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Topic Selection

What is an Appropriately Technical Topic?

This is a question that is often asked by students. If a technical topic is appropriate for a Work-term Report, a summary of that topic will certainly be appropriate for a technical presentation. Other topics, however, are also acceptable.

Topics Based on Work-term Reports

A Work-term Report must be a comparison of two or more solutions to an engineering problem where the comparison is guided by requirements and criteria requiring quantitative engineering analysis. As such, any such topic is certainly appropriate as a technical presentation. Some suggestions are:

Other Allowable Topics

A technical presentation cannot be a lecture attempting to teach a topic to the audience. For example,

Similar topics that would be allowed are:

One question that is useful to ask: Could a student in another faculty who does not have the engineering science, judgment, or analytical skills that has been learned by the end of 2A give the same presentation and appear credible and competent? If the answer is yes, it is likely an inappropriate topic.

On the extreme side, one excellent technical presentation was given on the technical aspects of growing cannabis. The presenter did not at any time advocate illegal behaviour nor did he suggest that he himself was engaging in this activity (again, also illegal and therefore unprofessional). By keeping the scope of the presentation on the technical aspects of growing this plant, it was a suitable technical presentation. In comparison, however, a technical presentation on the assassination methods of the CIA or KGB would be unacceptable.

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