Doctoral training programme Preparing Conference Presentations Trevor Collins, Mark Gaved & Ann Jones Tuesday, 6th May 2014 Session overview • Conference introductions • Breaking the fear barrier • Content planning – Content tips and tricks – Slide guidelines – PowerPoint tips • Summary and close 2 Conference introductions • Task: Think of how you would introduce yourself to a someone at a conference • What are the important things to say? – Who is the audience? – What is your purpose? • Work out one or two sentences to introduce yourself professionally… 3 Breaking the fear barrier • Task: In small groups, discuss the two questions below and make a note of your answers. Elect a member to report back – What makes you nervous about giving a presentation? – How do you deal with your nerves? • Report back – using flip charts • Review and summary of exercise & handouts 4 Content planning • Content tips and tricks • Slide design guidelines • PowerPoint tips 5 Content tips and tricks • Audience and purpose – Who is the audience? – What do the audience want? – What do you want to achieve by giving this talk? • Story, plot and narrative – What is the take home message (see title & abstract) – What is the plot structure (e.g. introduction, conflict, resolution and conclusion) 6 Content tips and tricks • Hint: Externalising your ideas helps you and others discuss them • Methods: lists, concept maps, hierarchical trees, … • Recommendation: Critique the story before you write the narrative 7 Slide guidelines • Society for Information Science and Technology – “IS&T’s Guide to Effective Illustration: Images for Presentation and Publication” – http://www.imaging.org/ist/ conferences/guide_present /index.cfm 8 Slide guidelines • Checklist for slide masters and transparencies – Horizontal layout – Easy to read, bold font – 36 point type for titles, 30 point and 24 point for text – Maximum of 9 lines of type or equations – Maximum of 10 words per line – Colours selected for high contrast 9 Slide guidelines • Checklist for slide masters and transparencies – Curves bold, encoded by line pattern or simple labels – No grid lines underlying curves – Clear labels on graph axes – Text and labels on A4 size sheet readable at 8 feet – 35 mm slides readable at arm’s length – Dots to identify bottom-left corner of right-side-up 35 mm slides 10 PowerPoint tips • Screen layout – Top: Menu and shortcuts – Left: Outline and slides – Middle: Focus content – Right: Actions – Bottom: Shortcuts and drawing 11 PowerPoint tips • Views – View tab • Presentation Views –Normal –Slide Sorter –Notes Page –Slide Show 12 PowerPoint tips • PowerPoint slide show controls – Mouse click to go forward – Arrow keys for forward and backward navigation – ‘B’ for black screen and ‘W’ for white screen – ‘F5’ to start the slide show (‘shift+F5’ to resume) – Type number N and press ‘return’ will jump to slide N – ‘Esc’ to escape from the slide show • Computer controls – Alt&Tab (or Apple&Tab) to switch applications 13 PowerPoint tips • Use format and style consistently – View tab • Presentation Views –Slide Master –Handout Master –Notes Master 14 PowerPoint tips • OU templates – New Presentation • My templates… –OU PP Templates 15 PowerPoint tips • Slide design – Design tab • Themes 16 PowerPoint tips • Slide layout – Home tab • Slides –Layout 17 Summary • Conference introductions • Breaking the fear barrier • Content planning – Content tips & tricks – Slide guidelines – PowerPoint tips 18 Next time • Student conference presentations (20th & 21st May 2014) – 30 minutes each (20 mins talk and 10 mins questions) – Scope • Introduce your topic, the key literature, your research question, applicable methods, challenges, progress to date and ongoing plans • Contact details – Trevor, Mark and Ann (trevor.collins@open.ac.uk; mark.gaved@open.ac.uk; ann.jones@open.ac.uk) 19