1. Katie Talerico General Education, Composition Kaplan University
CM 220 College Composition II Unit 7: Presenting Your Big Idea in an Innovative Way
Katie Talerico
General Education, Composition
Kaplan University

2. Unit 7 Activities Activity Details Reading
The Kaplan Guide to Successful Writing, ch. 16 on peer review
Review tech labs for units 2-6
Invention Lab
Draft of tech presentation
Tech lab
Games, animation

3. Part I
The Tech Presentation

4. Multi-media Outlets for Communicating your Big Idea
How can you BROADCAST your message?
Blogs
Podcasts
Facebook and other online communities
PowerPoint Presentations
Other ideas?
Where do you go for information and Why?
How does each outlet affect or change the message?
What strategy or outlet would you use to broadcast your message? Who would be your audience and what would your purpose be?

5. Reminders
Units 2-7 contain tech labs with links to tutorials on various technologies.
You will find sample presentations in Doc Sharing.
The Writing Center has several workshops on technology.

6. Guidelines for Tech Presentation Draft
Choose a technology and create a presentation with that technology.
Technologies can be combined, such as adding audio clips to a Power Point presentation.
Even if you are not visually creative, the message of your big idea should be clear in the method and outcome of the presentation.

7. Guidelines for the Presentation Draft
Overall message is clear and effective
Minimally, five facts, arguments, and/or insights are presented
Audience is considered in technology choice and design
Research sources are cited in APA format (put in separate Word document if desired)
Presentation is an original creation (except for cited material)

8. Guidelines for the Presentation Draft
You do not have to (and probably will not!) cover every idea in your essay draft in the tech presentation.
You may choose to focus upon one supporting point in the essay
You might do a presentation that is supplemental to your essay, such as an advertisement or public service announcement about this problem.

9. Tips
Choose technology wisely—what can you reasonably learn how to do or what do you already know how to do?
Use your strengths (and know your weaknesses!)
Plan your message before creating your presentation (use the draft as a starting point)
Keep it simple
Design for your audience
Motivate your audience—what do you want them to do/believe after seeing the presentation?

10. Where to Post?
Post the tech presentation and the post-draft outline in the unit 7 Invention Lab/discussion. You will find a separate thread for each.
Attach file if needed (PPT, for example)
Include link to external site if needed (Animoto video)
Review sample posts!

11. Example: PPT

12. Parallelism
When you make a bulleted list, as you might in a Power Point slide, you want the structure of that list to be parallel, also. So, if your first item in the list is a noun phrase, make all items in the list a noun phrase.
You can read more about parallelism in The Kaplan Guide to Successful Writing on pp

13. Example
My classes last semester were difficult for the following reasons:
Lengthy reading assignments
Numerous unannounced quizzes
Difficult final exams
Note: the list follows an adjective/noun structure.

14. Animoto and Prezi Alternatives to traditional presentations
Animoto “animates” slides and images
Prezi creates a more dynamic “flow” and allows easy uploading of YouTube videos

15. Animoto and Prezi

16. Podcasts and Blogs
Methods for disseminating information to a wide audience, either in audio or written form
Podcasts can be saved in audio files like an MP3

17. Effective Writing Podcast Series

18. Fed Up with Lunch Blog

19. Citing special sources for presentations
Part II
Citing special sources for presentations

20. Cite copyrighted material
Citing Guidelines
Cite copyrighted material
This includes photographs, graphs, charts, maps, music, and videos

21. Photographs
Artist's last name, artist’s initials. (Year). Title of work [Photograph]. Retrieved from URL or web address.
Tilcock, W. (2011). University of California, Davis [Photograph]. Retrieved from

22. Music Recording
Songwriter, W. W. (Date of copyright). Title of song [Recorded by artist if different from song writer]. On Title of album [Medium of recording]. Location: Label. (Recording date if different from copyright date). Lovett, L. (1996). That’s right (you’re not from Texas). On The road to Ensenada. Nashville, TN: Curb Music Company.

23. YouTube Video
Poster last name, first initial. (Date). Name of video [Video file]. Retrieved from. . .
Anner, Z. (2010, June 13). Zach’s audition: Oprah’s search for the next tv star [Video file.] Retrieved from

24. Effective peer feedback
Part III
Effective peer feedback

25. Peer review in the real world
Journals use “peer review” to critique and select articles for publication
Architecture schools use “juries” of peers and instructors to critique projects and offer advice
Many jobs will ask groups of employees to work on a project, and typically, the collaboration will involve critique and revision

26. How have I been using peer review?
Comments from classmates and friends about your project
Discussion board responses
Formal peer reviews in previous courses?

27. Common misconceptions and concerns
“I’m not a great writer (or technically savvy), so how can I offer advice?”
“I’m scared about getting critiqued by someone else. What if she hates my paper?”
“How can a classmate give me good advice? I don’t care about what anyone but the teacher has to say since she is the one giving me the grade.”

28. Things to avoid Not helpful. . .why?
I really liked this presentation/paper.
I thought the images on your slides were great!
Some other examples would be helpful.
This is boring.

29. Helpful feedback Much better
While you have a lot of interesting information in your presentation, I’m unsure what your “big idea” is. Maybe you could include a slide that covers your proposal for solving the problem you outline in the rest of the presentation.
You might include a statistic to let your audience know how big of a problem this is. I read this great article in the Washington Post this week that would give you some good numbers; here is the link. . .
I have had a really hard time creating parallel structure in my bullet points, too. I found this helpful website that you might review . . .

30. “Whole Lotta Cantin’ Going On”
What is Ebert’s point about film criticism in this blog post?
What examples does he offer from reviews of Inception?
What does he see problematic about a site like Rotten Tomatoes?
How would his recommendations relate to the peer reviewing process or persuasive writing in general?

31. Responses for this week’s Invention Lab
Be specific in your suggestions for improvement. For example, note difficulties in reading text on a slide and recommend how the author could make the slides more visually appealing.
Be constructive and note strengths as well as weaknesses in the presentation.
Be honest and sincere in your response. Remember that the more advice everyone provides in this week’s Invention Lab, the better the final projects can be!

32. Guidelines for critique
Be tactful
Be specific
Don’t focus on grammar, usage, mechanics, or spelling
Highlight strengths
Note phrasing that needs clarification
Indicate how the presentation can be strengthened based on the assignment guidelines
Note any questions you still have about the author’s “big idea” that the presentation is not answering