Giving confident, articulate, well organized and engaging presentations is a skill that is crucial at MIT as well in your future professional lives. Each student will give two oral presentations over the course of the term. The first presentation (15 minutes) will focus on an aspect of the writing process; students will work in teams. In addition, each student will give a brief oral “pitch” for his or her grant proposal during the last weeks of class.
Below are the types of topics students have presented in past semesters. The list below is not intended to limit your choice of topic, but to illustrate the types of topics chosen in previous classes.
General Writing Issues
- Confronting “Writer’s Block” / Procrastination
- Dealing with the Inner Critic
- Writing Dialogue and Internal Monologue Effectively
- Describing Settings Effectively
- Crafting Introductions
- Crafting Conclusions
- Avoiding Clichés
- Choosing Metaphors (simple and extended)
More Specific Writing Issues
- Writing Effective Topic Sentences in Paragraphs
- Creating Effective Transitions Between Paragraphs / Sections of an Essay
- Fixing Short, Choppy Sentence Patterns; Correcting Sentence Fragments
- Editing Wordy or Run-on Sentence Patterns
- Correcting Misplaced or Dangling Modifiers
- Correct Usage of Commas and Semicolons
- Effective Use of Adjectives and Adverbs
- Identifying and Avoiding Homophone Errors
- Crafting Powerful and Engaging Titles
- Using Epigraphs
