Making the most of your abstract, poster and oral presentations

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Making the most of your abstract, poster and oral
presentations

• AJ Frew, HE Smith
• Brighton Sussex Medical School

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Purpose of abstract

• To advertise yourself your work
• To secure selection for presentation
• To attract attendees to your presentation
• To provide a written reminder of your data during
  and after the meeting

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Desirable characteristics

• Title that reflects contents
• Clear story
• Data (including some numbers and statistics)

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Common errors

• Failure to comply with the particular house style
  of that conference
• Selection of the wrong category
• Unbalanced, often too much background and not
  enough data
• Abbreviations in title
• No statistics
• No conclusions
• Simple spelling errors and grammatical mistakes

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Reviewing Abstracts 1

• Is subject matter novel or exciting?
• Is it clear what has been done?
• Is the research question relevant?
• Will it be of interest to attendees?
• Has the author included all the information
  required in house style?

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Reviewing Abstracts 2

• Are there any data yet?
• Are results unambiguous and clearly stated?
• Are the statistical methods used appropriate?
• Are results interpreted and discussed
  objectively?
• Is there a valid conclusion?
• Is there any undue influence of the sponsor?

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Effective oral presentations
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Purpose of oral presentation

• To show work and obtain feedback for writing up
• To make a mark
• OPs are less useful than posters for
• getting comments and feedback
• getting advice for future work
• getting future collaborations
• Few questions, and usually simple ones

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Before starting

• How long have I got?
• How much time is allocated for discussion?
• Who is the audience?
• What are the main results/points?
• (one sentence summary)

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How many slides?

• Aim for 1 to 1.5 slides per minute
• More is possible but may appear rushed
• Two per minute will always be too many
• Built-up slide sequence counts as one slide
• Audience need time to orient themselves
• You will usually remember some extra things that
  you want to say
• Allow time for changeover and thanks to chairs,
  organisers, colleagues etc

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Key components of an oral presentation

• Context/ Introduction
• Method
• Results
• Summary
• Discussion points

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Context/Introduction

• One slide to explain why study was done
• Include hypothesis or research question being
  tested
• Avoid excessive amounts of text
• Avoid long explanation of iconic cartoon

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Methods

• How much do you really need to show?
• Use photographs if appropriate
• Essential detail only
• (unless primary purpose of presentation is to
  show a new method)

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Which works better?
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Methods

• Diesel exhaust was generated from an idling Volvo
  engine (built 1993), diluted with filtered
  ambient air and pumped into an exposure chamber
  in the next room.
• On control days the engine was left running but
  only filtered air was supplied to the chamber
• Particulate and gas concentrations were measured
  on a continuous basis

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OR ...
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(No Transcript)
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(No Transcript)
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Results

• Identify key results and stick to them
• Avoid data tables
• Design new figures to show key points
• Will be different from what is needed for
  publication!

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Results common OP faults

• This is a very busy slide, but if you look over
  here in the corner you can see..
• As you can clearly see..
• Im sorry. I made this slide for another meeting,
  but if you ignore this part of the graph
• Some of you at the back may not be able to read
  this

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Laser Pointers/Highlights

• Use laser pointer sparingly
• Support your wrist
• Dont hosepipe
• Consider using powerpoint features to draw
  audience to your key points e.g.
• ring highlights
• building up graphs

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Cytokine mRNA in BAL cells before and 24h after
Ag challenge
Pre
24h Post
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Allergy FarmingRiedler et al Lancet
20013581129-33
of children
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Try explaining ...
25
T-cell
(via APC)
Ag
IL-4
B-cell
Mast cell
Epithelial damage
IgE
IgE
IL-5
IL-4
Tryptase
leukotrienes
Chemotaxis
Migration Activation
Recruitment
26
OR ...
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Ag
Mast cell
Epithelial damage
IgE
IgE
Tryptase
leukotrienes
28
Ag
Mast cell
Epithelial damage
IgE
IgE
Tryptase
leukotrienes
Chemotaxis
Migration Activation
Recruitment
29
Ag
B-cell
Mast cell
Epithelial damage
IgE
IgE
Tryptase
leukotrienes
Chemotaxis
Migration Activation
Recruitment
30
T-cell
(via APC)
Ag
IL-4
B-cell
Mast cell
Epithelial damage
IgE
IgE
Tryptase
leukotrienes
Chemotaxis
Migration Activation
Recruitment
31
T-cell
(via APC)
Ag
IL-4
B-cell
Mast cell
Epithelial damage
IgE
IgE
IL-5
IL-4
Tryptase
leukotrienes
Chemotaxis
Migration Activation
Recruitment
32
Complex Built-up Figures

• Make whole figure
• Make several copies (and a reserve)
• Delete parts sequentially
• Starting from the beginning
• Highlight new bits as they appear ?
• Better than animating one slide

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Summary

• Bullet points only
• Discussion points
• acknowledge weaknesses
• compare with previous knowledge
• try to excite comments and interest
• get help with writing up paper

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Acknowledgements

• Can take a long time
• Often excessive (this is not the Oscars!)
• Often use up a large proportion of discussion
  time especially if your presentation or the
  whole session is running late
• Consider acknowledgements as part of title slide,
  or showing photo/names and thanking everyone who
  helped with this project

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Oral presentation

• Plan to use your time wisely
• Leave time for discussion
• Prepare clear figures to show results
• Use powerpoint features,
• but dont overdo it
• Speak slowly - Less is more
• Give audience some ideas for discussion
• Rehearse with an honest friend