What do Sharon and Xiao Li agree was the strongest aspect of their presentation?

Tutor: So, Sharon and Xiao Li, in your presentation last week you were talking about the digital divide—the gap between those who can effectively use communication tools such as the Internet, and those who can’t. And you compared the situation here in Northern Ireland with South-East China. Right, so I asked you to do some self-evaluation, watching the video of your presentation and thinking about the three main criteria you’re assessed by—content, structure and technique. What do you think was the strongest feature of the presentation, when you watched it? Sharon?
Sharon: Well, I was surprised actually, because I felt quite nervous but, when I watched the video, it didn’t show as much as I expected.
Tutor: So which of the criteria would that come under?
Sharon: Er, confidence?
Tutor: That’s not actually one of the criteria as such. Xiao Li?
Xiao Li: Technique? It’s body language and eye contact, isn’t it. Well, I didn’t think I looked all that confident, but I think that our technique was generally good—like the way we designed and used the Powerpoint slides.
Tutor: Mmm. So you both feel happiest about that side of the presentation? OK, now on the negative side, what would you change if you could do it again?
Xiao Li: Well, at first I’d thought that the introduction was going to be the problem but actually I think that was OK. We defined our terms and identified key issues. It was more towards the end... the conclusion wasn’t too bad but the problem was the questions, we hadn’t really expected there’d be any so we hadn’t thought about them that much.
Tutor: Uhuh. OK. Anything else?
Sharon: Well, like Xiao Li says, I thought the conclusion was OK, but when I watched us on the video I thought the section on solutions seemed rather weak.
Tutor: Mmm. Can you think why?
Sharon: Well, we explained what people are doing about the digital divide in China and Northern Ireland but I suppose we didn’t really evaluate any of the projects or ideas, it was just a list. And that was what people were asking us about at the end, mostly.
Tutor: OK. Now, I also asked you to get some peer evaluation, from the other students. Sharon: Yes, er, well, people said it was interesting, like the fact that in China the Internet was used more for shopping than in Northern Ireland. They said sometimes it was a bit hard to understand because we were talking quite fast, but we didn’t think so when we watched the video. Tutor: No, it’s a bit different though, because you know all this information already. Mmm. If you’re hearing it for the first time, you need more time to process it... that’s why signposting the structure and organisation of the talk is important.
Xiao Li: That seemed OK, no one mentioned that as a problem. Some people said that we could have had more on the slides, like some of the other groups had nearly everything they said written up on the visuals as well, but other people said the slides were good, they had just the key points...
Tutor: Yes.
Sharon: And most people said we had quite good eye contact and body language. They all pointed out we’d overrun... they all said we were five minutes over but we timed it afterwards on the video and it was only three minutes.
Xiao Li: We were a bit unsure about the background reading at first, but I think we did as much as we could in the time. Anyway, no one commented on that under content, but one thing that did come out was that they liked the fact we’d done research on both Northern Ireland and China—most other people had just based their research on one country. We managed to get quite a lot of data from the Internet, although we had to do our own analysis and we did our own surveys as well in both countries. So the class gave us best feedback for content but it was all OK.
Tutor: Right. Well, that’s quite similar to the feedback I’m giving you. I was very impressed by the amount of work you’d done and by your research methodology... so, actually, I’m giving you full marks for content, five. The structure of the presentation was good, but not quite as good as the content, so. I gave that four, and the same for technique. So, well done.
Xiao Li/Sharon: Thank you.
Tutor: Now, the next stage is to write up your report. So, just a few pointers for you here. First of all, in your presentation I think your ending was rather abrupt—you suddenly just stopped talking. It wasn’t a big problem but think about your closing sentences in your report—you want to round it off well. One thing I forgot to mention earlier was that I felt a very strong point was that after you’d given your results, you explained their limitations.
Xiao Li: The fact that we didn’t have a very reliable sample in terms of age in China?
Tutor: Yes, that section. So don’t forget to include that. And you had some excellent charts and diagrams, but maybe you could flesh out the literature review a bit. I can give you some ideas for that later on if you want. OK, is there anything else you want to ask?
Xiao Li/Sharon: No... Thank you. / Thanks.