Advice to Oral Presenters at the Africa YWP Conference, 16 – 18 November 2015
This is the fourth YWP-ZA Conference that we’re organising, so based on past experience we thought
we’d put together some tips/ important information for our exciting group of oral presenters.
1. Attendance at conference – All oral presenters have to attend the conference as a fee
paying delegates. Please register and pay by 14 September 2015. All delegates are expected
to cover their own registration fee, travel and accommodation costs – unfortunately the
conference is not able to provide funding in this regard.
2. Preparation of manuscripts – All oral presenters have to write a full paper and share it with
the conference organisers. The deadline for these papers has been extended to 15
September 2015. If you wish to publish this work in one of the IWA Journals the YWP-ZA
committee will facilitate this for you (please adhere to author guidelines attached). If you
prefer to publish elsewhere or have already done so, that is absolutely fine, but we still
require a draft manuscript to see that you are making progress with writing.
3. Acknowledgement of YWP in manuscript – we track where the different papers presented
at the YWP conferences get published over the years. We would like to kindly request that
you mention the Young Water Professionals in your acknowledgements of your paper for us
to be able to do this tracking. Suggested text: The authors would like to acknowledge the
African YWP Conference from 16-18 Nov 2015 arranged by the South African Young Water
Professionals during which this manuscript was presented.
4. Oral Presentation length – Your Oral Presentation will be 15 minutes in length, with 5
minutes available for interactions with the audience. Chairs will be very strict with time and
stop you at the 15 minute mark. Remember that most people speak about 1 minute per
slide so try not to have more than 15 slides to your presentation.
5. Oral Presentation PowerPoint slides – All PowerPoint presentations must be sent to Jaco
Seaman (events@wisa.org.za) by Friday 6 November 2015. If you would like to have some
feedback on the slides please send them to Jaco Seaman by Friday 30 October 2015 with a
request for review/feedback. PowerPoint slides are not compulsory but can be a helpful way
to enhance your presentation. We have put together a PowerPoint template to work from
for the conference. This is meant to be a guide and in no way restrictive. Be as creative as
you need to be. Some basic tips:
a. Limit the amount of text per slide (e.g. bullet points instead of full sentences; images
instead of words)
b. Make sure that all graphs and text are big enough to read (e.g. no font smaller than
24 point).
c. Check your slides on a PowerPoint projector before you present them. Often fonts
that appear clear on your computer screen are not clear when projected onto a big
screen.
d. Don’t try and present too many slides.
6. General Speaking Tips:
a. Remember that you will be speaking to an audience that are not specialists in your
area. It’s really important to communicate in a way that helps as many people as
possible to understand the relevance/value/ application of what you are doing. We
recommend that you start with a slide explaining this point in order to position your
research for the audience.
b. Don’t try and fit too much in – this will make you rush. Time things carefully before
presenting. Use this opportunity to perfect your presentation skills instead of
putting across all the information you know.
c. Have fun and enjoy presenting your insight on a topic you’ve worked hard at!
d. Stick to tried and tested presentation formula:
i. Introduction/Overview/Hook
ii. Theoretical Framework/Research Question
iii. Methodology/Case Selection (while this is a huge part of your research, your
presentation should not get stuck on this point.)
iv. Background/Literature Review
v. Discussion of Data/Results (This is YOUR research. Start by minute 6 to focus
on it.)
vi. Analysis
vii. Conclusion
7. Meeting your chair and managing your PowerPoint at the conference: On the day of the
conference it is essential that you attend your chair briefing session in the venue that you
will be presenting. This will happen at the start of every day and will be listed in the
programme. This is the place for the chair to meet you, for the chair to relax in the
knowledge that you are actually at the conference that day and to double check that the
correct version on your presentation is available in the venue.
8. Best Platform Presenter award – there will be a panel of judges marking you on your
presentation. The best presentation will be awarded an international trip to the next YWP
international conference in 2016.