Guidelines for
Paper Presentations

There are three presentations during each 90 minute session. We have asked sessions chairs to ensure that one paper presentation does not intrude on another paper’s time.  The thirty minutes per paper includes time for setting up and questions.  If you talk too long, there will be no time for questions and everyone will feel cheated.  So plan to speak for just 15 minutes.

Do not “read” your paper since everyone there has already read it; instead, talk about it. Delegates will get more from an informal presentation than a talk that is read. If you do not feel comfortable speaking English, just say a few words about your work, show the slides, and ask for questions. The other delegates will help make your presentation effective.

PowerPoint slides

To help you in preparing an effective PowerPoint presentations, we have placed some guidelines for making slides on the web at http://tiny.cc/PPTtips (or http://2009.informingscience.org/docs/PPTTipsForPresenters4.ppt).  

Equipment 

All of the presentations rooms have a computer with standard Office software, a computer projector, and Internet access.  But, never trust the Internet to work and plan for the computer or projector might fail during your presentation.

We suggest bringing your presentation on a flash drive or CD so it can be loaded quickly. Unless absolutely necessary, it is better not to use your own computer since the time to set up and switch systems will take away from your time to present.  

If you have any special requirements for your presentation, please let us know as soon as possible so we can see if they can be accommodated.

Again and again, technology commonly fails at the most crucial moment, so have one or more backup plans for your presentation.