Oral Presentation Guidelines

Each institution will be allowed a maximum of two posters for the poster competition.

Professionals must possess a well-developed ability to communicate via oral presentations. The oral presentation portion of the CSTEP conference is designed to emphasize the value of an ability to deliver oral presentations, as well as to help students develop their oral presentation skills.

Introduction to this year’s Oral Presentations:

This year, we will continue the tradition, piloted last year for the first time, of presenting Distinguished Oral Presentation Awards. One student from every oral presentation category will receive a Distinguished Oral Presentation Award and one student will receive an Honorable Mention. Each school may submit a total of two oral presentations, please remember that students making oral presentations cannot participate in the poster competition. The oral presentation categories include: Natural Sciences, Technology, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences. The Distinguished Oral Presentation Award will be based on the student abstract and PowerPoint presentation and both must be submitted no later than February 08, 2012.

Presentations must be submitted by the February 08, 2012 deadline.

A panel of judges will review the submissions and students will be presented with the awards during the awards ceremony on Saturday evening. All complete submissions (abstract and presentation) will be evaluated using the attached rubric.

GUIDELINES

Oral presentations are carefully prepared to be fifteen minutes long. They are presented as part of a panel of four or five presentations, usually addressing a common subject matter.

In the sciences and some social sciences, presentations are usually made from notes and are accompanied by visual materials such as tables, graphs, charts, and photographs (most often in PowerPoint, but sometimes as 35 mm. slides or overhead transparencies). In the humanities and some other social sciences, presentations are usually read aloud from a prepared text, sometimes with accompanying visual materials. Work with your faculty mentor to produce an oral presentation appropriate to your discipline.

The following guidelines have been developed to assist you in the planning and development of your oral presentation. Please read the guidelines carefully.

I. Oral Presentation Registration Form:

1. This form will be used to maintain contact with presenters.
   
   
2. Confirmation letters will be sent to the CSTEP program staff listed as the primary contact person on the cover of the Registration Portfolio.
   
   
3. Please register to participate the Oral Presentations online, by copy-pasting the following link into your browser:

   http://bit.ly/CSTEPOralPresentationRegistration2012
   

II. Oral Presentation Requirements:

1. 1. An abstract of the presentation is required for the submission. This will be published in the Conference Proceedings.
   
   
2. Presentations should be saved to CD-ROM or jump drive. The provision of slide projection and/or video may be made by prior arrangement.
   
   
3. Presentations should be of 12 minutes duration, allowing 3 minutes for questions, unless otherwise advised by the Session Organizer. You will be informed of the day and time of your presentation once the program has been finalized.
   
   
4. Presentations should be designed using PowerPoint and as landscape format/on-screen show. Slides should contain no more than 5 bullet points and use large font, able to be seen from the back of the auditorium. Use simple images with a basic color scheme to enable easy viewing for the audience.
   
   
5. Always bring a back-up of your presentation and ensure your CD can be read by other PCs.
   
   
6. Expectations for the Presentation:
   1. Present your information in a clear, logical way. It should be easy to anticipate the next slide.
      
      
   2. The visual aspects of your presentation should enhance clarity & readability. Choose your backgrounds, font style and graphics carefully and make sure everything is appropriate for your topic
      
      
   3. There should be no spelling or grammar errors. Define all acronyms at their first use.
      
      
   4. Make sure all of your content is accurate. You should be comprehensive enough to give your audience a good understanding of the topic but also, all information should be carefully chosen for the purpose of developing your thesis. There should be no extraneous information
      
      
   5. You must support all of your information with authentic resources. You should also be careful to cite your sources correctly & use a consistent format.

III. Abstract Guidelines

1. Copy paste your abstract into the online form (link provided above).
   
   
2. Abstract should not exceed 250 words.
   
   
3. Include presenter’s name and class status, title of presentation and institution name.
   
   
4. When you copy-paste the abstract into the online submission form, please make sure to use block paragraph format with a single space between paragraphs and no indentation.

IV. Category of Presentation/Abstract
Students must choose one of the following categories for presentation:

1. Natural Sciences
   
   
2. Technology
   
   
3. Physical Sciences
   
   
4. Human Services/Social Sciences

V. The Powerpoint Presentation
The Powerpoint presentations will be reviewed by a sub-committee of the Conference planning Committee. The sub-committee will review the Powerpoints according to the following:

1. The abstract corresponds to the academic area selected (Human Services/Social Sciences, etc.)
   
   
2. The Powerpoint must contain:

   Problem

   • Introduce the problem or provide background for what you will address.
   • Describe your problem and why your work was needed.
   • Make connections between the problem, the context and the purpose of your investigation.

   Method

   • What did you do?
   • Describe the method of research, study, or analysis applied to the problem.
   • Be specific but concise!

   Visuals

   • Graphs or illustrations that support method, data, etc.

   Results

   • What results did you get?
   • Summarize the major results of the research, study, or analysis.
     Be specific but concise!

   Conclusions

   • Why are these results useful?
   • Provides your interpretation of the results.
   • Relate your results back to the original problem you set out to address.
   • State the relevance, implications or significance of the results to the broader context of the topic.
   • Make recommendations or state the implications for future work on this topic.

   References

   • What texts, research articles, etc. were used to strengthen the presentation?
     

Submission Deadline: February 8, 2012