A few weeks ago, we returned from presenting at the American Medical Writers Association annual conference. We have already provided some helpful tips for making the most of attending a conference; this post will go into more depth on how to make your presentation engaging and effective.
We have each presented at multiple academic and professional conferences throughout our careers, so our advice is applicable whether you are presenting scientific research or attending a conference run by a professional organization like AMWA.
Start planning early. The first step in crafting an effective presentation is not to start at the last minute. Calls for proposals tend to go out well in advance, particularly for larger national conferences. For example, the call for next year’s AMWA conference will likely open within the next couple of months. That means you will need to contact potential collaborators with your pitch well in advance and begin writing early. We recommend giving yourself at least a month before the deadline to make final edits and tweaks.
Writing an effective conference proposal is a topic for its own future blog post, but here are some brief tips:
Look over past programs to make sure the topic you want to cover hasn’t been presented recently. Of course, there are some topics that will always be of interest to those in your field, but make sure that you can distinguish your presentation from past ones.
Write more than you need, then edit it down. The challenge of writing a good proposal is keeping it succinct, so give yourself permission to over-write, then pare it down accordingly.
Be clear about what your audience can expect to gain from your presentation. Will they learn to use a new method or tool? Will they learn about an emerging area of research? Will they learn how to do something they’re already doing better? Being explicit about what you have to offer will increase your chances of being selected.
Get started right away. Once your proposal has been accepted, begin working on your presentation as soon as possible. For our AMWA presentation, we began outlining our presentation about six months in advance. That may seem like overkill, but we also had two collaborators working in different time zones, so we knew that it was going to be a longer process. Plus, starting so early allowed us to get to know our collaborators better, and multiple rounds of revision resulted in a much more polished final product than if we had waited to start.
Avoid the trap of putting your entire paper in the PowerPoint. When there is too much text on your slides, the audience’s instincts are to read. This then distracts from your presentation and makes it harder for your audience to remember your main points. But by no means should you plan to simply read a script to your audience. Even at academic conferences, a visual aid of some sort is usually expected or required. Prioritize elements like graphs, charts, and other types of visualizations if applicable, and use images to communicate main points whenever possible.
Get multiple rounds of feedback. We were lucky to have excellent co-presenters on our panel, and we gave each other feedback on our sections of the presentation multiple times throughout the process. Then we enlisted the help of our friends, family, and colleagues to see what they thought. This was especially valuable for an event like AMWA where your audience members may not be experts at what you do. Getting feedback can help ensure your presentation is clear, meaningful, and visually appealing.
Leave enough time for questions. When you’re putting together a presentation, it can be easy to forget that you need to leave time at the end for your audience to ask questions. At AMWA, we weren’t able to get to every question even with a 15-minute grace period. Assume that your audience will want to know more about your topic. If you are concerned that you might not get questions, consider drafting up some questions to ask the audience to get them engaged. They usually won’t be necessary, but it’s never a bad idea to have a plan B.
Learn to roll with the punches. Know going in that something can and almost always will go wrong during a conference presentation. There will be technology glitches, disruptive audience members, unexpected questions, or that one typo you missed. That’s ok! If there is such a thing as a perfect presentation, we’ve never seen it. Manage your anxiety about something going awry by planning ahead, and if you are still caught off guard, laugh it off. Your audience will appreciate a show of humor and humanity.
If after reading these tips you still don’t feel confident putting together a proposal and presentation, we are happy to help! Reach out over LinkedIn or through our website and tell us what you are struggling with, and we will create a custom solution to ensure your presentation stands out from the crowd.
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