Oral Abstract Presentations
Congratulations on the acceptance of your abstract for an Oral Presentation during this year’s Scientific Sessions. Your participation is key to the success of this meeting and we hope that the audience can learn as much as possible from your scientific work and, at the same time, provide suggestions for future improvements. During oral presentations the audience is usually very attentive and focused on the presenter. Each oral presentation will be allotted seven (7) minutes for your talk plus three (3) minutes for discussion. This limit will be enforced by the moderators accordingly. Sometimes years of research have to be summarized in these seven minutes and we acknowledge it is not easy so organization and preparation are key.
If you should not be used to giving Oral Presentations at scientific conferences, you might find the following points useful to remember:
1. For effective coverage of the contents of your abstract, we suggest that you focus on the methods and results of your work, leaving background and discussion with limited slides and no more than 1 minute for each. A conflict of interest slide should follow the title/authors first slide and acknowledgments left as the last slide. Remember that the interest relies on how you did your work and what you achieved as result of that – spend time on new evidence. Usually the audience will already have enough information on motivation and the background at which your work is advancing current knowledge.
2. A usual sequence of slides may include title, conflict-of-interest, introduction, methods, results, conclusions, future work and acknowledgements.
3. A good rule-of-thumb is to keep the number of slides limited to close to 7 (approximately 1 slide per minute of presentation).
4. As the time is relatively short, practice your presentation in advance in order to keep your time within the allotted period and avoid premature termination of your talk or not enough time for discussion. If you find it helps, rehearse your presentation to a smaller group in your institution to improve your performance and receive insights into potential questions (so you can prepare backup slides for instance).
5. Perform your talk with flow but avoid giving the entire talk memorized as it may sound monotonous and dull. Speak clearly and concisely and be coherent without rambling. Do not read directly from the slides at all times. Be enthusiastic!
6. Deliver a clear and substantive underlying take-home message from your work.
7. Look at the title of your Session and the other presentations that precede and follow yours so you understand the context in which you are presenting. Arrive early and check your room previous to your presentation so you know your surroundings in advance.
8. Answer questions in a specific and accurate way avoiding being vague or condescending. Respect and politeness for audience questions are also requested at all times.
9. Common mistakes in preparing the slides involve too much information in the same page (various fonts, too many colors, whole sentences and tiny letters on tables). Always simplify your slides keeping the useful tip of 5 to 7 lines per slide maximum (usually one or two lines will do). A sans serif font (Helvetica, Arial or Verdana) is usually better than a serif font (like Times). Font sizes > 20 are usually necessary for clarity.
10. Graphs are usually preferred over tables or words for statistical data in presentations.
11. Find more information for good oral presentations at Bourne PE. PLoS Comput Biol 2007;3:e77, visit here.
If you should not be used to giving Oral Presentations at scientific conferences, you might find the following points useful to remember:
1. For effective coverage of the contents of your abstract, we suggest that you focus on the methods and results of your work, leaving background and discussion with limited slides and no more than 1 minute for each. A conflict of interest slide should follow the title/authors first slide and acknowledgments left as the last slide. Remember that the interest relies on how you did your work and what you achieved as result of that – spend time on new evidence. Usually the audience will already have enough information on motivation and the background at which your work is advancing current knowledge.
2. A usual sequence of slides may include title, conflict-of-interest, introduction, methods, results, conclusions, future work and acknowledgements.
3. A good rule-of-thumb is to keep the number of slides limited to close to 7 (approximately 1 slide per minute of presentation).
4. As the time is relatively short, practice your presentation in advance in order to keep your time within the allotted period and avoid premature termination of your talk or not enough time for discussion. If you find it helps, rehearse your presentation to a smaller group in your institution to improve your performance and receive insights into potential questions (so you can prepare backup slides for instance).
5. Perform your talk with flow but avoid giving the entire talk memorized as it may sound monotonous and dull. Speak clearly and concisely and be coherent without rambling. Do not read directly from the slides at all times. Be enthusiastic!
6. Deliver a clear and substantive underlying take-home message from your work.
7. Look at the title of your Session and the other presentations that precede and follow yours so you understand the context in which you are presenting. Arrive early and check your room previous to your presentation so you know your surroundings in advance.
8. Answer questions in a specific and accurate way avoiding being vague or condescending. Respect and politeness for audience questions are also requested at all times.
9. Common mistakes in preparing the slides involve too much information in the same page (various fonts, too many colors, whole sentences and tiny letters on tables). Always simplify your slides keeping the useful tip of 5 to 7 lines per slide maximum (usually one or two lines will do). A sans serif font (Helvetica, Arial or Verdana) is usually better than a serif font (like Times). Font sizes > 20 are usually necessary for clarity.
10. Graphs are usually preferred over tables or words for statistical data in presentations.
11. Find more information for good oral presentations at Bourne PE. PLoS Comput Biol 2007;3:e77, visit here.