Join ASPE

<<Back

Oral Presentation Guidelines

It is a longstanding tradition within the Society to hold plenary talks. These create a shared experience for the conference attendees, and do best at improving our collective knowledge. In order to present diverse topics in a way that can be appreciated by the full audience, we strongly encourage you to take the following guidelines into account while preparing your oral presentation.

You should have received information about the length of your talk in your acceptance e-mail sent on Thursday, May 9.

Your talk should include an introduction that gives the audience a reason that your presentation is important, and it should include enough background that people who are not advanced in the topic can understand what the paper is about. Feel free to go deep into details during the talk, but the context and introduction are essential. During your talk, you should also point out the “precision engineering principles” in your research, which will help the cohesiveness of the overall meeting. A good way to do this is to describe how your work enhances one or more of the four pillars of determinism. The four pillars of determinism are as follows:

1) A first-principles understanding of error sources – Predictability
2) Dedication to achieving Repeatability
3) Quantifiability: Stating our goals in terms of numbers and specifications
4) Measurability: Being able to measure our performance in terms that relate to our
quantified goals

In addition, feel free to talk about mistakes or “learning moments” that occurred during the research so that the audience can learn from the speaker’s journey.

Other suggestions for your talk are as follows:

  • Avoid the use of acronyms, jargon, and terms-of art related to your work that are not broadly understood by the community.
  • Highlight the precision engineering principles that are applicable to your work. This is critically important in building a thread throughout all of the conference presentations.
  • Present only key equations and mathematical detail. It is hard for most people to evaluate a slide full of equations during the brief time that a slide is projected. Use graphical representations instead where possible.
  • Label graphs clearly; use fonts and colors that project onto a large screen with sufficient contrast.
  • Please check spelling and grammar.
  • End your presentation with a succinct summary and/or conclusions as appropriate.

Multimedia presentations with video or animation are welcomed. However, be prepared to offer an alternative if when tested the video/animation content does not work; especially when the content has significant impact on the goals of the presentation. We strongly suggest you project your presentation on a large screen prior to your arrival at the conference.

Getting your presentation loaded: Please find your Session Chairs in the General Session Room (Metals Room in the Green Center) on the morning of your presentation and bring your presentation on a device that can be loaded into the conference computer. We would like to have all presentations loaded before the first session starts on each day.

Should you require the use of your own laptop, an HDMI connection will be provided at the podium in the General Session Room.

The oral presentations can be in 16:9 (widescreen) aspect ratio, but the projector will adjust automatically to whatever ratio used, but widescreen is recommended . There will not be a microphone, but it is not needed in this room. A laser pointer will also be available.

Presentations at the Meeting are typically followed by questions. Please make sure to time your talk to allow for questions as this provides you with feedback and an opportunity for dialog with the audience. Speakers should consult their acceptance e-mail for the length of time for their oral presentations.

Making the Microsoft PowerPoint Slides
PowerPoint embeds image files directly into the file when you save them, while video files are not embedded. Only a link is made to the video file. Copy the video clips you want to insert into the same folder as the PowerPoint file. This will eliminate the problem of PowerPoint losing the link to the file. Be certain to bring the video files and the PowerPoint files to the conference.

Fonts

  • Arial and Helvetica are recommended for clarity and compatibility.
  • Confirm a font size of AT LEAST 24 points for body text and 36 – 40 points for headings.
  • Dark colored text on a light background is advised.
  • Avoid using red or bright green. Confirm that the maximum number of lines in text slides is no more than 6 or 7.

Images

  • Large images (i.e. 2000 x 1500 pixels) which are created with digital cameras and scanners will make the resulting PowerPoint file very large. This may cause the presentation to load slowly. This can be avoided by inserting images with the following properties:
    Format = (.jpg)
    Recommended Size = (800×600 pixels)
    Compression Setting = 8 (High quality)
  • Use the “Insert” feature of PowerPoint to add images to your presentations. Do not copy/paste them into the slide or click and drag

Poster Presentation Guidelines

Rapid Fire Slides for Poster Presenters

As a poster presenter, you will be given the opportunity to present the data in your poster in a 3-minute presentation, using a maximum of 3 PowerPoint slides to support your presentation. Following are a few guidelines to help you prepare your slides

  • Set up for screen size is 16:9 (widescreen) aspect ratio.
  • Keep it simple – use the slide as reinforcement to your speech.
  • Remember that your audience will primarily be interested in hearing you discuss your findings, outcomes and/or central argument. Keep time spent on background and methodology to a minimum.
  • Keep bullet points down to a maximum of 5 per slide. Any more and the type is too small to read.
  • Use upper and lower case to achieve maximum legibility.
  • Avoid background sounds as these can often distract rather than enhance the presentation.

Getting your Rapid Fire slides loaded: you should arrive to the conference room by 7:30 AM on Tuesday, July 16 that you can load your presentation on the computers provided by ASPE. The session chairs will be happy to help you set up and test your presentation.

Specifications for Posters

You should be at your poster to present your work during the poster sessions. Poster set-up begins at 12:00 Noon on Tuesday, July 16. Your poster should remain on the poster board for the duration of the conference. Plan to be at your poster during the poster sessions to answer any questions attendees might have.

Your poster should be no larger than 36 inches (91 cm) x 48 inches (122 cm) in either direction (portrait or landscape). Do not send your poster ahead-of-time.; simply bring it with you to the conference. Abstract numbers poster on the boards will help you to determine where you should place your poster.

Helpful Guidelines when Preparing your Poster

Make your title so that it quickly attracts your audience. Make the title the most prominent block of text on the poster.

The poster should quickly have your audience understanding the subject and purpose. This is often accomplished with a meaningful title, a clearly-stated objective, and supporting images. The font size should be large enough to read from a distance of 6 feet, and the color of the text should contrast with the color of the background. Important information should be readable from about 10 feet away.

Your findings should be obvious and easy for the reader to locate. Highlight important data in your graph or table. Individual sections should be designed so that the reader can quickly read them – large blocks of texts don’t lend themselves to easy comprehension in the busy poster presentation environment. The use of bullets, numbering, and headlines make posters easier to read. If possible, you should rely on mostly images to tell the story of your research.

Finally, please prepare and practice the delivery of your presentation. The poster is not meant to stand alone but should serve as the support for a spoken presentation. It helps to prepare a short “elevator pitch” style presentation that highlights your findings in just a few minutes, and then have more details for an engaged audience. The most in-depth conversations, idea transfer and generation, and networking often occur during the face-to-face poster presentations.

QUESTIONS
Please direct any questions to executive@aspe.net at ASPE headquarters.