Conference Presentations

What stands out about a conference presentation?

A conference presentation supplements the discussion of your research with concise points, graphical data, and/or illustrative examples. It is a visual aid for the presentation of research to an audience, and because of that, it must be tailored towards the audience attending the conference. This audience will not always know about your field or subtopic.

How long should a conference presentation be?

A conference presentation should last from 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the conference. Check conference guidelines for an idea of what length conference organizers expect the presentation to be. Remember that you should allow time for questions. One should spend around 1-2 minutes per slide. For a 20 minute presentation, the Q & A session should last around 5 minutes.

What should be included in the conference slides?

• First Slide – Title, author(s), affiliations, e-mail address(es). Follow university or research group’s guidelines on how to represent them on the first slide. This may be an institutionally approved logo, color scheme, or template. 
• Purpose – Give the motivation or purpose behind the research. Explain to the audience your data and objectives, or your problem and limitations for theoretical research. 
• Outline – This is an optional step. An outline helps to go over what the presentation will cover beforehand. Outlines can serve to help the audience follow your presentation. Keep this to a single slide. 
• Background Information – Any literature review or knowledge needed for the topic. Presume the audience knows nothing about your topic and you have to orient them. It is helpful to define key terms for your research that will be repeated over the course of the presentation.
• Methods – This will be where you dive into your own research. 
• Results/Analysis – Share the research results with the audience. Remember to keep your audience in mind and shape the presentation to fit their level of familiarity with the field. Do not assume that measurements or other units will be familiar to them. 
• Discussion/Summary – Use this section to discuss your discussion/summary from your paper. Engage the audience and work to convince them of why these results are important and what they say about your topic. 
• Future Work – Another optional slide, this could discuss any future work to be done with the research or new questions that arose from it. 

When giving a conference presentation, do:

• Pace your speech, giving between 1-2 minutes per slide.
• Make eye contact with people in your audience, especially when answering questions.
• Create interest in your topic and draw the audience in; speak enthusiastically.
• Clarify necessary details verbally. 
• Dress appropriately.

Don’t:

• Show the audience your back.
• Read from notecards in your hands at length.
• Present every single detail of your paper/topic.
• Present data without context.
• Apologize for nerves or admit to unpreparedness.