PREPARING ABSTRACTS & PRESENTING PAPERS AND POSTERS AT CONFERENCES

RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT DAY 23RD NOVEMBER 2011

Dr Siân Lindsay, Learning Development Centre

Today’s session

Finding out and choosing your conference

Looking at a conference call How to write and submit a conference

abstract Activity Dealing with feedback on your

submission Preparing, designing and delivering your

presentation Some tips for poster presentations

Are you planning to submit an abstract to a conference...

1 2 3 4 5 6

17% 17% 17%17%17%17%1. Yes, in the next

month2. Yes, in the next

1- 3 months3. Yes, after 3

months time4. Yes eventually

but not just yet5. Really not sure6. Not at all

How can I find out about upcoming conferences?

Advice from your supervisor(s) Advice from your peers and colleagues at City and

elsewhere Conference proceedings that you have come across Some journals have an associated conference Conference calls advertised online, in magazines,

newspapers Mailing lists Societies, Publishers, Funding Councils in your

interested fields (e.g. IEEE, SRHE, Welcome) normally publish a conference calendar which you can view online

You might have attended the conference previously

Choosing your conference

What is the size of the conference?

What sort of audience?

What options for presenting are there?

What facilities are there?

Will you present on your own?

Analysing an example Conference Call

How to submit an abstract

As well as addressing the conference themes, you also need to consider:1. What is the deadline for abstract

submission?2.How do you submit? Usually it is

online submission website, but some conferences ask for emailed submissions. Hardly any require paper submissions nowadays.

3. How much detail do they want? Word count?

4.When will you hear?

What is a conference abstract? Written summary of a paper or poster that

you intend to present But distilling all your research into a few

hundred words is not easy!

“If you want a 10 min summary, I can have it for you a week from today; if you want it to be 30 minutes, I can do it tomorrow; if you want a whole hour, I’m ready now” (Pierson, 2004 p. 1207)

How to write a good abstract

Make your title: dynamic and informative, not descriptive and boring, and avoid being too obscure

Break your abstract into 4 parts, like this: Introduction – give brief background and rationale for your

study, clearly state your research question and/or hypothesis Methods – very briefly how did you get your results? What

approach did you take? Results – clearly give the main findings that relate to your

research question (sometimes these can be pending). Do not give speculations or opinions, just the actual data.

Discussion - present any conclusions based on your findings so far.

Clearly link to one or more of the conference research strands (in either your Introduction or Discussion sections)

Write the abstract in the past tense, try not to mix tenses Provide all the references you refer to – use a consistent and

recognised referencing style Spell check!!! Explain abbreviations Ask your supervisor or colleague to proof-read before you submit

Coad and Devitt (2006) Alexandrov and Hennerici (2007)

ACTIVITY

In pairs write an abstract of your own for the SRHE Newer Researchers conference based on one of two conference posters.

After 10 mins, swap your ideas with another pair, read for 5 mins and give each other feedback.

After the submission comes the feedback... Usually reviewed by 2 reviewers, final

decision by conference committee Were you successful? – great! Start

preparing... If you were rejected:

You should receive reviewers comments to find out why (or you can request these)

Reviewers comments should help you learn from the experience

Comments may be harsh – but don’t be put off – keep trying!

What makes a bad presentation?

What makes a good presentation?

How to make good presentations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC4B

DmDG_N4&feature=channel

1. Where will you be presenting? (check out room) What time?

2. Who is your session chair? (talk to them before, if possible negotiate timings)

3. How long are you to present for? How much time is set aside for your talk and how much for questions?

4. What about AV provision? Presentation on USB stick or email through beforehand (or both) ?

5. Have you rehearsed and timed yourself properly? (timings usually very strict)

Preparation

Tell them what you are going to tell them

Tell them;

Tell them what you’ve told them

Structure

Intro

Conclusion

Main point – summary

Main point – summary

Main point – summary

Opening line…

Structure

…closing line.

Stories, artefacts

Your contact details, socialise and network!

Dealing with

Presentation nerves

Emulate a presenter

you admire

Try and relax, take

deep breaths

Rehearse and keep to time,

practice makes perfect

Have some questions

for the audience

If you make a mistake don’t

dwell on it (no-one will notice)

Have confidence in yourself – you are here for a

reason

An Example of a Bad Slide

Poor choice of font style Font size difficult to read Background too busy Animation quite frustrating and detracts

attention!

Richard Hake’s 1997 study In 1997 Richard Hake published some

results in a paper entitled “Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses”

Test results from 6000 Physics students from High School (HS), College and University were sampled

At the start all students had to sit a standard test (called a Force Concept Inventory) – this was a pre-test. They were then tested again after a period of time where some were taught using traditional means of lecturing, others using interactive engagement with techniques such as the Classroom Clickers.

Here you see the normalised results of the pre-test plotted against the gain in knowledge following teaching using traditional or interactive engagement techniques.

Significant higher gains in knowledge are seen with students who are tested having been taught using interactive engagement – and this is across the board

This is perhaps the most convincing research to date that supports the use of ‘teaching by questioning’ because of its large and varied sampling.

Clip-Art overload!

A picture is worth a thousand words…

Great for Visual learners

Approximately 70% of information is retained visually

Choose visual aids carefully – use them to explain or reinforce, not decorate!

Preparing Posters: Do’s and Don’ts

Keep it brief and simple

Retain any white space

Get feedback on design (on-screen and printed)

Use images as much as possible

Assume that people will read your poster – you will have to talk it through

Have blocks of text longer than 10 lines

Use too small a font size

DO DON’T

Designing Conference Posters: http://colinpurrington.com/tips/academic/posterdesign

Taking Questions

• Repeat them back

• Give straight answer, be honest

• Consider collecting questions (ask Chair)

• Get audience to answer

• Follow up after the session

References

Coad, J. and Devitt, P. (2006) The art of writing an abstract for conferences Nurse Education in Practice 6: 112 – 116

Alexandrov, A, V. and Hennerici, M. G. (2007) Writing Good Practices Cerebrovascular Diseases 23: 256 – 259