Report on Undergraduate Course

CSE 300: Technical Writing and Presentation

Name1 (Student ID 1) and Name 2 (Student ID 2)

Department of Computer Science and EngineeringBangladesh University of Engineering and Technology

email: email-1@mail-1.com, email2

January 27, 2013

Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET) Report on CSE 300 January 27, 2013 1 / 12

Outline of the Presentation

Introduction and Motivation

Course Information

Writing Styles

Presentation Styles

Introduction to LATEX, Xfig and Beamer

Conclusion

Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET) Report on CSE 300 January 27, 2013 2 / 12

Introduction and Motivation

Good presentations, both writing and oral, are very important toexpress something to others

Only knowledge/learning is not enough

Because, different types of audience

More important for students and professionals of science, engineering,and technology, as there are complex maths, logics, proofs, etc.

Good scientists, good engineers, and good technicians do not meangood presenters

Not all tools give similar flexibility for preparing documents andpresentations (like not all languages suitable for a particularprogramming problem)

So, also good tools are required

That’s why, BUET CSE Department introduces a course CSE 300:Technical Writing and Presentation

Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET) Report on CSE 300 January 27, 2013 3 / 12

Introduction and Motivation

Good presentations, both writing and oral, are very important toexpress something to others

Only knowledge/learning is not enough

Because, different types of audience

More important for students and professionals of science, engineering,and technology, as there are complex maths, logics, proofs, etc.

Good scientists, good engineers, and good technicians do not meangood presenters

Not all tools give similar flexibility for preparing documents andpresentations (like not all languages suitable for a particularprogramming problem)

So, also good tools are required

That’s why, BUET CSE Department introduces a course CSE 300:Technical Writing and Presentation

Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET) Report on CSE 300 January 27, 2013 3 / 12

Introduction and Motivation

Good presentations, both writing and oral, are very important toexpress something to others

Only knowledge/learning is not enough

Because, different types of audience

More important for students and professionals of science, engineering,and technology, as there are complex maths, logics, proofs, etc.

Good scientists, good engineers, and good technicians do not meangood presenters

Not all tools give similar flexibility for preparing documents andpresentations (like not all languages suitable for a particularprogramming problem)

So, also good tools are required

That’s why, BUET CSE Department introduces a course CSE 300:Technical Writing and Presentation

Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET) Report on CSE 300 January 27, 2013 3 / 12

Introduction and Motivation

Good presentations, both writing and oral, are very important toexpress something to others

Only knowledge/learning is not enough

Because, different types of audience

More important for students and professionals of science, engineering,and technology, as there are complex maths, logics, proofs, etc.

Good scientists, good engineers, and good technicians do not meangood presenters

Not all tools give similar flexibility for preparing documents andpresentations (like not all languages suitable for a particularprogramming problem)

So, also good tools are required

That’s why, BUET CSE Department introduces a course CSE 300:Technical Writing and Presentation

Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET) Report on CSE 300 January 27, 2013 3 / 12

Course Information of CSE 300

Compulsory sessional course, credit hours: 0.75, suggested for Level 3Term 1 students

Course content from CSE Undergraduate Syllabus:

Issues of technical writing and effective oral presentation in ComputerScience and Engineering; Writing styles of definitions, propositions,theorems and proofs; Preparation of reports, research papers, the-ses and books: abstract, preface, contents, bibliography and index;Writing of book reviews and referee reports; Writing tools: LATEX;Diagram drawing software; presentation tools.

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Course Information of CSE 300

Students perform in groups, two in each group

Each group is assigned one topic: a CSE undergraduate course (likeCSE 100: Introduction to Computer Systems) or a CSE topic (likeLinked List)

Each group give one report and one presentation on the topic(guidelines coming later)

Finally, students give a quiz on basics of LATEX, writing andpresentation

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Course Information of CSE 300

Marks distribution:

Attendance: 10%Project: 30%Presentation: 30%Quiz: 30%

Texts and references:Texts for learning how to write documents:

1 The Elements of Style, by Oliver Strunk2 Mathematical Writing, by Knuth, Larrabee, and Roberts

Web resources for how to give a good presentationWeb resources for LATEX, Xfig and BeamerCourse web of February 2013 Semester

[http://teacher.buet.ac.bd/masudhasan/outline-cse300-feb-2013.htm ]

Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET) Report on CSE 300 January 27, 2013 6 / 12

Course Information of CSE 300

Marks distribution:

Attendance: 10%Project: 30%Presentation: 30%Quiz: 30%

Texts and references:Texts for learning how to write documents:

1 The Elements of Style, by Oliver Strunk2 Mathematical Writing, by Knuth, Larrabee, and Roberts

Web resources for how to give a good presentationWeb resources for LATEX, Xfig and BeamerCourse web of February 2013 Semester

[http://teacher.buet.ac.bd/masudhasan/outline-cse300-feb-2013.htm ]

Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET) Report on CSE 300 January 27, 2013 6 / 12

Technical writing styles

We follow the two books mentioned earlier. The first books tells moreabout general writing in English. Some of them are as follows.

Choose a suitable design and hold to it throughout the writing

Write into paragraphs, use easy English

Avoid fancy words like these: Oh Sheet! Oh my God!

Use figures to explain easily

Do not explain too much to clarify or do not take short cuts at thecost of clarity

Revise, rewrite, spell-check; revise on printed document

Keep related words together, otherwise meaning of a sentence maychange. For example, the sentence All the cases have not been

examined may be confusing, whereas the sentence Not all the

cases have been examined or None of the cases have been

examined is clear.

Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET) Report on CSE 300 January 27, 2013 7 / 12

Presentation styles

There is no fixed text for this. An informal guideline is followed. Link:http://teacher.buet.ac.bd/masudhasan/good presentation.pdf

Some guidelines are as follows:

Make presentation clear, use bullet, less text, add figures

Use fonts that have solid lines (e.g, use Arial rather than Times NewRoman)

Speak loudly and slowly, use easy English, keep the time limit in mind

Stay while in a slide, do not move too fast. Do not move back andforth between slides

Practice few times before you present

Do not obstruct the display board

If there is a Question and Answer session, then carefully listen to thequestions, try to answer honestly

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LATEX, Xfig, Beamer

LATEXis like programming, so lot of flexibility

Widely available in the Internet in all platforms.

Xfig is a complementary tool to LATEXfor drawing figures. It givesbetter quality and flexibility in drawing figures.

=⇒

=⇒ a2 + b

This figure is drawn in XFig

(Maths and arrows are embeddedby LATEXcommands)

Figure: This figure has been reused here.

Beamer is a LATEXpackage for preparing presentation. A samplepresentation is this one

Other details of LATEX, Xfig and Beamer are Self Study

Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET) Report on CSE 300 January 27, 2013 9 / 12

LATEX, Xfig, Beamer

LATEXis like programming, so lot of flexibility

Widely available in the Internet in all platforms.

Xfig is a complementary tool to LATEXfor drawing figures. It givesbetter quality and flexibility in drawing figures.

=⇒

=⇒ a2 + b

This figure is drawn in XFig

(Maths and arrows are embeddedby LATEXcommands)

Figure: This figure has been reused here.

Beamer is a LATEXpackage for preparing presentation. A samplepresentation is this one

Other details of LATEX, Xfig and Beamer are Self Study

Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET) Report on CSE 300 January 27, 2013 9 / 12

LATEX, Xfig, Beamer

LATEXis like programming, so lot of flexibility

Widely available in the Internet in all platforms.

Xfig is a complementary tool to LATEXfor drawing figures. It givesbetter quality and flexibility in drawing figures.

=⇒

=⇒ a2 + b

This figure is drawn in XFig

(Maths and arrows are embeddedby LATEXcommands)

Figure: This figure has been reused here.

Beamer is a LATEXpackage for preparing presentation. A samplepresentation is this one

Other details of LATEX, Xfig and Beamer are Self Study

Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET) Report on CSE 300 January 27, 2013 9 / 12

LATEX, Xfig, Beamer

LATEXis like programming, so lot of flexibility

Widely available in the Internet in all platforms.

Xfig is a complementary tool to LATEXfor drawing figures. It givesbetter quality and flexibility in drawing figures.

=⇒

=⇒ a2 + b

This figure is drawn in XFig

(Maths and arrows are embeddedby LATEXcommands)

Figure: This figure has been reused here.

Beamer is a LATEXpackage for preparing presentation. A samplepresentation is this one

Other details of LATEX, Xfig and Beamer are Self Study

Last name 1 and Last name 2 (BUET) Report on CSE 300 January 27, 2013 9 / 12

Getting LATEX, Xfig, Beamer

Linux MikTex + JFig CygWin VMWare + Linux

Platform Unix/Linux Windows Windows WindowsHow easy to install? Not easy like

WindowsEasy, like Windowsapplications

Easy, Windowsapplications

May not be easy

Advantage Most robust,trueapplications.

Easy to use. Most ofthe people use this.Many user friendlyeditors available.

You get both Windowsand Linux at the sametime. Windows filesystem used in both

You get bothWindows and Linux.(May be Windows filesystem used in both)

Disadvan- tages Cannot haveboth Windowsand Linux atthe same time

JFig may not give fulloptions

Download andinstallation may becomplex

Once installedcorrectly, you getadvantages like Linux

Space requirement Should be OKin today’scomputers

Should be OK intoday’s computers

Should be OK in today’scomputers

Should be OK intoday’s computers

Table: This table has been borrowed from the LATEXdocument.

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Conclusion

We have described the BUET CSE Undergraduate course, CSE 300:Technical Writing and Presentation.

We have covered:

Motivation behind this courseCourse informationWriting stylesPresentation stylesLATEX, Xfig and Beamer

In future, this course can be made 1.5 credit

can be moved to Level 4 Term 1 along with the thesis

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Questions?

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