Module 22 Activity Worksheet

Module: Module 22: Scientific Writing and Presentation
Duration: 4 hours
Generated from the module page. Edit modules/module22.md, not this file.

Capability target

Deliver a 10-minute connectomics talk with evidence-linked claims, explicit uncertainty, and audience-appropriate language, then respond to questions without overclaiming. Operationally: every slide carries one claim and names the dataset version behind it, you can write down in advance the two questions you are most likely to be asked, and you have a rehearsed answer to each that ends in a next test rather than a defense.

You are done when you can demonstrate this, not when you have filled in every box below.

Before you start

Check that you have:

• Basic manuscript/figure familiarity
• Experience presenting at least one technical result

Bring one question you already have about this topic. Write it here so you can check at the end whether it was answered:

My question:

Questions this module answers

Keep these in view. At the end, answer each in one sentence.

1. How do we simplify without distorting?
   • Your answer:
2. Which uncertainties must be explicit in oral presentation?
   • Your answer:
3. What hidden expectations shape audience judgments?
   • Your answer:

The task

Scenario: You are presenting one connectomics result to mixed audience members (domain experts + trainees). Use your own result if you have one. Otherwise: in a cortical EM volume, layer 4 excitatory neurons form 3.2x more synapses onto PV+ interneurons than a degree-preserving null model predicts, from 847 connections at a specific materialization version, with roughly a third of the relevant arbors proofread. Two people in the room work on segmentation; one is a physiologist who has never opened an EM volume.

1. Create a 4-slide mini-talk with a provenance line on the method slide and a named uncertainty rung on the result slide.
2. Deliver it in 3 minutes against a timer you can see.
3. Answer two audience questions, naming the question type aloud before answering each.
4. Revise one slide and one spoken claim from the feedback, recording what changed and why.

What you hand in

• 4-slide deck
• Speaker notes with claim boundaries
• Revision log after Q&A
• Two prepared answers, each ending in a next test

Working checklist

Tick as you go. If you skip a step, write why — a skipped step with a stated reason is a decision; a skipped step without one is a gap.

• Build the claim tree on paper: question at the root, two or three claims, one evidence item and one caveat under each, deleting any claim you cannot attach evidence to.
• Write the time budget for your slot, then select the minimal slide set that preserves the inferential logic; every surviving slide must answer “which node of the claim tree is this?”
• Draft the one-line provenance statement for the data slide: species and region, imaging modality and resolution, segmentation pipeline, proofreading or materialization version, and any exclusion criterion.
• Rehearse against a timer with no audience and cut to the budget, then rehearse again with transitions spoken aloud, because the sentence carrying slide 4 into slide 5 is the one people improvise badly.
• Run peer critique with one narrow brief: mark every sentence where the spoken claim is stronger than the slide’s evidence.
• Write the two most likely questions and a three-sentence answer to each, choosing the answer shape from the question-type taxonomy.
• Revise with explicit uncertainty statements, checking the rung is identical in slide, speech, and prepared answer.

Evidence and reasoning

Fill one row per claim you make in your artifact. A claim without a limitation is not finished.

Confidence. For your main claim, mark one and say why:

• High — two or more independent lines of evidence agree
• Medium — one strong line, or several that share a weakness
• Uncertain — the deciding evidence is not available to me

Why:

One alternative I considered and rejected, and the reason:

Misconception self-check

These are the errors this module is designed to prevent. Confirm you did not make them, or note where you nearly did:

• I did not assume: A compelling narrative arc can carry a claim the evidence does not support.
• I did not assume: Caveats can be dropped for a general audience because they would not understand them anyway.
• I did not assume: Answering confidently is what makes an answer credible.
• I did not assume: Speaking faster is a legitimate way to fit more material into a fixed slot.
• I did not assume: Hedging weakens a talk and should be minimized.
• I did not assume: Every question in Q&A is an attack that must be rebutted.

Session timing (facilitator reference)

Rubric

Score yourself before anyone else does. Where you fall short, name the specific next action rather than a general intention.

• Minimum pass: claims are evidence-linked and caveats visible; language is audience-appropriate without technical distortion; Q&A responses include limits and follow-up tests; the deck names dataset and version.
• Strong performance: anticipates likely critiques and addresses them proactively; balances accessibility with methodological precision; concedes the valid part of a challenge while defending the rest; keeps the same uncertainty rung in slide, speech, and answer.
• Common failure to flag: overcompressed methods leading to overclaiming, jargon-heavy explanation with missing context, and defensive Q&A that asserts authority instead of citing evidence. Flag over-conceding too: abandoning a supported result under mild challenge is a calibration failure, not modesty.

My self-assessment:

• Strongest part of my work, and the evidence for that:
• Weakest part, and the specific next action:

Exit prompt

Write your 60-second talk opener with the core question, one evidence-backed finding, one explicit caveat, and one sentence pre-empting the challenge you most expect. Read it aloud against a timer; if it runs past 60 seconds, cut the background sentence first.

Your answer:

Peer review (swap worksheets)

Reviewing someone else’s reasoning is the fastest way to see the gaps in your own. Assess the evidence quality, not whether you agree with the conclusion.

• Is every claim paired with specific evidence?
• Is at least one limitation stated, and is it a real one?
• Is the confidence level justified by the number of independent evidence lines?
• One thing this person did better than me:
• One question I would ask them:

Module page: /modules/module22/ · Slides: /modules/slides/module22/ · Facilitator guide