This year’s Symposium will be hosted online due to COVID-19 pandemic:
All graduate students from all departments of UC campuses, are eligible to submit their work and get 7 minutes to present, accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation or a poster. Graduate students must record their presentation and submit their video (7 minutes long) by May 22nd midnight.
Speakers are encouraged to target a general audience that is not well-informed in the specific area of research. There will be one winner in each session judged on the talks’ accessibility by a general audience based on the judges’ scores and audience engagement. The judging rubric can be found here.
Video presentation rules and format:
Be sure to review the judging criteria, check out the resources to help you craft an accessible 7-minute talk, and sign up for the Symposium Prep Workshop with our presentation coaches.
Rules for Video Presentations:
Arts students Submission exemption:
Arts students must state their full name and the title of their presentation at the beginning and have the rest of the presentation time to present/perform. The performance/presentation must be a solo.
Video Format:
Video submission:
Students will upload their video presentation to their own youtube channel and will submit the link to the video through our video submission form which will be up soon! Please check this page back frequently for more information.
Please check out the resources below suggested by UCI graduate division to help you craft an engaging 7 minute talk:
Online Resources
How to Talk like TED by Carmine Gallo, Article by Guy Kawasaki
How to Give a TED-Worthy Talk by Dorie Clark, Forbes
10 Tips on How to make Slides that Communicate your Idea, by TED Staff
Giving an Academic Talk by Jonathan Shewchuk, Associate Professor in Computer Science, University of California at Berkeley
Giving Oral Presentations from English Communication for Scientists by Jean-luc Doumont (ed.), Nature (2010)
Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds
Making the Most of Your Three Minutes for 3MT: The Three Minute Thesis by Simon Clews, Director, Writing Centre, University of Melbourne
10 Hints for Improving Presentations for the Three Minute Thesis Competition by Danielle Fischer, Charles Darwin University
Top Ten Tips for Writing and Delivering Very Brief Speeches by Bill Cole, Founder and CEO of William B. Cole Consultants
Need some inspiration?
TED Talks (up to 6 minutes in length): Brief talks on “ideas worth spreading.”
PhD Comics Two-Minute Thesis: PhD Comics challenged graduate students to explain their work in two minutes – the best have been turned into videos!
2014 University of Western Sidney Three-Minute Thesis Finals