Goals of Presentation
• Thesis writing tips
• Powerpoint Capabilities
• How to’s
• Options for Saving and Viewing presentations
• Tips for better presentations
Tips for Thesis Writing
•Tone
•Tense
•Voice
•Acronyms
•Equations
•Figures and Graphs
•Grammar / word usage
Tone
The tone of the thesis is formal. This means:
• Do not use contractions: it’s, they’re, can’t, etc.
• Do not use “I” or “we”.
• Do not use slang or cliches.
Tense
Be consistent in the use of the past or present tense!
In general:
• The past tense is used to describe previous studies,
the experiment conducted and results.
• The present tense is used to describe climatology,
the general circulation patterns, some results.
Voice
Passive vs. active voice:
• Try to use the active voice. If your meaning dictates the
use of the passive voice, vary your sentence starters:
The boom thermometer on the ship measured
a minimum sea surface temperature of 12.3C
during the experiment.
The minimum sea surface temperature
measured during the experiment was 12.3C.
vs.
During the experiment, the sea surface
temperature measured was 14.2C.
Acronyms
Define every acronym the first time it is used, even in the Abstract.
Define every acronym even if you think everyone knows what it
is (e.g. CTD, XBT). Exceptions are words like scuba and radar.
Equations
•NPS has a site license for MathType, which does equations in
Word (and other software).
• All equations should be numbered on the right hand side unless
they are inline equations. You may either number sequentially
throughout the thesis: (1), (2) etc., or number sequentially within
each chapter: (2.1), (2.2) etc.
• All terms of the equation must be defined.
• Numbers should have a leading 0 (e.g. 0.5, not .5)
Figures and Graphs
• Discuss all figures in the text; an exception is the Appendix, if
needed.
• .eps files work best for incorporating figures (e.g. matlab) into
Word.
• Limit the number of color figures in the thesis, but not in the
presentation
• For graphs that have lines and data points - explain whether
(a) the lines connect the points
(b) the lines are a fit to the data, and if so, what type of fit, or
(c) the lines are plots of theoretical equations
•Make sure all axes are labeled with titles and units.
Common Confusables:
Which vs. That
Use “which” to begin a clause that is independent; use “that” to
begin a clause that is dependent:
• The chair that is broken will be moved.
• The chair, which belonged to my great-grandmother, is broken.
Fewer vs. Less
Fewer is used when the noun it describes is countable; less is used
when the noun it describes is not countable:
• There are fewer small cars on the road today than 10 years ago.
• There was less snowfall this year in Maine than there was in
Maryland.
Affect vs. Effect
Affect is a verb:
The horizontal grid resolution of a model affects the time step
required for numerical stability.
Effect is a noun:
The effect of decreasing the horizontal grid resolution is to
increase the computational time of the model.
Northward vs. Northerly
A current may be referred to as “eastward”, meaning it flows to
the east. The wind is referred to as easterly, meanly it comes from
the east. Currents that flow northward in the northern hemisphere
or southward in the southern hemisphere should be
referred to as “poleward”.
Grammar Checklist
•Avoid run-on sentences, they are hard to read.
•No sentence fragments.
•Verb-subject agreement
•Hyphenate when using two words as an adjective:
e.g. a little-known fact is different from a little known fact
A man eating tiger is different from a man-eating tiger.
•Avoid commas, which are not necessary.
•Avoid confusing readers with misplaced modifiers:
(e.g. Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while
traveling from Washington on the back of an envelope)
Parallel Construction:
An anemometer measured the windspeed, and the
relative humidity was measured by a hygrometer.
change to:
Windspeed was measured by an anemometer, and
Relative humidity was measured by a hygrometer.
Use the semicolon to vary the cadence and form of
your sentences; however, use it sparingly.
Powerpoint Presentations
• Widely used and available
• Start from an existing presentation or use the
autowizard to create a new one.
• Templates in various formats available.
Powerpoint Capabilities
• Bulleted slides
• Insert images
• Link to the Web
• Easy conversion to the web
• Animation
• Sound
About
This
Website WBC Library
The Fall Poster Session will
take place Sept 11-15, 2000.
Enter here to view the posters.
Inserting a matlab jpeg image
Inserting a Matlab contour image
Existing Time Frequency Techniques:
frequency
f0
X (t0 , f 0 )
x(t ) g t0 f 0 (t ) dt
t0 time
basis: g t 0 f 0 (t )
time
x(t ) 1/ f0
signal:
time
Example 1:
• signal: finger tapping
• noise: fan
sound1
Example 2:
same + white noise
Play
sound2
Use of Education partners and Commercial
Courseware to offset development cost
Naval Oceanography
Descriptive Track Physical Oceanography
Methods Track
Main Track
TOPIC
TOPIC TOPIC
TOPIC TOPIC TOPIC
TOPIC TOPIC
TOPIC TOPIC
NPS Content TOPIC TOPIC
TOPIC
TOPIC TOPIC TOPIC
Partner Content TOPIC TOPIC
TOPIC
COTS Content
Video Clips
• The movie to the right is
an avi format (windows only)
of the Navy’s Blue Angels.
The movie is stopped and
restarted with a click of the
mouse. The clip is resizable (this one has been
enlarged).
• To add a video clip, choose the Insert menu and
choose an option under “Movies and Sound”.
Voice Narration
On the Slide Show menu, click “Record
Narration”. Click ok on the next dialog box.
Now, just speak naturally, and move through your
presentation.
After you finish, PowerPoint will place your
recorded voice into the slides.
You can also add voice or sound to individual
elements of the presentation by recording a sound
from Insert Movies or Sound.
Saving Your Presentation
Save as...
• PowerPoint Show
* Automatically opens in Slide Show mode
* Not editable, viewable only
• Pack and Go
* Compresses the presentation
* Includes sound and video you linked to it
* Spreads across multiple floppies
* Run pngsetup.exe on the first floppy to restore.
Saving Your Presentation
Custom Shows
- Different versions of the same presentation
tailored for different audiences.
• On the Slide Show menu, choose “Custom
Shows”. Name it and select the slides you want to
show.
• To show, use the “Setup Show” dialog box to
specify which Custom Show to run.
Avoid “Death by Powerpoint”
• Provide outline of the presentation
• Logical, organized flow
• Present evidence for each point (graph or image)
• On a scientific graph, first tell what you are looking
at, what the axes are, etc., then tell what the audience
should learn from this slide.
•Tell a story with the slides.
• Relate to your audience’s interest
• Involve the audience
• Establish eye contact
•Practice and test.
The End