How%20to%20prepare%20and%20deliver%20a%20conference%20paper

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How to prepare and delivera conference paper

• About presenting
• Planning
• Structuring
• Visual aids
• Using notes/script/cards
• Rehearsing

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About presenting
Standing or sitting? Talking to strangers or
people you know? Using notes, or talkingoff the
cuff? Presenting individually, or as a part of a
team? Using visual aids, or speaking without
them? Taking questions, or speaking with
interruptions?
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Presentation is not acting but
  BEING SOMEONE ELSE acting
presenting/lecturing teaching/training
everyday conversation BEING YOURSELF
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About presenting
The recitor cannot be an actor, for
that is a different art but he must be a
messenger, and he should be as interesting, as
exciting, as are all that carry great
news W.B. Yeats, Literature and the Living
Voice (1906)
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Planninga presentation

• - what are you going to say
• - the order you will say it in
• how you will prompt yourself with
  reminders
• whether you plan to use visual aids
• what you want to do about questions
• whether you will give people handouts
• what you should wear
•  

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Planninga presentation
- Dont assume anything about the audience -
Make sure you differentiate between what you
want to achieve and what you want to say -
Define your main messages - Refer to relevant
quotations - Find out about the venue - Does
the audience have strong opinions about the
subject? - Who else is speaking on a similar
subject?
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Structuring a three-part art
   The beginning opening comments but not a
joke.   The middle factfactfact therefore
Conclusion  (the audience makes
discoveries) Conclusion because factfactfact
therefore   (the audience follows how points fit
together) The ending Prompt the audience, dont
run off at a tangent, just outline the main
points and stress message.
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Structuring keeping the middle lively
Tell them what you need to tell them Tell them
what you are not going to tell them Tell them
what you just told them This enables you to list
a lot of points before going into detail about
your chosen area Ask rhetorical questions, pause
a moment and begin your reply. Always announce
the next subject. Use metaphors to bring a
subject to life.
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Choosing and preparing visual aids

• Do we really need them? Negative aspects
• they can completely overpower speakers
• who are not lively and confident
• they can cause performance problems
• the more complex and technical the
• more there is to go wrong

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Choosing and preparing visual aids

• Other negative aspects
• - great speeches are memorable because
• they are spoken with passion
• it is hard to speak with conviction and
• emotion when you are led by visual aids
• -They set the pace of the presentation and
• they allow little flexibility

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Choosing and preparing visual aids
Positive aspects

• - Listeners look as well as listen
• - Show images and processes
• - Help people to understand and recall
• texts and figures
• - Save time on explanation
• - make abstract ideas more concrete
• involve more senses, create memorable
• images and help concentration

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Using notes, a full script or talk off the
cuff

• -Born entertainers can be high on enter-
• tainment and fluidity and low on content
• Note-free presentations require an enormous
• amount of time perfecting the act
• No matter how well you know your
• material, it is easy to forget what comes
• next

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Using notes, a full script or talk off the
cuff

• - Prepare to use notes well
• and talk from notes
• Having notes gives you something
• to do with your hands
• Audiences wonder whether speakers
• have actually bothered preparing for
• their presentation?

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Using a pre-written script
Readers cannot be flexible, they have to read on
no matter how inappropriate the text. The
speakers cannot see the audience All the
audience can see is the top of the speakers
head Written language is different from spoken
language It is very hard to write a script which
sounds good when it is read aloud.
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When the talk should be scripted

• A public statement or a key-note speech
• rather than a conference presentation
• A presentation supported by images projected with
  the help of an assistant
• Rewrite any sentences that sound long and/or
  unnatural
• - Mark up your reading copy with performance
  pointers, such as SLOWLY

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Rehearsing
The more complex the presentation, the less
experienced the speaker, the more time. Find
out what changes you need to make, get used to
your notes and visual aids Put special effort
into the beginning and the end, time yourself,
record your speech, listen to your voice
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Delivering a paper
How you look professional and in control or
tense How you sound lively and enthusiastic, or
bored What you say the actual content of what
we say
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Delivering a paper
How you look Let your posture help you
present Stand rather than sit Use hands and
gestures for emphasis Use your face to show
feelings, and make eye contact
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Delivering a paper
How you sound Articulate the words and be
audible Avoid dropping your voice and be
confident Sound interesting and concentrate on
your audience
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Your model and your guide

• Italo Calvino
• Lezioni Americane (Leggerezza)
• Horton Lectures, Harvard,1984.
• Six Memos for the Next Millennium
• Jo Billingham
• Giving Presentations, OUP,2003.