minutes, time will be extended but never beyond the scheduled 15 minutes.) As in contributed paper sessions, a warning will be given two minutes before your stopping time.

A few transparencies can be valuable for displaying tables or graphs or a few essential equations and notations. Improper use includes using too many transparencies, using too small characters, and reading from transparencies. A maximum of three transparencies - one per five minutes - is a general guideline. Write large: 1 cm. characters. Do not put sentences or readable text on transparencies. These are not rigid rules, but approval of the faculty advisor is required for the transparencies or handouts to be used.

The talk should describe the topic under study, the approach, the main ideas and techniques, the results achieved and the problems and difficulties being faced. Details of derivations, proofs or computer programs are not appropriate for these talks. Use the limited time well! These short talks are not a substitute for the workshops where detailed and technical presentation of research is appropriate and where an advance copy of the technical paper is expected.

A one-page description of the problem should be prepared prior to the talk. You should email your title and abstract in 'plain text' format to mitzi@galton.uchicago.edu along with the date and time of your talk. The abstracts for the Contributed Paper Sessions are one model and the abstracts at the front of each doctoral dissertation are another. A sample from the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Bulletin is attached. Pick up any copy of this bulletin for more examples (or look at it on the Web, if you prefer).

Your faculty adviser for this talk (it needn't be your official adviser) can help guide you in putting together your talk to meet the spirit of these rules. Specifically, you must get approval for both your abstract and for any transparencies and handouts you will use.

Format for the Mini-Workshops

The ground rules for the regular ("maxi") workshops are set out in the Student Handbook (1994-95, pp. 8-9). The mini-workshops differ in length and in other ways that reflect the incomplete status of the work being presented. A document describing the work and its status must be made available one week prior to the workshop, and all participants are expected to have read this document. The text of the document should be in the range of 4-10 pages. Up to 5 more pages of tables or graphs may be included. Short really is beautiful if you want people to read what you have to say! The presenter will be allowed to talk for no more than 20 minutes at the start of the workshop; after that, questions, responses and discussion will be the rule. At least initially, 30 minutes will be allotted for a single mini-workshop. The initial talk should not be a rehash of the document, but used to clarify or amplify the document or to present the problem and status from a different viewpoint.

The topic for each workshop is the current program of research for the dissertation. What is the problem? What has been accomplished? What are the difficulties and the plans for meeting them? Relationship to other work is usually an important aspect, but the workshop and document are not to be a seminar on someone else's work, no matter how nice that other work may be.

Preparation of the document and the initial comments may require difficult condensation and omission of major aspects in order to meet the space and time limits. Your advisory committee can be helpful, and your document must have the approval of your advisor before its submission.

Above all, please understand that the purpose of the workshop is the advancement of the dissertation research. A successful workshop will be one in which new questions have been raised, new directions or ideas for attack suggested, and in which some, at least, of the listeners as well as the presenter see things that they have missed before.