English 303
Purchasing Recommendation Presentation
PowerPoint Presentation Grade

For this presentation, imagine that you have a job and work in your chosen field of study. Your department has been asked to prepare a presentation for the finance department and the executive board that would describe some equipment or service that is needed for your department within a budget of $100,000 -- something that they could buy that would enable you to do your job more effectively. The recommended purchase might require all of the $100,000, or just a small part of it. Some of the things you could recommend to the committee include, but are not limited to, types of equipment and computer software.

Conduct some brief research into a product or service that people in your field need to do their jobs effectively. (If you need to, ask professors or people you know who work in these fields for suggestions, or perhaps draw on your own experience.) Get enough information about this product or service to explain it to the business people (your classmates) who will be making the purchase. Be sure to include why this product or service is needed and how much it will cost. Convince the finance department and the executive board that they should spend the money on your department.

Criteria and principal points regarding this presentation:

• Casual, everyday dress is appropriate, but use some common sense (no hats, sleeveless shirts)
• You are expected to have a PowerPoint presentation of at least four or five slides (one for each student, not including the title slide). The PowerPoint carries a separate grade, but mistakes on the slides will affect your verbal presentation as well.
• You must turn in an electronic copy of the PowerPoint. Go to a lab and make a copy for me on a jump drive, cd, or floppy.
• In the PowerPoint, there must be a picture of the item you are requesting as well as a mention of the price.
• The presentation must be at least ten minutes long (audience questions do not add to the time), and not more than fifteen minutes long. Failure to reach ten minutes will result in the loss of one letter grade, as will exceeding fifteen minutes.
• Your individual presentation should be between two and three minutes long.
• Grammatical and/or spelling errors on your slides, which can ruin any presentation when displayed for everyone to see, will carry at least a one letter-grade penalty, possibly more depending on the frequency and severity.