The Process of the Science Project » Prepare an Oral Report

Prepare an Oral Report

For CONSEF judging, you must also prepare an oral report to accompany the written report.
- Introduce yourself. State your name, age, and school.
- Give credit to those whom you have contacted and to those who have helped you.
- Discuss any work done in the past pertaining to your project.
- State exactly what you were attempting to discover.
- Make a prediction about the outcome.
- How did you get interested in this project? Give the reason for choosing it.
- Background explanation for your project (to familiarize the judges), scope of your study, etc. This should include a summary of the Review of Literature.
- Proceed in a logical manner, telling what you did step by step.
- Be complete. Do not leave out necessary details.
- Use visual aids: charts, pictures, graphs. Point to your display, but stand aside when you do this.
- Explain how your apparatus was used. If you constructed it yourself, tell the judges you did it, if not, give credit to those who helped you. Judges are more interested in your results and conclusions than in the apparatus.
- Discuss ways you avoided experimental error such as use of appropriate instrumentation and measurements, large enough sample size, and/or having controls when possible.
- Discuss statistical aspects of experimental errors such as averages, ranges, and statistical analogies.
- Explain both your controls and your experimental variables.
- Remember to use proper units of measure with your data.
- Point to graphs, charts, etc., when you refer to them.
- State in a concise and logical order the conclusions you can validly draw from the experimentation you have done and the data and/or observation obtained.
- Discuss how you plan to continue your project, if applicable.
- When you have finished, ask the judges if there are any questions they would like to ask.
- When they ask you questions, think before you answer them. Answer slowly! If you don't know the answer say, ''I'm not sure but I think..."
- If they ask you a question that is not related to your project and you do not know the answer, then say, ''I really haven't been concerned with this in my project, but it might be interesting to look into it.''
- Thank the judges for any suggestions they may have for bettering your research.
- Speak slowly!
- Be forward but polite, dynamic, and above all interested in what you are doing.
- Remember that you are a salesperson and therefore your job is to sell your product to the judges. The judges are interested in your work - which is why they are judging you.
- Your presentation should not exceed 10 minutes.

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Prepare an Oral Report