Research on Eggplant Parmigiana: Analyzing a Dish in Cultural, Economic, Symbolic, Nutritional, and

Suggestions for Creating an Effective Presentation

First, you should figure out the scope of the topic. Then produce an outline that you’ll use in your class presentation. You’ll upload a copy of your presentation to Blackboard before the class period in which you are presenting. Then you should do an 8-10 minute presentation that follows a written outline. Hand me a hard copy of your presentation outline/notes before you present to the class. You can use Powerpoint (PC) the easiest for presenting on a PC computer, KeyNote for Macs as long as a PC can read it or you can use the Google Slides program for building your presentation talk. Google Slides is probably the easiest.

You have a maximum of 10 minutes in which to do your presentation, so be concise. After 10 minutes, you’ll get the hook.

Some further suggestions:

1.) Provide an introductory slide which gives the name of your dish/meal and the three ways that you intend to analyze it.

2.) Explain your material on the slides, using illustrations (graphics, maps, diagrams, photos, etc.) wherever feasible. Just putting your outline on PowerPoint slides is not an acceptable presentation.

3.) Practice giving your presentation before you come to class. It helps!

4.) If you plan to give the class a taste of what you are talking about, notify me well in advance so I can make sure the requisite plates, cups, whatever are on hand and be sure that you have enough so that everyone who wants some can get a taste.

5.) Don't read aloud in class a complicated report or from a wordy source: summarize information in your own words. Be prepared to give me your sources (from websites, articles, books, cookbooks and any others you might use).

6.) If you don't understand your sources, what they've written and how to pronounce the terminology or proper names. If you stand in front of the class, stumbling over terminology, your presentation won't look very good. If I ask you in class to explain what you've just said, and you don’t know, you'll be very embarrassed (and receive a poorer grade). Don’t read aloud to the class information you don’t understand. Either find out about it or don’t use it.

7.) Your slide presentation should be brief: no more than 10-15 slides, tops. Put it on a memory stick and bring it to me before class on the day of your presentation or email it to yourself as well as upload it to Blackboard on the date of your presentation.

Make sure your presentation fonts and your illustrations can be seen on a standard PC computer with Windows 10 OS before you come to class.

8.) All presentation should have a formal bibliography as the last slide(s), telling me where you got your information and images that are in the presentation.

Your final project will be to create a PowerPoint presentation analyzing a single dish using aspects of the first four auto-ethnographies, but also relying on other knowledge you’ve acquired throughout this semester.

More finalized details on how to put together the PowerPoint (or Google Slides/Prezi) are provided in a separate “nuts and bolts” document. However, you will need a basic title screen, your content slides, and then a works cited slide at the end with any relevant citations.

Your Mission: Dissect and critically evaluate a food, a dish, or a meal in ethnic-cultural, political-economic, gastro-political, symbolic, nutritional, and/or ethical terms. This will entail library/online research as well as analysis informed by course readings and discussions. You can cite at most 4 readings from the syllabus. Begin with a description of your food item or event and then organize your presentation around 2 or 3 analytical themes that demonstrate the range of what you've learned in this class. Use sub sections to organize your analyses.