The Twenty-Minute Presentation
It would be nice if there were a template, but then they could train parakeets to write essays if that were the case. No template. However, there is a heuristic formula of sorts. The first rule is: do not read a text; talk from notes.
The formula is to wrap your scholarly or research topic in a narrative of discovery. The goal of a 20min talk is not to convey the results of the research so much as to interest people in the question you are asking, and show the necessity of the question. The narrative frame is the drama of how you found this question, its implications, why it interests you, perhaps some sketching of results. The effect should be that at the end the audience wants to know more. The reason this works is that even if people don't comprehend the critical topic, they get the narrative, and so feel (however misguided this may be) that they understand what you are doing. You will recognize that this formula is not too far removed from Plato's formula of wrapping the dialectic in a dialogue. Literacy, in short.
We will want to adapt this heuristic a bit to make it work for the disseminar. The above is relevant for presentations given to those not initimately familiar with your research topic. In the disseminar you are attempting to think ahead of your research, and to get help from us, the group. The narrative could be a quest/ion about the import of your research. You will recall the spider hanging its web between a rock and a hard place. Your narrative will be to locate your original idea, your "angle," within the context of existing scholarship and professional paradigms.
What is narrative form? The best intro I can think of is the first chapter of TEXT BOOK, no less (I'm open to other suggestions). Our procedure will be to practice this kind of talk. We shall be watching for all those sub-sections listed in TB. The advice you got about the illuminating anecdote is correct, if you adjust it away from the "toastmasters" template to the structural principle: the talk is an anecdote of understanding