Resources for Graduate Students:
Tips for presenting a paper at a scholarly conference:
1. Be sure to email a final draft of your paper to your discussant by the deadline. Submitting a late paper is unprofessional and may be noted by your discussant during the session.
2. Engage your audience. Don't be afraid to show your enthusiasm for the topic and your work.
3. Structure your presentation around key take away points that are mentioned several times during your presentation.
4. Practice and time your presentation. It is unprofessional to go over your time limit as it takes away from your fellow presenters' and/or discussant's time.
5. Use the presentation style that feels most comfortable to you (e.g., reading from notes, using a more conversational approach).
6. Pictures/figures can be a great way to show how your ideas connect or present your findings.
7. Use no more than 2 minutes (of a 10-12 minute presentation) to introduce topic and literature. The majority of the presentation should be dedicated to study details and findings.
8. Choose a presentation format that has a clean background and recognizes your institutional affiliation.
9. You will not have enough time to present everything in the paper. Limit your presentation to key ideas/findings.
10. Provide only main points/outline on slides and keep font size to 16pt or larger.
11. Suggested presentation components (1-2 slides each):
- introduction and overview (problem statement and research questions)
- study context (holes or gaps your study is filling, not a complete lit review)
- method (highlight major aspects of the study- sample, variables, procedures)
- findings (should be focus of the presentation)
- discussion/conclusions (take home points)
13. Bring a highlighted copy of your complete paper for reference during the Q&A.