Conference paper woes

[ossamenta]

A few days ago I was linked to a post on academic conference etiquette, which in turn linked to a post on conference rules. I thought they could be very useful, since this will be my first talk at a "proper" conference. Some things were obvious, such as practice your talk beforehand and don't overrun your time slot. Although I got a bit worried when they said that a 20 minute talk (check) would equal 10-12 full A4 pages. I have three... Admittedly, both pages seem to run under the assumption that you will write your talk and then read what you've written - something I'm not so keen on, as it doesn't captivate the audience, especially if it's a topic they're not very interested in. The better talks I've heard have been people using notes and keywords rather than a full text, which is the method I'm planning to use. I haven't "read" it out loud yet, hopefully tomorrow when I've got most of the images for the powerpoint set up. I've got the slot just before lunch, so I figure that if I'm a couple of minutes short people will probably not mind too much. But I better not end up with a five minute talk and twenty minutes for questions!

I still can't find some images I want to use. Department of "I know I have seen such an image somewhere (during the 17 years I've studied archaeology)" is not very helpful.

Comments

[phredd]

When I see someone pull out a literal sheaf of papers to read at a conference, they've pretty much lost me. They almost always just lower their head and drone through their writing like it was a dirge. Also, these papers often seem not to be written or organized properly for a presentation to an audience.

I've followed holyschist's advice re: slides/minutes ratio with some success. I also had written up notes, but I don't end up using them. Instead, my slides serve to guide me through how I wanted to organize my presentation as much as they serve to show the audience what I'm talking about.

[ossamenta]

my slides serve to guide me through how I wanted to organize my presentation as much as they serve to show the audience what I'm talking about.

That's a good idea. Perhaps I'll see if I can use that next time. This time I'm afraid the images will illustrate points in the text rather than the other way around.