Most undergraduate research projects, at least those that are done for some modular credits, involve some kind of oral assessment, frequently in the form of an oral or poster presentation. Since most students want to do well in their project, it is a good idea to think about the assessment at the beginning of the project. This is because many things are difficult to address when you are finished with your project.

 

Having assessed many undergraduate projects, the first thing that really matters is that I understand what the student has been trying to do and achieve in his or her project. Hence, it is important that YOU fully understand your project, specifically the hypothesis or objective behind the project, before you embark on your research. You might even try to explain it to your friends, and see if it makes sense to them.

 

One of the most important things the examiner wants to know is whether you understand in depth what you have been doing. So he or she will often raise certain concerns and see how you respond to it. He or she may ask how you did an experiment, why you used a certain method and whether you have done specific control experiments.

 

When answering these questions, it is important to keep in mind what the examiner is looking for. Hence, when being asked how you did an experiment, you should not just describe the experimental steps, but you should mention why you did them in this way.

 

If you are being asked why you used a certain method, you should ideally explain that this was a deliberate choice, and highlight the pros and cons of this method over alternative approaches. Or sometimes you may use a method that would normally not be the method of choice. This is ok, as long as you can justify your choice (even if it is due to lack of resources).

 

The best things you can reply whenever the examiner raises a concern is to say, yes, we also thought about that, and we reasoned that… As a result, the examiner will feel validated that he/she asked a relevant question and will be impressed that you are so thoughtful.

 

How would you know about all of these things? Of course, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to find out about all those things while preparing for your presentation. The only way to really gain all this knowledge is to always work with an inquiring mind during your project. Be observant and try to understand why each step of an experiment is done. Discuss your experimental plan and results with someone, so that you become aware of alternative explanations and missing controls.

 

The other important thing that the examiner wants to find out is how much knowledge you have about the project. The most impressive answer is always if the student actually cites the findings of research papers that he or she has read. To be able to do that, it is not enough to just read a lot of research papers, because most likely you won’t remember the details when you need them during your presentation. Hence, it is important to prepare a summary of the major findings that you can revisit before the presentation. It also helps greatly to discuss what you have read with your supervisor or mentor. Chances are that they will also share very useful insights during your discussions.

 

With regards to the presentation itself, one advice you will frequently hear is to present as though you are telling a story. That is one story, and not more than one. One of the worst things you could do is, after ending the main part of your presentation, to continue with “We also did this…”

 

If results do not fit into your story, or are unrelated to your hypothesis or objective, do not include them in your presentation (you could include them in your written report). Not only will the examiner be horrified that there is more to come when he/she thought your presentation will soon be over. The examiner will also not have time to ask questions, which means you won’t be able to shine. And this is bad news for your grade. It is definitely not about how many data you present, it is about how well you can engage the examiner in what you present.

 

Another thing you should not do is to give an unnecessary long introduction. The introduction should only cover what the examiner needs to know to understand your hypothesis or objective, no more and no less. And on this point, try to follow the conventional presentation flow:

 

-Start with the topic and why the topic is important

-Explain the background, leading to the gap in knowledge

-State your objective or hypothesis

-Describe the experimental approach (usually only required for poster presentations and ideally in the form of a diagram)

-Present your results in logical order

-Present the conclusions (also ideally in diagram form). You could mention important future work at the end, which should ideally be derived from your conclusions diagram.

 

So say you are testing the hypothesis that drug resistance in glioblastoma is due to upregulation of protein X.

Your topic is glioblastoma. Find something noteworthy about the disease (I personally am not a fan of using the predictable approach of stating some statistics …)

In your background, you need to talk about why drug resistance is a major problem in glioblastoma, introduce protein X and explain why it might be important in drug resistance. (For everything you want to say in your introduction, ask yourself, is it really necessary to include it?)

Then state your hypothesis or objective, followed by the explanation of the results in logical order and then your conclusions. In your conclusions you should not only highlight the major findings, but also highlight why this work might be important.

 

As mentioned above, in order to get a good grade, it is important to engage the examiner and get him interested in your work. If you are giving a presentation, you can of course make use of presentation tools and techniques (which are the subject of a different post). But when presenting a poster, it is usually harder to engage the listener. It is good to get the examiner interested, for instance by starting with an interesting note, or asking the examiner a rhetorical question. In fact, in poster sessions it is a good idea to engage the examiner throughout the presentation by referring to him (“You are probably surprised by this result…”; “You are probably wondering why we used this method and not the more commonly used … method).

 

Diagrams also help greatly. And it is good to try to stand out, so that the examiner remembers you. You could prepare a handout of your poster or prepare additional materials for questions that you expect. But what is most important is that you really show how enthusiastic and excited you are about presenting your project. And don’t forget to thank the examiner for his attention and his valuable questions and comments!

 

Apart from the various things I mentioned, there are many other factors that can determine how well you do in your presentation. For instance, how good are your results, how much work have you done, how difficult and unique are the methods that you have applied. These things matter, but having great results, having done loads of experiments and having used state-of-the-art experimental approaches are not a requirement to get an excellent grade. Your grade is dependent on many factors, but the most important ones are whether you can get the examiner to be interested in your work and whether you can demonstrate your knowledge and problem-solving skills.

 

On the latter point, it might be a good idea to include in your oral presentation some example(s) of experiments that failed initially and describe how you managed to troubleshoot them. In a poster, this is probably not a good idea. But when describing a result on your poster, you could briefly describe the difficulties that you had to overcome in order to get the experiment working.

 

Most of the students are always very afraid of the assessment and think the examiner wants to grill them and discover their weaknesses. But the truth is of course that the examiners are just interested to learn about the project and about you. All you have to do is to convince them that it is an interesting project and that you know all about it.