1. Guidelines for writing a lecture report
The lecture report should be a brief, succinct and your own account of the lecture by a scholar related to
the theme of your course. It should not exceed one page (1600 characters, spaces included). There is no
precise format with which you have to comply. Below, you will find some general tips and suggestions
you might want to address in your lecture report.
General tips
• Read up on the subject the lecturer is going to talk about in advance. This will increase your interest,
force you to make expectations (which, in turn, will help you to increase your information retention
rate) and make you generally appreciate and enjoy the lecture.
• Take notes during the actual lecture. Note taking is a language study skill and if done properly it may
serve not only as a basis for any report writing, it will also help you recall most of the content of the
lecture years after it took place.
• Discuss your findings and observations from the lecture with others who attended it. This does not
mean that you should rely on others to supply the information you missed. The objective here is to
compare your observations to see, whether the impressions and understanding you have of certain
points discussed in the lecture match with those of other lecture attendees. Once again, the idea is that
discussing and comparing various views on the same topic helps people to better remember the issues
discussed. Do not worry if your impressions do not entirely agree with those of other people. You can
even point this out in your report.
Here are some suggestions what can write about and comment in your lecture report
• What was the topic of the lecture? Did the speaker, at the beginning, clarify, narrow or in any way
specify the theme that was advertised on the posters?
• Did the speaker say how topical the theme in his opinion was?
• Did the speaker tell the audience at the beginning what points he intended to cover in the lecture? If
so, what were they?
• What were the individual points covered in the main part of the lecture? Make an outline of the
lecture (a numbered list of subtopics, points and subpoints, etc).
• Did the coverage of the topic match you expectations? (E. g., were there any points you expected the
speaker to cover and he did not?)
• What was your impression of the speaker and the way he presented the topic? (Was he passionate
about the subject he talked about?)
• What rapport did the speaker have with the audience (E.g. Did he manage to keep his/her audience
interested throughout the lecture?
• What methods did he use to present his lecture (oral, powerpoint presentation, posters, etc.)?
• Did the speaker provoke discussion after the lecture? (If yes, were there any interesting questions? If
no, what was the reason for this?)
• INTERPRETATION/SPEAKER’S OWN CONTRIBUTION/LECTURE’S THESE. Apart from the
facts the speaker presented, did he attempt to present his own interpretation of the topic? Was it
possible to identify the speaker’s attitude to the topic? If so, could it be put in one/two sentences? Or,
did he present more or less only facts on the topic? What do you think was his own contribution to the
topic (E. g. he compiled facts only/he did research and compared various views/he did research,
compared views and added his own interpretation of the subject)?
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