WSFR Graduate Student
Symposium
Guidelines
for Presenters
(Modified from the 2002 Dakota & Nebraska AFS Chapters Joint
Meeting)
General
guidelines
1.
Presentations are scheduled in 15-minute blocks. You should allow 11-12 minutes
for your
talk, leaving
3-4 minutes for questions. Your moderator will notify you when your
presentation reaches
10, 12 and 14 minutes. At 15 minutes, the moderator will physically
remove you from
the stage to make way for the next speaker. Please adhere to these
guidelines out of
courtesy for other speakers.
2.
Rehearse your talk before the meeting to be sure you do not exceed the allotted
time. Have
peers evaluate
your talk. Practice speaking slowly and audibly.
3. Podium
lighting is not always dependable. Therefore, do not rely on note cards.
4. A
general outline for talks should be introduction, objectives, methods, results,
and
conclusions.
Objectives should be clearly stated. Conclusions should relate back to them.
5. Avoid
unnecessary detail in methods unless the methodology is the central topic of
your
talk.
Primarily discuss the results and conclusions.
Visual
Aids
We VERY
STRONGLY prefer that you use Powerpoint for your
presentation. Powerpoint files
will be loaded
on the computer in the presentation room; do not bring your own equipment.
Notify an officer if you insist on using other media.
1) See the
paper by Kroodsma and Byers
(2000) entitled "Suggestions for slides at Scientific
Meetings." The
authors give a lot of information on how to prepare slides that will make the
biggest impact on
your audience. You can greatly enhance the quality of your presentation
by following
their guidelines.
2) A
general rule of thumb is one minute per slide, so you probably should prepare
about 15
slides.
Obviously this will vary depending on how quickly you move through slides in
your
particular talk.
3)
Excessive graphics slow computer display. Also, we cannot guarantee that
animation that
works on your
computer will actually work on the presentation computer. The best is
usually to keep
things simple.
4) Load
your presentation
a) Bring
your IBM-PC compatible Powerpoint
2000 file (Lastname_FirstInitial.ppt) on a zip
disk
(preferred), CD-R (not CD-RW), or 3.5” floppy to the presentation room during
one
of the
breaks preceding your session. Those in the first session can start loading
their
presentations a half
hour before the start of the symposium.
b) It is
best not to wait until the break right before your session to load your
presentation.
The room
will be open by
load your
presentation as early as possible. It is also recommended that you open the
file
and do a
quick test run to make sure all slides show up correctly.
c) You
should save your file on the desktop in the folder for your session. A
moderator will
be present
to help.
d) Bring a
backup of your presentation to your session.