Ch 407 Seminar

Spring 2009

Course Schedule

Seminar Requirements

• The main objective of this class is for you to develop a topic of current interest, do a complete literature search, and prepare and deliver a public seminar on this topic. All seminars will be delivered on Thursday May 29 during Academic Excellence Day. There will be no exceptions. The seminar will be graded by a panel of judges.
• The seminar MUST be 30 minutes in length to pass this course. You will have 30-35 minutes for your presentation followed by a 5-10 minute question period.
• Your literature search must involve a Chemical Abstracts and on-line database search. You will prepare an annotated bibliography of all the sources that you use in preparing your seminar. You MUST have journal articles among your references. More details about the annotated bibliography will be available via a link in the course schedule part of this syllabus. The annotated bibliography will be printed and copies distributed during your seminar.
• If you do not have at least two references from primary literature sources such as scientific journals (remember that definition from Ch 350?), your topic is not acceptable for use as a seminar topic. You may use internet resources, but they may NOT comprise the bulk of your references.
• Your seminar will be done using Powerpoint as your visual aid tool. You may do a demonstration if it is appropriate to your topic. You may also insert video into your presentation if it is directly needed to clarify some point you need to make during your seminar. Video clips in which someone else is delivering the spoken content must be limited to 2minutes or less. A clip may be longer if you are doing a voice over during the showing of the video..
• This seminar is a formal presentation. You will dress in a professional manner to present your seminar which means a dress, skirt or suit for women and a tie and sport coat or suit for men. You might as well get used to this type of attire as it is what is expected of you when you go to a job interview!
• Everyone will give a draft presentation of their seminar on either May 20 or May 27. Please make time in your schedule for the dress rehearsal. You must attend at least one dress rehearsal other than your own. From past experience, the more you support each other, the better your seminars will be.
  

• In addition to giving your seminar, you will be required to attend seminars given in the Natural Science and Math Seminar series. The dates of those presentation are listed in the Course Schedule. You will be required to turn in a seminar review for each seminar. The details of this review will have a link in the Course Schedule.
• You have several other assignments that are required. The electronic abstract is the description of your seminar that will be published in the Academic Excellence Day Proceedings volume. All assignments MUST be turned in on the date due. Failure to turn in the assignment on time will result in receiving a zero for that assignment. DO NOT ASK for extensions. The assignment are intended to keep you on schedule for having your seminar ready to present on time. Failure to turn in any assignment will result in an additional 20 point deduction (above the points assigned to that assignment) from your final grade.
• If you faithfully complete your assignments, you will stay on schedule and have a seminar ready to present on the presentation day!