学术会议与学术报告

本文为学堂在线平台“英文科技论文写作与学术报告”2020春季课程学习笔记，课程链接：
https://next.xuetangx.com/course/XJTU08081000424/1515668

About Conference and General Advice

Importance of Attending Conference

• Exchanging ideas and acquiring the most up-to-date information and ideas
• Meeting colleagues and joining the research networks
• Extremely important in one’s professional career, maybe career opportunities
• Best opportunity to impress people and to show how smart you are

Activities at a Conference

• Plenary （全体会议）and keynote speeches（主题演讲）- very important
  • Often discussing the future development and research directions
• Penal discussion sessions;
  • Often discussing important issues on a specific topic
• Paper presentation sessions;
• Poster sessions (interactive sessions);
• Committee meetings;
• Social activities

Presenting Paper

• Read program carefully, locate you session and be aware the time slot for presentation;
• Meet session chair and submit your bio（个人简介） before your session starts;
  • Authors’ breakfast
  • Just before the session
• Prepare slides strictly according to the time limit;
• Make presentation and answer questions;
• Participate actively and ask questions to other authors and make comments appropriately;
• Avoid no show!!!不要交了文章，但是不在会议上出现

Participation

• Participate the sessions you are interested in actively;
• Ask questions appropriately;
• Make comments politely;
• Choose one or two committee to participate and volunteer to serve

Poster Display

• Popular supplement of presentation
• Preparing a poster
  • Follow instruction on the space limit;
  • Printout of PPT slides - good choice;
  • Display in the designated area
• Presenting a poster
  • Accompanying the poster;
  • Discussing with interested viewers;
  • Taking advantages of interactivities for feedback

Rule of Thumb（经验法则）

• Know your audience and don’t overestimate their capability to comprehend your presentation
• Assume responsibility of delivery
• Prepare, prepare, prepare
• Practice, practice, practice

Instructions on Preparing Slides

Advice in Preparation

• Use Power Point whenever possible
  • Both audio and visual channels communications and more information transfer in the same amount of time
  • The slides serves as an automatic reminder of things in the correct order
  • Preparing the slides forces you to organize and rehearse your talk and helps you uncover weak spots
  • Last minute change is possible
  • Synchronizing with sound recording and presenting without physical presence
• Use multiple slides or the animation feature to control the display of information on your slides;
• Never make a slide too crowded
  • No busy slide
  • Copying text from your thesis is totally unacceptable
  • Minimal font size: 18pt, occasionally 14pt in graphics , very rarely 12pt
• Provide a road map!!! Give out all topics in every stage, and highlight where you are.
• Never change notations half way though a talk by copying those in another talk to save efforts(still Consistency)
• Use one consistent name or label to denote one thing
• Don’t use too many variables throughout
• Always define things, your problem statement, mathematical symbol.your goals,etc.
• Report reproducible experimental results with conditions defined, procedures outlined and conclusions stated and label your diagram and axes in graphs
• Don’t over use animation and graphics
  • “Form” should never overwhelm “Content”
• Don’t be self-centered. What is interesting to you may not hold the same interest for the audience;
• Control of talk time: no more than 15 SLIDES PER 30 MINUTES TALK for beginner
• 15 minutes per slide in preparation and about 30 minutes per slide with graphics. One hour-talk need 7.5 hours practice in front of a computer

Organization of Slides

• Title
• Arrange text and graphs appropriately:
• Many examples (from 7:00 to the end in video lecture 2: 2.2)

Instructions on Making Presentation

Advice in Presentation

• Don’t read but present with confidence;
• Mention main goal early to capture attention
• Try to vary emphasis. A monotone delivery and uniform emphasis deaden the presentation
• Don’t slur your pronunciations and let sentences trail off
• Watch where you stand when you speak. Don’t cover up the screen for some of the audience
• Don’t keep the laser pointer on all the time. Use it only when you need it.
• Watch your hand gestures. Don’t keep them in your pocket
• Record your talk and listen to and view it

Questions and Answers

• Ask and answer politely;
• Listen very carefully and make every effort to understand the question correctly;
• Don’t interrupt audience’ asking;
• Deflect the answer to the point you want to emphasize for irrelevant questions;
• Admit and/or offer the approach to finding the answer, or offer answers later if no answer;
• Prepare slides for expected questions;
• Take the questions in the rehearsal as pre-reviews

Summary

• Making presentations in English is extremely important for scholars;
• It is entirely possible for non-native speakers to make excellent presentation in English;
• Practice is the only way to achieve the above goal