NWA Annual Meeting Presentation Tips

So, the program committee accepted your abstract! Now what? Obviously, you've got to prepare your presentation. But before you do that, why not step back and consider what makes a presentation "Successful."

Any form of communication involves a few common considerations:

Analyze your audience -- obviously you'll approach a poster session different than an oral presentation. Consider the background of your audience and the environment in which you will be presenting. All sessions will be in the Wynfrey Hotel. NWA Annual Meeting attendees come from diverse backgrounds: college students and faculty, NOAA and other federal and state agency personnel; private weather corporation personnel, broadcast and other media meteorologists and weather enthusiasts, from across the country and often a few from other countries.

Identify your message – you summarized your work when you wrote the abstract. Now, identify the most important points in your abstract and use these as the focus of your presentation. Relate to the theme of the meeting as best you can. The 2011 theme is "The End Game - From Research and Technology to Best Forecast and Response."

Prepare your draft presentation -- organize and edit your presentation.

Rehearse your presentation -- practice your presentation including rehearsal in front of an audience. Some find that taping their presentation and then playing it back provides them with great feedback for improving their stage presence, mannerisms, speaking tone and content.

Get feedback and revise your presentation -- use your local audience feedback to better target your presentation. The NWA Professional Development Committee Newsletter Article Preparing and Delivering an Oral Presentation - Part II has some good tips for planning your presentation that apply equally to oral and poster sessions.

After the meeting, please consider publishing your completed work in a NWA publication such as the National Weather Digest or the Electronic Journal of Operational Meteorology.

More specific Tips for Oral and Poster Presentations follow:

Oral Presentation Tips:

NWA Annual Meeting oral presentations are typically given a 15-minute slot in the agenda. Target your presentation for about 12-minutes and give the audience time for 2 to 3 questions. Identifying the main points of your abstract and presentation is critical as you won't have time to cover your entire research. Focus your talk on the main points with the goal of creating interest in your research/conclusions. Audience members who have questions or desire the details of your work will find you after the presentation. Also, remember that the audience for an oral presentation at a conference is usually more diverse than for a scientific paper in a journal article. You'll need to define terms and avoid technical jargon and acronyms specific to your field of expertise.

Once you have honed the message, focus on creating PowerPoint slides or other audio-visual (AV) aids that are clear, understandable, and support your message. One rule of thumb to help you ensure your presentation is the right length is to plan to display each slide for 30-seconds to 1-minute. The more complex the message on each slide, the longer you'll need to show it. Ensure your slides are legible from the back of the room by using appropriate fonts and colors. Slides should not be crowded -- use bulleted points rather than paragraphs. Graphs and illustrations should be clean and clearly labeled. Remember that you should provide some basic explanation of any graph or illustration during the presentation as well as discussing the significance of the data as you guide your audience through your work. Slides shouldn’t be read to the audience; they should back up your talk.

  • Please test your slide presentation before you upload it to the NWA website. The instructions for uploading are at: http://www.nwas.org/meetings/ftp_instructions.php
  • Talks uploaded to the NWA website by October 8 will be loaded onto the NWA laptop before your presentation to save valuable time at the meeting.
  • The most common cause of a technical problem is when a movie loop is embedded within the presentation. If you have a movie in your presentation, test the presentation on another computer before uploading it.
  • NWA AV volunteers will have three MacPro laptops – two primaries and one spare. The laptops will support PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx) and OpenOffice.org formats.
  • The laptops will have a remote control with a laser pointer for your use.
  • The main conference room will have Internet access, but it is likely to be spotty. Thus, Web-based presentations should be avoided.
  • Each session will have a session chair to introduce you and field questions at the end of your presentation.
  • Please check-in with your session chair as early as possible, but well before your session begins. If you are presenting in the first session of the day, please check-in at least by the end of the sessions on the previous day. Your session chair will provide you with further instructions.
  • During your session, please sit up front, near the session chair. AV assistants will help you with microphone setup ahead of your presentation time. If you are the first presenter in a session, please arrive early to setup and be ready to start on time.
  • Remember that you will have only 12 minutes for your presentation, and 3 minutes for questions. These times will be strictly enforced. There will be a presentation "traffic light" which will signal to both you and your audience when you are at 10 minutes (yellow light), 12 minutes (red light), and 15 minutes (red flashing light). If you exceed 15 minutes, your talk will be interrupted/stopped by the session chair.
  • Presenters have a variety of speaking and presentation styles, so there are no hard-and-fast rules for the number of slides your presentation should have. However, those who have about 15 slides will only have about 40-50 seconds of presentation time per slide. Most presentations with more than 20 slides will usually run over and be interrupted before completion.
  • Have fun! We are honored to have you share your research with us!

Poster Session Tips:

With the great number of oral presentation submissions for this Annual Meeting, many had to be changed to posters. They along with regular poster submissions and the available poster boards caused the NWA program committee to schedule five poster sessions. You'll have space for a poster with a width of up to 8 feet and a height of 4 feet although most end up slightly smaller due to printer limitations. Fonts and colors are just as important here as for oral presentations. Your title should be readable out to a distance of about 10 feet -- a character size of at least 1 inch in a bold dark color should accomplish that. The smallest text and graphics on the poster should be clearly visible at least 4 feet away. The North Carolina State University Department of Forestry & Environmental Resources has developed an excellent web site to help guide you through the process of creating your poster.

Once you've created your poster, consider your presentation of the poster at the meeting. This is your time to show off your work and to network with colleagues and potential employers. You might consider having a handout that includes some of the details of your work for those who are interested, or copies of papers describing related research. A poster session is more than a piece of paper; take advantage of the opportunities this type of presentation offers.

Since Poster session times will be short, presenters should setup their posters early on the day of their session so that attendees will have more time to view them. Suggested times are mentioned below.

  • When you arrive at the Annual Meeting, check-in at the NWA registration desk and mention that you have a poster to present. If you shipped it to the meeting, it might be there. Check the agenda for any changes to the schedule.
  • Posters for the Student Poster Session on 16 October should be set-up by Noon Sunday.
  • Posters for Sessions I-IV on Monday through Thursday should be setup by 9:00am the day of your presentation and taken down by 5:00pm. A special GOES Users’ Conference Poster Session is scheduled for Wednesday evening; therefore, presenters in Poster Session III should take down their posters well prior to 5:00pm.
  • The poster boards will be 8ft across and 4ft tall. Most posters end up being a little smaller than this maximum size because of printer limitations. Most are usually in the 5ft x 3ft range.
  • NWA will provide pins/tacks to hang your poster in the assigned poster session rooms.
  • The poster board displays will be numbered. Please place your poster by the number assigned to you in the published agenda. Last minute corrections to the agenda will be announced and also posted at the NWA Registration & Information desk open every day of the meeting.
  • In general, more pictures/figures/graphics and less words are preferred for posters since you will be standing next to them and describing your work. However, some short paragraphs on the poster itself will be very helpful in explaining your work.
  • If you have already published your work in a technical journal, extended abstract, or other format, please bring several printed copies to share with people who are interested in your research.
  • You are encouraged to also upload your poster to the NWA website so that NWA members unable to attend can see your work. Instructions on how to upload are available at http://www.nwas.org/meetings/ftp_instructions.php.
  • Have fun! We are honored to have you share your research with us!

References:

Presenting scientific results at a meeting is part science, part art and part salesmanship. There are numerous resources to help you develop these important skills.

Preparing and Delivering an Oral Presentation - Part II from the NWA Professional Development Committee

"Creating Effective Posters" by North Carolina State University Department of Forestry & Environmental Resources

AMS Suggestions for Preparation of Slides or Transparencies

Dazzle 'em with Style page from Ohio State Physics department

Other references can be found on the NWA Professional Development Committee page at http://www.nwas.org/committees/professionaldevelopment/index.php.

Presentations and photos taken at past meetings can be found on the NWA website at: http://www.nwas.org/meetings/.

Also see http://www.nwas.org/committees/waf/10studentpresentations.php for best student presentations at the 2010 Annual Meeting.