Week 8: Another Generic Title – Working on Formalities

Rayan K -

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the blog. I’ve kind of ran out of interesting titles for the blog posts, but that’s because the work I am doing now is arguably a lot more tedious and time-consuming than before, but it will be worthwhile. As you can tell by this title, I’ve been mostly working on the “formalities” this week, namely the AP Research presentation and Academic Paper for the project, so I’ll detail what I’ve been doing below.

For the presentation, I’m almost done with the methodology section of the presentation and will begin working on the results this week. Another AP Research requirement is that after the presentation, there is an oral defense with a mix of pre-defined and random questions that I have to answer, so I am planning on starting preparation of those responses this week.

Here’s a technique that I use when making my presentations: Write the script before or as you make the slides. I found that letting my script and my speech dictate what’s on my slides makes the presentation much more engaging than having the slides control your script. On a personal note, it provides extra flexibility for me when I am revising the presentation or script.

Besides the presentation, I’ve also been working on my academic paper; more specifically, I’ve been doing some extra research on Google Scholar to see if there is any new research in the areas I am working on. If I haven’t said it before, AI is rapidly changing field, so I want to see if there is any new research that is worth putting into my literature review (or maybe using it in the discussion section of my paper).

I also want to give an update on the data collection; honestly the sample sizes aren’t as big as I want them right now, but they are big enough to meet conditions for statistical analysis, so I am going to wait until the beginning of next week before I close off data collection and begin data analysis. I have reached out to various Skool, Discord, and YouTube communities along with using my parents’ networks to spread awareness about my survey, so I won’t feel as guilty if I know I used all of the resources I had. I will likely have all of my data collected and analyzed by the time next week’s post is out.

Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

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Comments:

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    Alisa Udachina
    Hi, Rayan! You have done a BRILLIANT work this week! Keep it up! 🤩😎😊The formalities of preparing both your presentation and academic paper are crucial, and it sounds like you’re managing them well. Preparing for the oral defense can be very scary. I was just wondering, what types of questions do you anticipate they might ask? How are you planning to structure your responses to handle both pre-defined and random questions effectively? (～￣▽￣)～
    April 6, 2025 at 10:28 am - Reply
    Alisa Udachina
    Also, your technique of writing the script alongside your slides is really smart! I was just wondering, how do you ensure that your script flows naturally with the visuals? Do you have any tips for balancing text and images on your slides to keep the audience engaged? Looking forward for a response!🎆🎆✨✨🍕o(*￣▽￣*)ブ
    April 6, 2025 at 10:32 am - Reply
    Neelanjanaa
    Hey Rayan! It is great to hear that you are almost done with the methodology section of the presentation. Also, thank you for sharing that technique that is really smart. I have never heard of Google Scholar before and I used it, it is pretty useful. I was just wondering that how are you deciding which newly found research is important to include in your lit review and which one is not?
    April 6, 2025 at 5:09 pm - Reply
    Neelanjanaa
    Hey Rayan! In what ways could your smaller sample size impact your final analysis or conclusions?
    April 6, 2025 at 5:11 pm - Reply
    rayan_k
    Hi Alisa, thanks for the comments! In regards to your first question, all of the oral defense questions are listed in main document for the AP Research course. They fall into 3 categories, which correspond to different areas of my research process, project, and inquiry. My teacher will grade the answers to those 3 questions, but any other questions won't be scored, but I'll still answer them. In regards to your second question, when I am writing the script, I imagine myself at the board presenting, and if I notice I'm subconsciously doing any hand gestures or anything like that while I'm reading to myself the script, I decide to add in a visual to showcase it. Other than that, I make sure that there aren't many words on the presentation itself so that the audience focuses on my words rather than what is on screen.
    April 7, 2025 at 10:57 am - Reply
    rayan_k
    Hi Neelanjanaa, thanks for the comments! In regards to your first question, the thought process behind including new research into my literature review is actually pretty simple. Since I have most of it written already, when I look at new literature, I think about whether this new paper brings any additional understanding to what I have right now. Honestly, I haven't found much in regards to new papers that I can add, but for the ones that I have found, they pertain to explaining my research gap on how other AI models like Claude and Gemini haven't been rigorously studies. In regards to your second question, I just need to make sure that my sample size meets the conditions for statistical analysis. After that, the bigger the sample size is, the more data I have to analyze. A smaller sample size that still meets conditions for statistical analysis isn't any less rigorous/significant as a larger one. I'll be sure to point out these sample sizes in my presentation and paper though.
    April 7, 2025 at 11:03 am - Reply

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