Technical Presentations at Professional Meetings

It is normally advisable to prepare separate copy for slides. It is difficult to make good slides from drawings or tables that are intended for publication in a journal or report. 

Check out the visual equipment before the presentation. Even if the equipment is provided by someone else, be sure it is in working order. Bumed-out projector lamps, equipment that will not focus, and inconvenient electrical outlets can be a source of frustration to both the speaker and the audience and can detract immensely from an oral presentation. 

When 35-mm slides are used, be sure slides are arranged in proper order and light side up. Slides that are out of order or upside down show that the speaker is unprepared, and interrupting a speech to correct such problems is certain to detract from the presentation and reflect badly on the speaker. 

Papers delivered to technical groups are normally written and published in the conference proceedings. Technical reports that contain complex information or a great deal of statistical material may be read to the assembly. It is generally preferable, however, to summarize the content of the paper and present it in an extemporaneous speech form. 

A technical presentation should be well organized, normally following the same format as that of a technical report or paper but in summary form. The presentation usually contains an introduction, the methodology, the results, and the conclusions. 

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