Instructions to Authors of Poster Presentations
All posters for both NSS and MIC will
be located in the Hampton Roads Ballroom of the Marriott Hotel.
The room will be open from 7AM to 9PM each day, starting about
noon on Tuesday, Nov. 12th and ending at noon on Saturday, Nov.
16. Posters are expected to be available for viewing by attendees
throughout the meeting. Please put up your poster as soon as
possible, and take down your poster at the end of the meeting.
Posters that are left on the boards after noon on Saturday will
be discarded. It is possible this deadline may have to be advanced
to 10 a.m. on Saturday. If so, the earlier deadline will be posted
in the Hampton Roads Ballroom and announced at the conference.
To allow room for all posters to be
up for the length of the meeting, the posterboards will be arranged
in a 'portrait' format, that is, 4 feet wide and 8 feet high.
The recommended maximum size for your poster is about 3 feet
wide and 5 feet high. The posters will be arranged against the
walls and in 'kiosks' of 3 double-sided boards (thus 6 posters
in each kiosk).
For the MIC portion of the meeting,
the presentation order has been arranged so that the posters
in each topic area are evenly divided among the 5 poster sessions.
This is to allow poster presenters in one session to visit other
poster presentations in their subject area at the other 4 poster
sessions. The posters will still be grouped by topic area, as
in the past. The poster number, therefore, reflects both the
session and the location in the Hampton Roads Ballroom, where
all posters will be displayed. Posters are sequentially numbered
as "Mx-y", where "Mx" is the session in which
the poster is to be presented (i.e., when the author is to stand
by his or her poster), and "y" is the location in the
room. For example, poster M6-22 will be presented in session
M6 and is located on board #22.
For the NSS portion, the posters for
a given topic area are in a common session (either N9 or N16)
and are sequentially numbered within a session. That sequence
number will also reflect the geographic location of the poster
- so you will pass by NX-11 then NX-12, then NX-13.
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General
Poster Presentation Guidelines
Producing an effective poster presentation
is more difficult than an oral presentation, as the poster has
to attract an audience and speak for you when you are not there.
It also should provide an outline and backup for your key points
during your explanations in front of the poster. The rewards,
however, will be a stimulating two-way exchange of information
with knowledgeable experts in your field.
1. Organize the presentation in a logical
sequence. Use color, boxes, and coordination of material to produce
focal points for the reader. Don¹t leave large areas of
space open on the poster--then again don¹t crowd too much
on the page that the reader becomes tired. Don't just post your
proceedings paper. No one will read it.
2. Place the title of the paper prominently
at the top of the poster board.
3. Use a sans serif font. Helvetica
is great. The font must allow the reader to read the information
fairly quickly. Use a minimum font size 16-20 point for your
text; titles should be very distinct (much larger than 30 point.)
4. Be fairly conservative with color
selection. Use nothing that takes away from the presentation.
Keep color schemes simple. For more exhaustive guidance on presentations,
we recommend reading Edward Tufte's books, especially his classic
"The Visual Display of Quantitative Information".
5. Provide titles. Pictures, diagrams,
graphs, and tables should be titled appropriately and axes labeled
clearly.
6. Highlight important points.
7. Consider having handouts available.
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Oral
Presentation Instructions
A Windows-based PC equipped with Acrobat
Reader, PowerPoint 2000 and the latest versions of Quicktime
and Microsoft Windows Media Player will be available for computer-projector
presentations. Overhead projectors will also be available. Please
note, however, that slide projectors will NOT be available unless
you have specifically requested them in advance.
Well before your session, please bring
a CD or Zip disk with your presentation to the speaker ready-room
(James Rooms 1-3 on 4th floor of Marriott) to verify that your
presentation is okay and to allow time for it to be loaded on
the presentation file server. Your presentation will be placed
on the presentation computer from the networked file server,
which is located in the speaker ready-room. We request that you
use this procedure instead of trying to hook your own laptop
to the projector.
Prior to the start of the session, please
identify yourself to the session chairs and familiarize yourself
with the presentation tools. The time allocated for each oral
presentation varies according to session but is typically 15
minutes plus 3 minutes of discussion time. Please check the program
for the time alloted to your talk, and end your presentation
at least three minutes before the next talk is scheduled in order
to allow time for discussion. Session chairs will be requested
to adhere to the times, so please do not run the risk of running
out of time and therefore missing the opportunity for questions
and discussion. Other general guidelines are listed below.
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General Oral Presentation Guidelines
A useful reference is 'The Visual Display
of Quantitative Information', by
Edward Tufte (www.edwardtufte.com).
1. Know your story. Rehearse or review
your presentation so you can make a clear and logical progression
of ideas. Try to avoid situations where you have to go backwards
through the slides. This will distract from the flow of your
ideas.
2. Slides should be readable by everyone
in the audience. This includes a careful choice font type and
size and use of color contrast. Sans serif fonts such as Helvetica
work well. Do not use dark text on a dark background. Thin lines
should be bright or white colors against a dark background.
3. Be critical of 'background layouts':
Don't use graphic elements that are not really needed as they
can only distract from the important material. The best slide
'background layout' is to avoid repeating graphic elements such
as lines or institutional logos. Be fairly conservative with
color selection and keep color schemes simple. Use nothing that
takes away from your presentation.
4. Use as few words and slides as possible
to convey what is significant about your work. This will improve
the likelihood of people remembering what you said after your
talk. For a 15 minute talk this may be 10-15 slides at most.
5. Do not waste time with slides of
generic lists, such as:
- i. Introduction
ii. Methods
iii. Results
iv. Discussion
v. Conclusion/Future Work
Each of these points may well be suitable
for a title of an individual slide, but grouped together like
this they do not convey 'new' information and use up a slide.
6. Present enough details to be convincing,
but do not be afraid of leaving out, or using one-line references
to, areas of detail that can be answered/raised in the question/discussion
period.
7. Highlight important points.
8. Avoid, if possible, large tables
of numbers where you only want to 'point out' a few key values.
A warning for this is when the speaker starts the slide by saying
"This is a busy slide, but I just want to draw your attention
to this number...". The un-referenced values are distractors
at best. These tables are okay if you are prepared to spend a
large amount of time on the slide, or otherwise should be saved
for posters, handouts, or publications.
9. Provide titles. Pictures, diagrams,
graphs, and tables should be titled appropriately. Graphs should
be labeled with clear (not cryptic) legends and axis labels.
It is good practice to avoid legends and instead label curves
directly where possible.
10. Avoid extensive mathematical derivations.
For short talks it is generally better to just present a result
and then spend time explaining the meanings of the terms and
the significance of the result. Extensive derivations should
be saved for handouts or publications.
11. Pay attention to the preceding talks.
If the previous speaker(s) outlined the same background material
you were planning to present, then skip over repeated material
and instead spend more time on your results and possibly even
finish early. The audience will appreciate it. An exception is
where you have to clarify your notation and/or terminology.
12. Highlight (and possibly repeat)
important points.
13. Consider having handouts available.
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