Instructor: Horst D Wahl,

Office 512 Keen Bldg.,

Phone 644-3509

Office Hours: Monday, Tuesday 10 to 11, after class and by appointment, any time you can get a hold of me

Class meetings: Monday and Wednesday 13:25 to 14:15 in UPL211

Prerequisite: Interest in science and and in talking about scientific topics

Text: no text needed

Purpose of course:

The purpose of this course is to develop abilities in the area of oral and written communication, with emphasis on scientific and technological topics. (Note that communication of scientific results and ideas takes up a large fraction of a scientist's time and effort)

Outline of class:

• The class will be conducted in an informal format, with everyone participating.
• Every student is expected to give three to four talks during the semester, with the schedule of talks to be determined.
• In consultation with the instructor, students will choose topics. The selected topics can be drawn from any area of physics or close to physics (science other than physics is OK -- subject to instructor's approval, but physics majors should talk about physics!) The topic chosen can be the subject of the student's research project or his/her interest, or can be one that the group as a whole is interested in learning about.
• For those students who take the intermediate or advanced lab during this semester, the physics related to the lab experiments, including description of the experiments and discussion of the results, can serve as suitable topics.
• Once topics have been agreed on, students will then
  • produce a written outline of a short presentation of their selected topic by deadlines to be determined and published by the instructor
  • make short (about 15 minutes) presentations of the subject;
    for this presentation, projection from a computer file must be used, and the files have to be submitted to the instructor one day before the presentation.
• goal of all of these activities:
  • practice oral communication skills
  • learn how to organize the material in a presentation;
  • become more comfortable talking in front of others and develop skills in delivering a talk;
  • become accustomed to answering questions from the audience;
  • Improve your thinking-on-your-feet capabilities.
  • .....
  • have fun talking about physics or other scientific topics, and teach each other some physics or chemistry or biology,..
  • practice writing understandably about scientific issues
  • increase your proficiency with word-processing and presentation software tools
  • learn to use Powerpoint, OpenOffice, TeX (if you are interested)
• grading:
  • final grade will be based on class participation (~25%), the talk outlines (4%), and the presentations (~70%).
  • Evaluation of talks: After every presentation, your instructor will send you e-mail with comments, suggestions for improvements, and a point grade.
  • Peer evaluation: In addition to being judged by your instructor, your talk will also be evaluated by your fellow students according to criteria shown in the evaluation form: MSWord,    pdf. This evaluation will give you feedback on how well you conveyed your message to your audience.

    Grade ingredients:

    Class participation	28%
    talk outlines	1% each
    First talk	14%
    Second talk	16%
    Third talk	18%
    Fourth talk	20%

• The only accepted method of submitting the outlines and presentations is in the form of a computer file in a standard format (e.g. plain text, OpenOffice, MS Powerpoint, MSWord, TeX, pdf, postscript, html), which has to be dropped into the Blackboard digital drop box (and sent to the instructor). Paper copies will not be accepted.

Websites:

• class Website: http://www.physics.fsu.edu/courses/Spring08/PHY3091 . The Website can be reached via the Physics Department homepage (follow the links Courses ⇒ 2008 Spring ⇒ PHY3091), or from my homepage (http://www.hep.fsu.edu/~wahl )
• This course also uses the FSU Blackboard utility. To get to the Blackboard pages, go to https://campus.fsu.edu/webapps/login. You will be prompted to enter your ACNS username and password to log in. After having logged in, you will be given a list of all the courses for which you are registered and which use Blackboard. The Blackboard site will be used for announcements and for student discussion. You can also use it for intermediate storage of your presentation files, and to upload and submit your outlines and presentations.
• useful links
• useful FSU links

ADA statement:

Students with disabilities needing academic accommodations should:
(a) register with, and provide documentation to, the Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC); and
(b) bring me a letter from SDRC indicating your needed academic accommodations. Please do this during the first week of class.
For more information on this see the Resource Center's web site.

Academic honor code:

Students are expected to uphold the Academic Honor Code published in The Florida State University Bulletin and in the Student Handbook. The first paragraph is:
The Academic Honor System of Florida State University is based on the premise that each student has the responsibility

• to uphold the highest standards of academic integrity in the student's own work,
• to refuse to tolerate violations of academic integrity in the University community, and
• to foster a high sense of integrity and social responsibility on the part of the University community.