The class will have an organizational meeting in 469 Lauritsen from 2:00 to 4:00pm, Tuesday, April 1

The first meeting, held on Tuesday, April 1 will be primarily for informational and organizational purposes.  We will discuss the question of whether we can find a more convenient time for the class, as historically the nominal time conflicts with certain other courses.

Catalog description: Provides practice and guidance in oral and written communication of material related to contemporary physics research. Students will choose a topic of interest, make presentations of this material in a variety of formats and, through a guided process, draft and revise a technical or review article on the topic.  Ph70 is intended primarily for senior physics majors; enrollment will be limited.  Completion of this course satisfies the Institute Core Communication Requirement.

This course is part of the Institute Core Communication Requirement.
The six unit requirement is to be met in the Junior or Senior years.
The Oral Presentation portion of Ph 70 will be graded by the class as a whole (see below).

Ph 70 is organized as a seminar. After some introductory discussion, each student will settle on a theme with a specific topic or topics of physical interest. Students will make oral presentations and write a paper, in an ongoing dialog with the instructor and TA.

Presentations:

Each student will make two presentations.

As a courtesy to the rest of the class, if you drop this course or are unable to appear for a particular presentation, making it necessary to alter the order of presentations, please inform the instructor, so that others are not inconvenienced.

Paper:

The written portion of the course will consist of the writing of, over the course of the term, an article on a technical topic in a style appropriate for Scientific American.  The idea is to communicate an interesting physics topic to a literate, but non-technical, reader. The subject may be the same one on which your popular oral presentation is based. A proper set of references should be included.

The writing of this paper will proceed through a series of stages: proposal, outline, draft and revision, in order to provide an environment in which you can receive (we hope) helpful feedback.

The schedule is as follows:

Proposal (April 15): A one page statement of what you plan to write and how you plan to approach the project with a few references listed.
Outline (April 29): An outline in sufficient detail to convince us that you have a clear idea of how to organize the work, together with a list of references you intend to use.
Draft (May 13): A complete version of the paper. This will be read in detail and we will provide suggestions that you may incorporate to improve the paper.  Students will read and comment on other students' paper drafts.
Final Version:  (May 27)

The medium of exchange for papers will be Adobe .pdf or Microsoft Word .doc files. Send these to me by email. Do not hand the paper in on paper.


Grades

The oral presentation portion of the course will be graded by the class as a whole. A rating sheet will be handed out to the class for each presentation. The class will briefly discuss and then rate the presentation, with ratings (which will be anonymous) on a scale of 1 through 10.  To receive a passing grade in the class, you must not only make all of your required presentations, but you must hand in ratings for the presentations in at least seven of the nine class meetings (after the Organization Meeting).

Oral presentations will be recorded on video and made available to the presenter as streaming video. Presenters will be asked to view the video of their lecture and grade themselves in the same manner as the audience.

Here is a sample grading sheet:

Glossary

Paraphernalia

Most presentations in physics are made using either a laptop computer with an LCD projector or, less often, transparencies with an overhead projector. Both an LCD projector overhead and a transparency projector will be available for the class. You can either provide your own laptop, send the presentation to me as an email enclosure, or post the file in a network-accessible place. If you want to use my laptop, be aware that it has a network connection, a USB 2.0 port, and a CD-ROM. I encourage you to send me the presentation by email (or provide a URL) before the class meeting time, in order to allow efficient use of class time. It is a good idea to embed fonts in either pdf or ppt files, to minimize mishaps.

References

While most of what you need to know to make an effective presentation is common sense, there are techniques you can learn to improve the quality of your presentations. You may wish to refer to some reading material for general orientation, or for some particular pointers. Here are references to some books and web sites that you may find useful:

Books

1) Sinclair Goodland, Speaking Technically, London, Imperial College Press, 1996.
2) Peter Kenny, A Handbook of Public Speaking for Scientists and Engineers, Bristol, Adam Hilger, Ltd., 1982.
3) Dan O'Hair, Rob Stewart and Hannah Rubenstein, A Speaker's Guidebook, New York, Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001.

Web Sites on Oral Presentation:

http://www.onr.navy.mil/about/speaking%5Ftips/default.asp

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~markhill/conference-talk.html

http://www.canberra.edu.au/studyskills/learning/oralpres.html

Web Sites on Scientific Writing:

http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/801lecnotes.htm

http://www.io.com/~hcexres/textbook/

http://www.languages.ait.ac.th/el21open.htm

http://www.writing.eng.vt.edu/exercises/

The Hixon Writing Center is an important resource. Dr. Steven Youra is the Director (X3706, syoura@hss.caltech.edu).

How to get in touch with us

David Hitlin

I am typically on campus on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and at Stanford Linear Accelerator on Thursday and Friday, although there are sometimes changes to this schedule.

I will not keep formal office hours; feel free to come by or call at any time.
Email will often be the most convenient method of communication.

TA: Darin Ragozzine
Office: 154 S. Mudd
Email:  darin@its.caltech.edu
Phone:  (626) 395-6960
Mobile: (626) 644 0248

Office Hour: Monday 2-3