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  • January 27, 2014
    Deadline for special requests for abstract submission/registration for U.S. government agencies
  • July 2 - July 17, 2014
    Late Registration (increased fees apply)

Program > Guidelines for Preparing Effective Presentations

These tips apply regardless of whether the time for the presentations is short (less than 30 minutes) or long. Complaints about poor presentations have been received for decades and continue to be received. The ASA has offered a short-course on presentation for many years, and routinely sends "tips" to speakers to promote effective presentations, but often go ignored. The tips and suggestions are here to help you. Please put them to good use. An ad hoc committee (consisting of A. Lawrence Gould, Chair; Howard Kaplan; Peter A Lachenbruch; and Katherine Monti) was formed at the April 1999 ENAR business meeting, to address this persistent and pervasive problem. Effective presentations make learning and technical advances more likely. They also enhance the perception of the presenter in the eyes of the professional community. Boring, ineffective presentations are not paid much attention and often are quickly forgotten, especially by planners of future invited sessions.

Preparation

Content organization

Preparing effective displays

Here are some suggestions that will make your displays more effective.

Timing your talk

Don't deliver a 30-minute talk in 15 minutes. Nothing irritates an audience more than a rushed presentation. Your objective is to engage the audience and have them understand your message. Don't flood them with more than they can absorb. Think in terms of what it would take if you were giving (or, better, listening to) the last paper in the last contributed paper session of the last day. This means:

Loose ends

THE PRESENTATION

WHEN FINISHED