There are many reasons to give a talk at the $``\vec{w}h\alpha\mathfrak{t}\;\; i\mathbb{S}\ldots\text{?''}$ Seminar. You might want to expose your fellow students to a mathematical concept or idea that you consider worthy of being known, improve your ability to give talks by giving a talk in a more relaxed environment or just you like to give talks about several topics. Any of these reasons is good, but in order to give a good talk in this seminar, it is important that you read this page.
The most important thing is to be aware that the audience will consist of math undergraduate and graduate students from many different fields. Therefore one should neither expect familiarity with usual concepts of one's field nor try to cover too much in too little time. A good practice is to choose a topic where there are a few ideas and concepts that can be explained, trying, as far as it is possible, to focus more on the intutition and rationale behing these ideas and concepts instead of the details. For example, a well-chosen example illustrating the statement of a theorem can be better than trying to give a sketchy proof of the statement. In any case, the speaker is free to choose the format and style that e thinks better suit eir talk.
Talks should be of a length around thirty minutes. In the case of MATH+ Fridays, this limit is strict, as there is the MATH+ Colloquium afterwards. On a Friday without subsequent colloquium, however, there is more flexibility and for the sake of clarity one can extend to around forty minutes. Nevertheless, one should aim at the thirty minutes limit as talks can get longer due to the questions of the audience during the talk. As we aim for a very casual and relaxed atmosphere, the speaker should welcome and encourage questions from the audience, and try to engage the public.
The speaker should send a short abstract for the talk, around two of three sentences or longer, together with a title in the form “What is ....?” as soon as possible—preferably by the Sunday before the talk. In the case of talks happening on a Friday without MATH+ colloquium, this is a strict deadline. The latter is so, because the talk has to be announced early enough in advance so that people can plan to attend.
We will usually provide both a blackboard and projector for the talk, but it's always better if the speaker tell us in advance. We also need to know in advance if the speaker needs a laptop, a laser pointer or any other special requirements for the talk. The sooner that all of this is communicated to us the better.
It is important to point that all our talks are video recorded and photographied by default. The video is sent to the speaker who may choose to makes the video 1) public for everyone, 2) only available with a password, who will be given to any interested student; 3) only available with a private link, which only the speaker can share; or 4) erase the video. The photographs are used for social media, in order to promote the event. If the speaker doesn't want to be photographied or recorded, e should communicate this to the organizers of the $``\vec{w}h\alpha\mathfrak{t}\;\; i\mathbb{S}\ldots\text{?''}$ Seminar explicitly. Of course, the $``\vec{w}h\alpha\mathfrak{t}\;\; i\mathbb{S}\ldots\text{?''}$ Seminar will change the sharing settings of the video or remove any uploaded picture upon request by the speaker, even if previous approval was given.
One can find examples of previous talks in our list of talks. Some of them have the video recording available, so that they can serve as an inspiration when preparing the talk.
If you want to give a talk, please, read the above text carefully and contact one of the $``\vec{w}h\alpha\mathfrak{t}\;\; i\mathbb{S}\ldots\text{?''}$ Seminar organizers with your proposal. Details about how to contact us can be found on the contact page.