generally speaking an oral presentation at a conference has

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86 Oral Presentations

A well-organized oral presentation typically has the following elements: a background, research question, outline of research and the talk (methods), findings/discussion, and conclusion. Below, we elaborate on 12 tips to help you successfully showcase these elements and excute a noteworthy presentation.

Planning is fundamental to you delivering a successful oral presentation. Almost every conference you attend will have a set of guidelines for you to adhere to (e.g., the time limit). Begin by familiarizing yourself with those guidelines. Remember that you will not be able your entire thesis or all the interesting findings on one 18×24 poster or in a 15 minutes presentation. You will need to zoom in on a specific issue or research question from within your thesis. We reiterate: do not attempt to present your entire thesis.

Box 12.3.1.1 shows an example of how one might plan a 15 minutes oral presentation. When planning, highlight the significant portions of each section: the introduction, literature review, methods, findings, discussion, and conclusion. Give rough outlines of how much time each section will take, and test this outline to ensure you will not be going over (example of fifteen-minute speech plan in Box 12.3.1.1). It is best to try to get your practice done at least one minute less than the designated time (e.g., aim to finish a 15 minutes presentation in 14 minutes). On the day, nerves, technical issues and other factors can make you go for longer than you practices. In general, program chairs keep very strict timing and give you frequent time updates during your presentation. Planning with built-in flexibility can help calm your nerves before and during your presentation.

Box 12.2 – Example Outline of Oral Presentation

The Introduction

Because oral presentations at conferences are so short, you must aim to quickly entice your audience. Common ways to do this include starting with a historical anecdote or story related to your topic, unpacking a key quote from your qualitative study, introducing a paradox in your field, asking a provoking question to your audience, and inquiring what a seemingly straightforward concept in your field really means in practice.

Research Question(s) & Order

Once you have introduced your topic, immediately state your research question(s) and use that momentum to guide your listeners through the methods and findings. If outlined on a slide, put it on the same slide or on the next. After this, aim to implicate it in the context of your presentation. Answer how your presentation will be structured and tell your audience how this structure will address your research question.

Literature Review (optional)

This is a section that you can skip in a presentation, but if you do decide to keep it, make it sparse. We suggest picking one or two key authors that inspired your study or to separate the key concepts in the literature that have inspired your study. As with all types of research, outline the literature with close attention to the gap you are going to fulfill.

Methods (necessary, but shortened)

Give the short version of your methods. You are allowed, in an oral presentation, to just be as simple as saying a “grounded theory approach”. Suggest to your audience that they can ask you further about your methods in the question period. This is a place where you should also consider talking about the limitations of your research. However, saving it for after the conclusion to make clear to your audience that the implications of your study can be strengthened in future research, is another useful strategy.

Findings (the heart, but keep it concise and forceful)

Consider shortening your findings to just two or three themes. Especially in qualitative research, going down every rabbit hole with regard to your findings will distract from the core point of your presentation: your contribution. Highlight only those findings which you think are (1) unique, (2) useful to others, (3) best answer your research question, and (4) capable of being conveyed in your very limited timeframe. For instance, Wilson’s (2021) research on Uber had five themes which he shortened to three for his fifteen minutes conference presentation. As he explained, “I chose the three themes that addressed the legislative impact of Uber’s framing in order to best address one of my RQ’s: “did Uber’s framing in the media affect the final legislative decisions?”

The discussion is a section that can be easily truncated into your conclusion or at the end of the findings section. It is essential, however, that you implicate the meaning of your findings for the field. What was the gap you fulfilled? How do your findings corroborate with past research on your subject? Whenever covering any of your findings, consider how they affect the field of your audience: what does your work say about their work? Likewise, in disseminating your research for the community, this final part is essential: how does your findings affect their day to day lives? Will it affect a policy that governs their behaviour etc?

Conclusion, Limitations, and Implications

The conclusion is where you outline what you have said, what is missing from your study and what can be done in the future. Clearly summarize the key findings of your talk before talking about what is missing. Once you have summarized the findings, be humble! Talk about the limitations of your research and briefly discuss how they could be addressed in future studies. Once the ground is laid, now you are ready to resoundingly end your presentation: summarize the major themes of your research into implications – the contribution of your work. Why should everyone remember the work you do? It is entirely based upon your ability to convince them that the research is worth remembering into the future: in future work, research, and reflection. Implications often take two forms: for future research and for action outside of research. When speaking to academics, the first is more important. When discussing with the broader community, the latter will likely be higher valued.

Designing Your Slides

The most important thing to remember about designing your slides is to keep them clean, clear and engaging. Do not include too many text on one page and ensure that the colours used are accessible. You might also consider using concept maps (Google slides has lots of pyramid animations). Whatever you do, keep slides sparse, do not pick Roman fonts, be consistent and bold quotes. For additional tips, see Campbell (n.d.) suggestions at https://www.exordo.com/blog/presenting-at-a-conference/

Trimming the Excess

It is unlikely that you will get the timing right on your first practice run. It is okay to  allow yourself to go over (or under) to begin but ensure you can make the necessary adjustments to each section of your presentation. If you are still extremely over the time limit (and you should aim to go a little under, so you can take it slow for your presentation), then you should cut full sections. Consider removing your literature review, compressing your discussion into your findings or conclusion, and/or taking off one of your findings sections. If you are still over the limit, consider shortening your research question or focusing on fewer research questions. If your presentation is too short, consider expanding on your findings and the discussions.

Tips From Soothsayers

For more elocutionary or body language tips, there are many business school videos on these topics (Abrahams, 2018).

Fear of Public Speaking/Cooling Off Before You Speak

Composure and confidence will make your presentation go over smoother. Speaking with confidence – in a clear, steady voice – is essential to winning the confidence of your audience. However, sometimes you are just overrun by nerves. If that is the case, you are not alone. Fear of public speaking is a extremely common, but there are things that you can do to help calm those nerves. See (Sawchunk, 2022) for a list of suggestion at the following link https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/specific-phobias/expert-answers/fear-of-public-speaking/faq-20058416

Box 12.3 – Student Testimony – Negotiating with Your Nerves

A quick online search for “presentation tips” will yield an overwhelming number of suggestions, but everyone’s nervousness may come from different places. Before you dive into looking for advice, ask yourself why you are nervous. Worried about presentation content? Create a list of major points you want to get across. Worried about going overtime? Cut down on unnecessary content and time each slide. Worried that you’ll feel intimidated by the audience? Plant a friend in the audience and look at them. Regardless, it’s important to give yourself enough time to prepare and practice for the presentation.

Here is four pieces of advice that helps me get through every presentation:

• Remember that you know something that the audience doesn’t. (No audience is all-knowing. Presenting your ideas and teaching others should be an empowering experience.)
• Mention some things you find interesting and are passionate about related to the content. (This could be a surprising finding in your research, or an interesting encounter during data collection.)
• Prepare a script, rely on bullet points sentences, and avoid long paragraphs. (Bullet points help you stay on track with all the information you want to cover and give you room to improvise if needed.)
• Create a presentation ritual. (Find something that calms you down or makes you feel confident. This can be wearing a shirt you feel confident in or drinking some warm tea before you practice and present.)

Our nervousness often comes from a prediction of how we think the audience is going to perceive us, and our brains are great at coming up with reasons why we might not deliver a satisfactory presentation. Don’t be fooled – these thoughts are often inaccurate. Learn to doubt your doubts!

Youcheng (Mark) Ding, UBC Sociology Honours Student, 2019-2020

Abrahams, Matt. (2018). How to make your communication memorable. YouTube. Stanford Graduate School of Business.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fsr4yrSAIAQ

Campbell, B. (n.d.). 11 Tips for presenting at a conference.  Ex Ordo .  https://www.exordo.com/blog/presenting-at-a-conference/

Wilson (2021). Driver’s of Dissidence: A Discourse Analysis of Vancouver’s Road to Ride-hailing.  Sojourners.

Sawchung, N.C. (2022). Fear of Public Speaking: How can I overcome it?  Mayo Clinic .  https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/specific-phobias/expert-answers/fear-of-public-speaking/faq-20058416

Practicing and Presenting Social Research Copyright © 2022 by Oral Robinson and Alexander Wilson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Effective Oral Presentations

Verbally (and as a general rule), do not write down and memorize or read your full text, because then your presentation will sound like what it is: a recited written text. Instead, memorize the outline of your presentation — that is, a tree structure of main points and subpoints — and speak ex tempore, reinventing the words as you go along. As you do, you will occasionally need to think about what to say next and find the most appropriate words to say it. Instead of using filler words ( um , er , you know , I mean , etc.), simply pause. If you say um , you get about half a second of thinking time and the audience is likely to notice the um and be irritated by it. If you keep silent, you can get up to two or three seconds of thinking time without the audience noticing anything. Even if attendees do notice the silence, they will simply think that you are choosing your words carefully — and there is nothing wrong with that.

Despite pointing often at the screen, Marie nicely faces the audience with her body at all times, keeps her hands down between gestures, and maintains eye contact with the attendees. Transcript Vocally, vary the tone, rate, and volume of your voice as a function of the meaning, complexity, and importance of what you are saying. You need not invent a new intonation pattern: You simply need to amplify your normal pattern.

Visually, control your body. Adopt a stable, confident position; move only when you have a positive reason to do so (for example, move closer to the audience for taking questions), not when your body seems to ask for it. When you make a gesture, make it large and deliberate; between gestures, bring your hands down and do not fidget. Establish eye contact: Engage the audience by looking them straight in the eyes.

At all times, make sure you address the audience. Even if you have slides, tell the audience your story in a stand-alone way; do not just explain your slides. In particular, anticipate your slides. You should know at all times what your next slide is about so you can insert an appropriate transition.

Delivering as a non-native speaker

To keep the audience engaged , Jean-luc emphasizes his points with facial expressions, purposeful gestures, and — especially — a high dynamic range in his vocal delivery. Transcript If you are a non-native speaker of English, you may find it more challenging to speak ex tempore in English than in your native language. Still, even imperfect extemporaneous English is more likely to engage the audience than reciting a more polished, less spontaneous written text. To improve your delivery and overall presentation as a non-native speaker, practice more, pace yourself, and support your spoken discourse with appropriate slides.

While all speakers benefit from practicing their presentations multiple times, consider investing more time in such practice if you are less familiar with the language. Practicing helps you identify missing vocabulary, including key technical terms (which are difficult to circumvent), and express your ideas more fluently. As you practice, you may want to prepare a list of difficult words (to review on the day of your presentation) or write down an occasional complex yet crucial sentence. Still, do not feel bound to what you write down. These notes should be a help, not a constraint.

Practicing in front of an audience (a few colleagues, for example) can help you correct or refine your pronunciation. If you are unsure how to pronounce some words or phrases, you can ask native speakers in advance or check online dictionaries that offer phonetic spelling or audio rendering. Still, you may be unaware of certain words you mispronounce; a practice audience can point these words out to you if you invite it to do so.

During your presentation, pace yourself. As a non-native speaker, you may feel you need to search for your words more often or for a longer time than in your native language, but the mechanism is the same. Do not let this challenge pressure you. Give yourself the time you need to express your ideas clearly. Silence is not your enemy; it is your friend.

Pacing yourself also means speaking more slowly than you otherwise might, especially if you have an accent in English. Accents are common among non-native speakers — and among specific groups of native speakers, too — and they are not a problem as long as they are mild. Often, they are experienced as charming. Still, they take some getting used to. Remember to slow down, especially at the beginning of a presentation, so your audience can get used to your accent, whether native or not.

Handling stage fright and mishaps

Most speakers, even experienced ones, are nervous before or during an oral presentation. Such stage fright is normal and even reassuring: It shows that you care, and you should care if you want to deliver an effective presentation. Accordingly, accept your stage fright rather than feeling guilty about it. Instead of trying to suppress nervousness, strive to focus your nervous energy in your voice, your gestures, and your eye contact. Do not let it dissipate into entropy, such as by using filler words or engaging in nervous mannerisms.

Among the many ways to keep your nerves under control, perhaps the most effective one is to focus constructively on your purpose at all times. Before your presentation, eliminate all the unknowns: Prepare your presentation well, identify (or even meet) your audience, and know the room. During the presentation, do what it takes to get your message across, even if it means doing something differently than you had planned. Have a positive attitude about the presentation at all times: Visualize what you want to achieve, not what you want to avoid.

Even with careful preparation, mishaps can occur. For example, technology may fail, you may forget what you wanted to say, or you may accidentally say the wrong thing. As a rule, do not apologize for what happens — neither in advance nor after the fact. Although well-meant, such apologies provide no benefit to the audience: They are noise. If you can do something about the problem, such as fix the technology or insert what you forgot later in the presentation, concentrate on doing so instead of apologizing. If the problem is out of your control, then there is no need to apologize for it. As a specific example, if you feel your command of English is poor, then do what you can in advance to improve it; in particular, practice your presentation thoroughly. Then, on the day of the presentation, do your best with the command you have, but do not apologize at the beginning of the presentation for what you think is poor English. This apology will not solve anything, and it gives the attendees a negative image of you. Rather, let the attendees judge for themselves whether your command of English is sufficient (perhaps it is, despite what you might think). In other words, focus on delivering results, not excuses.

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Chapter 3: Oral Presentations

Patricia Williamson

Many academic courses require students to present information to their peers and teachers in a classroom setting. Such presentations are usually in the form of a short talk, often, but not always, accompanied by visual aids such as a PowerPoint. Yet, students often become nervous at the idea of speaking in front of a group. This chapter aims to help calms those nerves.

This chapter is divided under five headings to establish a quick reference guide for oral presentations.

• A beginner, who may have little or no experience, should read each section in full.
• For the intermediate learner, who has some experience with oral presentations, review the sections you feel you need work on.
• If you are an experienced presenter then you may wish to jog your memory about the basics or gain some fresh insights about technique.

The Purpose of an Oral Presentation

Generally, oral presentation is public speaking, either individually or as a group, the aim of which is to provide information, to entertain, to persuade the audience, or to educate. In an academic setting, oral presentations are often assessable tasks with a marking criteria. Therefore, students are being evaluated on two separate-but-related competencies within a set timeframe: the ability to speak and the quality of the spoken content. An oral presentation differs from a speech in that it usually has visual aids and may involve audience interaction; ideas are both shown and explained . A speech, on the other hand, is a formal verbal discourse addressing an audience, without visual aids and audience participation.

Tips for Types of Oral Presentations

Individual presentation.

• Know your content. The number one way to have a smooth presentation is to know what you want to say and how you want to say it. Write it down and rehearse it until you feel relaxed and confident and do not have to rely heavily on notes while speaking.
• Eliminate ‘umms’ and ‘ahhs’ from your oral presentation vocabulary. Speak slowly and clearly and pause when you need to. It is not a contest to see who can race through their presentation the fastest or fit the most content within the time limit. The average person speaks at a rate of 125 words per minute. Therefore, if you are required to speak for 10 minutes, you will need to write and practice 1250 words for speaking. Ensure you time yourself and get it right.
• Ensure you meet the requirements of the marking criteria, including non-verbal communication skills. Make good eye contact with the audience; watch your posture; don’t fidget.
• Know the language requirements. Check if you are permitted to use a more casual, conversational tone and first-person pronouns, or do you need to keep a more formal, academic tone?
• Breathe. You are in control. You’ve got this!

Group Presentation

• All of the above applies; however, you are working as part of a group. So how should you approach group work?
• Firstly, if you are not assigned to a group by your lecturer/tutor, choose people based on their availability and accessibility. If you cannot meet face-to-face you may schedule online meetings.
• Get to know each other. It’s easier to work with friends than strangers.
• Consider everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. Determining strengths and weaknesses will involve a discussion that will often lead to task or role allocations within the group; however, everyone should be carrying an equal level of the workload.
• Some group members may be more focused on getting the script written, with a different section for each team member to say. Others may be more experienced with the presentation software and skilled in editing and refining PowerPoint slides so they are appropriate for the presentation. Use one visual aid (one set of PowerPoint slides) for the whole group; you may consider using a shared cloud drive so that there is no need to integrate slides later on.
• Be patient and tolerant with each other’s learning style and personality. Do not judge people in your group based on their personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender, age, or cultural background.
• Rehearse as a group–more than once. Keep rehearsing until you have seamless transitions between speakers. Ensure you thank the previous speaker and introduce the one following you. If you are rehearsing online, but have to present in-person, try to schedule some face-to-face time that will allow you to physically practice using the technology and classroom space of the campus.
• Thinking of the points above, complete the following chart and then consult with members of your group:

Writing Your Presentation

Approach the oral presentation task just as you would any other assignment. Review the available topics and then do some background reading and research to ensure you can talk about the topic for the appropriate length of time and in an informed manner. Break the question down into manageable parts .

Creating a presentation differs from writing an essay in that the information in the speech must align with the visual aid. Therefore, with each idea, concept, or new information that you write, you need to think about how this might be visually displayed through minimal text and the occasional use of images. Proceed to write your ideas in full, but consider that not all information will end up on a PowerPoint slide. Many guides, such as Marsen (2020), will suggest no more than five points per slide, with each bullet point have no more than six words (for a maximum of 30 words per slide). After all, it is you who are doing the presenting , not the PowerPoint. Your presentation skills are being evaluated, but this evaluation may include only a small percentage for the actual visual aid: check your assessment guidelines.

Using Visual Aids

To keep your audience engaged and help them to remember what you have to say, you may want to use visual aids, such as slides.

When designing slides for your presentation, make sure:

• any text is brief, grammatically correct and easy to read. Use dot points and space between lines, plus large font size (18-20 point)
• Resist the temptation to use dark slides with a light-coloured font; it is hard on the eyes
• if images and graphs are used to support your main points, they should be non-intrusive on the written work

Images and Graphs

• Your audience will respond better to slides that deliver information quickly – images and graphs are a good way to do this. However, they are not always appropriate or necessary.

When choosing images, it’s important to find images that:

• support your presentation and aren’t just decorative
• are high quality, however, using large HD picture files can make the PowerPoint file too large overall for submission via Turnitin
• you have permission to use (Creative Commons license, royalty-free, own images, or purchased)
• suggested sites for free-to-use images: Openclipart – Clipping Culture ; Beautiful Free Images & Pictures | Unsplash ; Pxfuel – Royalty free stock photos free download ; When we share, everyone wins – Creative Commons

The specific requirements for your papers may differ. Again, ensure that you read through any assignment requirements carefully and ask your lecturer or tutor if you’re unsure how to meet them.

Using Visual Aids Effectively

Too often, students make an impressive PowerPoint though do not understand how to use it effectively to enhance their presentation.

• Rehearse with the PowerPoint.
• Keep the slides synchronized with your presentation; change them at the appropriate time.
• Refer to the information on the slides. Point out details; comment on images; note facts such as data.
• Don’t let the PowerPoint just be something happening in the background while you speak.
• Write notes in your script to indicate when to change slides or which slide number the information applies to.
• Pace yourself so you are not spending a disproportionate amount of time on slides at the beginning of the presentation and racing through them at the end.
• Practice, practice, practice.

Nonverbal Communication

It is clear by the name that nonverbal communication includes the ways that we communicate without speaking. You use nonverbal communication everyday–often without thinking about it. Consider meeting a friend on the street: you may say “hello”, but you may also smile, wave, offer your hand to shake, and the like. Here are a few tips that relate specifically to oral presentations.

Being confident and looking confident are two different things. Even if you may be nervous (which is natural), the following will help you look confident and professional:

• Avoid slouching or leaning – standing up straight instantly gives you an air of confidence, but more importantly it allows you to breathe freely. Remember that breathing well allows you to project your voice, but it also prevents your body from experiencing extra stress.
• If you have the space, move when appropriate. You can, for example, move to gesture to a more distant visual aid or to get closer to different part of the audience who might be answering a question.
• If you’re someone who “speaks with their hands”, resist the urge to gesticulate constantly. Use gestures purposefully to highlight, illustrate, motion, or the like.
• Be animated, but don’t fidget. Ask someone to watch you rehearse and identify if you have any nervous, repetitive habits you may be unaware of, such as ‘finger-combing’ your hair or touching your face.
• Avoid ‘verbal fidgets’ such as “umm” or “ahh”; silence is ok. If you needs to cough or clear your throat, do so once then take a drink of water.
• Avoid distractions that you can control. Put your phone on “do not disturb” or turn it off completely.
• Keep your distance. Don’t hover over front-row audience members.
• Have a cheerful demeaner. Remember that your audience will mirror your demeanor.
• Maintain an engaging tone in your voice, by varying tone, pace, and emphasis. Match emotion to concept; slow when concepts might be difficult; stress important words.
• Don’t read your presentation–present it! Internalize your script so you can speak with confidence and only occasionally refer to your notes if needed.
• Make eye contact with your audience members so they know you are talking with them, not at them. You’re having a conversation. Watch the link below for some great speaking tips, including eye contact.

Below is a video of some great tips about public speaking from Amy Wolff at TEDx Portland [1]

• Wolff. A. [The Oregonion]. (2016, April 9). 5 public speaking tips from TEDxPortland speaker coach [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNOXZumCXNM&ab_channel=TheOregonian ↵

Two or more people tied by marriage, blood, adoption, or choice; living together or apart by choice or circumstance; having interaction within family roles; creating and maintaining a common culture; being characterized by economic cooperation; deciding to have or not to have children, either own or adopted; having boundaries; and claiming mutual affection.

Chapter 3: Oral Presentations Copyright © 2023 by Patricia Williamson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Tips for Oral Presentations at Scientific Meetings and Conferences

By Nina Lichtenberg

Tis’ the season for the biennial, annual, or semi-annual life science conference; and this time around, you’re scheduled to give a presentation in front of every known expert in your field of study (yikes!) Your thoughts may range from “I can’t wait to share my shiny new data with a room full of scientists!”, to “Why me?”

Never fear, whether thrilled or terrified, follow these tips below to engage your audience and give a stellar presentation. Please note that the advice below applies to all forms of presentations but is focused on those that take place at scientific meetings or conferences. If you don’t have any presentations scheduled but would like to give one, check out the last section on seeking presentation opportunities.

You have an upcoming conference presentation scheduled, now what?

The first step to giving a talk is creating a presentation. The book Designing Science Presentations by Matt Carter is an excellent visually-oriented guide to designing and delivering presentations, and even offers tips on other forms of science communication, like creating figures for manuscripts. Plus, it’s free to download via your university network (see link here ).

Prior to your presentation, and generally throughout your PhD, it’s a good idea to take notes on presentation organization, style, voice, and audience engagement techniques. As a graduate student, you’ve probably attended dozens of talks – both good and bad. Take notes on what stood out to you and what you thought made each presentation successful (or unsuccessful) at getting the speaker’s story across. What made the talk engaging? Was it the way they introduced their research using a witty, real-life or pop culture example? Perhaps it was the way they paused during transitions between topics to ask if the audience had any questions. Maybe it was simply the speaker’s demeanor, or the font, color, or layout of their slides. Integrate what you learned into your presentation. About 25% of the notes I jot down during talks are about the actual manner in which data are presented.

Practice, practice, practice – but don’t over practice

In the few weeks leading up to your presentation, you may be tempted to practice alone, or maybe even to your beloved, non-judgmental furry friend in the comforts of your own home. As tempting as this may sound, practicing in front of a real human audience is key. It’s important to practice in front of others, professors or your peers, for a few critical reasons: this experience will be the closest to the real deal, allowing you to work on your voice and audience engagement, and importantly, your audience will give you feedback on how to communicate your data. They may point out topics you rushed through and/or give you tips on organization. Work on the timing – one slide (or less) per minute is a fairly universal rule. This is especially important for short data blitz style presentations, which are often strictly limited to just 5 or 10 minutes.

Even if you don’t have an imminent conference presentation scheduled, presenting your work throughout your PhD will well prepare you for future conferences and job talks. At my university there are several opportunities for graduate students to present their recent findings in short (5-20 min) and long (1 hr) formats in seminars open to professors, postdocs, and fellow students. If you prefer an informal audience, practice your talk in lab meeting. Additionally, there are often graduate student led organizations that host informal after-lab meetings exactly for this purpose.

If such resources are not available on your campus or at your institution, create them yourself! Not only will these forums give you the chance to practice your talk, but they may expose you to research topics, presentation styles, and individuals from across disciplines. If you’re short on time, gather a handful of science and/or non-science friends and practice your talk on campus or at home. Practice in front of non-scientists (roommates maybe?) – this will benefit you in the long run. “Talking shop” with those outside of your field will strengthen your skills in communicating your data to a broad audience, which is critical for publishing in high-impact journals, getting grants, and for so much more.

Practice, but don’t over practice. Some scientists, including myself, need to spend the time going through what they plan to say for each slide many times before the talk. But for others, this results in a presentation that sounds too rehearsed and a bit robotic. During the presentation, you may need to deviate from the talk that’s drilled into your head to answer unexpected questions or to speed up if you’re running short on time. Preparing an over-rehearsed talk will make adaptation difficult.

So, practice until you’ve memorized every line, or go over your talk just a few times? Practice until your nerves are calm in front of your mock audience, then quit practicing and brush up on some background knowledge that will help you answer tricky questions from audience members.

Tips for the actual real-life presentation

If you’ve but the time into creating a well-organized presentation and have practiced, even a little bit, you will be fine.

Before the presentation: If you’re speaking as part of a symposium, familiarize yourself with the other speakers (and their research) in the panel and at the conference in general. You don’t want to get caught not recognizing someone important. Upon arriving to the conference venue, check out the room in which you will be giving the presentation so that there are no surprises – make note of where the podium is and the microphone, of course.

During the presentation: Take it slow. This will help calm your nerves or jitters. Pausing for a few seconds after each sentence will help. Speak at an appropriate volume and clearly. Remember to look at your audience members for a majority of the time, and not at your slides or down at the floor! Also, the audience doesn’t know your data as well as you do – don’t be afraid to elaborate a bit or remind them of certain goals of your research, even if a technique or result seems elementary to you.

After the presentation: Take a deep breath (you’re done!) Thank the meeting organizers for the speaking opportunity. If there are any questions from the audience, answer them as best you can. If you don’t have a great answer, it’s not a big deal. Offer to speak with the attendee further after the talk or symposium.

The final tips below may seem obvious, but nonetheless important.

• Check your presentation for any errors in spelling, grammar, and file conversion, and make sure it is formatted as requested by the organizer/your contact person (i.e. the dreaded Mac to PC, or vice versa PowerPoint conversion issues)
• Dress to impress – you and your data will be well-received if you look put together
• Get a good night’s sleep

Getting a speaking opportunity at a conference

The easiest way to find speaking opportunities at conferences is to browse the conference organization’s webpage for calls for abstracts. Typically, a conference organizing committee will ask for an abstract anywhere from 1-6 months prior to a conference. Tip: keep abstract deadlines marked on a calendar!

Word of mouth is powerful. Ask your colleagues and/or other graduate students in your program about conferences they’ve attended, especially more senior students who may have already given talks at a few conferences. Also, don’t be afraid to ask professors if they are organizing any conference symposia. You never know if they’re looking for someone to fill a spot – perhaps your shiny new data would be perfect for what they’re organizing. They may also be able to refer you to their colleagues in charge of organizing other scientific meetings.

Of course, attending a conference requires (many) expenses: abstract submission fees, registration fees, poster printing, flight, hotel – it adds up. Travel awards are excellent resources, especially for graduate students. Typically, travel awards are open to both national and international students and typically cover costs of registration, and often offer a discount (or full coverage) on travel expenses. Travel award deadlines are often different from those of abstract submissions and require a recommendation letter – these details can be found on the conference website.

If you win a travel award, awardees are usually invited to attend professional development workshops and to present their data as a talk at the conference. So, not only does the cover some of your travel expenses, but it gives you an opportunity to present your data – win-win! Don’t forget to put the award (and your talk) on your CV. Tip: outside companies and research foundations, like Hello Bio , offer travel awards to students.

Presenting your research at a conference or meeting is a unique, exciting opportunity. It’s not just a chance to share your newest data with your scientific peers, but a chance to build communication skills and boost self-confidence; thus, benefiting both your career and well-being. So, if a speaking opportunity arises don’t hesitate, jump on it!

Nina Lichtenberg earned her undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. Currently, she is working on wrapping up her PhD in the Psychology department at UCLA by studying the neural circuitry of memory retrieval and decision making. Apart from research, she spends her time developing a neuroscience outreach program that connects undergraduates with the local LA community and builds their scicomm skills.

You can follow Nina on Twitter @NTlichten or connect with her on LinkedIn . Want to meet Nina in person (and see her present some data)? She’ll be at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego, CA, from November 3-7 giving poster presentations on her outreach and science.

Read Nina’s other blog post: Tips for poster presentations at scientific meetings and conferences

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Home > Resources > Tips for Presenting at a Conference

  Last Updated:

• June 5, 2023

Tips for Presenting at a Conference

Oral presentation tips, controlling physical reactions.

Some of the physical reactions can be controlled with these simple tips:

• Take a deep breath before you stand up to approach the podium. Then take another deep breath before you begin speaking.
• During the speech, breathe properly by taking deep breaths. The audience appreciates little pauses during the speech, you catch your breath (literally) and they catch their breath (figuratively).
• If your face tends to get red during public speaking, wear a coloured shirt to offset color of your face (a red shirt for example). If you think you look pale, wear a lighter colour.
• If you think your neck turns red or blotchy when speaking, wear a high neck shirt.
• If your hands get sweaty, put a little Kleenex in your pocket to wipe off hands, no one will ever know!
• If you feel a rush of nervousness and speak too quickly, try to “feel your feet.” This means concentrate briefly on the sensation in your feet, toes, the weight of your shoes, etc., it’s a little trick that helps focus attention away from nervous physiological reactions.

Remember the 3 V's:

• Visual  – refers to how you compose yourself. Make a good first impression by looking at the people around the room, not only at the computer slide or paper. In most audiences, people want to be supportive, so they will smile and nod if you look at them. Try to omit distracting gestures (like stray hand movements) but feel free to use enhancing gestures. For example, if you say “on one hand…” hold out your hand, and when you say “on the other hand…” hold out your other hand. If you make a sweeping statement, a sweeping gesture with your hand will seem appropriate (e.g., “In all of psychology, no theory has been as influential as …”).

• Vocal  – refers to the sound of your voice. Keep the volume up even at the ends of sentences. We all have a tendency to speak lower and faster when nervous, but try not to fall into this habit. Speaking slowly helps the listeners to follow your points. If you practice your speech 100 times, it is still the first time that the audience is hearing it – give them a chance to process the information. Plan to pause from time to time. Be enthusiastic about your topic, avoid monotone – remember this is your topic that you worked super hard to research so be proud and express yourself! Speak loudly, without shouting. Speak at the volume you would use to talk to a friend sitting in the back row of the room. Breathing deeply helps with keeping good volume. Use a variety of speeds, slow down for emphasis.

• Verbal  – refers to the words you use and the organization of your presentation. Make sure your presentation has a clear introduction, body and conclusion. Be sure to define your terms early on, and organize them well. Include attention letters such as an interesting picture, quotation, or statistics related to your topic, then state your purpose in one sentence. Talk your audience through the organization of your presentation. “We will discuss three issues, first X, then Y, and end with a discussion of Z.” At the end of each section, tell the audience that you are now moving on to the next section. If you use overheads or PowerPoint, use these as aides to what you say. Use them to show organization, define your terms, show pictures, figures, and tables. Don’t overload the audience’s eyes with information that will distract from what you are saying. The visual supports the verbal, not the other way around. This means that your ideas, your words should be the focus of the audience. Find 2 or 3 things that you want them to remember. “If you remember nothing else, remember these 3 things…” Build your presentation to support those conclusions, provide the most important details of method and theory that are necessary to see your conclusions as credible. Oral presentations cannot be as detailed as a journal article or thesis paper, though the organization can be similar. Be sure to have a clear conclusion, restate your purpose and main points.

Technical Difficulties

If anything goes wrong with the computer equipment, overhead, etc., don’t panic. It happens to everyone at one time or another. The problem can probably very easily be fixed, and there will be several people ready to offer assistance. Best of all, the audience will be completely sympathetic to you. Remain calm and proceed as best you can.

• Example Judging Rubric
• Presenting via Zoom
• How to Give a Remote Presentation without Feeling Super Awkward 

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Poster presentations.

• Decide on one concept or question
• Determine poster size and layout
• Choose from PowerPoint, LaTeX, FrameMaker …
• Remember to allow time (and money) for printing/laminating
• Make it easy to read and understand
• verbal explanations should supply details, not essentials
• Stimulate interest and discussion
• Receive feedback on research
• Generate contacts

Poster Layout

• Typically, use 3 to 5 columns
• Arrange material vertically from top left corner to bottom right corner
• Determine logical sequence for material
• Number sections to make flow obvious
• Arrange material into columns

Poster Text

• Keep it short and simple
• Remove all non-essential information
• Attract visual attention: use graphics
• 40% graphics
• 40% empty space
• Left align text
• Double space
• Pick one font and stick to it
• Avoid italics
• Use larger/colored font for emphasis
• Use bulleted points rather than paragraphs
• Remember:  There is always too much text!

Poster Content

• Authors and Affiliations
• Introduction
• Data and Results
• Conclusions and Future Work
• Reference and Acknowledgements

Poster Title

• Make it interesting!
• You want to lure people from a distance
• Should be easy to read from 15 feet
• Don’t reduce the font size

Suggested Font Sizes

• omit middle initials and titles
• omit city and province
• One background color
• Stick to muted colors
• red/green color blindness is common
• Make large enough for viewing from at least 3 feet away
• Text should support graphics, not vice versa
• Use heavier lines in tables and graphs for easier viewing

Questions Your Poster Should Answer

• What’s the research question?
• Why is this question important?
• What strategy is used?
• What are the results?
• Why are these results unique/important?
• How does this relate to other research?
• What comes next?

Poster Presentation

• You need to be able to give an overview of your work in 3-5 minutes
• Have a good opening that explains the main focus of your poster
• Be able to summarize your conclusions and their importance
• Practice your presentation ahead of time, and time it!
• Avoid jargon and acronyms
• Speak clearly and slowly
• Don’t overload on detail
• Don’t assume that people are experts in your field
• Don’t stand directly in front of poster
• Anticipate questions and rehearse answers
• Most common question: “How does this work differ from the other research in this area?”
• Creating a poster using LaTeX:  http://nxg.me.uk/docs/posters/
• Example poster judging criteria
• http://www.kumc.edu/SAH/OTEd/jradel/Poster_Presentations/110.html
• http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds3-2/posters.html

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How to Rehearse for an Important Presentation

• Carmine Gallo

Great speeches are never an accident.

If you want to deliver a spellbinding presentation, rehearse far more than you’ve done in the past. But you don’t want to sound too rehearsed, so you’ll need to balance memorization with spontaneity. Nail down the first two and last two minutes of your speech, and leave room for improvisation in between. And practice under pressure. This mean rehearsing in front of one or two people to get your body used to being in front of a crowd. Then ask for feedback, and rehearse again.

Steve Jobs was the most astonishing business speaker of his time. Bill Gates once called him a “wizard” who “cast spells” on his audience. Fortune magazine proclaimed that his keynotes could set “ hardened hearts aflutter .” Jobs is one of the few CEOs whose presentations have a dedicated  Wikipedia page ; his keynotes alone could  spark a surge in Apple’s stock.

• Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman  (St. Martin’s Press).

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Some Advice on Oral Presentations

Oral presentations at scientific conferences can be a daunting prospect: not only do you have to distill the essence of your research into the allotted time (for most SCB conferences 12 minutes plus 3 minutes for questions), you also have to ensure that the information remains clear and tells a logical and compelling story. Below, we offer some tips from our own experience to help produce an oral presentation that does your research justice:

Content of the Presentation

• Like a written paper, your presentation will probably follow the standard format of Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion.
• Skimming off the cream of what would appear in a written paper may take multiple attempts. It is not just a matter of cutting out details and thereby conveying less information. By using clear, concise language and aiming for a focused message you will increase the amount of information that your audience actually understands and retains.
• Remember you are presenting to an international audience at most SCB meetings. Where possible, avoid the use of jargon and consider that the audience probably includes people for whom English is a second language.
• Avoid generic statements referring to the conservation or management implications of your research. Remember there may well be people in the audience who would like to apply the results of your research - be specific.
• It is critical to get the timing right since session moderators are very strict about timing at SCB conferences where simultaneous sessions need to be kept in synchrony.
• Allowing time for questions is important. This is where you can elaborate on the material covered in your presentation, and often where you can make the greatest impression. It also gives you a buffer in case you run over your allotted speaking time.
• The key to timing is practice. Try your presentation out on your colleagues and ask for feedback. Was it too rushed? Were any points unclear?

Use of PowerPoint

• PowerPoint is a fantastic technology if well used. You will not go wrong if you focus on using the images as an ancillary aid to help your audience listen to you and understand what you are saying. Remember: you are the most important part of your talk, not your visual aids.
• Keep most slides to a single idea, two or three ideas at most.
• Remember that as soon as a new slide appears, the audience will be looking at it. If you don’t want them to get ahead of you, don’t show the information until you’re ready.
• If you put text on a slide, people will read it. Therefore, it is very important to keep text to a minimum and limit to key phrases to avoid having your audience reading the text instead of listening to you.
• To help reduce the amount of text, you can use it in an outline format to introduce topics or unfamiliar terms, and then elaborate verbally (for example, if you are talking about an insect species known only by its scientific name presenting this name as text will help people retain it).
• Make sure text is legible by using an adequate font size and contrasting colors.
• Avoid busy slides. If you have a picture shown, it should be relevant to what’s on the slide. Avoid the overuse of montages unless there is a real reason for showing multiple images simultaneously.
• Limited animation can be useful, but for the most part, it is a distraction. If you have text or figures appearing, it’s usually better to have them simply appear, rather than flying in from off-screen.
• If you show figures, clearly state what the figure and the axes represent.

Style of Presentation

• People adopt different approaches to oral presentation. Some of this is dependent on how comfortable you feel standing in front of an audience. Remaining close to the podium generally feels less exposed.
• Avoid putting your hands in your pockets.
• Moving around and using your hands can help the presentation seem more animated and increase the attention paid to you by the audience. Too much movement can be a distraction.
• Similarly, using a laser pointer can be useful tool, but avoid waving it around constantly.

General Tips

• Have your opening and closing sentences well rehearsed. It can take time to recover from stumbling at the beginning of a presentation. A clear concise end to a presentation may well be what sticks in the heads of the audience; you want to end with a bang, not a fizzle.
• Tell a story: the best presentations are where the audience can’t wait to see the next slide and learn what happened next, rather sit through than a litany of seemingly unconnected slides.
• To help with answering questions at the end, practice your talk and ask your colleagues to think of questions that might arise. Respond positively to every question even if you don’t think highly of it. If you don’t understand the question, feel free to ask them to repeat it.

This material was adapted by Malcolm Hunter, University of Maine, from “Saving the Earth as a career: Advice on becoming a conservation professional” by M.L. Hunter, David Lindenmayer, and Aram J.K. Calhoun, published in 2007 by Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, United Kingdom.  Click here to purchase the book .  (All royalties from this book support activities of the SCB Education and Student Affairs Comittee)

Things to Think About

A generic conference talk outline, academic interview talks, other talks, acknowledgments.

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The 10 commandments of oral presentations

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• V Raveenthiran , General secretary 1
• 1 Academy of Medical Sciences, Annamalai University, India

Have you ever fallen asleep during a lecture, or felt the presentation you were attending was a waste of your time? V Raveenthiran tells you how to get that oral presentation right

Giving an oral presentation at scientific meetings is an indispensable skill for medics. 1 Medical students as well as doctors frequently need to read papers at conferences, and this physician-physician communication is essential for dissemination of knowledge and the advancement of science. It is surprising therefore that only a few members of the medical community are familiar with this art, 2 – 5 and the techniques and principles 1 – 24 of scientific verbal communication are not taught at medical schools or in medical textbooks; medical students are therefore left to learn oral presentation by trial and error rather than through formal teaching.

Oral presentations are helped by a variety of audiovisual equipment, such as conventional 35 mm slides, 6 computer aided multimedia, 7 PowerPoint presentations, 8 – 10 and overhead projectors. 11 The general principles described are applicable to oral presentations incorporating any form of audiovisual aid.

Know thy audience

Unfortunately, many speakers fail to understand that the audience represents a group of people who differ in their level of knowledge, ability to comprehend, and degree of interest in a given topic. Irrespective of their level of knowledge, however, the audience spends its precious time listening to a speaker in order to learn something new, and so a good speaker should first identify who the audience is and what it wants to learn. The presentation should then be tailored to the needs of the audience.

the audience is more likely to …

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Talks vs. poster presentations: Which is better for advertising your research and building research networks?

I'm looking into applying to present at a conference for undergraduates in mathematics this summer. When I apply, I have to either apply to give a talk (~20 minutes) or present a poster.

From what I've read on this site, it seems posters are often looked down on relative to talks, especially in mathematics. However, one advantage of a poster session is that I can have a back-and-forth discussion which is impossible in a talk. I think this is especially important for my research, since the computations in the subject are notoriously tricky and will trip up even experts if they aren't paying close attention to the details.

What are the relative advantages/disadvantages of each format? Which is a better way to advertise my research and network with other researchers in my field?

• presentation

• 16 I don't know if it's just me, but it's a bit strange that you can choose . From what I know, you submit a paper and it gets accepted as either a presentation or as a part of the poster session. That said, presentations are more prestigious and they reach a wider audience. While it's true that you can have a discussion while explaining your poster to somebody, it will only probably be a small portion of people in comparison to a presentation audience. And, if anybody is interested in your work after a presentation, he can always find you during a break to discuss in detail. –  penelope Commented Jul 2, 2013 at 7:47
• 6 @penelope: I've seen several conferences where, in the call for papers, the conference organizers let appplicants choose from a menu of presentation formats, such as break-out session , panel discussion , and poster session . –  J.R. Commented Jul 2, 2013 at 10:03
• 4 @penelope: In most conferences I attend, you can choose a poster presentation if you want—and in most of those, you're pretty much guaranteed to get it, if you apply. –  aeismail Commented Jul 2, 2013 at 11:46
• 5 See also answers to How important are poster sessions in conferences? . –  Piotr Migdal Commented Jul 2, 2013 at 12:44
• A slight aside that may be helpful if you opt for and are accepted for a Poster presentation at the conference. Zen Faulkes contributed a great post on Perfecting the Poster Presentation on our blog. His own blog - Better Posters - has lots of tips and advice for anyone considering poster presentations. Highly recommended and very entertaining! –  Dermot Lally Commented May 7, 2015 at 14:42

6 Answers 6

It depends on what you want to do. If you feel like at this point in your research it would be more beneficial to converse than to present , then I'd say that a poster session is the right venue for you. It's true that talks are considered a bit more prestigious than poster sessions, but you really should go with what you think will be more valuable for you, and for the conference attendees.

It's worth noting that you could always do a poster presentation this year, get the feedback that you covet, and then return next year to do a talk, and let everyone know how your research went over the subsequent year. That kind of progression is not a bad thing.

Also, if you are in the early stages of your research, it might not be ready for a talk. When I attend a conference talk, I'm expecting there to be some significant findings. Sure, talks might be more "prestigious," but, if there are some holes in your research, you could end up discrediting yourself. People aren't expecting the same level of maturity in the research during a poster session. So, as I said before, forget the prestige aspect, and choose what is more fitting based on your goals, and on what you have to share at this point in your research.

• 1 " If you feel like at this point in your research it would be more beneficial to converse than to present, then I'd say that a poster session is the right venue for you." A talk usually brings much more attention to a topic and people interested in that will often talk to you/write afterwards. –  user64845 Commented Aug 13, 2017 at 18:33

From my experience impact of posters is way, way lower than of a talk. If you can get a single person listening to you for 20 min with a poster, it is much. Plus, usually, people are distracted (noise, people moving around). And before they can ask questions, they need time to learn what you are presenting anyway. So if you have a choice between talk and poster, the first is always a better option.

• 2 Some conferences leave the posters exhibited throughout the whole duration of the conference. Like this, rather than just during the 20 minutes of your presentation, conference attendees have several full days to look at the poster. Given that the audience of a presentation is further restricted by possible scheduling conflicts with parallel sessions, the poster may actually be seen by more people in total than the presentation. With that in mind, talking about the poster(-topic) for 20 minutes is not all that unlikely, as any 15 minute coffee break can lead to such a conversation. –  O. R. Mapper Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 13:26
• 3 Of course, but still all of my experiences (both as a poster presenter and participant) say that a 5-min talk is better than a 5-day poster exposition. –  Piotr Migdal Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 16:13

Leaving aside the prestige issue for a moment, I get a lot more out of poster sessions than talks, both as a presenter and viewer. For the viewer, they can take in the information presented at their own pace, and ask for clarification if needed. If your audience gets lost during a talk, there is little chance anyone will interrupt as the talks run to a strict schedule. Good luck trying to regain your train of thought from the question session at the end. Talks are far too linear in my opinion. The discussions you have with poster presenters lead to a much better level of understanding I find, and there is a lot less inhibition in discussing the results.

All research should always be at a point for discussion. There is no scientific theory or research that should not need further discussion, at the level you get in a poster session. I have seen posters that present quite mature and significant research.

I regret to say that I have to agree that most researchers will see talks as the 'prestige' option, with posters a poor second. But this does not mean talks are necessarily better for advertising your research or networking.

Space (time) for talks is often much more limited than space for posters. At the conferences where I've been (geophysics/atmospheric science), almost all on-topic posters were accepted (note that abstracts were not peer-reviewed) as is. For people applying for an oral presentation, either they were accepted as an oral presentation, or they were assigned to do a poster instead. It may be similar in your field; so try for an oral presentation, and if you don't get it, you may still be able to do a poster.

In the fore-seeable future, in mathematics the critical activity is giving talks, not posters. Thus, practicing giving talks, all the more if your subject has delicate technicalities, is critical. This is not at all any sort of argument against the communication aspects of posters versus talks, but a comment on professional expectations, for better or for worse.

E.g., gritty/volatile/delicate details need portrayal in more conceptual terms, ... or not at all. Even in talks, people often try to use overheads of some sort to zip through ghastly wastelands of unassimilable details... Don't do this. It just alienates and disenchants your audience.

In particular, I strongly think that the "in the moment" aspects of a talk are very, very good exercise for anyone thinking how to portray their work. The extreme case of a "chalk talk" is the best exercise of all, for mathematics, in my opinion, but it does tax performance and organizational, as well as conceptualizing, talents. But dodging the whole issue by the pseudo-resolution of "poster" only delays encounter with the genuine problem-to-be-solved, and doesn't add anything to a CV.

Talks can be a way for you to reach out to a more senior audience, as many professors or senior figures may be present at a talk. However, your opportunity to actually interact with these figures is severely limited in the scope of the talk itself. Sometimes if a listener is interested in your talk, they may come up to you afterwards; alternatively, you can introduce yourself to a listener more easily if they heard your talk beforehand.

Posters are a better platform for you to reach out to a more junior audience, which includes under/grad students and postdocs, through professors can be present as well. Networking comes more naturally here as the nature of presentation is going to be one-to-one or one-to-few, and generally will leave a deeper impact on the listener (an uninterested listener will probably not come up to you in the first place).

If possible, do both. That way you can have the best coverage in terms of audience.

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Conference presentations: A research primer for low- and middle-income countries

Jonathan c. knott.

a Emergency Research, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Grattan St, Parkville, Victoria, Australia

c Centre for Integrated Critical Care, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

David McD Taylor

b Emergency Research, Austin Hospital, Studley Rd, Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia

Erin L. Simon

d Cleveland Clinic Akron General, Department of Emergency Medicine, 1 Akron General Ave. Akron, Ohio 44307, United States of America

e Associate Professor Northeast Ohio Medical University, 4209 State Route 44, Rootstown, Ohio 44272, United States of America

Presenting research at a conference is an opportunity to disseminate the findings, network with other researchers, and to develop your academic track record. Although every conference will have some local differences, there are common approaches to presenting your research in the best manner. This will differ depending on whether it is an oral or a poster presentation.

This research primer aims to support researchers in the early stages of their careers to undertake the best possible presentation.

African relevance

• • Presentations, both oral and poster, follow general principles that apply everywhere.
• • Conference presentations provide an opportunity for authors to get known and to identify potential future collaborators.
• • Consideration should be given to the conference both in terms of the audience to be addressed, and the resources available.
• • Conference presentations provide an opportunity for authors to get known and to identify potential future collaborators, locally, nationally, and internationally.
• • Consideration needs to be given to the conference setting both in terms of the audience the presentation is addressing, and the resources available to support it.

The International Federation for Emergency Medicine global health research primer

This paper forms part 14 of a series of how to papers, commissioned by the International Federation for Emergency Medicine. It describes how research can be effectively disseminated at conferences to allow for relatively quick promulgation of your findings, rapid feedback and stimulation of further collaborative work. We have also included additional tips and pitfalls that are relevant to emergency medicine researchers.

Introduction

Conferences are the key place for dissemination of research findings. Attending the conference are a concentrated group of people with similar foci of interest in a discipline, topic or field of enquiry. Presentations allow immediate feedback and opportunities for networking. For all researchers, and especially those at the beginning of their careers, conferences are the best opportunity to get know and to meet those with whom you can collaborate.

Your study has finally been completed. The data has been collected, analysed and written up. The thoughts of the team, particularly your supervisor, are turning to publication.

A presentation at a conference provides a relatively quick promulgation of results compared to peer reviewed publication. In addition, it allows rapid feedback from others interested in the same field and can stimulate further collaborative work. Conference presentations should generally occur prior to the study being published. Once published in a journal, many conference organizers will not accept the abstract for presentation. Local meetings tend to have a more liberal approach to this convention. Conversely, some journals will not accept studies that have been presented at a conference and request an embargo prior to publication. This should be carefully considered.

Relatively early in your career you can expect invitations to open access conferences . Be aware that many of these are designed to make profit for the organizers and may have little in the way of academic merit. Ensure you know who the organizing committee represents, e.g. a national or international specialty group such as the International Conference for Emergency Medicine, or the African Conference on Emergency Medicine.

Having finished your study and preparing it for publication, the question arises: why present at all? All journals have a timeline for publication that includes peer review, preparation of the manuscript, proof reading and then finding a place in a future issue. Rarely will this process be less than several months. In comparison, a presentation can occur relatively quickly and thus allow your findings to be disseminated earlier.

In addition, although you will have author status in a publication, those attending a conference will have the opportunity to meet you in person and to discuss your findings. This is of particular value when considering further collaborative work, as those who work in the same area are most likely to be the ones attending the presentation.

Finally, having your paper accepted to a meeting is evidence that others find the work of value. This is particularly true for larger meetings, and those with peer review of submitted abstracts. To continue along your academic path, you will need to demonstrate that your work is of value and this is done through a track record of grants received, papers published and also through the presentations given.

The presentation can be given in either oral or poster format. There are valid reasons for both. Organizers will have limited places for oral presentations, and to some extent for posters. Oral presentations are more flexible with information able to be given visually and aurally. More advanced presentations allow the incorporation of sophisticated mediums. Importantly, presentations are a chance to be out in front of a live audience, to be seen and heard, and to partake in discourse over your findings. However, they are a single slot, and will compete for an audience with other conference activities. A poster will usually provide you with an opportunity to talk to those who are attending, either during time spent at the poster (most often during breaks in the conference program), or a dedicated slot to talk to your findings. The key advantage is that it usually remains in place for the duration of the conference which allows many attendees to view your work. However, the opportunity to present yourself and your work is limited to your availability to stand with the poster.

Presentations can be in local, national or international settings. Some organizers will allow presentations from a large international meeting to also be shown locally but previous presentations of the same work must be declared. Different meetings have differing audiences. The larger meetings are important opportunities to be known to a larger audience and for your track record. However, the findings may be more relevant to a local audience and more readily transferred into practice.

Occasionally, preliminary findings are of interest and can be presented. If the study is worthwhile then it should be the final results, carefully analysed and considered, that are presented. Rushing half-finished results to a conference does not present you or your work in a good light.

The abstract

You will be asked to submit an abstract to the conference for consideration to be included in the program. The abstract serves two purposes. It provides justification to the organizers to include you in their program, and it also entices attendees to visit your presentation as it will generally be published in the program.

Pay attention to the information provided by the organizers as they may have a preferred format and will almost certainly have a word limit; make sure you stick to it. As for any abstract, it can be challenging to get your whole study into 250 words, so identify what is important. The title should be catchy to draw people in. The aim of the study should be clear, and the conclusion should summarize the important findings and why someone should be interested in the study itself. There is generally insufficient space for a lengthy background and discussion. The remaining content is for the methods and results. The methods cannot be comprehensive. There should be sufficient detail that anyone reading the abstract can appreciate the type of study and how it was undertaken but the detail needs to be elsewhere, usually in the publication. The primary outcome must be presented and important secondary outcomes.

• • Stick to the word count
• • Have colleagues or supervisors review for language and grammar
• • Focus on the primary outcome
• • Ensure any conclusion is based on the results

Oral presentations

Be aware of the time allocated. Typically, it is 8–10 minutes for a presentation and then 3–5 minutes to answer questions. NEVER go overtime – this is discourteous to your co-presenters, and to those who are moving between streams. Well run meetings will not allow overruns and there is a possibility you will be cut off by the Chair before you can finish with your final flourish!

For most presentations allow about 1 min per slide, even longer for critical results. This means about 10–12 minutes slides maximum. Slides should be kept sparsely populated, with appropriate text and density of graphs. The slides are providing important information but so are you. Too much information on each slide forces the audience to focus their attention away from you, and it is frustrating if the slide moves on before it can be appreciated.

Avoid just reading out the slide text. There should be a synergy between the visual and oral presentation. The slides should be self-contained with the oral presentation adding value e.g. the methods may be a single slide that highlights the key issues (it is far less comprehensive than the methods section of a paper), but the presenter can note any complexity in the research methodology that would be unwieldy to write out on a slide.

Time is generally tight so use it well. If the Chair reads out your title, don't repeat it, move into the introduction for your presentation.

Generally, there is a one slide introduction, and one to two slide(s) background. Allow approximately two slides for methods unless there is particular complexity. Even then, the slide should outline how the study is done and the presenter can talk around the complexity.

There should be about three slides for results. The primary outcome must be the focus as well as the important secondary outcomes. Graphs and figures are particularly helpful in presenting complex results in a way that can be rapidly understood. There is no place to write out the results as text and then to present them figuratively. Allow one to two slides for a discussion and generally one slide for limitations and one for implications.

Thank the audience for their attention when finished. As well as acknowledging their interest, it is a time-honoured means to indicate your presentation is concluded and hand back to the Chair. The Chair will then invite questions if time allows and will moderate the ensuing discussion.

The most interesting questions tend to come from others who have done similar work or studies in the same field. It is worthwhile thanking the participant for their question and taking time to consider a response. This is an opportunity to engage in learned discourse with your colleagues. In the event that an audience member provides a comment, rather than a question, thank them and wait for a question.

• • Try to keep consistency in the slides. Use the same size, type and color of font for each slide, and use the largest size font that is appropriate. Some conferences provide a specific template.
• • Avoid gimmicks e.g. bullet ricochet noise when changing slides, flashy entrance of text from the SE corner. It distracts the audience and does little to impress them of your academic credentials.
• • It is best to use commonly employed software to avoid issues at a distant meeting. The organizers usually suggest a preference but contact them if you intend to use an uncommon type.
• • Audio-visual media can be considered if it adds to the presentation but be wary of large video files. During a conference, internet connection can be patchy, file formats don't work, sound can be missing or inaudible. It is advisable to have a backup slide rather than rely completely on video files. Anticipate failure.
• • Ideally presentations are relaxed and with only minimal cue cards. This is easier for experienced presenters than for most novices. For inexperienced presenters or those nervous about public speaking, it is best to have the entire presentation written out so that, in case of a “thought block”, the presenter can default back to reading their notes.
• • There is a rarely a dress code but business casual is recommended. This is an opportunity to present your hard work so don't dress down.

Poster presentations

Generally, the biggest challenge is to get an entire study down onto a single poster.

Conferences have many posters up and delegates take time out during breaks to visit and see what research is occurring. It is unlikely they will take the time to stop and read a densely packed poster.

Relatively novice researchers should always visit the posters at meetings to see where research is being carried out, identify individuals they may want to work with and particularly to see what works and what doesn't in a poster.

Time is usually allocated for the researcher to be beside their poster to answer questions from viewers. In some circumstances, a more formal two to three-minute presentation may be asked for. A formal presentation should be prepared just as an oral would, except that the very brief window necessarily limits the content to the aim, results and implications/conclusion. It would be akin to reading out the abstract, allowing for the fact that the poster is providing much of the necessary information. Add value with the presentation, rather than just reading out what is already in the poster.

• • Keep the background and methods to a few lines or points. The discussion is largely encapsulated in the conclusion. The majority of the poster is taken up with the results.
• • Use big font and use items that capture the eye e.g. interesting figures, important pictures.
• • Always check the conference notes for the maximum size of the poster as space is often at a premium and there will be a strict upper limit. If in doubt a slightly smaller poster is preferred, but this will necessarily mean a loss of space for presentation.

Tips on this topic

• • Slides should be self-contained with the oral presentation adding value to them. Don't just read out the slide.
• • Practice out loud to a mirror to get the pace right and check that words in your head are coming out properly. Nerves generally result in the presentation speeding up.
• • A real-world practice run in front of supervisors and peers is invaluable. Departmental meetings provide an opportunity to get timing correct and address questions, especially unexpected ones.
• • There are almost always questions, at least one from the Chair and one or two from referees if the paper is being adjudicated. These are mostly queries about how the study was done, points of clarification etc. Many can be predicted from rehearsal and a slide prepared to answer a predicted question looks particularly professional
• • Posters are particularly amendable to graphs and figures. A great deal of data can be presented succinctly in a key graph. But keep them as simple as possible.
• • Traditionally posters were presented in their entirety. Occasionally, researchers will print them in smaller sizes for ease of transport and then patch them together. However, this is not recommended. It is now possible to print high quality posters onto cloth that can be easily ironed flat in your hotel room. Unless otherwise specified in the conference notes, all are acceptable but give some thought to how they will look when hung. Check conference requirements on orientation and maximum size

Pitfalls to avoid

• • Going over time is discourteous and may result in your presentation being cut-off
• • Be prepared. Assume that audio-visual material might not work or that you will have a mental block in the middle of your oral presentation
• • Understand your statistical analyses and expect questions about them
• • Avoid too much text. Density is your enemy
• • Font must be easily read at 1 m.
• • Acknowledge appropriately, especially if someone is likely to be an attendee.

Authors' contribution

Authors contributed the following to the conception or design of the work; the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; and drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content: JK: 50%, DT 25%, ES 25%. All authors approved the version to be published and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declared no conflicts of interest.

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