Tips on oral and poster presentations

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Tips on oral and poster presentations

• Adam J. Singer, MD
• Professor and Vice Chairman for Research
• Department of Emergency Medicine
• Stony Brook University
• Stony Brook, NY

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Outline

• Components of presentation
• Effective Presentation Tips
• How to prepare a poster presentation
• How to prepare an oral presentation

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Type of presentations

• National
• Regional
• Local
• Specialty specific
• Oral
• Poster

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Summary of presentation

• What did you do
• Why did you do it PURPOSE
• How did you do it TECHNIQUE
• What you discovered RESULTS
• What does it mean IMPLICATIONS

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Introduction

• Background
• Define problem to be studied
• Gaps in current knowledge base
• Place study in the context of previous studies
• Research goal or objectives
• Study or null hypothesis

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Methods

• Often most difficult to write
• Must be well written
• Study design, techniques used, number and type of
  subjects, analytic procedures
• Do not include details of methods
• Except if new
• Sample size calculation
• Especially for negative studies

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Results

• Main results only
• Include some numerical results
• Include standard deviations
• Data should be sufficient for reader to formulate
  own conclusions

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Discussion

• Are your result consistent with your initial
  hypothesis? Why or why not?
• How does your study relate to prior studies
• Supports or contradicts and why?

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Conclusions

• Should confirm, refute, or modify hypothesis
• Should not be overstated
• Should logically follow hypothesis and main
  results shown in abstract

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Poster Presentations
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Goal of Poster Presentation

• Stimulate interest and discussion
• Receive feedback on research
• Generate contacts

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Questions a Poster Answers

• Whats the research question?
• Why is this question important?
• What strategy is used?
• What are the results?
• Why are these results unique/important?
• How does this relate to other research?
• What comes next?

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Planning the Poster

• Always read instructions first
• Determine poster size
• Varies from 3 X 3 to 8 X 4 feet
• Choose poster orientation
• portrait
• landscape

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Planning the Poster

• Allow yourself lots of time
• at least a week!
• Do not wait until the last minute
• things will inevitably take longer than planned
• Remember to allow time (and money) for
  printing/laminating

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Planning the Poster

• Make it easy to read
• Make it easy to understand
• People only have a few minutes per poster
• Poster should stand alone
• verbal explanations should supply details, not
  essentials
• Posters have more figures, less text than
  manuscripts

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Poster Layout

• Typically, use 3 to 5 columns
• Arrange material vertically from top left corner
  to bottom right corner
• This makes it easier for people to read, without
  having to move back and forth

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Poster Layout

• Determine logical sequence for material
• Organize material into sections
• Number sections to make flow obvious
• Arrange material into columns

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Poster Layout

• Sketch your layout before you start

Title
Intro
Conclusion
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Poster Content

• Title
• Authors and affiliations
• Introduction
• Methods
• Data and Results
• Limitations
• Conclusions and future work
• Reference and acknowledgements

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Avoiding common mistakes

• Do not make presentation too long
• Avoid titles with colons
• Format title in sentence case
• Do not bullet section headers
• Use larger, bold font

• Avoid blocks of text longer than 5-10 sentences
• Use bulleted lists rather than blocks of text
• Use italics not underlines
• Avoid dark backgrounds

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Common mistakes and suggestions

• Never display 2D in 3D
• Never give graphs colored backgrounds or grids
• Do not incorporate web images
• Add thin border to photos

• Align Y-labels horizontally
• Labels should be in sentence case
• Check your spelling

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Poster Text

• Keep it short and simple
• Remove all non-essential information
• Attract visual attention use graphics
• Try for
• 20 text
• 40 graphics
• 40 empty space

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Poster Text

• Left align text
• Double space
• Pick one font and stick to it
• Avoid italics
• Use larger/colored font for emphasis
• Use bulleted points rather than paragraphs

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Poster Text

• Remember
• There is always too much text!
• Do NOT include an abstract on a poster!

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Suggested Font Sizes

• Title 96 pt
• Authors 72 pt
• Affiliations 36-48 pt
• Section headings 36 pt
• Text 24 pt
• Acknowledgements 18 pt

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Poster Title

• Make it interesting!
• You want to lure people from a distance
• Should be easy to read from 15 feet
• If title is too long, shorten it
• Dont reduce the font size

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Authors

• Include first names
• omit middle initials and titles
• Include academic affiliation
• omit city and province

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Color

• One background color to unify poster
• Stick to muted colors
• Avoid red/green combinations
• red/green color blindness is common
• Dont overuse color
• Black print on white background easiest to read
• Matt-coated paper is safest

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Graphics

• Make large enough for viewing from at least 3
  feet away
• Text should support graphics, not vice versa
• Use heavier lines in tables and graphs for easier
  viewing
• Avoid distracting backgrounds

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Poster Editing

• Proofread
• Spell check
• Get feedback before printing
• Get feedback in time to make changes

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Words of Advice

• Like anything else, creating a poster can take as
  much time as you let it. Start early and allow
  time for mistakes, but decide how much time you
  can afford to spend on this, and stick to your
  decision.

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Poster Presentation

• You need to be able to give an overview of your
  work in 3-5 minutes
• Practice your presentation ahead of time, and
  time it!
• Get feedback from colleagues

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Poster Presentation

• Make eye contact
• Avoid jargon and acronyms
• Speak clearly and slowly
• Dont overload on detail
• Dress professionally
• Choose clothes to match poster

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Poster Presentation

• Have a good opening that explains the main focus
  of your poster
• Be able to summarize your conclusions and their
  importance
• Dont assume that people are experts in your field

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Poster Presentation

• Dont stand directly in front of poster
• But dont disappear either!
• Give people a chance to look
• But dont ignore people who are interested

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Poster Presentation

• Anticipate questions
• rehearse answers
• Most common question
• How does this work differ from the other
  research in this area?

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Answering Questions

• Listen carefully
• Wait for them to finish the question!
• Repeat the question (rephrase)
• Answer the question
• Ask if youve answered the question

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Poster Presentation

• Consider having handouts
• miniatures of poster
• additional details not included in poster
• Remember to hand out business cards
• Hand carry your poster
• Do not ship or check in with bags!
• If you have a table, put some candy on it to
  attract visitors!

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Resources

• Creating a poster using LaTeX
• http//www.astro.gla.ac.uk/users/norman/docs/poste
  rs/
• Creating a poster using PowerPoint
• http//www.cmer.wsu.edu/yonge/ce465/poster.pdf

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Oral presentations
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General rules for oral presentations

• Talk to the audience
• Know your audiences backgrounds
• Less is more
• You do not need to prove yourself
• Only talk when you have something to say
• Make the take-home message stick
• Be logical and tell a story
• Set the stage, tell the story, big finale

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General rules cont.

• Treat the floor as a stage
• Practice and time your presentation
• Use visuals sparingly and effectively
• No more than 1 per minute
• Review audio/video of your presentation
• Provide appropriate acknowledgments

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Communication skills

• Dress professionally
• First appearances are very important
• How you say it is as important as what you say
• Body language is very important
• Do not play with your hair/clothes
• Avoid reading from text
• Cue cards can be helpful, number them
• Stick to plan, dont digress

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Things to avoid

• Dont repeat title if already presented
• Dont block screen
• Dont talk to display screen
• Avoid moving too much
• Avoid detailed diagrams
• Try to enjoy yourself

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Response to questions

• Dont be afraid of questions
• Dont be afraid to say I dont know
• Acknowledge question and person
• Avoid confrontation
• Dont make excuses

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Response to questions

• Lay the groundwork for relevant questions (for
  example, by stating in your talk some items that
  people can ask about)
• Perhaps have the moderator or a colleague to ask
  the first question
• Briefly repeat each question
• Keep answers brief

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Responses to questions

• If you dont know an answer, say so Perhaps
• offer to find out,
• suggest how to find out, or
• see if someone present has the answer
• If a question seems irrelevant, offer to answer
  it later, or move to a related item

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Response to questions

• If a question is hostile, answer politely and
  briefly perhaps offer to talk later.
• Make note of questions.
• Use them to help shape future presentations and
  publications about the work.

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Oral presentations

• Usually 10 minutes and 5 for QA
• 1-2 slides per minute
• 5 bullets/line per slide
• 5 words per line
• Yellow/white letter on dark (blue) background

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Oral presentations

• Speak clearly, dont whisper/mumble
• Dont rush
• Do not read slides verbatim
• Slides serve as cue for development
• Pause at key points
• Generally avoid jokes
• Look at audience
• Use hand gestures to emphasize points
• Use laser pointer only if necessary

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References

• http//www.kumc.edu/SAH/OTEd/jradel/Poster_Present
  ations/110.html
• http//www.mitacs.ca/AC2005/index.php?sectiontips
  
• http//www.siam.org/siamnews/general/poster.htm
• http//www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds3-2/posters.html
  
• Bourne PE. PLOS Computational Biology.
  20073593
• Larive et al. Anal Bioanal Chem 20063851347