Preparing to Present at the Conference

• Preparing your poster
• Oral presentations

Guidelines for Preparing Your Poster

SIZE: Posters should be no bigger than A0 size - 1189mm x 841mm (46 x 33 inches), presented in the portrait (vertical) format and professionally printed onto a single sheet - we suggest that you take advice about the paper quality and finish of your poster from the printer you are getting to print your poster for you.

TRAVEL: Unfortunately the Conference venue cannot accept posters sent by mail and you must bring your poster with you. Please ensure that it is well packed in a sturdy tube for travel.

APPEARANCE: Make your poster visually appealing and easily read. Take the opportunity to make use of diagrams, illustrations, photos or figures in your poster as well as text to describe your work. Don’t use small text - your poster should be easily read from a distance of 1.5 metres (5 feet).

CONTENT: An effective poster should help you engage colleagues in conversation and get your main points over to as many people as possible. Use the poster to present your work clearly and don’t get bogged down in detail. Focus on

• Setting of your work - Explain your agency setting/presenting problem/client group/research hypothesis– whichever is relevant
• Approaches/Methods Used – How did you go about your project/study; who was involved/illustrate whenever possible
• Outcomes & Findings – What did you discover? What worked? What research results did you discover? If your research is at an early stage, give interim results and future plans
• Recommendations - What have you learned that can be of use to others?

Important! Remember that your abstract will be printed in the conference proceedings, so you don’t need to reproduce your abstract on your poster.

PRESENTING YOUR POSTER: Make sure that you are available for the Poster Sessions to speak about your work to delegates and to answer any questions that the judges may have. The Conference will provide wall fixing/ adhesive material for your poster.

AFTER THE EVENT: All posters should be displayed until Friday 2nd July 2010. The Conference cannot store posters after the conference, and any posters that are left by presenters will be disposed of by the venue.

Guidelines for Oral Presentations

All oral presenters are asked to forward a copy of their final 15 minute Powerpoint presentation to Please send this at the latest by Friday June 19th. Please also bring to the conference a back-up copy of your Powerpoint presentation on USB Key or Memory stick.

Timing: You have 15 minutes for your paper and 5 minutes for questions. You will be given a verbal warning from your Session Chair when you have 2 minutes to go. So that all presenters get the same amount of time to deliver their papers, your Session Chair will stop your paper if you go over time.

Your 15 minutes go by very quickly, so before the Conference we strongly advise that you rehearse your paper aloud and time it. You don’t want to run out of time before you have covered your topic. A well-researched paper will make you feel more confident and is more likely to engage your audience.

Structure:

• Briefly outline your talk and what will be covered.
• Define your problem. What led to your work? What were your objectives?
• Use your presentation to visualize the essential points of your talk. Be selective.
• Keep concepts as simple as possible and limit each slide to one main idea.
• Make a clear conclusion. Suggest potential applications.
• Be realistic in what you intend to say, you have a short time to deliver the key points of your work/research.

PowerPoint Presentations
Each Session Room will have Powerpoint facilities and it will not be possible for you to use your own computer. You will be required to bring your presentation with you on a USB/Pen stick or CD and to have submitted to the Conference Presentation Staff in good time before your presentation. There will be a Speakers’ Room available for you at the Conference to try out your presentation. It’s important to note that you don’t have to use PowerPoint and some of the best papers have no additional visual aids.

A good PowerPoint Presentation can enhance your paper, but there are a lot of pitfalls in using PowerPoint. The following are some suggestions for you:

• For a 15 minute presentation a maximum of 10 slides is advised. Any more than that will make your paper seem rushed.
• Keep concepts as simple as possible and limit each page to one main idea.
• A PowerPoint presentation should help illustrate your paper for your audience, it shouldn’t be merely a list of points that you read out to remind yourself what to say.
• Using diagrams, visuals and photos to illustrate your paper’s key issues is much more interesting for your audience than a series of bullet points.
• For text, we advise that you use Ariel Bold with a minimum of 24 font.
• For pages with text only, use no more than 30 words per slide and no more than 6 lines, double spaced per slide.

There are some good websites that will give you good tips to prepare your presentation. We particularly like the guidelines from the International Association of Science and Technology for Development (IASTED) www.iasted.org

Suggestions for a good presentation:

• Briefly outline your talk and what will be covered.
• Define your problem. What led to your work? What were your objectives?
• Use your presentation to visualize the essential points of your talk. Be selective.
• Keep concepts as simple as possible and limit each page to one main idea.
• Use several simple figures, rather than a single complex figure.
• Make a clear conclusion. Suggest potential applications.
• Rehearse your talk aloud with a private audience. Practice with your final electronic presentation.

Presentation Preparation Instructions

• Page set-up: Images must be sized for 8-1/2" x 11" paper. (Click on "File", "Page Set-Up", click on arrow for "Slides Sized For" and pick "Letter Paper: 8-1/2X11"). Leave 1/2" or 1cm margin on all four sides.
• All pages should be in a landscape (horizontal) format, not portrait (vertical).
• No logos are permitted except on the title page.
• High contrast is important.
• Use Arial Bold font. Do not use fonts smaller than 24 point.
• For pages with text only, use no more than 30 words and no more than 6 lines, double spaced per slide.
• For illustrations, make all lines, numbers, and captions of sufficient thickness and size so that they are projected clearly. Again, use Arial Bold font and do not use fonts smaller than 24 point.
• Often graphical data that are imported from another application have inadequate line width and font size to be useful. If necessary, re-draw the material using native PowerPoint graphics.
• Use duplicate copies of a page if you need to refer to it at different times in your presentation.
• Save your presentation using a file name with the pattern "author_n.ppt" (or .pdf) where author is your last name and n is the version number of your file. Sample file name: smith_1.ppt.<.
• Embed true type fonts in Power Point files: To embed fonts, click on "File", "Save As", "Tools", "Embed True Type Fonts" or, click on "File", "Save As" and check "Embed True Type"