Entry 12: Punishment on Study Skills

Today some guys and I were punished, because we haven’t read the paragraph”Oral report”. That’s why we should write about this topic in our Blogs. As I understood, this topic is about oral reports skills. There was told that it consists of three steps: preparation, practicing and presentation. The first step is selecting a topic, identifying references, developing bibliography and developing your report. When you select a topic, you should choose a narrow one. When your topic is selected, you need to find information about it. The most common source for students of course is internet. You can easily find everything you want there, but be careful with plagiarism, try to show Your ideas or use quotations. You also can find information in books, but for this you need to go to the library. I think that you’ll understand me, because a hectic life of a student doesn’t allow him to go there. The second step is practicing, it is necessary for each report, because you are not able to give report just after you read it. It is important to practice and it will be better if you’ll have “judges” of your report. You can ask your friends to listen to your report or record your speech. Sometimes it is useful to practice in front of mirror and you’ll be able to see your gestures and body language. The third step is presentation. It is the most important step in your report. At first, your look should be presentable. It is not Ok to give a report in t-shirt and jeans. No one will listen to you or take your report seriously. Second, you should think about you audience, you should speak clearly and in a not so loud voice. If you started with a joke you should end your presentation with it. It will be perfect if you’ll have eye contact with the audience. But there are some problems during the oral report, such as forgetting words or doing some disturbing gestures. I have questions on this topic.

1-   What problems can appear during the presentation?

2-  What are the three steps of oral presentation?

3-  What kinds of practicing are there in the second step?

Entry 11: Interesting things about presentation.

Last time at the Study Skills we had a topic “Presentation”. As for me, I learnt a lot of new things during the lesson. I didn’t even know that there are different types of visuals. They can be different diagrams, formulas or just pictures. Visuals help your presentation, save time and highlight key points. I learnt that during your presentation you should about the audience, body language, your speech, vocabulary and information. No one will listen to you if your presentation isn’t interesting or if you speak too quietly. Your voice should be not so loud and not so quiet. I agree with all these points, however; I’d like to add some games with audience during presentation and different questions for them (to look how they understood my presentation). Maybe I will do this in my presentation, when I have such opportunity.

Lost entry 3: The Language of Study

Now I want to tell you one interesting story. As you know, before inter the university I graduates lyceum. Before graduating we should make seminar on one particular subject. As I’m interested in languages, I chose English. Fortunately, we were allowed to choose any topic we like. That’s why I took topic “White House”. Before the presentation I had a tutorial with my teacher. I showed her my first draft and it was clear that she was satisfied of my work. Of course, I needed to add some details such as bibliography and footnotes. First, I typed my work up and showed it to the teacher, after what she allowed me to make a presentation on Power Point. The deadline was to the end of April. I managed to do it. Before the presentation itself, I revised everything. That day I got excellent mark. I was really happy that I lost my notes of my topic.

Entry 10: Making Presentations. What I learned about making effective presentations.

 I fond of computers very much and especially I like making presentations. When I studied at the lyceum I made a lot of presentations there. My diploma work also had this kind of creating reports. However, I didn’t know how to make great presentation. During the last lesson of Computer Skills I learnt how to make my reports more interesting. Our teacher told us that we should have clear information about subject and do not use a lot of colors. Actually I agree with her, because I think, if there are a lot of colors in your presentation, it will be too bright and it will be difficult to understand words written there. Our presentation should include understandable font, different pictures, but only connected with context, and of course we shouldn’t have any mistakes in our presentations. With the help of items, given over, I made a great and interesting report. I think this paragraph  will help you to make great presentation

Entry 9: Time management problems

It is XXI century, and our life became very hectic. We do not have enough time for doing some work, and very often we wonder: “Why I don’t have any time?” We also can say that we don’t know how to use our time correctly. Especially if you are a student you have no time for some subjects. If you want not to have problems with your lessons, remember one thing: every time try to create your timeline or calendar. It is very comfortable to use it. You will know what
you need to do today or tomorrow; you will free your time for your rest. For example, I make such time management calendar every day, and it helps me so much!

Entry 8: American Civil War by One Slave owner.

The Civil War broke in 1891  and lasted till 1965. This War was the most cruel in America, because it took the great amount of lifes from the both sides. The North(Union) wanted to free slaves, but the South(Somfederates) were against them. The South wonn many battles, but the War was won by the North. The main reason of it was that army, capital, equipment of htem were better than of South. Making this task i felt myself as if I was in the centre of this War. I like history very much, and I liked this task too. But there were too much information about everything. Also, there were a lot of additional information about people and events.

Entry 7: Note taking experience

It is very important to know how to take notes correctly. You can write some information about something in you notebook and after this you wouldn’t be able to recall even simple information. When you take notes, remember that you should understand the main idea of the lecture and try to ask questions to it. I always take notes to my lectures and review it later. I do not write all the information, but key dates and words. It is very important to listen the conclusion of the lecture, because you will hear necessary information there and can write down the things than you missed during the lesson. I advise you to write your notes every time.