Presentation at the scientific meeting

Abstract

The most important thing is to remember that you are addressing the public and that the words being uttered should be experienced as a conversation, and not as reading a novel. Therefore, the paper presentation is not something you read at a congress. Your presentation must be interesting to attract the attention of your audience. Although the presentation can be delivered in various ways, the four basic principles must be observed: you must explain why you have started your research (present the aim), what you have done (materials and methods), what answers you have obtained (results) and, finally, to conclude what it all means. Primarily, one has to take into account the fact that visual effects are the most important for the audience in the conference hall. Accordingly, your slides need to be designed in such a way so that your audience can 'easily relate' to them. The slide is clear and understandable when it presents only one idea or thought; never more than two ideas. If you want to give more information, create more slides. Use as few words as possible. Pay attention to readability and, therefore use large letters and numbers as well as contrasting colors. As a speaker, you should emphasize the most important parts of your work keeping in mind that, when switching to another topic, you have to make it clear to the audience. Explain the research beginnings, what you have done, what results you have obtained and what it all means as a whole. Some errors often occur during presentations and they can be avoided if the lecturer prepares thoroughly. These errors usually include speaking beyond the time allocated as well as the unclear presentation concerning the language, terminology and abbreviations used. Then, some parts of presentation can be too long, the switching to another topic may be unclear and the conclusions tend to be neglected. It takes one minute more for the lecture to be presented at a congress than when you are practicing it at home. In one minute you can utter around 100 words clearly. You have to be aware that, if you are reading, it takes around 3 minutes to read an A4 size page with double spacing. The biggest mistake is to try to speak faster in order to say more. In such a way the presentation becomes confusing. Instead, it is better to 'skip' a few slides and leave something for discussion. The aim of each discussion is to clarify what the speakers have presented during their short lecture. On the one hand, the discussion is used to satisfy the curiosity of audience and on the other to enable the speaker to defend his or her points of view having been stated during the presentation. After you have successfully delivered your lecture at a scientific meeting, your work is not over yet. On the contrary, the next step is to prepare your entire paper for publishing in a scientific magazine. It has to be remembered that publishing confirms the value of the paper presented at a congress. Besides, the author is greatly satisfied not only when his or her work gets published but even more when he or she is quoted.