Dr. Werner Binder Spring 2019
Populism and Authoritarianism
Guidelines for Presentations
The aim of a presentation ‒ in this course ‒ is
 to make your fellow students familiar with a text, they don’t have read
 to train and assess your ability to prepare and deliver talks in English
Requirements:
 A presentation or a final essay is necessary to pass the course
 A presentation for this course should last around 10 minutes (not much longer!)
 If you would like to make a power point presentation (which is not required!) or use
the internet, let me know before, so that I can organize the keys for the computer;
please put the presentation on a USB stick; make sure that you arrive five minutes
before the class starts, so that we can deal with technical problems beforehand
 You should always connect the presentation to the text(s) all students were required
to read for class
 Use empirical examples to explain abstract concept and ideas
 If you want to make a presentation, check the PDF version of the syllabus in IS to find
out which texts are still available, then pick a free one and send me an e-mail so that
I can mark the text as “reserved”
Recommendations:
 If you want to make a presentation, pick your text early; if there are no spots for
presentations left, you have to write a final essay
 Don’t hesitate to pick an early presentation; it is a common misconception among
students that you will have more time for preparation if you choose a later one; get
rid of it early, because the end of the semester is often packed with other obligations
 Practice your presentation at least once (ideally with audience, but it also works
without), particularly if you are not sure how much time it will take
 Make up your mind before which parts you could skip in case the presentation takes
more time than you expected
 Try to keep eye contact with your audience (and not only with the teacher!),
particularly if you read your presentation (or parts of it)
 If you are using power point for your presentation, please make sure that you don’t
overload the slides: try to use bullets and avoid full sentences (not more than 4-6
bullets per slide); you can include important quotes from the text, but avoid huge
blocks of text at all cost (people should be able to read them in a few seconds)
 You don’t have the time to discuss everything that is mentioned in the text(s); please
focus on the general argument of the text(s) and elaborate only those points which
you think are the most interesting for our discussion
 Keep in mind that the audience has not read the text(s) you are talking about