Daniel P. Weeks
Successful Student Seminars
Seton Hall University South Orange, New Jersey
The seminar is one of the outstanding events in a student's stay in graduate school, and with good reason. Compare seminar with some of the other tests of a student's ability such as written examinations or research. There is a certain anonymity into which one can escape when taking a written examination. After all, one is not face to face with one's examiner and besides, there are others taking the same test. When one leads a seminar he is taking the test alone and everyone is watching. Research is the principal concern of a graduate student. Research is not an event hut day to day digging where the high spots are rare and often go unrecognized until the data are worked up. If one has a had day at the bench he can make it up the next day. Seminar i s an event and if one "lays an egg" he does not often have an opportunity to repeat the experiment. While all of this makes seminar a forbidding obstacle, it also offers meat excitement and oonortunitv. If a student gives a good seminar the glory is his alone. From it he will derive great satisfaction and the respect of his fellow students and the faculty. So here is the opportunity. How does one go about organizing and leading a good seminar? Most faculty members will agree that a graduate seminar has two important purposes. It serves as a forum for the discussion of the recent developments and ideas in chemistry, and it is a test of a student's ability to speak before a group. A seminar is a fornm for discussion. It is not meant to be a lecture although, as will be pointed out below, many of the elements of good lecturing go into a good seminar presentation. A seminar is almost always a failure if the speaker has not induced his audience to participate. It is to be a discussion of recent developments. A seminar is supposed to be a scholarly activity distinct from the classroom. Material presented in textbooks has no place in the seminar except as background. The subject should be contemporary and not one which is overly familiar to most of the audience. ~
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EorTon's NOTE: This article was designed to stimulate graduate students into giving sufficient thought to their preparations for leading a. seminar. Many of the thoughts which appear here be obvious to anyone who is planning a seminar. Nevertheless, it has been the experience of many professors that they do not occur to many students. Although this is written specifically for graduate students at the author's institution, it be usef,,l for students everywhere, incll,ding those undergraduate chemistry majors who are reqoired to lead seminars.
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Journal of Chemical Education
So one purpose is a scholarly one. The other is strictly pedagogic. Sooner or later every rhemist, teacher or not, is going to he required to deliver a technical talk before chemists. In addition, almost all graduate students face oral examinations a t the end of their studies. Some experience is very useful. The faculty wants to find out if its students can handle themselves before a group. A successful seminar can assume a variety of forms, hut most of them have certain characteristics in common. It is necessary that there be a clear, precise transferral of information. Previously it was %aidthat many of the elements of good lecturing go into a good seminar. Consider what one appreciates in an effective teacher. His presentation is usually well organized with one thought logically following the next. He tells a good story in succinct sentences. He never gets too far above his audience and he seems to sense the moment when he is not getting across. This is no accident. It requires thorough preparation and a presence of mind as he is stand~ngin front of the class. It should he clear that the better one is prepared, the more attention be can devote to his audience. The puzzled looks and glazed eyeballs indicate that he had better explain that last bit of reasoning in another way. It should be equally dear that memorization of a presentation is entirely inadequate. A seminar which is read will not be accepted. If a speaker is committed to the crutch of a memorized or written text he cannot even begin the give and take of a seminar. As one prepares a seminar he should try to emulate the qualities of those of his professors who are good lecturers and try to avoid the faults of the others. Seminars which provoke cmtroversy are, by far, the most fun. This is probably the quality which is most difficult to build into a seminar. Many students deliberately avoid controversy because they are afraid they will he given a hard time. Their idea is to pick a nice safe subject and stay out of trouble. The chances are, however, that a safe subject is not contemporary and certainly not stimulating. The safe subjects are found in textbooks, the controversial ones in the current literature. Actually, this business of getting a hard time from the andience is an exaggeration, ~f the spealier has chosen his topic astutely and has prepared thoroughly by the time he gives his talk, he should be more lcnowledgeable on the subject than anyone else in the room. If a seminar has firm underpinnings it becomes virtually impossible for someone to heckle successfully unless the student gets rattled. A word about getting rattled. Almost every seminar speaker is nervous before he begins. It is a perfectly
presentation is so poor that the audience bas not the natural thing to be. The point is, is he going to make slightest idea what he's talking about he can expect it work for him or against him? A certain amount of complete silence (except from several exacerbated nervous excitement, even fear, can be used to faculty members). If the formal part of the t a k is too advantage. Every athlete knows the value of being long it will wear out the audience. They will not ask "up" for his event. There is an excitement in the questions because dinner is waiting. Fmally, it is stomach, the adrenalin is flowing and the eye is bright. possible to cover a subject so well that questions are All of these things make a man perform at his best. impossible (aside from the customary, "what was the But this has to he a controlled excitement. One canyield on that reaction?") If there is a danger of this not allow himself to become paralyzed by fear. happening the speaker can leave some obvious gaps so Incidentally, here is a small device which may prove that someone will fall into his trap and ask a question helpful. There is a moment just after a speaker is infor which he is eminently prepared. Planting questions troduced when he first looks a t the audience and realizes among friends is a dishonorable deed. that they expect him to say something. It is quite Most good seminars are entertaining. It is often felt possible at this time that he may forget how he meant that to be entertaining during a technical talk is someto begin. Although memorization of a talk is a mishow not in keeping with the dignity of the affair. Not take, memorization of the first sentence is a very good true. Many good speakers have a liberal amount of idea. If that first thought is clearly in mind as one "ham" m . them. Jokes are not necessary although walks to the front he can begin positively and with occasionally a joke may be in context. The American confidenre. Chemical Society has not passed a rule that technical One of the inherent dangers in introducing contalks must be anhydrous. One should move around a troversy is that the speaker may get himself into a bit, wave his arms, change the level of his voice, exude position where he is defending interpretations in which confidence, say things in unusual ways, and introduce a he really does not believe. It is admirable and, indeed, surprise or two into his talk. almost essential to a good seminar for the speaker to Any talk ought to begin strongly, and likewise, it take one side of a controversy. His position in the should end the same way. One of the many nice things argument should be selected with care and he should be about a Beethoven symphony is that one can tell when redoubtable in defending it. The difficulty arises when it is over. The formal part of a seminar should have the speaker sets out to present the thoughts of the the same quality. Usually it is a good idea to sumother side. He must be fair to their arguments and marize the salient points of the talk and review the conpresent them as convincingly as possible. In fact, he clusions several brief sentences. One can make it m a v p ~ w n u . n ~ a ~ t i n ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ r ~ . r n n ~ rQTLP.~ J n ~ e d . h ~ ~ t $ ~inm ~ it is over. The formal part of a seminar should have the speaker sets out to present the thoughts of the the~sameouali$vL, I1snn.U~it,-&.a m~P,irlea~.ffi.surn~ a$nrr;-:A@rrL~,~m..-h h3,Frkv~~~~.th-~~~7"~nat,~.La.2d questions. as he is going to reject these thoughts later he must be very careful to avoid allowing the audience to force him into the wrong camp. If someone asks him to defend Prepamtion Tips some interpretation from the opposition he must make it clear that the position is not defensible, or better It is naturally understood that how one prepares for still, request that the question he delayed until he, the a seminar and the nature of the seminar itself will despeaker, rejects the point later in his presentation. pend very much on the individual who is giving it. This brings up another point about being rattled. If Nevertheless, it may be useful to put down some sugthe presentation is a good one it will tell a story in an gestions for preparing a seminar once one finds that he organized fashion. Often questions will anticipate has been assigned to give one. some thought that the speaker intended to make later. We have already pointed out that the topic must be He must not let the audience ruin his story by cutting recent and if possible contain potential controversy. it up and getting things out of order. If one finds that At Seton Hall we have a policy that no topic is accepthis is happening he can ask that he be allowed to contable which has been treated in our seminar in the last tinue and if a t the end of the presentation the point is two years. Further, a student's first seminar cannot not clear, the question can be asked again. If the be about or closely related to his research, although a speaker allows anyone (faculty included) to usurp later one may be. control of the discussion he is finished. For a regular reader of the literature the choice of a Finally, there is often a point where the most astute topic becomes more a case of selecting the best one out action is to admit ignorance. If one doesn't know the of a large number of suitable ones. Obviously, the answer to a question the most honorable and least subject will be one that interests the speaker and, one dangerous answer is, "I don't know." In order to would hope, is likely to interest his listeners. Articles avoid particularly embarrassing "I don't know" 's one in which the authors state that their results and/or inabsolutely must not introduce concepts that he does not terpretations disagree with previous work are naturals understand. If one is going to mumble something for developing controversy. Articles in which the about the isokinetic relationship he had better know speaker disagrees with the authors and is willing to what it is and what it means. The possibility of soundexpend some effort in arguing with them are even better. ing erudite is not worth the risk of being nailed. Choosing a topic like this is somewhat dangerous, but if well done it provides a very interesting and impressive We have already said that a successful seminar seminar. If he has any sense a t all the student will not provokes discussion. If the topic is a good one and is select a subject in which one of the faculty members in well presented the discussion comes almost effortlessly. There are several ways to kill discussion. If a speaker's his audience is an expert. In the first place this topic Volume 44, Number 5, May 1967
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will fail to expand the horizons of many people in the department since it has undoubtedly been discussed before, and secondly the student sacrifices the advantage of being the best man in the room on that subject. One might ask himself also, "Is this work significant?" It is somewhat difficult to define chemical significance. Anything that gets published in a reputable journal is presumably significant. However, there are some thin@ that one ought to avoid. Many important discoveries are first published in fragmentary form as notes or communications. As exciting as these may appear to be and despite the fact that they might turn out to be very important, they rarely make good seminars unless they represent the culmination of previously published efforts. There are not enough data published to provide meat for the seminar. There is not enough room for the author to expound on the significance of his data. Work which is essentially a repetition of some earlier, better known work is not seminar material. One of the most common errors committed by students is being too ambitious. A topic should be chosen which can be isolated and covered nicely in no longer than the academic hour. Clearly, topics like "Chromatography from 1860" or "Tropylium ions" will result in disaster. Chemical discussions are like gases. They will expand to occupy any given volume. One must be quite brutal about keeping to the point. Many of the side topics will be very interesting, but their siren call must be resisted for the sake of brevity. At Seton Hall we require that a brief abstract with pertinent references be submitted two weeks before the seminar date. This is so that we can have it reproduced and ready for distribution one week before the seminar. It is necessary for the student to choose his topic and start roughing it out some three weeks before he will talk. As the seminar approaches i t will occupy one's thoughts most of the time, especially if it is the first one. The result is that very often a student will spend three full weeks or even a month on preparing for his seminar. This is too long! If he has begun research, the bench cannot be neglected for that long a period. The choice of topic and the general planning must be done early, but then he should put his seminar aside and not pick it up until about a week before he is due to talk. If the topic has been chosen and the references ferreted out there is no earthly reason why it should take longer than a week to prepare a good seminar. During this last week two things must be accomplished. First the talk must be planned in detail. One must decide what ideas to present, in what order to present them and how to describe them. This is the point a t which one must decide what is pertinent, how the various components of his topic best fit together to tell a coherent story and how he will draw the audience into the discussion. The decision about what background material needs to be presented is a delicate one. One thought to keep in mind is that the speaker has become very familiar with his subject. It is quite possible to assume mistakenly that the audience is equally familiar with it. When in doubt about background, present it. After he has prepared an outline he should run through it once to check for time. It should run in the neighborhood of forty to fifty minutes. 292
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Journal of Chemical Education
Some people like to write out the entire text of their talk. This is a time-consuming operation which really is not necessary. In fact, it may prove detrimental to the presentation because there will be a tendency to memorize the text and thereby petrify the talk. After the outline is on paper and pared down to a reasonable time (it is almost always too long at first) one may want to make some minor changes, but from here on it is just a matter of dressing it up and smoothing it out. Of course, the last job is to work on the oral present* tion. There is no doubt that the quality of the oral presentation has a great deal to do with the success or failure of a seminar. This i s the speaker's chance to show the faeulty who he i s and hour good he is. In preparing the oral presentation the talk ought to be rehearsed as one will be required to give it. That is, standing up before a blackboard, preferably in the very room where the seminars are held. For one of the final rehearsals a friend should sit in the back of the room. During the rehearsals there are a number of things on which the speaker and his captive audience should work. Naturally one should be speaking distinctly. Almost everyone has had a speech course in college. All those admonitions about projecting one's voice, pronouncing carefully, speaking slowly and not turning one's back more than necessary should be recalled. Iucideutally, to avoid very long pauses it is necessary for a lecturer to speak with his back to the audience while he is writing on the blackboard. Raising the voice a bit and turning around when one is finished solves the problem. Many learned seminars have been lost because they were delivered to an uncomprehending blackboard. Another reason for rehearsal under combat conditions is that writing legibly on a blackboard is not as easy as it looks. Many experienced professors have not yet learned that it is very difficult to write on a blackboard as rapidly as it is on paper. The trick is to slow down. At Seton Hall we discourage the use of slides in student seminars. They make seminars too formal. Once one has learned to talk without slides i t is quite easy to learn to use them. The reverse is not true. There are, of course, situations which demand the use of several slides; for example, a key infrared spectrum or a diagram which is difficult to reproduce on the blackboard. Nevertheless, slides are not acceptable as a basic visual part of a student seminar. Professors who lecture with chalk in one hand and an eraser in the other are legend in many universities. They are not usually among the most loved. It is very annoying to see a speaker who writes one sentence or one structural formula in the center of the board and then promptly erases it in order to write something else. In a decent lecture room there is a great expanse of virgin space. A good lecturer will use it. He will start a t one end and work his way across. It is not hard to plan a talk so that when one reaches the end and must spend thirty seconds or so erasing he will have available something to say to keep his listeners occupied. Often the two outermost sections of board are not visible from all points in the room. If this is so, using them should be avoided. Data should be presented in such a way that the important features are easy to see. Tables of data should be clearly labeled and the trends easily distinguishable.
Extensive tables of numbers are always confusing. One should extract and present only the important numbers. It is necessary only to show several examples and say that the trend continues over a hundred compounds. One does not need to show every one. The ordinate and abscissa of every graph should be labeled. If the speaker is going to refer to a table, graph, or structural formula several times during the hour he should arrange to put it in a place where it can remain until he is finished with it. The kind of notes that one uses and how much he depends upon them during his talk is a matter of personal preference. The more independent one can become is usually a reflection of how many times he has rehearsed. If notes are going to be used they should be clear enough to be read at a distance and easy to keep straight. A paper shuffler is usually a poor lecturer. The lack of any notes is impressive. A lecturer who
decides to eschew notes must be sure that he commits to memory only the outline of his talk and not a verbatim text. Most seminars are open-ended as far as time is concerned. Wives of chemists get used to keeping supper warm on seminar days. Really stimulating seminars occasionally run on into the night. Nevertheless, there should be a limit on the time taken by the formal presentation. A talk lasting forty to fifty minutes seems reasonable. A good deal can be said in that time. Most inexperienced speakers find that their actual talk usually runs a little shorter than rehearsal. In summary then one would say that the ingredients of a good seminar include: a suitable topic, a thorough knowledge of that topic, exhaustive planning of the text and presentation, a confidence and presence of mind during the talk, all of which is given individuality by the person who is leading the seminar.
Volume 44, Number 5, Moy 1967
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