Platform Presentation Guidelines
Overall suggestions to consider when giving your platform presentation:
1. Adhere in general to the traditional order of presentation of a study:
a) Introduction and statement of the problem
b) Methods and procedures
c) Results
d) Conclusions
2. Assume that your audience is intelligent but one that is not necessarily involved in the particular area of investigation you are discussing. Therefore, include:
a) A brief introductory statement of orientation
b) A clear statement of the problem
c) An unhurried presentation of the body of the paper
d) A concise summary
3. Select a few main points and emphasize them! Avoid unnecessary details and the presentation of too many ideas and conclusions. The need to restrict the scope of your presentation is particularly important if you intend to describe detailed mathematical concepts presented as it will take time for your audience to understand your nomenclature and the approach you develop. Your audience can lose your most important findings in the large volume of information presented to them during each complete session.
4. Each slides should be crisp, clear and limited to one main idea. There should be no more than six lines of clear, bold type on each slide. Use your slides to present information and not merely repeat something you have already presented orally.
Organizing your talk:
1. Length: Your talk should be a maximum of 12 minutes long, leaving at least 3 minutes for responding to questions and entering and exiting the podium.
2. Fonts: If your talk includes a PowerPoint presentation, use standard fonts (e.g., Times Roman, Helvetica, Arial, New Times Roman). Basic fonts are included on the session room computers; unusual fonts may not translate. You may also use a PDF format.
3. Testing at home: Test your presentation on a separate PC compatible computer to insure fonts are standard and components such as movies are included rather than merely linked in your presentation. Generally movies are discouraged. You should practice your talk several times, and it is useful to practice at least once with your colleagues. Practicing your talk will allow you to present the information concisely within the required timelimes.
4. What to bring: Bring your presentation on a Windows readable USB flash Drive or CD-ROM. Include, in the same folder as your presentation, any external files utilized, e.g. movie files. Copy the entire folder to the USB flash Drive or CD ROM.
5. Laptops: You do not need to bring your own laptop to the meeting room. However, there will be connections available for presenters to use their own laptops. Speakers using their own laptops MUST HAVE a VGA HD15pin female output. Some laptops have special video output cables to get to the HD15pin required for connecting to external monitors and data projectors. If this cable is not with the laptop being used, there is no way to connect to a Data Projector. The laptop output resolution should be no more then XGA (1024x768). The native resolution on the data projectors is 1024x768, so higher resolutions will force the data projector into a compression mode, possibly losing some information or not projecting.
6. Back-up: We recommend that you bring a backup presentation format (i.e. on a flash drive) to cover the possibility of luggage loss, theft, and/or incompatibility.
7. Session details: Check in with the media personnel ½-hour before your session starts (or the day preceding if possible) to assure that the presentation can be faithfully presented using the media that you provide. All session rooms will be equipped with a data projector and computer, as well as a lavaliere microphone, table microphone, and aisle microphone. Session rooms do not have Internet access.