Undergraduate Course Pages > Academic Presentations I

January 7: Final class. Korean-Japanese presentation. The password-protected evaluation is here.

Many thanks to all students for making this a successful and enjoyable course.

December 17: Ninja presentation. The password-protected evaluation is here.

Have a good holiday!

December 10: Prostitution presentation. The password-protected evaluation is here.

December 3: Primary Education in Bangladesh presentation. The password-protected evaluation is here.

November 26: Refugee problems presentation. The password-protected evaluation is up, here.

November 19: Final discussion session before the final presentations begin, next week. Students are reminded (again) to print a copy of the new evaluation sheet in advance of the November 26 class.

November 12: Discussion of the upcoming final presentations, with particular attention (again) to the need to be completely clear about all sources in both the presentation itself (in spoken attributions of all material derived from sources) and in documentation for the presentation, i.e., in its written bibliography.

The schedule for the final presentations is as follows:

November 26: refugee group
December 3: primary education in Bangladesh group
December 10: prostitution group
December 17: ninja group
January 7: Japanese-Koreans group

Students are reminded in advance of presentations to print a copy of the new evaluation sheet, here.

November 5: With the first round of formal presentations complete we discussed ways to make the second round more successful. The suggestions mainly involved making greater considerations to the audience: more eye contact, speaking at a moderate rate of speed, and continuing to take care with written and, especially, spoken citation.

A distinction was drawn between opinions and judgments. The former for our purposes are useless. The latter is what we are working toward.

November 4: The password-protected evaluation is up for the Effects of Prostitution presentation.

Students are reminded for the November 5 class to bring copies of each of the presentation evaluations. All are linked from this page.

October 22: The first round of formal presentations was completed successfully thanks to Mihoko Hosono, Yasuo Kondo, Kaori Shigezumi, and Tetsuya Tamada speaking of the “Effects of Prostitution.” The password-protected peer evaluation sheet will be linked from this page as soon as it is up.

Students are reminded that in our next class, November 5, we will discuss the successes and failures of the first round of formal presentations, and so each student should bring to class a copy of each of the five peer evaluation sheets. These are, or soon will be, linked from this password-protected page.

Have a great university festival!

October 21: Password-protected evaluations are up for the Japanese-Koreans and Refugee Problems presentations.

October 15: The quality of the presentations remained high thanks to the efforts of Mihoko Hosono, Keisuke Ishige, Yoshimi Sato, and Akimi Tsuji of the “Discrimination against ‘Japanese Koreans’” group, and Tomoko Mori, Kazuya Moriguchi, Yasumasa Toda, Yoshiko Ohtaki, and Hiroshi Usui of the “Refugee Problems” group. A notice will be posted on this page as soon as the evaluations are up.

In the October 22 class this first round of formal presentations will end with a presentation by the AIDS panel. Students not on this panel are reminded before the class to print a copy of the presentation evaluation worksheet.

October 14: Password-protected evaluations are up for the Ninja and Primary Education in Bangladesh presentations. In the October 15 class meeting students will be provided with a password to gain access.

October 8: The class was fortunate to have two excellent opening presentations, by Kei Adachi, Takuya Horikita, Tomoyoshi Kitamura, Mitsugu Maekawa, and Yuki Miyoshi on the Ninja, and by Ayana Arai, Satoshi Ashizawa, Yuri Kiyoshima, and Naoko Tateiwa on primary education in Bangladesh. In both cases presenters were particularly careful clearly to identify the sources of their information.

The October 15 class meeting will consist of presentations by the Refugee Problems and Japanese Koreans panels.

Students are reminded to print copies of the presentation evaluation worksheet before the class.

October 1: Peer evaluation procedures for the formal presentations were outlined and a description of each of the eight categories of evaluation explained. These are citation (spoken), citation (written), preparation, organization, development of ideas, use of visual / other aids, technique of presentation, and clarity.

Before the October 8 class begins students should print copies of the presentation evaluation worksheet. Members of the Ninja panel and the Primary Education panel will each need one copy of the worksheet. Other students will need two.

September 24: Re-introduction to the course, including a brief discussion of the important points raised in the spring semester. Announcement that the first formal presentations of 25 to 30 minutes will begin October 8. Homework: send me an e-mail with the subject header ‘W1, D1’ so that I am certain to have an electronic address for each student. If possible include a jpeg passport(-like) photograph. The October 1 class will include a description of the categories and procedures for student evaluation of the formal presentations.

Presentation schedule:

October 8: Ninja panel; Primary Education panel
October 15: Refugee Problems panel, Japanese-Koreans panel
October 22: AIDS panel

July 9: The first term of this class ended with an in-class evaluation that will help set the course for the second term. No specific homework was assigned for the summer holiday, but students are to remain engaged with their presentation topics and to be prepared in September to account for the ways they have done so.

June 25: Bibliographies were checked and handed back for correction. Time was provided for groups to continue collecting data and organizing information. Students are reminded that we will not have class on July 2. Our last meeting of the term will be July 9.

June 18: Discussion of details of the bibliography assignment due June 25. Each group is to prepare a classified bibliography of primary and secondary sources, titled properly, in standard manuscript form (which was described), and including a self-assessment of what percentage each group member contributed to the assignment. Following this groups were provided time to continue data collection or to begin the preparation of the bibliography.

June 11: Brief discussion of the importance of care and accuracy in bibliographical citations, followed by group work on collecting data. The “perfectly-prepared bibliographies” will be due June 25. Further details about this assignment will be given in the June 18 class.

June 4: The workshop in one-sentence proposals and the primary data sets they predict was completed successfully. Students should now begin collecting the primary materials discussed, and in any given week to account for progress in this regard. For several of the projects the on-line databases should be of instrumental help.

It was decided that the examination on APA documentation (see note at April 30 below) will take the form of perfectly-prepared bibliographies of primary and secondary sources in two or three weeks time. The June 11 class will include a brief lecture on bibliography and documentation, and then students will be given time to work on the projects.

May 28: Workshop in finessing the one-sentence research proposals so that they predict a manageable data set. Distinction drawn between primary and secondary materials, and discussion of the importance of the former. Homework: in addition to the specific homework assigned each group, 1) please revise the proposal sentences in accordance with today’s discussion, and 2) be prepared to articulate a list of the types of primary sources that will help you to explain what you want to explain or to discover what you want to discover. The idea in the second part of the homework is not to identify particular primary sources (though if you can do so, please do), but rather to identify the kinds of primary sources your topic requires for a successful engagement with it.

Students are advised that the examination on Hacker has not been forgotten, just postponed until it is more appropriate to the part of the research process we have reached. Apologies for the confusion. You’ll have at least one week notice on this page before the examination is given.

May 21: Discussion of the “academic” in “academic presentations,” and note that it has more to do with the approach and stance toward a topic than with the topic itself. Student workshop in the selection of groups and topics. Research groups decided, and one-sentence topic proposals turned in, in preparation for a topic and data-set workshop next week. The examination on the Hacker material has been postponed.

May 14: Informal presentations concluded. Students are reminded of an examination on Hacker, pp. 143-67, next week.

May 7: Informal presentations continued, and the instructor continues to be pleased with their liveliness and good humor. The date for the examination on the material from Hacker (see April 30 below) has been changed from May 14 to May 21.

April 30: First (informal) presentations begin: self-introduction that includes information about academic background and academic interests. These will continue until May 14.

Homework: By the May 14 class read Hacker, pp. 143-67 (sections 33-37) on APA documentary style. An examination on this material will be given either May 14 or May 21.

April 23: Introduction to the course. Announcement, in the interest of keeping the course coherent for all involved, that a grade of S ("excellent") will be reserved for those students who are absent from the course no more than once, a grade of A for those absent no more than thrice.

Discussion of linguistic diversity and the role of English in the world.