Student Inquiry and Research Program Details
Sharing Investigation Results
Public presentation and discussion of one's investigation or work-in-progress is standard in the academic community. Discussion that follows the presentation is beneficial to the academic community to construct understanding of the topic.
The SIR investigation that you conduct is certainly valuable to you personally, but inviting scrutiny by peers and the community shares what you have learned and allows others to to offer critique and use it as well. Critique is a useful means to gauge learning and stimulate further investigation.
Preparing for IMSAloquium
In the spring of each year IMSAloquium, a student showcase of investigations, provides a forum where all students conducting Student Inquiry and Research investigations will share their work with the IMSA community for peer review and discussion. The SIR student is required to provide the following three items related to the investigation for IMSAloquium:
- a written abstract,
- an oral presentation,
- a poster presentation.
Individual oral presentation sessions at IMSAloquium are 15 minutes long. In your oral presentation session, you should allow 10-12 minutes to verbally describe the material, and use the remainder of the time (3-5 minutes) for discussion. All poster presentations occur during the IMSAloquium poster session; in this open forum, students stand by their posters and simply respond directly to questions posed by interested guests.
Practice for IMSAloquium
Each SIR student is required to attend a Practice Day session at IMSA to give a dry run of the oral presentation that will be delivered on at IMSAloquium. At this session, feedback will be provided to improve the delivery of the prepared material. Practice Day is held one week before IMSAloquium.
Students conducting off-campus investigations are frequently invited, as a final activity at that facility, to present their work and results to interested staff at the facility. Students are encouraged to offer to share their results in an oral presentation at the off-campus site, instead of waiting for an invitation. This optional experience is another excellent opportunity for additional practice and feedback prior to IMSAloquium.
Other Presentation Venues
Students are also encouraged to seek additional opportunities for presentation of their investigations in scholarly and juried venues outside of IMSA. Take care to determine the precise time allowed for an oral presentation in each venue you pursue.