SCS 200 Presentation Progress Check Guidelines and Rubric
Overview: Throughout the first three themes, you have been guided through your work on Project Two (a presentation), which you will continue to work on in
Theme: Presenting Social Science Concepts and Research and will formally submit to your instructor at the end of Week 8. This assignment provides you with an
important opportunity to get valuable instructor feedback on the progress you are making and to ensure you are on the right track for your later submission.
Prompt: Throughout the first three themes, you have explored why the social science issue selected in Project One (a research investigation) is of interest to you
personally, and you have begun to reflect on how your research related to your issues has changed your perspective on the topic. Specifically, in this assignment,
you will submit the Project Two elements listed below for review by your instructor.
In Theme: Performing the Research Investigation, learning block 4-2 (page 1); Theme: Performing the
Research Investigation, learning block 4-3 (page 3); and Theme: Tailoring the Message to an Audience,
learning block 5-3 (page 3), you completed the following work:
I.
Provide a brief overview of the social scientific background of your issue and research question.
How is the issue situated within the social sciences?
In Theme: Tailoring the Message to an Audience, learning block 5-2 (page 3), you completed the following
work:
II.
Explain how the issue impacts the audience. In other words, how is the issue relevant to members
of the audience? Why should the audience care about the response to your question or the
outcome of your investigation? Support your response with specific examples from your research
investigation.
In Theme: Tailoring the Message to an Audience, learning block 6-1 (page 4), you contributed to the following
prompt:
III.
Describe the evidence you have to support your conclusions about the impact of the issue on you
personally and on your audience. Support your response with specific examples from your
research investigation.
In Theme: Exploring Social Science Issues, learning block 2-2 (page 4), you completed the following work:
IV.
Explain why this issue is important to you personally. In other words, why did you select this issue
to investigate?
In Theme: Performing the Research Investigation, learning block 3-4 (page 1), you contributed to the
following prompt:
V.
Illustrate how your investigation of the issue impacted the way you thought about the issue. In
other words, how did thinking like a scientist to research and develop a question affect what you
thought about the issue you selected? How did social scientific thinking change the lens through
which you viewed the issue? Support your response with specific examples from your research
investigation.
In Theme: Tailoring the Message to an Audience, learning block 5-2 (page 3), learning block 3 (page 3), and
learning block 6 (page 4), you began working on the following section of the prompt:
VII. Communicate your message in a way that is tailored to your specific audience. For instance, you
could consider your vocabulary, your audienceÂ’s potential current natural science knowledge or
lack thereof, and what is specifically important to the audience.
In Theme: Tailoring the Message to an Audience, learning block 6-3 (page 4), you were prompted to create
two visual slides using a presentation software of your choosing (PowerPoint, Prezi, or other) and
accompanying notes. These slides can be used to address any of the sections detailed above and should
include visuals with proper citations, where necessary.
Note that the numbering included above directly aligns with the numbering of these elements as they are presented in the Project Two Guidelines and Rubric
document.
Rubric
Guidelines for Submission: Your presentation progress check submission will include two sections: a two-slide portion of your presentation, submitted using a
presentation platform of your choosing (PowerPoint, Prezi, etc.), and a written document submitted in Microsoft Word. In your Word document, be sure to
format with double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, and one-inch margins. Citations should be formatted according to APA style.
Critical Elements
Social Scientific
Background
Proficient (100%)
Provides brief overview of social
scientific background of issue and
research question and explains how
issue is situated within social sciences
Audience
Explains how issue impacts audience,
supporting response with examples
from research investigation
Needs Improvement (75%)
Provides brief overview of social
scientific background of issue and
research question and explains how
issue is situated within social sciences,
but with gaps in detail or clarity
Explains how issue impacts audience,
but with gaps in clarity, detail, or
support
Not Evident (0%)
Does not provide brief overview of
social scientific background of issue
and research question and does not
explain how issue is situated within
social sciences
Does not explain how issue impacts
audience
Value
14
14
Evidence
Personally
Investigation
Message
Two Visual Slides
Articulation of
Response
Describes evidence that supports
conclusions about impact of issue on
self and audience, supporting response
with examples from research
investigation
Explains why issue is important
personally
Illustrates how investigation of issue
impacted thinking on the issue,
supporting response with examples
from research investigation
Communicates message effectively in a
way that is tailored to specific audience
Slide visuals support key points of the
presentation using properly cited
graphics and charts as appropriate
Submission has no major errors related
to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax,
or organization
Describes evidence that supports
conclusions about impact of issue on
self and audience, but with gaps in
clarity, detail, or support
Does not describe evidence that
supports conclusions about impact of
issue on self and audience
14
Explains why issue is important
personally, but with gaps in clarity or
detail
Illustrates how investigation of issue
impacted thinking on the issue, but
with gaps in clarity, detail, or support
Does not explain why issue is important
personally
14
Does not illustrate how investigation of
issue impacted thinking on the issue
14
Communicates message to audience,
but communication is not effective or is
not tailored to specific audience
Slide visuals include graphics and
charts, but citations are incomplete or
connections to presentation content
are not clear
Submission has major errors related to
citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or
organization that negatively impact
readability and articulation of main
ideas
Does not communicate message to
audience
14
Slide visuals are not included in
submission
10
Submission has critical errors related to
citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or
organization that prevent
understanding of ideas
6
Total
100%
Good morning Students,
Below is a sample presentation check:
Presentation Progress Check Instruction
I. Provide a brief overview of the social scientific
background of your issue and research question.
How is the issue situated within the social sciences?
Look back to Learning Block 2-1, where you are provided a list
of steps that a researcher takes to investigate an issue. Step 1
is to identify your issue and ask your question. Step 2 states:
Review the Literature
Next, an investigator must perform a background search on his
or her question. This is also known as “reviewing the literature.”
In this stage, it is important to find papers and books written by
members of a discipline. For one thing, maybe your question
has already been answered! Background research can also
help the investigator refine the question or hone in on an even
more pressing one.
Looking at the work that’s already been done can help guide the
next steps; it may become clear what the means of gathering
data is, or it may give insight as to what other resources are out
there. Finally, it can help a researcher gather support that there
is a need to answer these questions.
What you are being asked to do, then, is to relate your initial
research. What is the background (related to the general topic)
in which your research issue is based?
When social scientists begin their research, they look at what
other scholars have already done. They also want to know if the
specific question they have has already been answered. This is
actually called a Literature Review (or Lit. Review), as you are
reviewing the research that is already available. The researcher
will build upon this “background” data to answer his or her
chosen research question.
EXAMPLE
An example, using the topic “social factors that contribute to
addiction”:
For a social science background, you should be providing
information backed up by research (with citations). Choose one
of the social factors, and focus on that as your specific issue.
For example,
“Research (Ida 2003, Thomas 2000) shows that addiction
increases twenty-five percent for individuals who suffer from
poverty. Brown (2017) states that poverty contributes to
feelings of despair and helplessness, which can lead to
addictive behaviors. There are differences noted in rural areas
versus urban areas in regard to the relationship between
poverty and addiction only in the drug of choice – In urban
areas, opioids and street drugs are more common, whereas in
rural areas, meth is more common. Both rural and urban areas
show a high consumption of alcohol in poverty-stricken areas
(Sydney, 2018).”
Please pay attention to the prompts and to the rubric. I am
providing detailed information for each prompt along with
sample text. “Excerpts” from my “sample paper” are in blue:
This question IS NOT ASKING FOR YOU TO NAME THE
SOCIAL SCIENCE DISCIPLINE or the SOCIAL SCIENCE
PRINCIPLES. You are being asked to discuss your INITIAL
RESEARCH.
Again, many of you are using internet resources as your main
source of information, instead of scholarly journals. Websites
are not acceptable as a main source. A wide selection of
scholarly journals are located in the Databases of Shapiro
Library.
II. Explain how the issue impacts the audience.
Firstly, who is your audience? Professionals? Teachers?
Parents, Doctors?
How will your information impact this specific audience? Why
might it be important for them?
Why this audience? What will they gain from your presentation?
III. Describe the EVIDENCE you have to support your
conclusions about the impact of the issue on you
personally and on your audience.
This is where your research comes in. Your evidence should be
scholarly in nature, to back up your assertions. Make sure to
CITE your sources!
You are NOT being asked to cut-and-paste the “Three
Resources” portion of Project 1. Instead, you should coalesce
the data from all of your articles, and summarize your findings.
Remember, you are creating a presentation for an audience.
For example, if my paper was on the topic, “satisfaction in the
workplace,” I could say, “Smith (1999) shows that when pay is
increased by ten percent among unskilled workers, that
production goes up by twelve percent.” Similarly, Jones (2017)
observed that work-related quarterly or yearly reviews that were
more positive than negative actually increased productivity by
five percent to seven percent.” (You would add a bit more
detail).
Please do not use a quote as your reason for choosing an
article. You need to summarize key findings in your own words,
and then correlate the research from your sources to address
your research question.
IV. Explain why this issue is important to you personally.
Example: “This issue is important to me, because several family
members have been diagnosed with diabetes, and two close
family members had heart attacks at a young age.”
V. Illustrate how your investigation of the issue impacted
the way you thought about the issue.
Example: “I have read a lot of material online regarding this
issue, but the scholarly articles provided me with the details that
were missing from the online news articles. In addition, I
discovered that some of the news stories were actually
misleading.”
VI. Explain why using evidence-supported research can
give you both personal and professional advantage.
How did using scholarly data give you an advantage over
relying on your opinion or information off of the internet?
VII. Communicate your message in a way that is tailored to
your specific audience.
This question should be reflected in your presentation. Am I
speaking to an audience that is basically healthy but should be
aware of unhealthy trends in the American diet, or am I
speaking to an audience that mostly suffers from health issues?
It is important to read over the rubric to ensure that you are
addressing each, specific issue. Remember, I grade your
assignments based on the rubric.
Create Two visual slides
Here, you are creating at least two powerpoint slides. If you use
images or charts, you need to include the URL or other citation
showing where you retrieved the image from.
After your introduction slide, I would like to see a slide that
provided bullet points including the main points that you would
be focusing on for your presentation. In other words, the data
that answers your research question.
Your slides do not have to address the rubric prompts. The
rubric prompts can be answered in the “notes” section under the
slide or in a separate word document. The slides are just your
presentation — sharing the results of your research with your
audience.
