Academic Conference Presentations: A Step-by-Step Guide 3031211235, 9783031211232

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Academic Conference Presentations A Step-by-Step Guide

Mark R. Freiermuth

Academic Conference Presentations

Mark R. Freiermuth

Academic Conference Presentations A Step-by-Step Guide

Mark R. Freiermuth Gunma Prefectural Women’s University Tamamura-machi, Gunma, Japan

ISBN 978-3-031-21123-2    ISBN 978-3-031-21124-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21124-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover pattern © Melisa Hasan This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Timely spoken words are like apples of gold presented on a silver tray. I dedicate this to my wife whose words always encourage me and to my mother who always prays for me. I also wish to thank all of my students whose kindness and smiles have recharged me again and again across the many years. I also tip my hat to my colleagues, both past and present, who have helped me along the path of my own academic journey. Last, but certainly not least, I want to express my sincere gratitude to my student Nanase Iwahori (AKA: V7*△); because of her inherent sense for artistic balance and beauty, the sketches throughout this book give life to the words on the pages.

Contents

1 Next Up On Stage…  1 2 Conferences: Choose Wisely Grasshopper 11 3 Getting Started: The Precise Abstract 21 4 After the Excitement Fades: Preparing for the Presentation 41 5 Tea for Two or More: The Group Presentation 99 6 Conferences: Live and In-Person107 7 Ghosts in the Machine: The Virtual Presentation119 8 The Seven Deadly Sins: What Not to Do!129 9 The Top Five151 Index157

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CHAPTER 1

Next Up On Stage…

Abstract  In this chapter, I discuss the rationale for writing this book, making the claim that academic presentations are in fact performances, which means the would-be presenter needs to take the proper steps to be ready to perform. This foundational idea is based upon my own experiences working with international students’ academic presentations by  pointing to four fundamental recurring problems: language abilities, willingness to accept criticism, verifiable understanding of the content being  presented and problems of delivery. Because  the chapter fortifies this notion by way of a narrative explanation of a poor performance given by a keynote speaker, which failed primarily because of the delivery, readers will begin to see the value of taking the proper steps to prepare their own presentations. Keywords  Presentation • Performance • Process

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Mark R. Freiermuth, Academic Conference Presentations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21124-9_1

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It is more than a fair a question to ask, “Why write a book about something as common as giving a conference presentation?” Actually, until recently, I would have not considered doing it myself. After all, hasn’t this all been done before? Besides, who needs a book like this? Giving good presentations is just a matter of practice … right? If someone had approached me many years back, I would have candidly said that good presentations are synonymous with good content and a little practice. I no longer hold this view. Of course, practice (a lot being preferred over a little) and content are important—the latter being mandatory—but relying solely on these two elements is a recipe for delivering something that will likely be considered by your audience as being unimportant and completely forgettable. It should be noted here that I did use the word performance intentionally, because for me the giving of conference presentation is probably the closest I will ever come to being an onstage performer. Now, this notion may anger some research purists, so I do say this with a bit of trepidation, but there are parallels between presenting your work and performing that cannot be denied. The presenter finds himself or herself on stage in front of an audience. The spotlight is focused on only one person in the room. Beyond the spoken word, whatever the presenter does onstage will be magnified and scrutinized by the audience. A good presentation has a beginning, a climactic high point and an end. And everyone applauds (this is the aim anyway) the effort at the end. Perhaps, it is much closer to a standup comedy routine than we would care to admit. Think about it; a presenter must establish a rapport with the audience and keep them interested and maybe even on their toes—similar to a standup comedian. Although this is true, there are some obvious differences, such as having a much more cordial and respectful relationship with the audience (although heckling has been known to occur on rare occasion), and even though a bit of levity is appreciated now and then, there is usually a more serious side as well.

International Students and the ITA But let me circle back to the why of writing this book for a moment. I think the first seeds were planted during my graduate school days in the English Department at Oklahoma State University. An integral part of the PhD program in applied linguistics included teaching international graduate students in an English for academic purposes setting. As the end of each semester drew to a close, the international students in the course

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were asked to give a presentation based upon their research. Teachers of the course had to evaluate the students’ presentations. Frankly speaking, the students as a rule were very poor presenters at the outset. We found that we had to analyze virtually every aspect of their presentations. Interestingly, localized language problems tended to be the least of these students’ problems. As a consequence of seeing consistently recurrent troubles, we developed a matrix as an analytical tool. This helped us to see what kinds of problems tended to plague these aspiring researchers.  When we, as  the ‘judges,’ had turned our attention toward the stage where their presentations were unfolding, these tools helped us to identify more easily the problems students were having. Some of the more prominent trouble  spots were documented for the purposes of making a video so as to demonstrate to future presenters the types of problems international students typically encounter. One of our international lecturers performed the five-minute video presentation highlighting as many of the common mistakes we could think of. He then performed the same five-minute talk sans the mistakes. Both of the presentations were videotaped (yes, recorded on VHS tape— it’s all we had in those days). What I did in my class was to show the poor presentation to students and ask them to rate the video. They were generally very good at spotting others’ errors, especially paralinguistic errors. I then showed them the improved model, and we followed this with discussion. I think this video was important in this sense: It allowed the students to see that despite any perceived or actual English language production problems, they could still be successful, and perhaps, even more importantly, language problems were a relatively minor consideration when compared to the other types of problems highlighted in the videos. A second influence for writing this little book can also be traced back to my days as a PhD student. One of my unwritten rules in the PhD program was to take every opportunity I could to develop various skills. Hence, when asked if I would consider being a rater for the International Teaching Assistant (ITA) test, which took place a couple of times each semester, I gladly said, “Yes!” The ITA test was developed to screen international graduate students who wanted to earn some money by teaching undergraduate classes in their field of specialty in classrooms filled with American students. The test required students to simulate a five-minute lecture about any topic related to their major. These students generally came from majors falling outside the humanities. Student success was dependent primarily upon four elements.

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The first trouble spot (but not insurmountable) involved their language abilities. If a student was not capable of producing comprehensible language due to elements such as intonation, pronunciation, grammar or other non-native-like features, the student was going to fail the ITA regardless of any effort. These kinds of students in particular were in store for some tough sledding. With that said, to be honest, they were in the minority, and such problems could be addressed in various classes that had been developed for them with the express goal of teaching them appropriate compensation strategies. The learned strategies offered in these classes proved to be quite effective at helping students to manage their language difficulties. And, although the strategies required the learner’s attention on a second-by-second basis, the good news is that this could actually be achieved with some practice over time! Nearly every student who failed simply because of language comprehensibility problems but who subsequently worked hard on their specific linguistic issues managed to pass the ITA test within one semester of failing it (in fact, I cannot recall even one hopeless case). That is good news for those non-native speakers of English who are simultaneously worried about their oral production of sounds but who still want to present their research in English or any other second language. The second, and truly a much bigger problem, was whether or not the presenting students had the ability to accept advice or whether or not they had access to reasonable and appropriate advice prior to the ITA test. Departments that housed faculty members who had great concern for the well-being of their international graduate students would bend over backwards to help the students prepare for the ITAs. Those students who listened to their advisors’ critiques and heeded the advice from their professors were wildly more successful than their counterparts who went off in their own direction, ignoring the advice being offered to them, and for those poor souls who received no advice from their professors, their presentations often consisted of a bunch of directionless disparate factoids that would make your head spin. Sadly, these latter two groups inevitably failed the test, even though if they had applied the right knowledge, they would have likely passed rather easily. The third problem was whether or not the students actually understood the content of what they were presenting. “Impossible!” you may say. “How could anyone give a presentation about something they know nothing about?” To be frank, I was astounded myself to witness students flounder on questions submitted by idiots such as myself who know very

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little about subjects like quantum physics (I was a Physics 101 dropout after all) or chemistry. The key was actually questioning students. Many of the international graduate students who came to our program had become quite accustomed at memorizing ‘stuff’ by the time they arrived at our doorstep. A five-minute presentation was truly a snap for them—just gather a few notes together, maybe talk to one of their peers who was successful in the previous round of ITA tests and start memorizing. However, no matter how confidently delivered, a memorized talk obviously doesn’t necessarily constitute an understanding of the content of the words filling the air. Students who failed when questioned were generally unable to even couch a reasonable response. A convincing but outright falsehood would have been fine for me and my colleagues, since it would have been presumptuous as uninformed judges to rate the veracity of a statement in an unfamiliar field of study—the benefit would naturally have been credited to the side of the presenter. In other words, it’s not that the student presenter, let’s say of a physics presentation, provided answers that any good physicist worth his or her salt would have considered “whoppers” (lies) of monumental proportions. It is that the presenter gave such nonsensical responses that even we, the laymen judges, with no in-depth knowledge of the subject matter, could easily determine that the answers were miles off target. Memorized information, it turns out, is no substitution for actual knowledge. (I am often asked to act as a judge at various speech contests given in English by non-native speakers. I still find it surprising how often very simple questions about a speech’s content will instantly transform a student into an onstage zombie—staring out into space and unable to produce even a mildly comprehensible answer.) The final problem that students struggled with during their ITA presentations concerned their manner of delivery. This was primarily related to the speed of delivery but also included elements such as mannerisms. Rather than toss the former into the category of language problems, I choose here to separate it because in many instances, these students could be understood quite easily in one situation—say discussing issues with their advisors—while being incomprehensible once they stepped up to the podium. The other reason I choose to isolate this issue is because these kinds of problems can be overcome rather easily when compared to problems such as extended or shortened intonation units or distracting and unnatural pitch attribution to English words or phrases. Elements such as mannerisms could be addressed and conquered with relative ease. In some cases a mere mention of these elements was enough to permanently alter the student’s style, possibly for a lifetime.

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Once a graduate student had successfully passed the ITA, it was not an indicator that they would be good teaching assistant, but it did indicate that they could, at least potentially, present their ideas in a well-thought out manner. For our sakes, they had put on a good enough performance to pass the test. Whether they could pull off that act on a day-to-day basis was completely up to them.

A True Story The other major reason for writing this book is that I have now witnessed so many poor presentations at conferences that I can barely keep from shrieking out, so rather than shriek, I decided to write instead. Let me explain further. I recently attended a major conference, and as is the custom of most participants, I attended the opening plenary session. It was given by a well-known local mucky-muck, and although he was not a native speaker of English, he was quite an accomplished academic scholar and had, for all intents and purposes, mastered every aspect of the English language. He possessed eloquence, impeccable manners, and his voice resonated with a deep friendly tone. The audience was almost restless with anticipation (really!). I am guessing that there were at least 1000 folks who had settled in to hear the presentation. His presentation started with a pleasant and somewhat amusing anecdote, but before very long, I found myself getting fidgety in my hardback folding chair. In fact, I mentally scolded myself and tried harder to tune in to the topic being bandied about by the speaker. I couldn’t tune in and so soon, tuned out. I suddenly found myself looking at the lights, the room arrangement and the gargantuan auditorium DOORS! (I’m not sure why, but auditoriums always have either gargantuan doors or doors with those push-bars that make such a loud noise that everyone in the entire auditorium can hear the sound if you try to leave.) “Could I slip out? I could just leave since I was near the back; after all, I did have to use the restroom, albeit being the mildest of urges. ‘No,’ I should stick it out. Undoubtedly, the problem was mine … maybe a bit of undigested beef or an undercooked potato playing tricks with my mind.” I furrowed my brow and tried again to tune in. He said he wanted to show something on an overhead. “Ah, it is a good thing I didn’t bail out because now the heart of the matter is finally going to be unveiled for us,” I thought to myself (although I confess my surprise at the mention of an overhead). I clicked my conference sponsor-included pen and grabbed my

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conference sponsor-provided notepad. He slipped something onto the overhead projector. What was it? It was actually an overhead transparency or at least had been one at some point in history. (Some of you may have to ask your elders what an overhead transparency is because I am next to certain that you have never laid eyes on one in your life.) It looked as if it had once been a photocopy of a photocopy, which was then photocopied onto an overhead Mylar transparency slide—either that or it had been rescued at the last moment when the researcher’s office had caught fire, and he escaped the building with the transparency still smoldering. As I could see the overhead projector off to my left, I could also see the bad condition of the transparency, which resembled one of those blackened burnt potato chips that you occasionally encounter at the bottom of the bag. In other words, unless my glasses had fogged over suddenly, it was barely transparent; it was dark, crookedly situated on the page, wrinkled and I actually couldn’t even read one word that had been typed upon it (by a typewriter—a machine that was once used to put words on paper or in this case plastic). The text that didn’t disappear into the blackness along the edges was so tiny it might as well have been Sanskrit. As it turned out, he didn’t seem to be running down the list of things on the overhead anyway, so it seemed completely irrelevant to his ramblings. I looked around again. Now my back was getting very sore. … “Ah, so it was my back that was actually causing the problem; I couldn’t concentrate because of my lower back pain.” I adjusted myself to find a better position; however, even as I tried repositioning myself, so I could get more comfortable in my chair, I soon found myself looking around the auditorium once again. I actually stretched myself up in my chair to see if I could catch any old friends or colleagues in the crowd. What suddenly struck me was that I wasn’t the only one who was fidgety and looking around. There were plenty of participants mimicking my very actions. If it had only been one or two, I would have thought that they were mocking me or sending me a message to behave more properly. Could it actually be that this famous speaker, whose shoes I wasn’t worthy to spit-shine, was really blowing it? It couldn’t be … or could it? I decided that to keep my sanity, I would have to abandon ship. After escaping the room and clearing my head, I found myself at a nearby café and began to relax. Upon grabbing a bite to eat, I found myself pondering the plenary talk once again. Was I just an impatient soul and the opening address was actually fantastic? While I was munching on my sandwich, another conference-goer (identified of course by the conference bag she

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was toting) asked to sit down next to me as it was fairly crowded in the café. We greeted each other, and although extremely tempting, I decided not to ruin my newfound acquaintance’s breakfast by complaining. Besides, for all I knew she might have just finished up a major research project with the fellow, and I would end up with egg on my face (literally). She was the one who said something akin to, “Could you believe that presentation?” I opened my mouth but froze; slack-jawed, knowing that she could spin what had just transpired in one of two diametrically opposed directions. Perhaps she would say, “I heard angels in chorus when he was speaking. I’m going to buy his book and get his autograph.” Instead, much to my relief, she expounded with a deep sigh, “That was one of the worst keynotes I’ve heard.” “Ah-ha! Vindication!” It hadn’t just been me. Others thought so too—probably many others. And they didn’t think it was a little bad but that it was very, very bad indeed! Needless to say, we had much to discuss, and we proceeded to point out all of the shortcomings we had just witnessed in gory detail. My intention here is not to sound snobbish in even the slightest of manners. If I were naturally eloquent and could walk to the front of the room and dazzle my audiences with a mesmerizing rhetorical style and a dynamic presence replete with sparkling eyes and a flashy smile, I think then I would be fair game to be labeled a snob. … I have NEVER BEEN or CAN NEVER BE such a presenter! In fact, I’ve learned some of the lessons in this book the hard way—taking a solid punch to the gut. Nevertheless, these lessons don’t have to be learned in such a manner. If one has the ability to make oneself understood, anyone can give a good presentation. Nobody expects Nobel Prize winning presentations, but audiences do expect good presentations based upon some reasonable enduring principles, which is a combination of content, extensive proper planning and practice.

In Brief Being ready to give your best performance is critical for the optimal presentation, but it requires more than good content and a nice smile. If you are truly hoping to enjoy your 20 minutes of ‘fame’ while you are onstage, you will need to take steps that require your attention even months before the presentation is actually on the horizon. When I gave my first ‘big deal’ presentation, I sought out much advice and it helped me, but I also had to learn a lot of things on my own. Some of what follows, you may already

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know—I am taking a very practical and basic approach after all—but I hope there are also sections or bits of advice in this decidedly brief guide that you will find helpful. As such, I will try to cover what I think are the most important things to consider, taking readers from the initial spark when you say to yourself, “I think I should give a presentation on this topic,” all the way forward to your actual onstage performance. Much of what I hope to offer readers comes from my own experiences at conferences and encounters with both undergraduate and graduate students, who I strongly push to present their research to others because I know that a great conference experience can be exhilarating and extremely rewarding. Besides my own experiences, I have also incorporated some of my students’ experiences and, moreover, their many, many questions— some of which have been repeated so frequently that they are the basis for particular sections in this book. In consideration of students as would-be presenters or even teachers who haven’t had opportunities to present, I would mention that some come to the table with a wealth of knowledge and a tacit understanding of what presenting at a conference must be like, but others really do come to the table with their eyes wide open—not knowing what to expect at any stage, so I will try to look at the whole process from as many angles as possible. It is my hope that this guide might actually provide you with some useful suggestions along the way. My goal is simple. I want to give you enough information provided in a way that is easy to swallow. I want you to be able to give your best performance on game-day (presentation day)—which should be the culmination of the many steps that need to be taken in advance of that moment. This is a journey—we hope with a happy ending…let the journey begin!

CHAPTER 2

Conferences: Choose Wisely Grasshopper

Abstract  In this chapter, I discuss what would-be presenters should consider when contemplating conference choice. Some good sources of information regarding which conferences might be considered are scholars or peers, who may know about particular conferences, and also websites— especially websites organized by trusted organizations connected to one’s specialty. The chapter emphasizes the importance of investigating each conference thoroughly to ensure that the quality of the conference meets one’s expectations. For example, would-be presenters should proceed cautiously if the keynote speakers’ research interests do not align with the conference’s stated aims or if they find that the conference has either multiple iterations within the same year or is scheduled to be simultaneously held at the same venue as other conferences with completely different aims. Keywords  Conference selection • Proposal • Abstracts • Keynote speakers

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Mark R. Freiermuth, Academic Conference Presentations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21124-9_2

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Before talking about conferences in general, I would like to take a big step backwards to the point of selecting the conference that is right for you. Conferences may be huge or relatively small; however, the size of the conference is not at all a good predictor of the quality of the conference, so great care should be taken when choosing where to submit your proposal. Actually, almost all of my favorite conferences have been relatively small

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compared to the mega-conferences (over 2000 participants). I find them to be much more intimate, giving you a better  a chance to meet other presenters and attendees, which has the added benefit of opening the door for discussions with them on a much more personal level. Nevertheless, I have also presented at quite a few mega-conferences. They do carry perhaps a bit more weight on your CV, so they can also act as a nice feather in your cap.  You will likely still be able to find some comrades at such conferences. By attending presentations that have similar content to your own, you will probably get the chance to strike up a conversation or two with the presenters. Who knows? You might just find a like-minded colleague who you really want to work with in the future. With so many options to choose from, the logical question is, “How should I choose the right conference?” When I first started presenting many moons ago, all of the conferences available to me were at least relatively good from the standpoint of specialty-related content. However, with the advent of widespread internet connectivity that is certainly no longer the case. I will tell you of my own ‘bad’ experience. Quite a few years back, I wanted to attend a conference with my grad students, so I searched and searched and finally found a conference that was right up everyone’s alley, and it wasn’t too far away so everyone who wanted to attend could attend. The timing was also good. The conference fee was quite a bit higher than I would have liked, but as my grad students were all part-time students with full-time jobs, I floated the idea to them. They jumped at the chance, and we all submitted our proposals. Our proposals were all accepted within a couple of days … this was the first warning sign that made me a bit uncomfortable. The deadline for abstracts was still a couple of weeks away, but all of our proposals had been accepted within two days. Nevertheless, I paid the online fee and told the students that I had, and they followed suit. For most conferences, abstract submissions will have a deadline date, which normally occurs months prior to the actual event. (Some of the mega-conferences have deadlines that occur close to a year before the actual conference dates). Once the deadline date has passed, abstracts are judged and then either accepted or rejected. Even with smaller conferences with shorter turnaround times, one would expect the review process to take at least two to three weeks. The speed at which our abstracts were accepted indicated that they might not have been judged very seriously if at all. This turned out to be correct. The second warning sign was that the conference was being held in one country but the charge to our credit cards was made from a bank in another country. Although this is not unusual, I couldn’t see any

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connection between the organization taking the money and the conference. It was then that I started to fret a bit, and I decided to check out the conference website a bit more seriously. I then discovered what should have been another red flag had I been more careful from the start. The conference keynote speakers were not experts in language studies or linguistics; they were simply called educators and experts. Further investigation revealed that they were the keynote speakers at many other conferences as well—like two conferences per month! I assume that they traveled from city to city presenting the same meaningless talks. It was then that I discovered what should have been a third and very ominous warning sign had I been more attentive, namely, that the conference bearing its very enticing name would be convened again and again throughout the year— skipping from one place to another—always with the exact same title (only the iteration of the conference was different, e.g., the 42nd Conference became the 43rd Conference one or two weeks later). I concluded from my search that there was a group of individuals (I hesitate to call them scholars) who would rotate as keynote speakers with each new location. As we all had decided to go to the conference anyway (and believe me when I say there was no way to get our money back), we discovered the fourth red flag. The large conference venue was home to not only language teachers and linguists; there were other disciplines there as well. We quickly realized that there were presentations from a wide variety of academic disciplines. In fact, we discovered that the one conference venue was actually housing four different conferences all being held simultaneously. Each different conference had its own banner showing the dates of the conference, all within a couple of meters of the other conference banners! Presenters who had joined a particular conference, would stand next to their conference’s banner to get their picture taken while just a couple of meters to the left or right, another group of presenters who were attending a different conference were getting their pictures taken. It was a surreal scene to be sure. Just like a salad-bar—you could choose whatever conference you liked. As if to cement this point home, the organizers had only one registration desk, and the presenters needed to inform the staff concerning which conference they were attending. (I also note here that the staff vanished each day after lunch.) In addition, the keynote presentations were joint sessions for all four of the different conferences being housed under the same roof. To say the least, the plenary presentations were crazy bad with speakers lifelessly droning on in speeches chock full of empty platitudes on various topics—none of which were the least bit interesting or thought-­provoking to me or my students.

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Fortunately, we had a good time (not so much at the conference but outside of it) and met a very nice young researcher in a different discipline who we all enjoyed getting to know. We all went out to dinner and had ourselves a very nice time. Personally, I was so relieved that my students had a good time in spite of my hasty decision. Nevertheless, this bittersweet experience compels me to encourage you to thoroughly investigate each conference you hope to attend so that you don’t fall into the same kind of trap. A good place to start is to take a look at the keynote speakers. If they have a background in your field and are well-published, the conference is probably fine. If it smells a bit fishy, believe what your nose is trying to tell you and dig a bit deeper. It is likely that the conference is just trying to make money, and you will be less-than-satisfied customers with the experience.

Finding the Best Fit There are several ways to go about ‘finding’ a conference. Perhaps the easiest way is to simply ask some experienced scholars for their advice. Although, as a PhD student, I didn’t actually ask my supervisor for her advice prior to my submitting an abstract to one of the more prestigious conferences  in applied linguistics, I was aware of what conferences she considered to be important and that knowledge weighed very heavily on my decision. She was quite pleased to learn that I had submitted a proposal to a very well-respected conference and even more pleased to find out that my abstract had been accepted. Another way to discover what conferences are possibilities is by conducting an online search. This provides the most choices with the least amount of initial effort. I just did a search using the term ‘linguistics conferences’ and got ‘about 3,600,000 results.’ Of course, most of the relevant results were found on the first few pages. Probably the best hit on the first page was the one linking to the Linguist List, but there were a few that appeared before the Linguist List as well. When conducting a web search, you may recognize well-known organizations connected to your area of research, which may also include information about various conferences. Pursue those avenues. If you aren’t sure, ask someone who knows. Better safe than sorry! As you can tell from my tale of trouble, not all conferences are created equal. Just as there are low-quality journals, there are also more than a few low-quality conferences. Don’t be fooled by slick websites and wonderful sounding conference titles. Dig deeper! I previously mentioned that a

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trusted organization—the Linguist List—appeared in my search. I am confident that if I see a conference listed there, it will be a high-quality affair. Nevertheless, my quick search produced 13 other hits on the first page. From my experience, ten of these sites take one to conference websites providing links for super-low-quality conferences, and one more of these sites includes links for both good and poor conferences together. Luckily, a poor conference can be identified by applying a few simple rules. First, identify the keynote speakers and the organizers (if possible). Who are they? Have you heard their names in your field? If you are not sure, search their names online to uncover the types of research they are associated with. (Remember, there may be a local celebrity or a government official invited to give a brief talk as well, so you might need to investigate more than one of the keynote speakers.) In most cases, a reputable conference’s website will provide enough pertinent information about the keynote presenters as well as providing information about who is organizing the event. Neither the speakers nor the organizers need to be famous, but they should be connected to your field of research in some way. Once you find these things out, it will become much easier to decide. Second, look at the conference title and then check the frequency of conferences with the same name. If the conference occurs more than once per year, this should be a red flag. Good conferences are usually held as annual events at most and some conferences might not even be held every year. This is due to the amount of planning time it takes to prepare a proper conference. I have been involved in organizing a very small conference, and the amount of work it took to make it successful was considerable—much more than ever I imagined! It takes a team of individuals willing to sacrifice a great deal of their time to make it a pleasant experience for the presenters and attendees. As I mentioned, many of the low-­ quality conferences have very nice websites, so they look legitimate. To them, this is simply a business venture, and their job is to sell you on their conference. If you have registered and paid their fees but problems suddenly arise that won’t allow you to attend, you can kiss your conference fee goodbye! Third, check the conference venue and the dates listed for the conference. The venue is usually a very nice place; however, some conference organizers often play the dirty little trick that caught me by surprise; they schedule more than one conference at the same time aimed at different groups, so you might encounter two, three, four, even five or more different conferences all housed in the same facility. The registration is at the

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same place; the plenary speakers are the same for every group, and all attendees get the same exact schedule, conference bag and whatever goodies they are offering. By searching the dates and the name of venue housing the event, you can generally find out whether or not the venue is hosting multiple conference conventions simultaneously. Of course, at very large conference centers or hotels, they may indeed be hosting more than one conference with overlapping dates, so check the keynote speakers as well as the conference pages themselves. You should be able to assess the conference in question more accurately by following this path. One more similar trick that profit-making organizations employ is to change the name of a conference slightly as they move from place to place. In this way, they can conceal the fact that although the conference name is a bit different at one location, it will be managed in identical fashion to the previous iterations. I like to call these conferences DINOs—different in name only. For example, a conference in one city might be entitled: The 48th Paris Conference on Applied Linguistics, Literature, Social Sciences and the Humanities. However, when they move down the road to a different city, the name and consequently the conference number will also change to something perhaps like this: The 63rd Madrid Conference on Literature, Linguistics, the Humanities and Society. The two conferences will be, for all intents and purposes, identical. You can see that the conference title examples seem to include as many related fields as possible, which should inform you that these conferences are not that concerned about specific fields of enquiry; by making the call for papers so wide, they hope to lure a wider swath of customers to their events. Another thing to be wary of are unsolicited conference invitations. These usually arrive as email messages flooding you with praise about how wonderful you are, and, “Wouldn’t you just love to be a speaker at our conference?” If you have a good email spam detector, these will inevitably appear there. In many cases, you will find that the conference being promoted has no relation to your field of interest. I have been invited on several occasions to be a keynote speaker or a featured speaker at conferences with disciplines ranging from engineering to biological sciences. Of course, these are scams. Read the email message, and if it sounds fishy, it probably is. In most cases, you will be able to make an informed decision simply by reading the text in the message. On the other hand, if the conference does seem to line up with your interests, investigate further, keeping in mind the many red flags we have been discussing here. It is possible it is legitimate, but the odds are much better that it is nothing more than

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a profit-motivated organization trying to get your money for a lousy conference, at best, and at worst, it may be an attempt to try to coax you into becoming one of the ‘keynote experts’ promoting their traveling show. The final telltale sign of a poor conference is the cost. Poorer-quality conferences, surprisingly, are usually much more expensive. After all, such conferences are aimed at making a profit. I don’t mean to make fun of such operations, but in many ways, it is similar to a traveling circus. They make their money from the conference goers, pack up their things and move on to the next city with very little variation in the operation. Their aim is the bottom-line, so success to them means being ‘in the black’ after the conference has finished.

In Brief Choosing the right conference can make your conference experience as a presenter extremely enjoyable. It is a chance to meet others who are interested in research with connections to your own. I have made wonderful collegial relationships through the sharing of my ideas with like-minded researchers. Some of these encounters have culminated in joint research ventures. How did it happen? It starts by being in the right place and presenting to the right people, but do your homework. That might mean asking others or doing thorough online searches to make sure you are starting off in the right direction. If you do choose your conference wisely, it is not an exaggeration to say that presenting at the conference can be one of the most rewarding experiences you will experience in your academic life. Once presenting gets in your blood, you will look forward to the next conference adventure. Taking the selection process seriously will aid you in making the right choice. If you are having trouble finding conferences in your specific field of research, one online place I would recommend that you check is CONAL (which stands for ‘Conference Alerts’). The CONAL site provides conference information on a wide range of academic fields (https://conferencealerts.com/index). An oft overlooked benefit of CONAL is that once you have ‘clicked’ on a potential conference link, you can check to see if the organizers are simply cranking out conferences by clicking on another link (presently in ‘blue’ hypertext) labeled ‘View all events from this organizer,’ which is situated just below the conference synopsis. If the organization has been scheduling many conferences throughout the year, proceed with caution, and don’t be fooled by an organization touting

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various conferences all with slightly different names. There is a very high likelihood that they will all be managed in the same exact way. In addition, CONAL allows one to check to see if there are other conferences running at the same place and time by simply scrolling down the page a bit further. There, you can see a list of other conferences with identical dates that are taking place at the same venue. If there are many conferences in the same place, this should be a big red flag with flashing lights and sirens, telling you to avoid that conference. With that said, remember that CONAL simply acts as a platform aimed at gathering conference information (the same is true of ‘10times.com,’ which can be checked as well). It does not ‘weed out’ poorer conferences, but it does provide additional information that other sites do not include. In the end, you are responsible for finding out if the conference is a ‘good’ one or a ‘bad’ one. If you know of a conference site that is dedicated to your field of study—an example in my field would be The Linguist List—the organizers are more likely to promote conferences that are solid. There is one more thing I wish to reiterate. One of the most satisfying parts of attending a conference is meeting up with others. After you have established good relationships with other colleagues, meeting them at a conference venue is great fun. If you haven’t yet established a network of colleagues, I highly recommend trying to present with others from your own circle of influence—whether that be other researchers, classmates or even your supervisor. Whenever I have the chance to attend a conference with my students or meet up with a colleague at a conference, I relish the opportunity. Presenting at good conferences represents one of the most satisfying academic exercises I can think of, but sharing the experiences with others makes it all the more rewarding.

CHAPTER 3

Getting Started: The Precise Abstract

Abstract  In this chapter, I discuss the writing and submitting of the conference abstract. As most abstract submissions are done online and then distributed to reviewers, one should pay careful attention to the procedures specified on the submission website. Also, the chapter emphasizes that an imperative for success is that an abstract be free from spelling and grammatical errors. In addition, whether the abstract is based upon research or classroom activities, abstracts should follow a rhetorical pattern; examples are provided in this chapter; however, different specialties may have different rhetorical styles, so it is critical to know the pattern that suits one’s specialty. As many conferences also require a short description, a pattern for such descriptions is also included in this chapter. Keywords  Abstract • Proposal • Research • Classroom research • Reviewers • Short description

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Mark R. Freiermuth, Academic Conference Presentations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21124-9_3

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Most of us don’t get invited to give talks … at least not for the first conference we plan to attend. That means if we want to present our work, we need to send a brief synopsis of our research to the conference organizers, which is subsequently reviewed either internally or externally for possible acceptance at the conference in question. But let’s backtrack a little bit before discussing how to put together a good abstract (sometimes referred to as a proposal). There is a rather large step that generally precedes the abstract, which is especially important if you are an inexperienced presenter. You should complete all or at least some of your research project before even thinking about putting your abstract together. That doesn’t mean that the conference expects you to have completed your research project at the time of submission. In fact, many conferences welcome abstracts that discuss incomplete research projects or even research that

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has yet to be started. However, those who can produce their abstracts like magicians from thin air are either quite experienced scholars who have a very good idea of how their research will unfold or high risk-takers who end up in trouble at the end of the day. My suggestion to the inexperienced presenter is to finish your project before you write up your abstract, or at least complete enough of it so that you have a clear idea of the findings you wish to report. This helps you to avoid the worries that come along with research complications that you might encounter but could not foresee. Jumping the gun may result in your abstract being far different from what you actually really discovered. After you gain some experience as a researcher and find your niche, you can then decide whether or not you will need to complete a project prior to constructing an abstract for the conference you hope to attend. If it is any solace, to this day, I prefer to complete my research prior to writing up my abstract for a conference that I hope to attend. This is largely because the data I am gathering and assessing may take me in directions that are still interesting but which lead to findings that are far different from my original inklings. Personally, I would rather present the research findings I have obtained as accurately as possible rather than having to twist my findings to match a premature abstract that got many things wrong.

Abstracts When it does come time to submit an abstract, in the vast majority of cases, all documents will be submitted online via a conference website. Occasionally, conference organizers will ask to have the abstract submitted by email, but this is becoming increasingly rare. (During the early years, I routinely had to send hardcopies of abstracts using snail mail!!! Be grateful for the interconnectivity we now enjoy.) Once received by the host organization, the abstracts are normally distributed by the conference organizers to reviewers, and those review committee members eventually respond to the submitted proposal with their verdict, which generally is the determining factor (for most of us) concerning whether or not we can present. The majority of conferences do have some sort of reviewing or vetting process. How the review process works is based upon criteria that the conference organizers have set up in advance of the conference announcement (for the more reputable conferences anyway) and unfortunately, how desperate the conference organizers have become in their goal of recouping some of the cash shelled out to

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organize such a monstrosity—and, to be sure, well-organized conferences that expect more than a handful of attendees are certainly monstrosities. Of course, the primary consideration of having your abstract accepted revolves around the content of your presentation idea. “What do you want people to know about what you have done?” or in some cases, “What are you in the process of doing?” Even so, despite your submitting of an abstract brimming with excellent content, if the conference has high enough standards, content alone will likely not be enough to win you a spot in the conference lineup. As a frequent conference reviewer, I have read countless conference proposals where the potential presenter had included very interesting content in the abstract but had also botched some very basic principles, booting the abstract from the ‘accept’ group into the ‘reject’ group. If most reviewers are like me, I would bet that they are looking for ways to eliminate abstracts rather than ways for keeping them, especially when spots in the conference lineup are limited. Putting any kind of doubt in a reviewer’s mind will give that reviewer a justifiable reason to axe your proposal. Good content alone usually won’t save a bad abstract.

The Submission Procedure These days, the basic procedure for submitting an abstract goes something like this: The potential presenter produces an abstract and submits it (anonymously most of the time) to a designated person from among the organizing committee or by way of an online platform website. It is then forwarded to the reviewers, who in turn give their opinions on the worthiness and soundness of the idea proposed. The potential presenter is then sent the verdict of this review process and hope is either fanned into flames or burned up in them. As the majority of academic conferences rely on website submissions, it is normally quite easy to see the status of your abstract by logging into the conference website. This usually requires a mere click of a mouse button. It can be more troublesome in a number of ways as well, but some of these problems are really ‘non-issues’ if a little care is taken. All I wish to say in regard to these normalized procedures is that you ought to check and double-check to insure that you have not missed anything. I confess that I recently missed a tiny icon button in the lower right-hand corner of the conference registration webpage. One click of the button would have completed the registration, so although I had paid, I actually had not completed my registration. Because I had missed the button, my accepted

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abstract did not appear on the schedule! Fortunately, for me, the organizers let me know that they had indeed received my payment but that I needed to complete my registration, which is when I discovered my error. All ended well, and the organizers quickly added the presentation to the schedule, but I chided myself for not attending properly to making sure all of my ‘i’s’ were dotted and my ‘t’s’ were crossed. That is just to say, be careful at every step along the way and that certainly includes the steps that need to be taken during the abstract submission. There are other types of troubles that you should be aware of as well. One problem that cannot easily be overcome is technical trouble. Despite the fact that the academic world is now completely reliant upon computer technology, glitches and problems occur every day. Your internet connection might be problematic. If you find that you are constantly having problems with internet connections, perhaps it is better to resort to using a different computer at a different location. You may also wish to check your internet settings to allow the conference website all privileges (pop­up windows allowed, Java scripts allowed, acceleration turned off, etc.), or you might simply try a different browser. (I cannot tell you the number of times that I have found success simply by switching browsers!) Some online submission pages have an automatic confirmation web page that is immediately launched once it has been received by the server being used by the conference. Sometimes these confirmation sites offer the potential presenter one last chance to look the abstract over before it is submitted as the finalized abstract. This is a very nice feature because it usually takes the information that the potential presenter has put in the dialogue box on the submission page and displays it in a format that is much more easily read. One is normally given the opportunity to edit the proposal either by using the ‘back’ button or clicking on an ‘edit’ button. Unfortunately, not all online conference  submissions have automatic confirmation functions. In some cases, an email is sent as a confirmation, and in other cases there is no confirmation. If an email confirmation is sent, I suggest printing it out or saving it on your computer in a designated file and saving it in a specially created email folder. If you’re like me, trying to go back in time to find an unassigned email is akin to looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Personally, I like to take one additional step; besides saving it in a designated file created in my email application, I also save the confirmation in a file on my computer and even in a physical file as well—the old manila folder type with the words “X Conference” written on the tab or in bold letters across the face. I then put this folder

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in a place where I know that I will look at it on occasion. (Sure my desk is a mess, but I know if I dig through the teetering stacks, I’ll eventually find it, and even if I don’t, I have it saved in MS Word … somewhere on my computer.) Abstracts can become casualties if one is not careful, but this is the exception rather than the rule. It is probably better to work up your abstract in word processing software rather than banging it out on your keyboard directly in the dialogue box on the conference submission website. In this way, you can check your work and frequently save the abstract. Also, you can use the spellchecker to avoid silly and oftentimes deadly spelling errors (and anyone is capable of making a spelling error—native speakers included). When you are satisfied with the document, copy the text and paste it into the dialogue box. Make a quick check to be sure that you have pasted the entire document into the dialogue box, and then you will be off and running. One final reason that I suggest writing your abstract in word processing software rather than in a dialogue box on the conference webpage is that if your internet connection drops while you are online, you will lose your work. You may believe that your internet connection is always stable; however, despite the quality of the connection at your end, sometimes the problems occur at the other end, completely out of your control. If you are a non-native speaker of the language of the conference, I implore you to have a native speaker read your proposal—not just any native speaker you might happen to see walking down the street or some guy who you met at the beach or the backpacker who works over at the barista but someone you have confidence in that understands a bit about academics. If you can find someone who has knowledge in your field of study, this would be the best scenario. Make sure you bring this person up-to-speed regarding important information related to your abstract and what kind of conference it is. I have frequently helped my own students clarify their intentions, and at times have even suggested that they choose a different conference theme (if it is divided into themes) based upon the information they have provided to me. Once your abstract has been thoroughly checked, you can submit it to the conference website with far more confidence. As was  mentioned previously, there is a belief by some non-native speakers that their proposal will be judged solely on its content. This might be true on rare occasion; if the reviewers are non-native speakers as well (which can happen), they may be a bit more sympathetic (but they have also been known to be even harsher). In all honesty, when I am a

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conference reviewer, I tend to reject abstracts with even a few grammatical problems. Am I a mean guy? Well, my reasoning for rejecting the proposal has very little to do with this. My logic usually goes something like this: Because there are very basic errors, this abstract wasn’t looked at by a native speaker or wasn’t edited carefully, so it was in all likelihood thrown together in haste, which means the presentation will likely be thrown together in haste as well resulting in a haphazard affair that will be less than satisfactory for audience members who happen to stumble into the presentation room unaware. Perhaps this is a bit unfair, but as a judge, I have to apply some standards, and one of these standards is whether or not the abstract is grammatically sound.

Writing the Abstract—Follow a Pattern There are some people who are extremely gifted at writing abstracts for conferences and manage to put together masterpiece after masterpiece based solely on their intuitions without following any guidelines. If you’re like me, your intuitions only kick in once the abstract has already been written. What that means in practical terms is that abstract should be written following a tried and true pattern. But what is the best pattern (you may ask)? Well, there isn’t one … there are many, but there is one pattern that I prefer over all others, which may work for a number of disciplines. (If you doubt your discipline follows the pattern suggested here, ask a trusted scholar to advise you of a more genre-specific rhetorical pattern that fits with your area of research.) Besides knowing a pattern, another good source of information is scholars, colleagues or friends who may have presented at your dream conference or a similar type of conference in the past. Ask the person if you can have a look at one of the successful abstracts that he or she had submitted in the past. You will probably be able to recognize a clear pattern that the person used for their abstract, and then, you can simply follow suit. Chances are that the standard that was used for previous conferences will be continued. Take caution, however, if that person proceeds to push a chair over to his or her bookshelf and while standing on tiptoes, pulls a dusty file from the top shelf and hands it down to you, saying, “The paper may be yellowing, and there are a couple of typos, but it is a pretty good abstract.” There is a chance that standards might have changed since that person last presented at the conference you are hoping to attend and present at.

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Before jumping into the one pattern, I would like to mention that some conferences have guidelines for writing abstracts. Make sure that you check the conference website carefully because if a pattern is suggested or there are guidelines pointing to what reviewers are looking for, of course, these things need to be considered above and beyond any suggestions that are offered here. I would be remiss not to mention that even when a specific type of abstract is suggested or required by the conference organizers, having an awareness of the general pattern will almost always be beneficial when producing the variation as requested by the conference organizers.

One Pattern The pattern that I usually use when I haven’t any guidelines (which is the rule rather than the exception) is the following: 1. Why is this topic interesting or important? Is there a significant problem that can be identified? 2. What does previous research say about this topic that might be important? Is there seminal research related to this topic (the audience will likely know this so be careful not to exclude such research)? Can the research be tied to my topic? 3. What discovery am I intending to make using my own research? How does my topic hope to add to the discussion? How does my topic hope to change prevailing opinions about this topic? How is my topic different from prevailing opinions? 4. What is my purpose or research question? (Keep this part short and sweet.) 5. How was my study conducted? Who participated? How many participated? What was done? What equipment was used? 6. What was achieved? 7. WHY WAS THIS IMPORTANT? This will hopefully be one of your concluding comments. (Did you notice that this question seemed a bit ‘louder’ than the others?) 8. What are you going to do on presentation day? By answering each of the eight questions—in the order presented here— you can complete your abstract. The question you may ask is, “Why do you use this pattern?” The simple answer is that I started using this pattern years ago, and I have been consistently successful using it, so I have continued to use it, and it continues to work, so I keep using it!

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Here is an actual example of a successful abstract that I used for a recent conference: In the language learning classroom, students’ willingness to communicate is a prerequisite for successful interaction. However, there are many factors that can dissuade students from actively communicating using the target language (MacIntyre, 1994; 1995). This is especially the case in face-to-face conversation where status and communicative skills are put at risk through active engagement with peers. When used in the language learning classroom, computer-mediated communication (CMC) has the ability to minimize the effects of certain factors that can impede effective communication (Freiermuth, 2001). Nevertheless, it is not clear whether or not CMC enhances interlocutors’ willingness to communicate. In this study, we looked at language learners who communicated with peers via synchronous online chat, and compared their experiences and their discourse choices to those who were engaged in face-to-face spoken interaction. The study involved 36 female Japanese university students who were placed in small groups of four students each and given tasks to solve (using English) either in a networked computer classroom using online chat or in a face-to-face setting using spoken interaction. In a follow­up session, participants switched the mode of communication used to solve a provided prompt, which effectively counterbalanced the design of the study. After communicating with peers by way of both online chat and face-­ to-­face conversation, students filled out posttest questionnaires highlighting their experiences. The posttest survey revealed that students engaged in online chat had a more fruitful experience and were more willing to communicate. Seventeen students rated their experiences favorably while chatting online compared to only 8 students who rated face-to-face conversation favorably. Additionally, a descriptive analysis of the texts produced by students under both conditions, along with student comments, bolstered these experiential data. Our analysis revealed that the online environment engendered ­participation because communication was able to take place without the pressures associated with face-to-face settings. Furthermore, power imbalances stemming from group hierarchies were minimized during online chatting. This encouraged shy and hesitant students to become fully engaged in the discourse discussion of ideas. Also, students who used online chat were less likely to use Japanese as a means to address the issues raised by the provided prompts. We suggest here that in the face-to-face settings it was dif-

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ficult for the students not to rely on their native language, especially when they lacked confidence in their English language abilities. Finally, online chat fostered real discussion of the issues. Discussion can only be considered discussion when certain elements are present such as open-ended questions and instances of agreement or disagreement. Such discussion elements were used more frequently by students engaged in online chatting than those who were engaged in face-to-face conversation. In summation, our results indicate that online chat empowers students to use the target language, which in turn increases their motivation and subsequently their willingness to communicate in the second language. In this presentation, then, we hope to identify and discuss some of the key differences between online chatting and face-to-face conversation and explain how such differences affect participants’ willingness to communicate. We will look at students’ comments concerning their experiences, as well as provide the audience with some descriptive examples of student interaction.

Now, you might say, “That is a bit long, don’t you think?” To which, I would respond that you’ve asked the wrong question. The question should be what is the length requirement specified on the conference website or brochure? If the word limit is 250 words, then you should shoot for 250 words. It is considered very bad form to exceed the word limit and in many cases, your abstract will be automatically rejected for not adhering to the specified word limit or the website form will simply reject it from being submitted. If we shouldn’t go over the limit, what would be considered ‘acceptably close’ to the word limit? Of course there is no hard and fast rule, but as for my own abstracts, if I am not within 10% of the word limit, I will try to add something. As for the abstract shown here, the word limit happened to be 550 words (a rather huge abstract requirement but useful for purposes of explanation), but if my first attempt only produced 400 words, I would not have felt comfortable. On the flip-side, if I submitted an abstract of 551 words, I would be worried because I had exceeded the word limit. The best range for me in this case would be between 500 and 550 words. If my abstract managed to fall somewhere within that range, I would feel pretty much safe. As turns out, the abstract shown here consists of 519 words—a long abstract to be sure but perfect for this conference. You might be tempted to protest, saying that content is far more important than being a bit too short on the number of words. I would agree, but it is also that case that if you have something important to say, it

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should not be difficult to approach the word limit. In fact, it will probably be much more difficult to figure out ways to cut things out that you want to include. If you are going to talk for 20  minutes (a kind of standard length for presentations), you certainly should be able to write a complete abstract and that means hovering near the word limit asked for. To bolster this point, I will mention my last experience as a conference reviewer. As reviewers, one of the five categories we had to judge was ‘abstract length.’ If an abstract failed to reach a certain number of words or if the number exceeded the word limit (250 words), the maximum score we could give the abstract was ‘1’ out of a total of ‘5.’ You would think that most potential presenters would follow the requirements carefully. After all, the conference website emphasized that one of the keys to writing a successful abstract included paying close attention to the word count. Of the dozens of abstracts I reviewed, more than half were too short and so received the instant penalty, and a few others were over the limit. Some of these abstracts seemed very interesting, but by failing at a very basic level, these potential presenters had put their opportunity to present at grave risk. I have no doubt that many of these abstract writers were sorely disappointed in not being able to present their research at the conference. Once you’ve satisfactorily written the abstract, examined it for errors and made any last minute adjustments, you should make sure that your abstract hasn’t shrunk too much or that you’ve accidentally exceeded the word limit via the last minute editing. Checking the word limit one last time should be the final step before submitting. I’m always surprised by the number of words I have added during the final tweaking process, usually resulting in my exceeding the word limit, which then necessitates additional slicing and dicing to cut the abstract back down to size. This cyclical process may seem somewhat time-consuming, but it is better to make sure you have not exceeded the word limit possibly resulting in an instantaneous rejection. Now that we have discussed word limit, we can return to the aforementioned sample abstract to see how it addresses the patterned questions I’ve previously posed. 1. Why is this topic interesting or important? Is there a significant problem that can be identified? In the language learning classroom, students’ willingness to communicate is a prerequisite for successful interaction.

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The point of importance and a problem are both implied, but clearly students’ willingness to communicate is an important factor for classrooms where students are learning to use English as a second language and if there is a lack of willingness to communicate, successful interaction cannot be achieved. 2. What does the research say about this topic that might be important? Does this relate to my topic? However, there are many factors that can dissuade students from actively communicating using the target language (MacIntyre, 1994; 1995). This is especially the case in face-to-face conversation where status and communicative skills are put at risk through active engagement with peers. In this case, we use findings by MacIntyre (absolutely seminal research in ‘second language willingness to communicate’ circles), which apparently explain that there are factors that can impede students from participating. The second sentence from the preceding sample text clarifies the first while narrowing the focus. We are not interested in any kind of communication, but in face-to-face conversation. And, although the proposal will eventually turn to the topic of online chatting, this is a real hint that dependence on conversation alone might have some drawbacks in a classroom. It is also the case, that face-to-face conversation will be compared to online chatting making the introduction of conversation very related to my intended topic of online chatting. This small chunk represents your best attempt at a literature review so choose carefully. 3. What discovery am I intending to make using my own research? How does my topic hope to add to the discussion? How does my topic hope to change prevailing opinions about this topic? How is my topic different from prevailing opinions? When used in the language learning classroom, computer-mediated communication (CMC) has the ability to minimize the effects of certain factors that can impede effective communication (Freiermuth, 2001). Nevertheless, it is not clear whether or not CMC enhances interlocutors’ willingness to communicate. Of course, in regard to point 3’s questions, it is unlikely that you will be able to answer the full slate of queries, but you should be able to answer

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at least one of the questions posed. In this abstract, I answer the question of discovery. I hope to discover whether or not CMC (computer-mediated communication) enhances willingness to communicate. It could be said that this is the purpose, but it is not exactly what was researched, so the sentence following these clarifies the purpose. 4. What is my purpose or research question? (Keep this part short and sweet.) In this study, we looked at language learners who communicated with peers via synchronous online chat, and compared their experiences and their discourse choices to those who were engaged in face-to-face spoken interaction. This is the real purpose. The sentence preceding this one gave a strong clue that the purpose was going to be something related to computer-­ mediated communication, and sure enough, the purpose talks about my study, which looked at synchronous online chat and compared it to face-­ to-­face conversation, Again, I want to emphasize that you need to keep this part brief. One sentence is usually more than enough. If you have more than one purpose or many research questions, try to focus on the overriding purpose or the primary research question. It is perfectly fine to very blunt by writing something akin to “The purpose of this study is…” or “In light of this, we ask the following question…” or “Our objective here is…”. Also, you might notice that I provided a means as to how we went about addressing the issue. We compared their “discourse choices” (analyzed their output) and their “experiences” (posttest questionnaire) as a means to compare students’ conversations and online chat production. It is not mandatory to provide this information here, but I feel that this often helps to clarify matters up front rather than waiting till later to explain things, but be very, very brief!! 5. How was my study conducted? Who participated? How many participated? What was done? What equipment was used? The study involved 36 female Japanese university students who were placed in small groups of four students each and given tasks to solve (using English) either in a networked computer classroom using online chat or in a face-to-face setting using spoken interaction. In a follow-up session, participants switched the mode of com-

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munication used to solve a provided prompt, which effectively counterbalanced the design of the study. After communicating with peers by way of both online chat and face-to-face conversation, students filled out posttest questionnaires highlighting their experiences. As some of you have already surmised, this section could be referred as the materials and method. The explanation of this part might need to be very short depending on how many words are allowed in the abstract. This is one area where you can explain in more detail if you have a larger word limit and you can eliminate detail if you have a smaller word limit. 6. What was achieved? The posttest survey revealed that students engaged in online chat had a more fruitful experience and were more willing to communicate. Seventeen students rated their experiences favorably while chatting online compared to only 8 students who rated face-to-face conversation favorably. Additionally, a descriptive analysis of the texts produced by students under both conditions, along with student comments, bolstered these experiential data. This part is basically your results, which are often difficult to extract from the next question. 7. WHY WAS THIS IMPORTANT? This will hopefully be one of your concluding comments. Our analysis revealed that the online environment engendered participation because communication was able to take place without the pressures associated with face-to-face settings. Furthermore, power imbalances stemming from group hierarchies were minimized during online chatting. This encouraged shy and hesitant students to become fully engaged in the discourse discussion of ideas. Also, students who used online chat were less likely to use Japanese as a means to address the issues raised by the provided prompts. We suggest here that in the face-to-face settings it was difficult for the students not to rely on their native language, especially when they lacked confidence in their English language abilities. Finally, online chat fostered real discussion of the issues. Discussion can only be considered discussion when certain elements are present such as open-ended questions and instances of agreement or disagreement.

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Such discussion elements were used more frequently by students engaged in online chatting than those who were engaged in face-toface conversation. In summation, our results indicate that online chat empowers students to use the target language, which in turn increases their motivation and subsequently their willingness to communicate in the second language. As you can see, this section basically explains what your study’s findings actually mean. These are in fact the conclusions, which frequently include your suggestions. You might note that this section not only addresses the purpose (which is mandatory), but it also addresses other issues that are certainly related to the purpose. As you can also see, this section is the longest, but in many cases, you won’t have the luxury of explaining in such great detail. Sometimes this section might only comprise a single sentence to keep word limits down. Nevertheless, I consider this to be the most important information in the abstract (and the presentation for that matter). It answers the question: “Why is this study important?” Some folks have trouble with this part. If you find yourself struggling on this point, ask yourself what were you trying to accomplish by doing this study? (If it is classroom research, the question might be, “What did the students learn because of the application of your classroom activities and WHY?”) What can be said here is that the abstract up to this point is basically the roadmap as to where you plan to take the audience. If your abstract is accepted, besides being a roadmap, it also becomes a contract. Your proposal is the promise to the organizers and your audience that you will talk about what you have said that you are going to talk about—at least for questions 1 through 7. The answer to Question 8 addresses how you intend to conduct yourself on the day of the presentation. Let’s look at that question. 8. What are you going to do on presentation day? In this presentation, then, we hope to identify and discuss some of the key differences between online chatting and face-to-face conversation and explain how such differences affect participants’ willingness to communicate. We will look at students’ comments concerning their experiences, as well as provide the audience with some descriptive examples of student interaction.

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In this case, we are planning on ‘identifying’ and ‘discussing’ differences, and then ‘explaining’ the effect. We will also ‘look’ at comments and ‘provide’ examples. I focus on the verbs because these are the actions intended for game-day that I am committing myself to  in the abstract. This section is expendable if you are very hard-pressed because of the word limit. Nevertheless, I really try to hard include this section if at all possible because it informs reviewers that you already have a clear idea in your mind as to how you plan to go about conducting your presentation—this can only help your chances of acceptance.

Classroom Research You may be scratching your head here and saying, “Hmmm, that’s all well and good, but I want to talk about something I did in my classroom, which has nothing to do with what you are talking about!” Well, I am going to have to humbly disagree with you. Each question that is asked above can be also applied to classroom research or for excellent classroom lessons that you want to talk about. If you have a clear plan and answer the questions above, your classroom research ceases to be just an idea that the audience might want to try and becomes a ‘lesson’ in best classroom practices, which is supported by what you found out about it. Nevertheless, let’s alter the questions so that they might be a little easier to swallow. 1. Why is this teaching idea interesting or important? Can you identify a problem you hope to address? 2. What does the research say about this practice or about any shortfall? How does this relate to my teaching idea? 3. How was I trying to help my students? In what areas were my students deficient or in need? 4. What is my purpose by introducing this teaching idea? What was I trying to do? (Keep this part short and sweet.) 5. Who are my students? What materials are needed? How did I go about using this teaching idea (step-by-step explanation)? 6. What was achieved by the students? What was hoped to be gained by teaching the students in this manner? 7. WHY WAS THIS IMPORTANT TO STUDENTS? OR HOW DID YOU GET THIS INFORMATION FROM THEM? This will hopefully be one of your concluding comments. 8. What are you going to do on presentation day?

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In other words, adhering to these procedures should work just fine for classroom research. I have also presented on classroom research, and I think that these questions can be easily applied when writing up the abstract. More importantly, by following a pattern such as this, classroom researchers can hopefully avoid a pitfall that many have fallen prey to, namely, the submitting of an extended description of their classroom activity resulting in reviewers asking questions like, “What was the reason he uses this in his class again? I just don’t get it.” Here is a sample abstract of classroom-based research that was accepted at a conference on tourism. It might be a bit tricky, but see if you can answer each of the questions posed by the pattern using this 300-word (exactly) abstract. “Can you make the turn on Bravo?” An airport simulation in an English for Travel and Tourism classroom When teaching EFL students about the travel industry, one of the primary problems is students’ lack of knowledge of specialized vocabulary. However, this represents only part of the problem for EFL learners who often demonstrate only superficial knowledge about the concepts that are associated with the specialized vocabulary (Freiermuth, 2007). As Chanock, Horton, Reedman and Stephenson duly note (2012, p. 4) “…most of what students need to understand is more complex and importantly variable from discipline to discipline.” This notion certainly applies to many EFL learners in universities studying English for travel and tourism, which in our case is simply a popular course but can be an integral component of a dedicated major. In our classroom-based research, 22 female Japanese university students were learning about ground control at the airport but were having difficulty understanding the basic functions of air traffic control, tower control and ground control. To address this problem, students were provided with various definitions of important terminology. They then listened to a short audio recording of an actual ground controller in action to get a sense of what ground controllers do, and finally, but most importantly, students experienced the landing and taking-off of planes from a mock airport set-up in the classroom. Specifically, students were asked to play the role of either an airplane or a controller (ground or tower). By experiencing the actual movement in the classroom, it was hoped that students could gain a deeper understanding of what controlling traffic at the airport was really like as well as strengthening their English language knowledge. Students were given a short debriefing so they could share their experiences with us.

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In this presentation, then, we will provide the actual audio used, give a more detailed explanation of how the classroom was set-up and also share students’ impressions.

I have no doubts that you were able to answer all eight questions simply by reading the questions and looking for the answers in the abstract.

The Short Description for the Conference Program In many cases, the conference will also require that you write a brief description of the presentation, which will be included in the conference program if your paper is accepted. This usually has something like a 50-word limit (or even tinier), so you need to focus on the crux of the matter. Here is one possible description to complement the first abstract, which was discussed earlier in this chapter. This study compared Japanese English language learners’ willingness to communicate using online chat and spoken conversation. It was discovered that certain pressure-raising factors present in face-to-face settings are reduced when students chat online. Because students were more willing to communicate, they consequently produced more language when chatting online.

I generally find it troublesome to keep to the word limits imposed by conference organizers concerning abstract lengths, but for program descriptions, I find it even more difficult! I usually play around with the texts so that I can squeeze every main point into a description. This generally involves addressing three main questions. . What were you trying to do? 1 2. What happened? 3. What was the reason for the outcome and why was it beneficial? From my sample description, you can see that sentence number one answers, Question 1; sentence number two answers Question 2, and sentence number three answers Question 3. Nevertheless, I played around with the text for quite a long time (more than an hour I would guess!) to get the word amount to the acceptable level without exceeding the proposed limit of 50 words. The sample description after much trial and error

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ended up being 48 words—under the limit but within 10% of the limit. (I apply the same formula to both descriptions and abstracts!) If you are a non-native speaker of the language being used at the conference, it is just as important to write a good short description. If you have even the slightest doubt, ask a native speaker to read it. (Don’t rely on translation software that will simply take semantic information and spew out a grammatically sound description. It will end up being error-prone more often than not.)

In Brief It goes without saying that the abstract is critical. It is the key that opens the conference door. If you try to open the door with the wrong key or a bent key, the door will remained closed, and you will be left standing out in the rain (to complete the metaphor). Getting to the conference requires proper planning and execution, so if you are new to the conference ‘game,’ why not try employing one of the two patterns I have suggested? Make sure you submit a ‘clean’ document online that adheres to the word limits—not too long, and equally important, not too short. Also, if your native language is different from the conference language, make sure that a native speaking scholar has a chance to take a look at both your abstract and your description because mistakes on this part can short-circuit your journey. Even when you attend to all of these things, your abstract may still be rejected. It happens to almost everyone!! Nonetheless, by taking your time and submitting a well-designed abstract, your chances increase dramatically. I wish you well in writing up your abstract!!!

CHAPTER 4

After the Excitement Fades: Preparing for the Presentation

Abstract  In this chapter, I discuss some steps would-be presenters can take to prepare for their presentation. The chapter starts by discussing conference proceedings and whether or not it is a good idea to prepare a manuscript and submit it to the proceedings. It also discusses poster presentations and what fledgling poster presenters should consider when making a conference poster. The chapter then discusses making the presentation slides, and tying them to one’s successful abstract. A sample PowerPoint presentation is included as a guide for newbie presenters as well as how the slides can be used to prepare for practicing the presentation. The last section discusses practicing the presentation and offers practical tips to properly hone the presentation. Keywords  Proceedings • Poster presentation • Presentation slides • Abstract • Handout • Practicing

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Mark R. Freiermuth, Academic Conference Presentations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21124-9_4

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Getting an abstract accepted is normally considered a good thing—(dare I say) an exciting thing—one of life’s happy moments. However, the joy is usually short-lived because before you fly off to your dream conference, you need to make sure that you have all of your ducks in a row.

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Proceedings Before we look at presentations in more detail, I think it is important to take a slight step backwards to talk about conference papers. Many conferences incorporate actual full-length conference papers that can be, or in some cases, should be submitted by presenters as part of the overall conference experience. Generally, these papers will be compiled and take the shape of a larger manuscript that is either posted online or printed out as a hardcopy for attendees, but it may also take the form of a special journal issue dedicated to the conference papers. I mention it here because the submission date deadline for the conference proceedings may arrive prior to the conference date, but it is also true that it may follow the conference’s completion. Manuscripts submitted to conference proceedings may be vetted very seriously or not vetted at all. Because many of my students in the past have asked me whether or not they should submit their paper to the conference proceedings, I thought I should at least address the issue briefly here. My answer to students usually is, “It depends.” Weighing the advantages and the disadvantages is probably the best place to start. First, you need to make sure that the full-paper or the short paper is not a requirement. There are some conferences that require the full-paper to be submitted if you want to be included in the conference program! In such cases, you will have no choice but to write the paper. In this light, our discussion here acts as a warning for you to check the conference requirements carefully before you submit your original abstract. If you feel it is unclear as to whether or not it is a requirement (you may be surprised by how often this information is vaguely stated), send the organizers a question asking for clarification. It is better to know this information prior to starting the whole process. Nevertheless, in my own experience, a paper requirement for linguistics conferences has been the exception rather than the rule, but in other disciplines, I believe it to be much more common. So, should you write one if it is optional? The main disadvantage is the time it will take you to produce it. It should follow the rhetorical pattern of research in your field of study. This means that besides producing it, you might also need someone to look at it, especially if you are unsure as to how it should be organized. Additionally, if you are non-native speaker of the conference language, you will need to have someone help you with language issues, especially considering that it might not be vetted very seriously if at all. If that is indeed the case, your paper will be published with all of the errors intact. (Even native speakers need to be super careful

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because if the proceedings have no vetting, your own errors are not likely to be flagged by anyone but you! It’s better to catch them before the printing or web posting rather than to be irritated by discovering them at a later date.) With that said, you might still want to consider writing up a manuscript for the conference proceedings. There are two advantages. The first is that you can get a publication, so your work will be disseminated to others. They can read it and see what you are interested in, and they may decide to attend your presentation based on what they have read, or if they are really interested, they may wish to discuss some possibilities for joint research down the road. The second super-big benefit is that it can help you to organize your own presentation. You can think about it as a cyclical process rotating in both directions. The abstract helps you to write the paper, which helps you to organize the presentation, which is based on the abstract but which also helps you to write the paper, which helps you to develop the presentation. Ultimately, this circuitous process can help you to envision what you are going to do as a presenter. In my own case, if the manuscript deadline for the proceedings follows the conference, I almost never write one because I feel that very few people are likely to read my paper after the conference has finished. Besides, rather than taking the time and effort to produce a manuscript for the proceedings, I consider it a much better use of my time at that point to develop a full-length article for a journal or a book chapter, which is bound to be read more often and will carry much more weight. On the other hand, if the deadline comes sometime prior to the conference dates, I will try to produce a paper. This helps me to focus on what is important and ignore what is ancillary. Besides this, a secondary potential benefit is that I end up frequently pondering the possibility of taking my paper from the conference proceedings and expanding it into something I can have published as a chapter in a book or in a good journal at later date. In other words, the writing process helps me to see the ‘next-level’ potential of the paper. In addition,  through the process of writing, I inevitably discover something interesting, which I might have otherwise overlooked. I won’t spend time here talking about the genre of the proceedings paper. There are plenty of books out there addressing these issues; so rather than skimming over it and not doing it the justice that it deserves, I will just mention that the pattern of my abstract acts as my overall guide for writing the paper for the conference proceedings, but I also use my knowledge of the rhetorical expectations inherent in my own discipline to develop it.

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Poster Child There is one more thing I would like to address briefly before leaping into the presentation development. First, I have never actually chosen the poster presentation as my first option, but you certainly can do this. If this is your very first conference, you may wish to submit your abstract for a poster presentation, so you can get a ‘feel’ for the conference life. As just mentioned, I haven’t set my sights on a ‘doing’ a poster presentation as my first option because I always prefer to give a regular conference presentation. That isn’t to say I have never given a poster presentation. On one occasion my abstract for a full presentation was semi-rejected. To clarify, the organizers mentioned to me that my abstract had been accepted as a poster presentation but not as a face-to-face presentation, despite my attempt to present as a regular presenter. My first instinct was to dismiss this idea outright, but I waited a couple of days to respond to the organizers, which turned out to be a good thing. I talked to couple of my colleagues, and I thought about it a little bit more. It turns out that this is pretty common, and it was a good conference, so I ended up deciding to go ahead and take the chance. In the end, I had a great time at the conference chatting with folks who wandered near me and my beloved poster, so I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. The information in the poster can mimic, more-or-less, the information that you would have put in your slides for a regular presentation. In fact, I would guess that most poster presenters use their slides to help them make the poster. (I used one very large PowerPoint slide and added various sections as information ‘windows’ in the slide.) As the poster presentation discussion time is very informal, the presenter simply needs to know what is on the poster. At the conference, during the designated time slot, the presenter will stand next to the poster and field questions from onlookers as they look over the poster. It can be a lot of fun, and you might meet someone interesting or even famous in your field. To get started on my own poster, I looked at one of my colleague’s posters (which he had hung  proudly on his office wall) and was thoroughly impressed. He told me that he had it sent out and professionally printed on A00 size glossy paper, which is just about the biggest size one can find. It looked amazing. I decided to do the same and recommend you do the same as well. This should be fine for most conferences, but there are conference organizers here and there that include a poster size limitation, so make sure it is OK to have an A00-sized poster before you proceed. If there is no indication, which is the usual case, you can go ahead with the A00sized poster. From the viewpoint of pressure, there is very little.

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My intention here is to point out the importance of the poster itself. Because you will not be standing before an audience and talking for 20 minutes, the poster becomes front and center, so it must look good!! I’ll say it again for emphasis, “It must look good!!” I only say this because, quite frankly, most presenters’ posters look unprofessional—actually crappy—well in excess of 50%. If you find that shocking, I am glad because that means you will take the care necessary to produce a fine-looking poster. Some of you may not be able to spend the 100  dollars to get a professional poster made, but if you can, do it! Remember, your name is going on that poster! Nevertheless, if you feel you really cannot afford it, make sure you print out color slides and put borders on each individual page for a little color contrast. Make sure everything is straight—placed evenly on the poster board or sheet and that the print is large enough to read (at least 16 font using Times New Roman, but 18 is even better). Also, make sure we don’t see blobs of glue or strips of tape hanging off here and there. Construct  the poster using sturdy, colored poster board or thicker  paper instead of  thin, glorified butcher paper. Also, if you need to use paper, make sure you uncurl the paper if it is curling prior to affixing your slides to it. Try rolling it in the reverse direction of the natural curl and place a rubber-band or two on the paper once it is rolled to see if that helps flatten the curve. You might have to wait an hour or so to see if the paper actually became flatter. The most important thing is to get the poster to the conference venue not looking like it was used as a table cloth during a food fight. Of course, as one colored printed A00-sized poster without any additional parts is the easiest way to avoid any troubles, but if you need to add the slides to the poster, the paper should be wrinkle-free and the slides should look neat and clean. To keep it this way on the flight, you will likely need a round tube to carry it in or some kind of cover, and it goes without saying that you should carry it on the plane with you if at all possible. Don’t let the party boys in the baggage area use your poster tube as a cricket bat. If you are worried about the rough treatment it might receive on the airplane, you can always take all of the ‘pieces’ with you and assemble it in your hotel room, but don’t forget to bring measurement tools along so you get everything neat and straight. As for the poster presentation time slots, they are usually designated on the conference schedule. Although this should be common sense, it is completely unprofessional not to be standing in front of your poster at the designated time period and yet, I can say that at most conferences I have

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attended, there will be a few posters hanging in the designated area at the designated time without the designated researchers hanging around to explain their own posters! Also, do not have a stand-in. You are the presenter, not your friend! Interested parties want to talk to you, not a colleague or an unlucky graduate student  who was assigned for the duty because you  were  too busy. If it is your research, you are the one who should be discussing it—no one else. Aren’t all of these things common sense? Maybe, but I have witnessed every single one of the aforementioned transgressions! Don’t think your content alone will save you. Just like any other presentation, the poster presentation requires your full professional attention. Concluding this section, I’ll sum this section up briefly with some bulleted points. 1. Make your poster look professional. Print it in color and have it professionally printed if possible. If you can’t afford it, make sure that it looks good, with nice spacing, large enough print (don’t just paste your full-­ paper on the poster) and no wrinkles. If it looks bad, you look bad! 2. Protect your work when you travel. You can determine what you need to do to make sure your poster looks good on game-day. 3. Be on time and stand with your poster for the duration of the designated time allotted to you. You might just meet someone who is very interested in your research. A poster presentation can be very rewarding. By considering a few caveats, you can enjoy a great conference experience answering questions in front of your poster.

Thinking About the Presentation When pondering the presentation, the most pressing question is when to start preparing. Some folks take their laptop computers with them and start preparing the presentation on the airplane or even in their hotel room. In some cases, this is unavoidable, but I wouldn’t recommend making this a habit. There are a couple of reasons that I think this strategy is not particularly wise. The first is simply that the pressure will continue to mount and may reach the level of ‘meltdown’ by the time your moment in the sun arrives. Conferences are generally short—two to four days on average—so it behooves one to get the presentation ready before leaving. At practically

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every conference I have attended, I inevitably see one or two folks who are madly preparing for their presentation right at the conference site—hoping against hope to finish it before they are called up to the stage (sometimes even preparing it the presentation room during the presentation of the speaker who precedes them!!!). They tend to be panicked, and they have every reason to be as far as I am concerned (explanation forthcoming). A second reason to prepare prior to leaving for the venue is that most folks are significantly more comfortable in an environment they are used to being in. In other words, you are probably going to be much more comfortable using the computer in your extra bedroom or in your office (door closed) than using your laptop on the plane. From a practical standpoint, besides simply being much more physically comfortable, your mental state will likely be much better in an environment that you are used to being in. And, you won’t have to worry about the drunken guy sitting next to you on the plane spilling his beef stroganoff on your keyboard. Personally, I like to work in the office. If I am too busy because of my often hectic schedule during the week, I will come to the office on the weekend if need be. There is one additional benefit of working in a comfort zone (in my case the office), namely, I can work in a manner that I am accustomed to. By working in my office, the web is accessible; I can print; I can see my work on a large monitor; I can access any file I might need; I can stretch; I can get a can of soda; and, I know (usually) that I won’t have to put up with any distractions. If I try to prepare after I leave, I can toss all of those advantages more-or-less out the airplane window. I always feel that if I have prepared my slides prior to leaving, I can now focus on what I plan on saying as I am standing before the audience.

Preparation of the Powerpoint Slides … Plus When I first saw someone give a presentation using PowerPoint many moons ago, I was amazed that slides could be so beautiful and yet make a point. At that time, I thought that I would never be able to prepare slides using such software. In those days, the overhead projector (OHP) was king, and most folks used OHPs rather than laptops connected to a projector. Conferences have come a long, long way since those early days. Most conferences won’t even allow anyone to use an OHP. It is either a laptop or nothing.

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As a matter of survival, I had to adapt, and now, I wouldn’t even dream of stepping up in front of an audience without the accompaniment of a memory stick containing my PowerPoint presentation safely tucked away in my coin purse. In fact, I would dare say that there are only three viable options for the presentation. That is to say there are four options, but only three are actually viable IMHO (in my humble opinion). The OHP is no longer a realistic option because practically anything that could be put on an OHP can be incorporated into PowerPoint slides. The first option is to use nothing. In other words, as a presenter, you simply walk to the front of the room and start talking. There are scant few people who can pull this off effectively, so I say this is really not a viable option for the vast majority of us. In fact, the expectation that there will be computer-aided media associated with a presentation is so strong it is quite unnerving when a presenter doesn’t use a computer to present. If you are one of those very rare people who feel completely as ease never employing slides, (you know who you are), I doubt very seriously that you have purchased this book. With that said, most audiences expect there to be some kind of slide show even from the most prolific of presenters. The days of walking to the stage with a sparkle in the eye and no ‘actual’ presentation are numbered— some may even say ‘dead.’ However, there are still occasions where this occurs so I cannot claim this as a universal phenomenon just yet. The second option is to prepare a handout and work from it. There is nothing inherently wrong with this idea, and many presenters use handouts with a deftness that is truly amazing. Nevertheless, there is a temptation to let the handout do all of the talking—making the presentation less meaningful. The handout should be a tool; if you plan on reading it with your head down, do the audience a favor and let them read it by themselves. Handouts can be enhanced if there are electronic media to complement them and bring them to life. In other words, it might be better to focus on the slides and simply refer to the handout as needed. The days of presenting with just a handout are also numbered. The third option is to use PowerPoint, or another type of presentation software. I recommend PowerPoint because I have shares in Microsoft. Okay, all of you Prezi  and Canva lovers don’t stuff this book into the shredder just yet. I’ve just said this to get your attention. The real reason I use PowerPoint is simply because that is the software that most conferences are going to have installed on the laptops being used in each

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presentation room. I opt for compatibility, so I don’t have to spend nerve-­ wracking time trying to figure out how to make my presentation work if the conference organizers don’t have my software installed or in the case of web-based applications such as Prezi, the internet connection is not particularly reliable. In any case, I will refer to PowerPoint because it is the most commonly used software; if you want to use another kind of software and feel confident that you can make it work, go for it. Despite the fact that I use PowerPoint, it should be noted that the same caveat that applies to handouts also applies here. If you plan on simply reading the content contained in your PowerPoint slides, then you might as well hand out printed versions of the slides and dismiss the audience at the beginning. If you can read the slides, it is a good bet that the audience can read the slides as well (unless you’ve ended up using Arial Narrow, 9 font because you’ve crammed so much onto one slide). Personally, I can’t help but feel somewhat irritated when a presenter reads each and every slide to me. I can read the slides myself and usually much more quickly than the person who is reading them word for word. At the end of the presentation, I am inevitably feeling as if I have been cheated by the presenter—even if the slides contained interesting information. The final option is to make both a PowerPoint presentation and a handout. “Isn’t that redundant?” you may ask. The answer in most cases is, “No.” Generally speaking, my slides tend to be like a map that follows the basic directions that were originally laid out in the abstract. I use the handout to show graphs and tables as well as any references I might want to include. From a visual perspective, such elements might end up being so tiny that the audience will have trouble reading the information on the slides. I also like to add my primary conclusions to the handout as a bulleted list. In this way, the audience members can take something away from my presentation with some meaning. Additionally, I think that most audience members like a handout, so if they are inclined to do so, they can scribble down some notes about your presentation on a piece of paper; one that contains some information about your study, your name, your email addresses and even the conference name. If you have never made PowerPoint presentations of any kind, you might not be familiar with the basics, so I will include some tips for making your first one. When you open PowerPoint, depending on the version of PowerPoint you are using, the blank presentation template appears first.

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As a presenter, it is nice to see that the title slide is the first template to appear on the screen. If you plan on having white background, you can start creating right away. I prefer to make my own backgrounds or use some designs offered from the ‘Design’ menu selection, so before you start adding your content, you can left-click on ‘Design.’

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As you can see, there are many styles to choose from. As an example, let’s select the template farthest to the right to see how the ‘blank’ template changes.

As for me, this is more appealing to the eyes than a white background, but this is just my opinion. If you don’t like the color that pops up, you can click on the ‘Colors’ menu item on the menu bar on the right side.

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As you can see there is a multitude of color combinations to select from on the scrollable menu. Let’s change the template to ‘Metro.’

If I like limes, I might love the colors displayed on this slide and decide to use it. I can then start adding my text to the ‘Title’ slide. Let’s say I really do like limes and my presentation is about growing limes, so I am really keen on using this color. To add text, I simply have to click in upper box and start keyboarding in my title information; for the information about my identity, my university and the conference, I do the same to add those details in the bottom box.

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If I am not happy about the spacing because it looks a bit cramped, the boxes are easily moved. Just left-click close to the box border and drag it to the place where it might look ­better.

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By going back to the ‘Home’ tab, you can change the font and the color of the font, just like you would in MS Word. Just highlight the text for a quick change. As I like the font Calibri, I will change the font and change the color.

Once you are satisfied with the Title slide, it’s time to add the main slides. Just click on the ‘New Slide’ icon located on the left side of the menu bar and PowerPoint will automatically choose the presentation slide for you. Notice that the ‘Metro’ color theme is still being used, but the ‘CLICK TO ADD TITLE’ section of the slide has reverted back to the default text color for ‘Metro,’ which is black, so if you want to change the text to Kelly green to match the Title slide and to contrast the lime green theme, you will have to make the change yourself.

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As you can see, the bullet is already there so you can start adding your point right away. Rather than making an ‘Overview’ slide, which is what I would usually do at this point, I’ll just make a ‘typical’ slide so I can easily demonstrate how the bullets work. I’ll label this slide ‘Lime Varieties,’ and make the first bulleted point ‘Types of limes.’ Whenever possible, I hope to avoid using full-sentences, so there won’t be any punctuation. I think it looks nicer to limit the use of full-sentences.

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To add the next bullet, just hit the ‘Enter’ key after you have finished keyboarding in ‘Types of lime,’ and it will appear automatically on the slide in the same manner as MS Word. As there are two categories of limes, I can add them as bulleted points.

It doesn’t seem like the slide looks quite right, does it? That is because the font size is the same for all of the bulleted points, and the subheadings, ‘Mexican or Key limes,’ as well as ‘Tahiti or Persian limes,’ are aligned to left margin along with the main heading, ‘Types of limes.’ Clearly, it would look much nicer if the subheading had a smaller font and could be indented a bit. This is easy enough to do; first, simply place your mouse cursor over the bullet you want to move and you will see this image appear:  By simply clicking on the left mouse button while holding it down, you can then slide each bulleted point to the right.

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The cool part is that the font automatically drops from 24 to 21 for the subheadings and the bullet style also changes. If you want to add some characteristics of the limes (subheadings of subheadings), you can just repeat the process again. As you can see, the new bulleted points have a bit smaller font (18 Point) and a different bullet style from the parent heading.

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You can also change the type of slide from the standard template to other templates by simply left-clicking on the small menu arrow on the ‘New Slide’ button.

I normally use the ‘Title Only’ slide template for my ‘Thank you!’ slide that comes at the end of the presentation, but for the most part, I stick to the standard slides for the rest of the presentation. What would be the easiest way to include two, three or even four slides with the title ‘Lime Varieties?’ you might ask. This is really quite easy in PowerPoint, and it is one of the features I use every time I make a PowerPoint presentation. First, take your mouse and drag the cursor over to the ‘Slides’ column located on the left side of the screen. The column shows the slides you have made, and you can easily change slides by simply left-clicking on the slide you want to see or change. But we want to duplicate the slide we have just made, right? To do so, by right-clicking on the slide in question, a menu will appear, and it’s easy to see what step comes next.

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Just left-click on ‘Duplicate Slide’ and the new slide appears like magic.

PowerPoint highlights the slide in the ‘Slides’ column that you are working on, so as you can see, you now are on ‘Slide 3.’ You can then start making the changes to the new slide.

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Because PowerPoint is part of the MS Office  suite, you can insert graphs and tables from Excel and text as well as images from Word. The compatibility is rather good. You can also insert photos and movies by clicking on the ‘Insert’ tab on the menu bar.

Photos seem to present very few problems. On the other hand, movies (in whatever digital form) tend to be problematic. I would like to add an additional word of warning about movies. Just because the movie plays in PowerPoint on your own PC does not mean that it will play correctly on the conference-provided laptop, so ALWAYS save a copy of the movie in its original form (MP4, AVI, MOV, WMV, etc.) on your memory stick in addition to the one that has been embedded into your PowerPoint presentation. In that way, if the movie doesn’t play from your PowerPoint slide during your presentation, you can open it up directly and play it separately. Sure, you will have to jump out of PowerPoint for a moment, but that is certainly preferred over wasting five or six minutes trying to get the movie to play in PowerPoint only to give up in the end. If I intend to play a movie, I will not only save my PowerPoint slides on the conference computer desktop (if it is allowed), I will also save the movie file directly below my PowerPoint file. In my role as a keynote speaker at a recent conference, it was very fortunate that I had saved both the PowerPoint presentation and the MP4 movie files to the desktop of the conference provided laptop.

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As it turned out, the short video clips I wanted to play simply would not play in PowerPoint, but because I had saved both clips separately on the laptop’s desktop, I was able to jump out of PowerPoint and play each clip. In total, it took me probably an extra 30 seconds, and it certainly saved me from an embarrassing situation. To briefly sum up, if you are new to PowerPoint, this information should be enough to get you headed in the right direction. Once you have mastered the ins and outs of PowerPoint, if you feel very creative, you can develop your own slides using your computer skills to enhance or replace what is available in PowerPoint. On the other hand, even if you are not interested in creating signature versions of your PowerPoint slides, there are more than enough design styles and color varieties to keep you going for many, many years.

Promises, Promises Remember the abstract? I mentioned previously that this is the contract you have made with the conference organizers regarding what you plan to talk about. I have witnessed firsthand a number of presenters who did not follow through on what their abstract claimed would be presented. This is breaking your contract! (It is also very irritating to audience members who are expecting one thing and getting another. I normally don’t advocate walking out of someone’s presentation but if they are not following their abstract even remotely sans any explanation, I think audience members have a right to get up and leave.) On the flip-side, the positive point about the abstract as a contract is that it naturally becomes a clearly defined path for the slides you are going to produce. If we consider the pathway laid out in the slides, we should see a very nice parallel to the abstract. In our case, we will follow the abstract that was talked about in Chap. 3 acting as a compass to guide the presentation content. The presentation itself will be more complex but when you reach the final slide, all of what was discussed in the abstract should have been addressed. Here is the abstract again. Read through it one last time and then check the PowerPoint slides that are in the sections that follow it, and you will see that what was mentioned in the abstract was covered in the slides as well. In the language learning classroom, students’ willingness to communicate is a prerequisite for successful interaction. However, there are many factors that can dissuade students from actively communicating using the target

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language (MacIntyre, 1994; 1995). This is especially the case in face-to-face conversation where status and communicative skills are put at risk through active engagement with peers. When used in the language learning classroom, computer-mediated communication (CMC) has the ability to minimize the effects of certain factors that can impede effective communication (Freiermuth, 2001). Nevertheless, it is not clear whether or not CMC enhances interlocutors’ willingness to communicate. In this study, we looked at language learners who communicated with peers via synchronous online chat, and compared their experiences and their discourse choices to those who were engaged in face-to-face spoken interaction. The study involved 36 female Japanese university students who were placed in small groups of four students each and given tasks to solve (using English) either in a networked computer classroom using online chat or in a face-to-face setting using spoken interaction. In a follow­up session, participants switched the mode of communication used to solve a provided prompt, which effectively counterbalanced the design of the study. After communicating with peers by way of both online chat and face-­ to-­face conversation, students filled out posttest questionnaires highlighting their experiences. The posttest survey revealed that students engaged in online chat had a more fruitful experience and were more willing to communicate. Seventeen students rated their experiences favorably while chatting online compared to only 8 students who rated face-to-face conversation favorably. Additionally, a descriptive analysis of the texts produced by students under both conditions, along with student comments, bolstered these experiential data. Our analysis revealed that the online environment engendered participation because communication was able to take place without the pressures associated with face-to-face settings. Furthermore, power imbalances stemming from group hierarchies were minimized during online chatting. This encouraged shy and hesitant students to become fully engaged in the discourse discussion of ideas. Also, students who used online chat were less likely to use Japanese as a means to address the issues raised by the provided prompts. We suggest here that in the face-to-face settings it was difficult for the students not to rely on their native language, especially when they lacked confidence in their English language abilities. Finally, online chat fostered real discussion of the issues. Discussion can only be considered discussion when certain elements are present such as open-ended questions and instances of agreement or disagreement. Such discussion elements were used more frequently by students engaged in online chatting than those who were engaged in face-to-face conversation. In summation, our results

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indicate that online chat empowers students to use the target language, which in turn increases their motivation and subsequently their willingness to communicate in the second language. In this presentation, then, we hope to identify and discuss some of the key differences between online chatting and face-to-face conversation and explain how such differences affect participants’ willingness to communicate. We will look at students’ comments concerning their experiences, as well as provide the audience with some descriptive examples of student interaction.

Slide on Over As the abstract represents a broad overview of the presentation, the slides must adhere to the pattern of the abstract. I can’t say that this is a hard-­ and-­fast rule of thumb, but it should be, and it should help you to organize your slides, so from this point forward, I will talk about the slides I have made that coincide with the abstract.

"Everyone OK?" Participation factors in the language learning classroom: Online chat versus face-to-face communication Mark R. Freiermuth Gunma Prefectural Women’s University Tamamura-machi, Japan

This is the Title slide as you can see. The title should be exactly the same as the one you included when you submitted your abstract. You can make the title ‘catchy,’ as long as the title expresses a clear direction. I have

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removed the conference name from this slide, but I usually include the name of the conference and the dates on the slide as well. My own personal habit is to save an image from the conference website and insert it onto the Title slide as well. I also like to give an Overview slide. I know some presenters loathe these kinds of slides because they don’t provide much information to the audience in the way of new knowledge, but I use them as a promise to the audience; this is the path I am going to follow. Here is my example:

Overview 



 



Background   

Motivation Willingness to communicate (WTC) Channel of communication

     

Anxiety Power Control Confidence Disorientation Negotiation and discussion

Purposes Method Analysis

Concluding remarks

As you can see, the slide only provides very basic information. As a rule, I try to avoid reading the Overview slide word for word. Instead, I try to think of ways to talk about each item without simply reading the slide. For example, I might say something like, “Here is the Overview of today’s presentation. For the Background, I am going to discuss briefly psychological factors that affect language learners such as Motivation and WTC, but I will also talk about online chat as a Channel of communication. I will then discuss the goal of this research (Purposes), how we went about conducting the research (Method) and what kinds of effects electronic chat had on the student interaction (Analysis). I will then offer some concluding comments and the implications of our research (Concluding remarks). Following that, I will happily answer any of your questions.”

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The next set of slides will be the Background slides (as was promised in the Overview).

Background Successful interaction  Motivation 

 Instrumental

or integrative (Gardner, 1968; 1983; 1985; Gardner & Lambert, 1959; 1972; Gardner & Tremblay; 1994)  Classroom task attractiveness (Keller, 1979; 1983; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Deci & Flaste, 1995; Brown, 1994; Iyengar & Lepper, 1999; 2000)  Opportunities (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991; Dörnyei, 1994; 1998; 2001)

Background 

Factors affecting willingness to communicate (WTC)  Entrance

into university (Berwick & Ross, 1989; Kobayashi, Redekop & Porter, 1992; Yashima, 2000; 2002)  Classroom environment (MacIntyre et al., 1998)  Self-confidence (MacIntyre et al., 1998)  Peer relationships (MacIntyre et al., 1998)  Power (Zuengler, 1989; MacIntyre et al., 1998)  Mode of communication (Freiermuth, 1998; 2001; Schwienhorst, 2002)

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Background  Channel

of communication

Synchronous  Bulletin

online chat

board style (Kelm, 1992; Chun, 1994; Kern, 1995)  Small group comparisons (Warschauer, 1996; 1997; Warschauer, Turbee & Roberts, 1996; Freiermuth, 1998; 2001)

Each slide contains literature in support of the notion of Background as it relates to my research aims. I like to do this not only to satisfy the audience, but this keeps me on track as well. Please note that I have written neither sentences nor paragraphs in this section. Even if I were to read my presentation to the audience, they do not need and they DO NOT WANT to see what is being read. Four reasons that I strongly recommend including only shortened bulleted points, as shown in the Background slides, are provided here—pointing out the shortcomings of putting in longer chunks of prose: 1. If everyone in the audience can read what is on the slide, there is no need for me to read what is on the slide. 2. Inevitably, the font will become too small and everyone will be straining to see all of the text plastered on one slide. I try to keep the font size at 18 or larger (this works for most fonts). If I have to make a second or even a third slide to cover one topic, it is still better than shrinking the font size in an attempt to fit everything on one slide. 3. Massive amounts of text tend to make the slides incredibly ugly. Beauty matters.

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4. There will be a tendency to read directly from the slides shown on the monitor of your computer or worse, on the projected screen behind you. In either case, it will seem like you have not really prepared, as you look back over your shoulder at the projection screen or down at your laptop screen. You might say, “Well everyone knows that!” If that is true, then I wonder why I keep experiencing these ‘bad examples’ over and over, again and again. Referring back to the first Background slide, I think about what I really want to say about Successful interaction and Motivation. I would then write it down on paper. Personally, I like to printout a hardcopy of my presentation in the handout mode with three slides per page. I use the guidelines on the printout as a way of organizing my scribblings (my notes get messy, but I manage). I am using the Background slides here as the example because it is easy for discussion purposes, but I incorporate this strategy for the entire presentation including the Title slide. As such, for this presentation, I would have six pages with three slides on each page. As for the Background slides, it would look something like this: Background Successful interaction  Motivation 

 Instrumental

or integrative (Gardner, 1968; 1983; 1985; Gardner & Lambert, 1959; 1972; Gardner & Tremblay; 1994) task attractiveness (Keller, 1979; 1983; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Deci & Flaste, 1995; Brown, 1994; Iyengar & Lepper, 1999; 2000)  Opportunities (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991; Dörnyei, 1994; 1998; 2001)  Classroom

Background 

Factors affecting willingness to communicate (WTC)  Entrance

into university (Berwick & Ross, 1989; Kobayashi, Redekop & Porter, 1992; Yashima, 2000; 2002)  Classroom environment (MacIntyre et al., 1998)  Self-confidence (MacIntyre et al., 1998)  Peer relationships (MacIntyre et al., 1998)  Power (Zuengler, 1989; MacIntyre et al., 1998)  Mode of communication (Freiermuth, 1998; 2001; Schwienhorst, 2002)

Background  Channel

of communication

Synchronous  Bulletin

online chat

board style (Kelm, 1992; Chun, 1994; Kern, 1995)  Small group comparisons (Warschauer, 1996; 1997; Warschauer, Turbee & Roberts, 1996; Freiermuth, 1998; 2001)

_____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________

____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________

___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________

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To me, PowerPoint’s handout print mode is certainly one of the more convenient tools for presentations. If I were giving this presentation next week, I would simply write down the points as phrases or sentences, which I would like to say during the actual presentation as bulleted points. For the initial slide shown here in the example of the handout mode, I might write something alongside the slide like: • Most teachers would agree that for successful interaction to occur in a second language classroom students must be motivated. • Language learning motivation has been extensively researched. • The research from Gardner and his peers discussing instrumental and integrative motivation is widely acknowledged as being a fundamental division of motivation types. • Language learners are motivated instrumentally when their aims are to satisfy forces outside of themselves such as getting a good job requiring the second language or getting a good grade on a test. • Language learners are motivated integratively when they are attracted internally to cultures and peoples speaking the targeted language. I would do this for each of the main points for every slide and then check myself during practice to make sure I had properly covered each important point written next to the accompanying slide. Returning to the slides once again, I come to my Purposes. This is the one slide that I will read more-or-less word for word because it is taken directly from my research.

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Purposes

Compare online experiences of participants of Japanese students in small groups (online vs. face-to-face spoken conversation)  Research Questions 

 Which

venue is preferred?  Why is the selected venue preferred?  Which venue elicited more language production?  What evidences are there that one channel of communication might stimulate WTC?

Notice that I have also included any additional research questions that I want to discuss later in the presentation—either in the Analysis (Results, Findings) or in the Concluding remarks (Conclusions). Next up is the Method (Methodology, Procedures, Materials). Just as in any research paper, this describes how the research has been carried out and what was used in the process. Again, you should not simply put full sentences on the slides but instead employ bulleted points in a manner that is similar to these next three slides:

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Method 

Participants  Female

Japanese university students  Mixed students upon ability (TOEIC & performance)  36 completed the task (20 vs. 16)  Nine groups (five & four)

Method 

Setting

 Computer

lab

Two long rows Grouped students randomly placed  May or may not have known interlocutors  L.E.C.S.  

 Typical

classroom

Desks in a circle  Tape recorder in the center  Face-to-face with interlocutors 

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Method 

Prompts  Same

prompt for each week  Keyboards vs. speaking  45 minutes to solve

Posttest questionnaire  Discourse analyzed 

I ended up using three slides for the Method. I wish to point out that is quite easy to bungle the Method by leaving out key information, which in turn will leave your audience puzzled. Suffice it to say that if they can’t understand the Method—how you managed to do what you did—the remainder of your talk will be very confusing. As for me, I simply to try to recall each step that I took while conducting the research. I ask myself, “If my mother happened to be in the audience, would she know what I did by viewing my slides and listening to me speak?” Following a discussion of the Method, the data are presented. (Please note that the word “data” is plural in the academic world and ‘datum’ is the singular form. Following one of my first presentations ever, I was chided lightly by my supervisor because I had used ‘data’ as a singular.) I am using Analysis (Findings, Discoveries, Results, Discussion) in the sample presentation. Here are the slides:

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Analysis 

Anxiety  Online

chat suspends social rules

No social penalties No pronunciation problems  No focus on inabilities  



Power  Online

chat minimizes status differences

Age not considered or not known  Out of sight is out of mind 

Analysis: Control vs. Treatment Group

A B C D E F G H I

Week 1 Face-to-Face

Week 1 Chat

Week 2 Face-to-Face

47 111 346 287 114

Week 2 Chat

285 161 211 261 181 274 376 388 278

503 92 170 115

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Analysis 

Control  Face-to-face

settings promote one/two member control Group F dominant members contributed 94% of words  Group F minority members contributed only 24 words  Lowest output producer in online chat contributed 12% 

Analysis 

Treatment  Chat

allowed wider participation regarding turns taken  Actual discussion took place including ‘discussion’ elements not found in F-T-F 



More questions More negotiation

 Chat

produced more language from all members 

For Groups A, B, E, G, H and I language use was increased

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Analysis 

Confidence  Face-to-face  



settings reduced confidence

Not conversational—staged Opted for Japanese at the expense of using English

Disorientation  Online

chat becomes unordered due to lag



Students were still able to solve tasks



Lag time has benefits as well



Conversation is always visible (reorientation)

I generally use phrases to describe the findings, so these slides are a bit wordier than can be found in the Background section. I want what I have discovered in my research to be crystal clear to the audience members. Also, as you can see, there are a couple of tables thrown in. Graphs and tables make for very nice visual aids if they are used appropriately. I have witnessed many a presentation where a huge graph was transposed onto one PowerPoint slide. What the audience members cannot see, the audience members cannot appreciate. It is sometimes better just to point out the important findings with bulleted points; or you can provide a handout if you feel the audience must see a graph or table to include information or data that would appear microscopic if it were shown to the audience members on a screen. As you can see from the examples, the two tables included here are quite easy to read, but they, like any bulleted points require further explanation. If you were watching your own presentation as an audience member, could you see and understand the graphs or tables you are going to present? What would need to be explained to make the graphs or tables more understandable? Again, this might seem to be an obvious point when discussed here, but I have witnessed a number of presentations where the presenter showed us slide after slide of tables and graphs in such dizzying fashion that it was quite difficult to comprehend. There is one particular presentation that stands out in my mind that I cannot forget. I suspect that most of the audience members in attendance that day were clueless about the presenter’s findings once

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Analysis: Negotiation and Discussion Group

A B C D E F G H I

Spoken

Chat

2

27

14 22

16 4

15 5

15 10

20 0

16 22

7 1

38 25

Spoken Elements /Total Words

Chat Elements /Total Words

0.043

0.056

0.126 0.064

0.099 0.019

0.052 0.044

0.057 0.055

0.040 0.000

0.058 0.059

0.041 0.006

0.098 0.090

the researcher attempted to ‘make the jump to light speed.’ It was almost if we actually had boarded the Millennium Falcon—once the hyperdrive kicked in the whole presentation became one big blur. There is one more thing to remember about the Analysis or Results section. If you have conducted research, you will not be able to present all of your findings nor should you try. It is much, much, much, much better to select the more important findings and discuss them. As most conference presentations are 20–25 minutes long with an additional five minutes or so for questions, time is of the essence. I have never once experienced not having enough information to tell the audience. I am always instead looking for places where I can cut, and it usually ends up being points in this section. The final section is the Concluding remarks (Conclusion, Summary). The KISS principle (Keep it simple Simon/Sally or the other “S”) applies. It should not consist of many slides because it is supposed to contain your killer points—normally one or two slides will suffice. These final two slides contain my four main points and one quote from one of the participants, who seemed to express the general feeling of most of the participants; I thought it made a nice one-two punch to finish up the presentation. As I am always interested in what students say from a psychological perspective, and as I am normally presenting to other language teachers and researchers, I very often conclude with a ‘killer’ student comment or two.

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Concluding remarks    

Online chat increases participation because it minimizes rules of social conduct It increases participation because it is a more equitable environment It gives students just a little more time so that they can say what they want in the TL In our case, it was more like conversation; discussion elements were more consistent

Concluding remarks “The conversation was smoother and livelier than in a face-toface conversation. It was fun.”

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I always add one more slide, which is simply meant to show my gratitude to the audience members who gave up their time to attend my presentation. I sometimes include my email address and website information as well.

Thank you! [email protected]

Some presenters also offer a reading list of research that they have found to be related or useful, some connected to the Background section, while other citations are an additional ‘gift’ to interested audience members. This is optional. I personally don’t add it to the slides because I think it is ugly, but I might include it on a handout if I have provided one. As you can see from this complete presentation, I have included 18 slides in total from start to finish. How many slides should you employ? You know yourself better than anyone else. If you think you like to explain things in great detail, maybe you should shoot for 15–18  slides for a 20-minute presentation (with 5 minutes for Q & A). If you can keep things brief, I would suggest 19–22 slides. There is an unwritten rule of one minute per slide. This is not perfect rule, but in my own case, I have found this rule to be surprisingly accurate. If I am preparing for a 20-­minute presentation and I find that I have 25 slides, I know that I had better find a way to cut some information out because I am going to go way long.

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Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice As a teacher, I know that many students hate to practice for presentations. Guess what? I don’t particularly like it either, but let me share a little boxing story to point to the importance of practicing. One of the biggest upsets in sports history happened on February 11, 1990  in Tokyo, Japan. James “Buster” Douglas knocked out the undisputed heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson in the 10th round with a mighty uppercut. It shocked the sports world that this 42-1 underdog not only lasted past the fifth round but ended up knocking Mike Tyson out—even after Mike Tyson had put Douglas on the canvas for a nine count in the eighth round. Douglas, uncharacteristically by the way, had trained and trained and trained for the fight, and he looked every bit the lean, mean fighting machine that folks associated with Mike Tyson. Buster Douglas had come prepared to win, and he most certainly caught “Iron Mike” a little bit off-guard. The story doesn’t end there, however. Less than a year later, an overweight and completely out of shape Buster Douglas was flattened in the third round by Evander Holyfield after Douglas had suffered a literal pummeling for two and half rounds. He then retired and started living off of his fight winnings. Of course, this story has a very blunt but important message: Those who train tend to do better than those who don’t. To relate it to presenting, those who practice tend to do better than those who don’t. You won’t regret the pain of practicing once you are on the stage presenting your ideas. From the perspective of preparing for your presentation, once you have trimmed your slides to a manageable number, you will not be 100% ready just yet. Nevertheless, it is surprising to me how many presenters will stop right there and say, “OK, I’m ready! Bring it on!” Be very careful what you wish for. Once you stand before your academic peers (and any enemies—just kidding—although if your topic is particularly controversial, there might actually be some), if you are like most of us, your heart will start to go pitter-patter, your hands will get a bit shakier and moist, and your mouth will get a bit drier as your nerves start to take their toll. This happens even if you are very well-prepared, and this still happens to me every single time—even after giving countless presentations!! If you have prepared properly, you will fare much, much better than if you are not well-prepared. If you are completely unprepared, the consequences can be disastrous.

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I have entitled this section Practice x 7 because that is the number of times I recommend practicing before presenting. If you are a non-native speaker of English, you might even want to throw in a couple of additional practice sessions. You might be alarmed that I recommend practicing seven times for a 20-minute presentation because it is actually 7 × 20 minutes. The total practice time will consume more than 140 minutes (Wow! That’s a lot, but you will end up making good adjustments to hone your skills during the practice sessions, so your efforts will pay big dividends.) To drive home the point for the need of sufficient practice, I’ll reflect back on a short tale that transpired at a conference in Malaysia. I went to a conference with two of my Japanese graduate students; this was not only their first overseas conference experience but their very first conference experience of any kind. They were excited and very, very nervous. At the hotel we were staying in, they both told me how worried they were the night before their presentations. I assured them that because they had practiced a lot that they would be fine. In fact, once they hit the stage, they quickly shook off their nerves and both of them gave very nice presentations that were greatly appreciated by the audience members in attendance. Later, as a group, we witnessed a full-professor from a local university give a truly awful performance. His slides were fine and informative, but his delivery was atrocious—meandering and unsure. It was truly awful and even embarrassing. My students were a bit taken aback and looked at me with their “What on earth went wrong?” eyes. I simply told them later, “That is what it looks like if you don’t practice.” A natural question you might have is, “Why seven times?” I developed the rule by practicing presentations myself, and it has worked very well for me. For someone like me, who does not possess a silver tongue, it is critical to get the practice part right. Here is what I discovered and what I have discussed with grad students who have asked me countless times about this very question. First, I print out my slides as handouts. I put three slides on one page (as previously shown in Background slides section) and printed on only one side. In that way, I can write notes alongside each slide. I then think about what I would like to say, and subsequently write (for me using a pencil or pen) notes for each slide on the printout. Once I have finished this reflective exercise, I am ready to practice. With my phone’s timer or a watch with a second hand, I start practicing. I usually practice at least twice at any one given period. Here is what my normal progression actually looks like:

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1. First practice: Very rough with frequent stops and starts. Transitions are poor because I can’t recall the sequences of the slides. I normally add some information during the practice session. The session runs long if I add notes or is quite short if I depend too much on my slides. It is truly horrible IMHO. 2. Second practice: Smoother than the first but still very rough. I almost always stop and reflect on transitions going from topic to topic and from slide to slide. In my case, this session always runs about 15–25% longer than it should, but the content has improved dramatically compared to the first practice session. It is still far from being ready. 3. Third practice: Much smoother than the first or second but I tend to forget certain elements that I feel are important so I end up relying too much on the notes. I add some fine-tuning and a little bit of content if I feel I need to explain particular points more clearly. After this practice, I reflect on what could be better. With a highlighter, I mark the content I think I might forget. Generally speaking, the presentation at this point is still a bit too long. 4. Fourth practice: Much smoother but I still find myself forgetting some of the key points, and I sometimes find myself skipping over some content. The length may be about right or actually a bit short due to me skipping some of the information I would like to mention. 5. Fifth practice: Quite smooth for the parts I know but not so much for the parts that I have yet to master, so I find myself peeking at the notes here and there; however, the length is about right. The pregnant pauses are much shorter because getting back on track only requires a quick glance at the notes to refresh my memory. 6. Sixth practice: Almost there. I could get away with presenting at this point without embarrassment. My effort here is really pretty smooth to be honest, but there are just a couple of spots that I wish were better. I take note of those spots and mull over what I would like to say instead. The length is spot-on. 7. Seventh practice: Perfect! I call this list Mark’s Rule of Seven because students are always asking me about it, so I wanted to give them a label that would stick with them. (If you’re teaching grad students, feel free to insert your own name, such as Jody’s Rule of Seven.) As I previously mentioned, if you are a non-native speaker of the conference language, you might need to practice a couple of additional times; however, it is also likely the case that your abilities in

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the conference language will already be sufficiently high so that you will not need to practice many additional times. Once you have ironed-out any potential language issues, you can start practicing. After all, it is not a speech that is being recited but a presentation, so I would not recommend practicing more than ten times at the outside unless you really do struggle mightily with the language of the conference. I have talked to some of my non-English-speaking grad students and for the most part, they seemed quite comfortable practicing only seven times or for some of them, seven plus a couple of extra times to feel comfortable using their second language.

Language Tips for Non-native Speakers of English Before we wrap up this chapter, I would like to provide non-native speakers of English with some examples of more appropriate linguistic choices they might want to consider before hitting the stage. As these can be practiced, I am including a few tables here in the chapter on practicing. Of course, there are thousands of examples to choose from as well as thousands of examples of less appropriate choices, so these represent only a very small sample. Nevertheless, you may find some of these useful when you are giving your presentation. I have put them in tables for your convenience, and each individual table can be tied to one of the sections in your slide show. We’ll start off where we should start—at the very beginning of your presentation. Title Slide OK

Avoid

Reason

Greeting Greetings everyone (best for online presentations). Good morning/afternoon. Self-Introduction I’m (your name) from (your university or organization).

Greeting Hello.

Greeting Too casual.

Hi. Self-Introduction My name is (your name).

Too casual. Self-Introduction Unnatural.

My university is (your university). Welcome Thank you to come here.

Unnatural.

Welcome Thank you for attending my talk today. I appreciate you all coming to my talk today.

Welcome Unnatural.

(continued)

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OK

Avoid

Reason

Apologetic Positioning My copresenter (name) wishes she/he could be here today but she/he is unable to attend. I’m sorry that my copresenter (name) cannot be with us today. Title Presentation Today my talk is entitled (title of your talk).

Apologetic Positioning My copresenter can’t come.

Apologetic Positioning Unnatural.

My copresenter isn’t here.

Self-explanatory (the audience can see that no one else is there). Title Presentation Unnatural. The ‘talk’ is what people have come to see, so it is the more important entity.

Title Presentation The title of my talk is (title of your talk).

Some things to note about the Title Slide is that when you are introducing yourself and greeting your audience, it is important not to be too casual. You will get your chance to talk casually with your newfound colleagues after the presentation. Another point I wish to highlight is how you should go about introducing yourself. Instead of saying, “My name is Frodo Baggins,” you should say, “I’m Frodo Baggins.” There seems to be a habit by non-native speakers of English to choose the former, which sounds a bit odd to native-speakers of English. Overview Slide OK

Avoid

Reason

Overview Introduction I’d like to give/provide an overview of my presentation. Sections As for the “Background,” I’d like to talk about (your main background slides).

Overview Introduction Here’s my overview.

Overview Introduction Unnatural.

Sections I will talk about “Background.”

Sections No additional information has been added (just reading the slide). Also be sure to include the definite article ‘the’ for all of the sections shown on the Overview slide. (continued)

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OK

Avoid

Reason

Concerning the “Purpose/ Objective,” I’ll explain what my/our goals were. Regarding the “Method/ Procedures,” I’ll explain some of the steps we took. As for the “Results/Results and Discussion,” I’d like to point out some of the main findings. Finally, I’d like to discuss my/our “Conclusions.”

I will talk about “Purpose/ Objective.”

No additional information has been added (just reading the slide). No additional information has been added (just reading the slide). No additional information has been added (just reading the slide).

Then, I will happily take any of your questions. Following the “Conclusions,” I’d be happy to take your/any questions.

I will answer your questions.

I will talk about “Method/ Procedures.” I will talk about “Results/ Results and Discussion,”

I will talk about my/our “Conclusions.”

No additional information has been added (just reading the slide). No time ordering (then, finally, lastly, etc.)

As I have mentioned, the Overview Slide acts as a nice roadmap for your presentation, but if you simply read each bulleted point, it is going to sound robotic. That means you should probably provide one or two sentences for each bulleted point on the slide, and I have provided some short examples in the table. Notice that for introducing each bulleted point, you can use sentence-level adverbs and prepositions (regarding, concerning, as for, next, then, finally, at this point, etc.) to help the audience tie what you are saying to the slide. Background Slides OK

Avoid

Reason

Introduction by Point The first point I’d like to discuss is motivation (main construct). The next issue I’d like to mention is motivation (main construct). Introduction by Researcher

Introduction by Point Introduction by Point I will talk about motivation Unnatural. (main construct). I want to talk about Unnatural. motivation (main construct). Introduction by Researcher

Introduction by Researcher (continued)

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OK

Avoid

Johnson (researcher’s family name) claimed/claims motivation (main construct)… Johnson suggested/ suggests that motivation… Johnson found/has found that motivation… Johnson has researched motivation extensively and makes the following points…

Johnson (researcher’s family Unclear. Normally, we think name) said/says motivation about researchers as making (main construct)… ‘claims’ or ‘suggestions.’

Johnson defines/defined motivation as… Introduction by Construct Motivation (main construct) has been discussed by…

Motivation can be/has been defined as…

Motivation is important in the classroom because… Strengths and Weaknesses One of the strengths of Johnson’s (researcher’s family name) argument/ research is… One of the weaknesses of Johnson’s argument/ research is…

Johnson researches about motivation extensively…

Reason

Uncomfortable grammar. If you want to talk about Johnson’s research in the present, you will need to use ‘perfect’ aspects, in this case, ‘has researched.’

Introduction by Construct Introduction by Construct Motivation (main Uncomfortable grammar. construct) is discussed by… Again, the ‘perfect’ aspect needs to be used to get the sense that the research started in the past and has continued. Motivation defines/ Uncomfortable grammar. Be defined as… careful with some verbs requiring ‘to be.’ As you can see there is no human mentioned in the regular ‘subject’ position, so ‘to be’ needs to be used.

Strengths and Weaknesses Johnson (researcher’s family name) has/had one strong point… Johnson has/had one weak point…

Strengths and Weaknesses Unclear. Johnson has more than one strong point. You have decided to focus on only one of them. Unclear. Johnson has more than one weak point. You have decided to focus on only one of them. (continued)

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OK

Avoid

The main problem with Johnson’s argument/ position/findings is…

The problem of Johnson’s research is…

Research Gap One aspect of motivation (main construct) that has not been discussed is…

Reason

Uncomfortable grammar and unclear. The wrong preposition has been used and your intention is to challenge Johnson’s declaration/claim about the research—not the research itself. Research Gap Research Gap My research gap on Unnatural and unclear (a motivation (main construct) bit). It sounds like you just is… decided what the gap is without considering the research. The weak point on Unclear. The weakness is motivation is… related to the research, not on the main construct itself.

One shortcoming/ weakness in the research on motivation is/has been that… As one/you can see, there is There is no research on a lack of motivation motivation about… research regarding…

Unnatural and unclear. It is also unlikely that there is absolutely no research and even if there is no research, this is impossible to know for sure. You should be a bit cautious and hedge a little.

Regarding the Background Slides, notice how you can easily go from topic to topic using adverbs as projection markers (first, second, next, then, finally, etc.). Understanding this one idea can help you make smooth transitions from topic to topic throughout the presentation. Also notice what follows: “I’d like to…” “I’d like to…” can be heard throughout nearly every presentation I give because it has a softening effect when making transitions. Another point I wish to highlight is the idea of past tense. Non-native speakers of English sometimes have a bit of trouble using the present and the past tense, especially when discussing the literature. In many cases this can be tied to the oft taught idea that if you agree with a specific researcher, then you should talk about his research in the present tense; however, this can lead to complications because the verb you select may be inappropriate when used in the present tense. There are two ways around this issue. Rather than using the simple present (Johnson researches this issue extensively.), you can you use the perfected form and maintain the present sense, while simultaneously keeping the past in play (Johnson has researched this issue extensively.). An even safer and easier way to manage this trouble spot

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is to simply keep everything in the simple past and then, just claim your agreement in the present tense whenever you wish to show your support for someone’s position (Johnson suggested that motivation is critical in the classroom, and we agree with him.). Purpose/Objective Slide OK

Avoid

Reason

Purpose statement My/our purpose/ objective, then, is/was…

Purpose statement Now, I will talk about the purpose/objective.

Purpose statement Unnatural. The purpose should take center stage not the presenter.

The purpose/objective of this research, then, is/was… Our research questions are the following…

I don’t have that much to say about the Purpose Slide except that the purpose needs to be the focus. Typically in English, what is topically important comes near the start of the sentence as can be seen in the table (The purpose…, Our research questions…, etc.). Methodology/Methods/Procedures OK

Avoid

Reason

Methodology Introduction Next, I’d like to explain the methodology/ procedures we employed.

Methodology Introduction Next, I will talk about methodology/procedures we did.

Participants There were 100 participants in my/our study.

Participants We had 100 subjects who participated.

Methodology Introduction Unnatural and uncomfortable grammar. The methodology always takes the definite determiner ‘the.’ Avoid using ‘did.’ Other words are better such as ‘employed’ or ‘used.’ Participants Unclear and poor terminology. You don’t possess the participants, and ‘subjects’ should be called participants, volunteers or students because they are not inanimate objects, which is the sense that the word ‘subject’ reflects. (continued)

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OK

Avoid

Reason

20 of the 100 students agreed to be interviewed.

We gave an interview to 20 out of 100 students.

Unnatural and unclear. There is no sense of ‘agreement’ implied in the sentence. It sounds as if the students might have been forced to participate.

We interviewed 20 of the participants. 20 students volunteered to 20 volunteers got be interviewed. interviewed.

Concerning the experiment, there were 40 students in the control group and 40 students in the treatment group. 25 males and 15 female university students participated in the study. The participants’ ages in this study ranged from 22 to 34 years-of-age.

The participants in this study are 22 to 34 years-old.

Tools Eye-tracking software was used to check the participants’ focal points.

Tools The participants’ focal points were known using eye-tracking software.

Unclear. This implies that there were more than 20 individuals who ‘volunteered’ or ‘agreed’ but 20 were then chosen. This may lead some audience members to doubt how they were chosen.

Unnatural and uncomfortable grammar. The past tense needs to be used in the methodology. In addition, the statement is likely to be false. Most likely some of the students have aged, so talking about them in the present makes the statement untrue. Tools Uncomfortable grammar. The focus of this sentence should be an explanation of the tools used. The participants here are secondary. It would also be OK to say, ‘We used eye-tracking software to check…’ because the sentence still emphasizes how the tool was used. (continued)

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OK

Avoid

Reason

Time The experiment took place at various points during the first five weeks of the semester.

Time The experiment lasted five weeks of the semester.

Time Unclear. The experiment did not actually last five weeks. The procedures were applied at various times during the five-week timeframe.

Location We did the research in a computer lab.

Location Poor terminology. Research is generally conducted or it takes place. Again, avoid using ‘did.’ In addition, the research should be the focal point not the researchers. Uncomfortable grammar. The noun ‘research’ is uncountable. What makes this confusing is that there is also the verb ‘research, which naturally takes the ‘-es’ third-person marker to become ‘researches’ as in, ‘He researches DNA at various laboratories.’ Research Activity Uncomfortable grammar. The methodology needs to remain in the past tense regardless of how important you might deem the information.

The shortest interview took 25 minutes to complete while the longest took/lasted 55 minutes. The interviews ranged in time from 25 to 55 minutes. Location The research was conducted in a computer lab.

The research took place in two separate classrooms.

The researches happened in two classrooms.

Research Activity The participants listened to five audio clips and then were asked to repeat them.

Research Activity The subjects listen to five audio clips and then repeat them.

(continued)

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OK

Avoid

Reason

The students were then asked to write down what they heard.

We asked them to write down what they heard.

Somewhat uncomfortable grammar. There are two actors in this sentence. The researchers are instigating the action so this sentence needs to be presented in the passive voice because the students are the focus here not the researchers. If we add the ‘by statement,’ it would look like this: ‘The students were then asked (by the researchers) to write down what they heard.’ Unclear. Don’t assume what the audience knows. If they are native-speakers of English, you must be clear about this—at least the first time the native-speakers are mentioned. Somewhat uncomfortable grammar. Again, this would sound more comfortable using the passive voice in both clauses. Analysis Uncomfortable grammar. In research, ‘data’ are plural and ‘datum’ (although almost never used) is singular.

20 native-speakers of 20 native-speakers were English were asked to assess asked to assess the essays. the essays.

A five-point Likert-scale questionnaire was sent to 150 of the participants and was returned with an 80% response rate. Analysis The data were analyzed to compare trends.

We sent a five-­point Likert-scale questionnaire to 150 participants and 80% of them returned it. Analysis The data was analyzed to compare trends.

Using SPSS software, we compared those who were given the verbal test, which was the treatment, with those who took the written test, which was the control by using Pearson correlation with a p-value of 0.5 (p > 0.5).

As for the Methodology slides, there are a few things that I think should be mentioned because I have noticed some of these linguistic issues on a regular basis. Most of these relate to terminology. The first is the use of the

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word ‘subjects’ rather than ‘participants’ or ‘students.’ In days of old, all individuals who participated in studies were called ‘subjects.’ The reason it should be avoided is that nowadays, it has a rather negative connotation. It gives the impression that the participants are either inanimate objects or that they are the servants of those conducting the research. Next, I would like to highlight the verb ‘to do,’ which is frequently favored over the much better ‘to conduct.’ Actually, ‘doing research’ sounds a bit odd to native speaking scholars, whereas ‘conducting research’ sounds perfectly natural. The last word I would like to point out is ‘data.’ Of course data are often included in presentations, but non-native speakers (and sometimes even native-speakers) mark the noun as singular as in, “Data was included…,” which should be, “Data were included…” From a research perspective, the latter is preferred because the word ‘data’ is a naturally plural noun; in other words, a bit of self-monitoring may be necessary when using the word ‘data’ in your presentations, and even in your writing. In addition, note that in the methodology, the entity being discussed gets prominence in the sentence by being located toward the left side of the sentence. From my own perspective, I think it is best to think of this section in this way, so that you don’t sound awkward. For example, if you are talking about the equipment you used in your study, it sounds much more natural to say, “A digital video camera was used to record the interviewees,” when compared to, “We recorded the interviewees using a digital camera.” The focus in the former sentence is correctly focused on the ‘camera;’ however, in the latter, the focus has shifted to the ‘researchers.’ Results/Discussion OK

Avoid

Reason

Results Please take a look at Table 1 on your handout/ up on the screen. This graph shows the vocabulary increase by the treatment group. As you can see from this table, the variable ‘enjoyment’ correlates positively with ‘motivation.’

Results Please watch Table 1 on your handout/up on the screen.

Results Uncomfortable grammar. ‘Watch’ is used for movies and police stakeouts.

We got a positive correlation between ‘enjoyment’ and ‘motivation.’

Unnatural. The table or the research needs to be the focal point not the researchers. (continued)

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OK

Avoid

Reason

Discussion Our findings on motivation agree with Johnson’s 2020 study.

Discussion Johnson’s 2020 study on motivation agrees with our findings.

Discussion Unclear. Johnson’s study occurred in 2020—before your study was conducted. You should introduce your study and then, look to tie it to others.

We discovered that enjoyment is the most important factor for classroom motivation.

Unclear. The focus here is to expand the reach of the research, not to state only what is obvious.

Our findings contrast Evans’ 2021 findings. This finding on motivation is quite important because it strengthens the conclusions drawn by Sato in her 2020 study. This discovery lends credibility to the notion that enjoyment is a critical factor regarding classroom motivation. The questionnaire revealed that enjoyment was considered by the students to be the most important factor regarding motivation in the classroom. The robust and positive correlation between enjoyment and motivation is important because it strengthens Johnson’s 2020 position. Limitations and Further Research These findings warrant further research on factors not considered in this study such as the age of participants. Because of the nature of this research, the results cannot be considered generalizable outside of Taiwan.

Limitations and Further Limitations and Further Research Research Another study should look Unnatural. at age.

(continued)

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OK

Avoid

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Reason

A related area of interest that others may wish to pursue is the importance of students’ attitude toward their teachers.

There isn’t a lot to add regarding the Results and the Discussion, but I did want to mention that this is the most important part of the presentation. Practically, what that means is that your language should direct the audience’s attention to what you are showing on the screen (in some cases a handout), be they bulleted points, graphs, discourse samples or tables. In addition, the findings or results tend to be the prominent entities in each sentence as can be seen by the leftward location in the sentences. Conclusions OK

Avoid

Reason

Concluding Remarks We believe that the three most important factors promoting motivation in the classroom are the teacher’s attitude, the novelty of the tasks employed and the personality of the students.

Concluding Remarks The three most important points for motivation are the teacher’s attitude, the novelty of the tasks employed and the personality of the students.

Concluding Remarks Unnatural. Adding the hedge ‘believe’ makes the conclusions sound a bit softer, which is important in this case due to the fact that the researchers are making a very broad claim outside of the present research. Presenters can be more bold when making claims about their own research.

In conclusion, our results show that enjoyment is a critical factor in classroom motivation. What the results mean in practical terms is that teachers should pay more attention to students’ enjoyment in the classroom. (continued)

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OK

Avoid

We will close with these Here are some student students’ comments, which comments. lend strong credibility to the findings of this study. In answer to our research questions, we conclude that enjoyment and teachers’ classroom behavior are the two most important elements contributing to higher levels of motivation in the classroom.

Reason Unclear. What is the purpose of showing these?

What makes the Conclusion different from the other sections in the presentation is that there is a natural shift from what is generally being discussed to the researchers’ findings and opinions. The researchers and their research are suddenly the salient elements in these sentences. For example, I much prefer a concluding remark such as this, “We found that the enjoyment factor is the most important variable leading to higher classroom motivation,” when compared to, “The enjoyment factor seems to be the most important variable leading to higher classroom motivation, according to our research.” The reason the former is better than the latter? The former indicates more confidence than the latter and that is important when giving concluding remarks.  Besides claiming the research as your own, you can also make stronger statements related to your research because it is what you actually discovered. Nevertheless, when making broader statements beyond the scope of  your research, the presenters should be much more careful and hedge their declarations as can be seen in the first example in the table. Question and Answer (Q & A) OK

Avoid

Reason

Closing Gratitude Thank you. Thank you for coming. Questions OK, I will take any questions you might have.

Closing Gratitude Thank you for listening. That’s all. Questions Any questions?

Closing Gratitude Unnatural. Unnatural. Questions Unnatural. Too casual. (continued)

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OK

Avoid

Reason

I am happy to take your questions now. Are there any questions? Answers I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that. Could you repeat the question?

Who has a question?

Unnatural. Too casual.

Answers Please repeat your question.

Answers Unnatural. This should be made as a request with an apology and an explanation if possible, instead of a demand.

I will explain again about…

Unnatural. This seems to be criticizing the audience member for not paying attention. Unnatural.

I’m sorry. I missed that. Could you repeat the question? Let me scroll back to that slide for a moment to answer that question. What we did was… OK. If we go back to the Results/Discussion/ Conclusion, you might recall that I mentioned… In answer to your question, we… Regarding that issue, I’m not exactly sure, but my opinion is… Concerning that issue, our research really didn’t cover it, but my opinion is… Thank you for that comment/suggestion… I’m happy to give my opinion about that …

OK. I can answer your question… I don’t know the answer to your question… We didn’t research that.

Unnatural.

Unnatural.

What does almost every newbie fear when giving a presentation? That’s right, the Q & A. Remember, you are the expert, not the audience. It is very rare to find cases where the audience has come to a presentation to play, “Gotcha,” with the presenters, so you really shouldn’t spend time worrying about that issue. Nonetheless, you have to be on the alert during the Q & A because it is the one time where you have to give up the floor to the audience, and this naturally makes one nervous. Before I comment a bit more on linguistic issues, I simply want to say that the Q & A can also be the most rewarding part of the presentation because it is the period

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when the audience, through their questions and comments, can demonstrate how interested they were in your presentation. The most important thing is not to panic and then, you should be able to manage this part a bit better. I reiterate that you are the one who knows the most about your own research! From a linguistic viewpoint, I think the element that causes the most trouble is inadvertently surprising the audience with a rather blunt response to the question being asked. You can soften the answers to an audience member’s question by giving the issue topic prominence (Regarding that issue…, Concerning that topic…, etc.). Notice that even when you aren’t sure how to answer the question because the question is beyond the scope of your research, you can give your opinion. Most of the time the audience is happy to hear your opinion, and they will frequently ask for your opinion even if you don’t initially offer one.

In Brief To sum up this chapter, I think there are just a few points that need to be emphasized. First, regarding conference proceedings, just make sure you know the requirements of the conference and also when the proceedings are due. As I mentioned, I like to write up a proceedings paper if the deadline occurs before the conference because it can help me in preparing my presentation, and it also can be a first step toward developing a full-paper that could be submitted later to a journal or as a chapter in a compendium, but normally, I won’t submit a paper to a proceedings that occurs after a conference has finished. If you are giving a poster presentation, make sure your poster looks professional and is in color. If possible, get it printed by a professional printing company on thick A00-sized poster paper; I prefer glossy style. If you can’t afford the professional printing, make sure everything is evenly spaced without wrinkles or blobs of glue ruining the aesthetics. Don’t try to cram too much information onto the slides on the poster, so the bigger you can make the fonts, the better it will look. The poster is a reflection on you! Finally, make sure you are standing in front of your poster at the designated time. As for the presentation itself, remember that the abstract was a promise to the audience, so it should act as your guide in preparing your slides. If you find that your conclusions end up being wildly different than what

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you had anticipated, you should still let the data drive your presentation, but you will also need to mention here and there what you originally thought would happen so as to keep the audience informed of any direction changes. The audience, in most cases, will be perfectly fine with this— as long as you take a few moments to explain why you ended up in a different place than you intended. In addition, keep the amount of text on the slides to a minimum by summarizing points. That will keep you from simply reading directly off of the slides. When preparing, I recommend writing some notes on paper to accompany each slide. That will give you something to refer to when you are practicing. I also suggest keeping those notes with you every step of the way and even bringing them with you when you take the stage on game-­ day. Even if you are well-practiced, there is still the possibility that something may interrupt your presentation or you might just freeze up for a few seconds due to nerves. It is nice to know that your notes are close at hand, so with a quick glance, you can get back on track. Ultimately, it is the practice that matters the most. If you have practiced enough, you will probably not have very much trouble, and after a few presentations, you will likely even find yourself being energized from the audience members!! Finally, for non-native speakers, just make sure you are well-prepared. You can see some of the common phrases in the last section of this chapter, which can be used to make your presentation sound a bit more polished. Not to beat a dead horse, but remember: You are the expert!

CHAPTER 5

Tea for Two or More: The Group Presentation

Abstract  In this chapter, I discuss the group presentation. The first type of group presentation involves one group of presenters who have worked together on the same project. The discussion focuses on proper planning, which is needed so that each presenter knows his or her role; this takes more time than the individual presentation due to the coordination of all of the presenting parties. The second type of group presentation discussed is the colloquium, where members in the group are presenting their own research generally connected with a thread of topic commonality running through all of the individual presentation topics. The chapter points out that the key to being a solid member of the colloquium is being cognizant of when you are going to present and for how long. Keywords  Group presentation • Colloquium • Abstract • Practice • Coresearchers

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Mark R. Freiermuth, Academic Conference Presentations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21124-9_5

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Presenting with someone else or as a part of a group can be quite enjoyable because the folks with whom you present are generally invested in similar kinds of research. This like-mindedness means that your topic can be looked at from different angles. It also means that if time permits, your topic will be covered in a more thorough manner. I think that the natural question you might have is, “Does this ever lead to any kinds of disagreement?” It certainly could, but in my experiences, it really never has, so that’s the good news. Perhaps, if we look at the matter a bit more closely, the reasons will become clearer.

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Different Types of Groups Before we discuss group presentations in more detail, I think we should at least mention that there are two main types of group presentations. The first type is the presentation that is given with your coresearchers, and the second type is the colloquium or panel discussion. It would be natural to think that the first type is the more common and consequently the type that you should be more concerned about, but in my own case, one of my very first group presentations was as a member of a colloquium. Let’s take a look at each one.

Presenting with Your Coresearchers I like to present with my coresearchers at a conference. Quite frankly, it can be one of the most pleasant academic experiences there is. The main reason? You have allies on stage with you that support what you are doing. What this means in practical terms is that during the presentation, you can glance over to your colleagues to get an approving nod or two. Even if you happen to make a mistake, the presence of a colleague or two on stage actually helps to restore your confidence. Everyone on the stage, ultimately, has the same goal in mind. That’s how it is supposed to work. To get to the point where this pleasant outcome is a reality, however, takes some proper planning as you might imagine. Because there will be more than one colleague presenting, the preparation will require a bit more effort, but as mentioned, the potential for big rewards is high. Let’s take a look at some of the elements where advanced planning is necessary. Some of these may seem like common sense, but I think it is a good idea just to mention them nonetheless. The first requirement needing a bit of advanced planning is the abstract. Who is going to make it? It generally falls to the person who is the lead researcher of the project but not always. If I have conducted some research and I am the lead researcher here in Japan, but my colleague asks if she can present our paper in Taiwan, she has taken the role of organizer, so she will be the first author (or lead presenter to be technically correct) on the conference docket. This means that it is she who is responsible for writing up the abstract—not me. As she happens to be a non-native speaker of English (she is very, very, very good at writing in English), she might ask me to read it, and as her copresenter, I am happy to have a look at it as well as offer any suggestions. If all of your group members are non-native

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speakers of the conference language, please make sure you take the necessary steps to ensure that you submit a well-written abstract. That, of course, is the responsibility of the lead presenter. Remember, many abstracts that get rejected have good content but are so poorly written that they are easily dismissed by the reviewers. Don’t let your language problems get your group presentation canceled! As for the abstract writing itself, please make sure you give yourself a bit more time. I think two or three days extra may be required for every colleague in the group; if you have one colleague, at least two days; if you have two colleagues, at least four days and so forth. Your colleagues need time to digest what you have written, and they may want to suggest or add some things that will make the abstract better. Don’t paint yourself into a corner and send your colleagues the unfinished version of the abstract on the same day it is due. Everyone is busy; everyone needs time. What if not everyone is going to present at the conference? Should their names be submitted as presenters as well? That is a tricky question. My preferred answer is, “Yes.” All members who have worked on the research should always be included irrespective of whether or not they can attend. From a logical perspective, the research would not have taken place without them being a part. Of course, the order of the presenters should reflect those who will attend followed by those who will not attend. Nevertheless, I do say this is a tricky question, and it is. Often times, the conference rules will say something along the lines of, “Only those who will attend the conference and pay the conference fee will be listed as presenters.” The latter part of that sentence is the key. Conference organizers want to recover conferences costs, so they often include such restrictions. Some conferences don’t even mention such restrictions, but when they publish all of the conference materials, only those who have paid their fees will find their names listed. Nevertheless, I try to include all of my coresearchers whenever I am able—even if one of them says, “You don’t have to include me.” When you get your group presentation accepted, then the fun begins. This is where advanced planning really comes into play, and most of the planning should be spearheaded by the lead presenter. Does this hold true if you are presenting with someone who you look up to (like your supervisor)? “Yes!” You are the lead presenter, so you need to decide or suggest who will do what during the presentation. Copresenters who have more experience will generally understand this idea implicitly, so it probably won’t cause any trouble.

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As you can already see, in your role as the lead presenter, you will end up with most of the responsibilities. You are responsible for creating the abstract, running it past your copresenters and making sure it is well-­ written. You are responsible for submitting the abstract to the conference, making sure each name is correctly spelled, checking that correct emails have been given for everyone and that the appropriate affiliations have been provided. You are responsible for creating the presentation materials (or compiling the parts if you divide up the work) and assigning the duties or if that is too strong, suggesting who will present which parts. This is just the starting point! After all of these things have been decided, as the lead presenter, you will need to coordinate the practice  sessions. Because everyone is busy, practice will generally take place as individual activities, but if possible, it is a good idea if everyone can get together for a trial run. If you cannot meet face-to-face, then try to meet telecollaboratively using an application, such as Zoom, which allows for presentation files to be interactively displayed. As for your part, you should be well-practiced before you schedule the trial run presentation because you will want to know how many minutes your portion will consume. The practice presentation with your copresenters is a great way to see where you will need to cut some things (or in rare cases, add some things), and it is a good idea to have everyone present to discuss where the cuts need to be made. Once all of the time-issues have been worked out, you are good to go. If you have a chance to have one more trial run practice that is just icing on the cake, but I don’t think it is a critical issue. If the conference will be held in-person, most of the time we all get together at the soonest possible moment to do a trial run practice at the conference as well—preferably in the room where the presentation will be held. This just makes everyone feel more comfortable, so it is a good strategy. Then, you can all grab a cup of coffee together and relax until the time for your presentation arrives. As I mentioned at the start, group presentations can be a thoroughly enjoyable experience. If you have taken the time and the steps to plan everything well, you will be rewarded for your efforts.

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Presenting in the Colloquium The colloquium is markedly different because, generally speaking, you will all present your personal research. Nevertheless, for a colloquium to be a colloquium, there must be a thread that runs through all of the presentation topics. As I previously mentioned, one of the first group presentations that I took part in was a colloquium. To be honest, I was a bit nervous because some of the other folks in the colloquium were quite well-known, but through the process, I learned a lot and so was much less nervous the second time around. In similar fashion to presenting with your coresearchers, the colloquium needs a leader. That person is generally the one who suggested putting the colloquium together in the first place. In my first experience, all of us had published a short article in a theme-based issue of a well-­ known journal. One of the authors contacted us and asked us if we would be interested in presenting together as part of a colloquium. He was the leader of the group, but it should be noted that his duties were limited to being the organizer. That is the key difference between the group presentation and the colloquium. In the colloquium, each presenter is responsible for his or her own part. Only the order of the presenters is determined by the leader, and in some cases, even this may be randomly determined by the conference organizers. As for the abstract, as a member of the colloquium, you may be responsible for producing an individual abstract or you may simply have to produce a paragraph or two about your own research and send it to the leader. The abstract itself should conform to the norms we have already discussed previously. The only difference is that you might want to point out that you will be part of a colloquium in the abstract. I prefer to mention it at the start of the very last part of the abstract. As part of this colloquium on technology use in the language learning classroom, the presenter will discuss how online chat can be used as an interactive tool.

Other than that, the abstract would look identical to a solo presentation. If the abstract is a paragraph or two as a part of a more extensive abstract submitted by the leader of the colloquium, try to summarize your research as succinctly as possible. It should be a synopsis because there will be a

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word limit for the abstract, which will then need to be sliced up so that each presenter has about the same number of words available. Although your part of the abstract might be very short, it is a bit difficult to give advice on this section because the parameters will be subject to conference requirements or what the leader has in mind for each participant. The leader of the colloquium can help you out and point you in the right direction if you have concerns. As far as preparing goes, there is really nothing unusual. You need to prepare for your part as if it were a regular presentation. In most cases, you will be given a normal length time slot among your colleagues in the colloquium. If you can refer to some of their work in your own presentation, this would be a plus, but it is certainly not a requisite aspect of presenting as part of the group. One caveat regarding preparing is to really pay close attention to your allotted time. If you have 20 minutes, you should make sure you can finish your presentation in fewer than 20 minutes. That means you need to practice thoroughly in advance so that you know you can complete your part in the allotted time slot. It is really bad form to go over—even by a couple of minutes—because you will be cutting into your colleague’s time!

In Brief Presenting as a group can be very rewarding. If you are the leader of a group, you will ultimately be responsible for organizing matters. As I have always worked with trusted colleagues, I have never had any problems with others doing their part. The three critical issues of group presentations are: 1. Know your role! Who is making the abstract? What are you presenting? How much time do you have? Who is going to talk about what? 2. Be prepared! Practice—by yourself and as a group (unless it is a colloquium). Know when you will present. Respect the time limit. Are your slides ready? 3. Meet your colleagues at the venue! This may not be possible, but it is a very good idea, especially if it is a simple group presentation because you might need to discuss some minor (or even major) points. Also, you may need to combine your slides into one presen-

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tation, and, if ­possible, put them on the desktop of the computer in your presentation room. You can also do one last dry run or simply discuss some of the changes, so there won’t be any surprises once you take the stage. After you have finished a successful group presentation, my guess is that you will have enjoyed the presentation immensely and gained much encouragement from your fellow presenters as well as from the audience members. Enjoy a nice dinner with your colleagues—you’ve earned it!

CHAPTER 6

Conferences: Live and In-Person

Abstract  In this chapter, I discuss what  life at the conference  venue is like as well as what would-be presenters should be aware of when attending a conference, including when to arrive and what to do after checking in at the hotel. It then discusses checking in at the conference registration desk as well as navigating the halls of conference venue. Obviously, one key to having a good conference experience is to be well aware of where to be at the appointed presentation time, but this becomes a bit less worrisome by taking a few simple steps. The chapter also talks about the benefits of proper rest and attire. Finally, the discussion turns to the audience and what presenters should expect from audience members as well as offering some advice if audience members behave in unexpected ways. Keywords  Check-in • Arrival • Practice • Attire • Audience members

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Mark R. Freiermuth, Academic Conference Presentations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21124-9_6

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If I had to list my favorite things about being a professor, at the top of the list would be live academic conferences. I simply love going to conferences and presenting and listening to my peers and chatting with students and colleagues. However, before you get to the conference city and the presentation venue, you will need to plan where to stay. I like to use the online booking sites (Expedia, Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, Trip.com, etc.) for my airplane tickets, and more importantly, for the hotel reservations. I

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think the two most important things to think about are (1) the distance from your hotel to the conference venue and (2) the quality of the hotel. I secured my ‘golden ticket’ as a presenter to my first ‘big deal’ conference when I was a grad student. Pinching the purse a bit too tightly, I decided to stay at a hostel-type ‘hotel’ because it really was quite cheap compared to the conference hotel, but I failed to consider points one and two above. The hotel was noisy and the temperature could not even be controlled from inside my room, so I was either sweating bullets or freezing depending on what time it was. The bed itself was more like a padded-­ bench. I slept very poorly the night before my presentation. In addition, I decided I did not want to pay the taxi-fare to get over to the conference hotel, so I walked. Suffice it to say, it looked a lot shorter on the map than it actually was. I must have looked like a wreck because my classmate who was also attending the conference asked me if I wanted to sleep on the floor of their hotel room, but I stubbornly refused. All went surprisingly swimmingly during the presentation, but I did learn a valuable lesson. It is better to be closer to the conference venue, and it is better to carefully consider the ‘guest reviews’ of the hotel in which you intend to stay. In my defense, we didn’t have all of the booking sites available to us back in those days. Nevertheless, many would-be presenters—especially as  students—are looking for ways to save money, and this can lead to less-than-­ fantastic lodging. One of my grad students recently decided to stay at the cheapest hotel she could find in Manila. It turned out to be in the worst part of town, and we were quite concerned for her safety. Nothing happened, but it was not a good idea even to save a few dollars. There is one last caveat about hotels that I think I should mention. You may find that the conference has been given a ‘special price’ for hotel rooms at the conference hotel or at hotels near the venue. In most cases, I have found that these ‘special prices’ aren’t really very special at all. By checking the online booking sites, in most cases, I have found a much cheaper price for a room—even at the conference hotel! The organizers of the conference are probably not going to invest so much effort in securing the cheapest prices on rooms, so it is better to do your own homework.

Arrival After you get to your destination, you will find transportation to the hotel where you will be staying. Once you have arrived at the hotel, you’ll likely be very tired—if it is an overseas trip, you’ll be exhausted. For me, it is

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very important to arrive at least one day prior to the start of the conference. Many presenters arrive on the same day or even after the conference has begun; in some cases, they arrive mere hours before their presentations. I simply can’t imagine how they can manage this! I need one day to get my bearings and to recover from the travel. If I am attending with grad students or colleagues, it also gives us a chance to unwind a bit as travel most certainly can be stressful and tiring. The next day (if I have my druthers, the day prior to the conference), I head over to the venue to check-in at registration (if it is open). After checking-in (barring any troubles), I search for my presentation room. As conference venues tend to be on the huge size, it is imperative to find out where my presentation room is located. This occasionally turns into a Nero Wolfe mystery adventure—‘The Case of the Missing Conference Room.’ It is better to know where the room is well in advance of your presentation. If the laptop is already in the room and turned on, I will upload my presentation to the desktop. Most of the time, it will remain there until your assigned presentation time slot, but just in case, it is always a good idea to keep your memory stick with you on game-day. If my presentation is the following day, I am normally back to the hotel early enough so that I can get in my final practice sessions. I always like to practice at least twice the day before the actual presentation. My preferred pattern is five times before I arrive at my destination and two times after I arrive. I try not to practice on the day of the presentation, unless I have simply been so busy, I just couldn’t find any other time. I know I ought to be ready at that point, so there should be no need for additional practice. I want the day of presentation to be as relaxing as possible, so additional practice simply means additional stress.

Attending As newbies, it is super great if you can attend a conference together with your advisors, with other faculty members or with other students in your peer group. If everyone in your group is also presenting, that magnifies the pleasure. For me, it is truly one of the most rewarding experiences to present at the same conference with my students. (Maybe this is my bias, but I love to see my students presenting their research. I am cheering for them every time they step up to the stage.) The same can also be said of presenting with other colleagues. You may also meet other researchers with whom you have worked in the past or those you’ve communicated

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with in the hallways of the conference venue. You might also see some familiar names in the conference program or even have arranged a meeting prior to attending the conference. Interacting with colleagues that you know can offer great encouragement. In addition, as you thumb through the conference handbook, you may find quite a few presentations that sound interesting and possibly even some that are related to your own topic. You’ll find yourself naturally drawn to these presentations, and you’ll find yourself comparing their presentations to your own—not in the way of, “Oh wow, I am way better than that guy,” but more in the way of, “Oh, I can see a strong connection to what I have been working on!” (although the former is always a possibility as well). I met my number one coresearcher in just this way. Actually, one of us had forgotten to bring a laptop and had to borrow a laptop from the other, but it is likely we would have attended each other’s presentations anyways as they were back-to-back, in the same room and on the same topic. We took lunch together and started chatting about what we could do jointly. The rest is history as they say. I now consider her my most reliable coresearcher and coauthor, so I can say without hesitation that conferences are certainly one of the best ways to make connections to other researchers with like interests. As a side note, after attending a presentation that has interested you, see if you can come up with a question or two to ask the presenter. When I was a grad student, my supervisor instructed us advisees to always try to ask a question after each presenter had finished their presentation. Considering her advice was consistently sound, I did this at almost every presentation I attended. Over time, I began to see the logic behind the advice. Doing this will help you to pay close attention to the points being made and will also help you to identify potential weaknesses in the presenter’s study, which can in turn actually help you to see the potential for similar types of weaknesses in your own research. Also, don’t be intimidated by ‘big shots’ who appear at the conference  and who  might even show up at your presentation. Most scholars remember their earlier days, and you will find (with very few exceptions) that they are quite interested in your research—especially if it intersects with their own interests. You’d be surprised at how easy it is to chat with most of them. (If you buy their most recent book, you might even get asked to join them for dinner and be able to get their autograph to boot.)

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Presenting On the day of the presentation, I try to make my day as relaxing as is humanly possible. I eat a nice breakfast, chat with my students or colleagues and attend a couple of presentations that sound interesting (if there are any prior to my talk). Before I leave the hotel, of course, I check and double-check that I have all my notes, my memory stick and if the conference has required us to bring our own laptops, I make sure I have that as well. If possible, I throw most of these things into my conference bag if they will fit—except for my precious memory stick which I always keep in my coin purse. (I will have also sent myself a ‘finalized’ version of the PowerPoint presentation by email and saved one in a cloud drive, just in case everything goes pear-shaped on that day. It adds one extra layer of comfort knowing there is always one or two additional copies  of my presentation available floating around somewhere in cyberspace.) If the conference bag is too small or just too crummy (and let’s be honest here, not all conference bags are created equal), I’ll put everything in my backpack and lug it all over to the conference venue. Conference organizers like to put two, three or sometimes even four presenters in one time slot and in back-to-back fashion. As soon as you are able, it behooves you to check that your presentation is still on the desktop in the presentation room—if you had already saved it there. Sometimes the technical staffers delete everything from the desktop at the end of each day, so it is better to check one last time. If you are the first presenter on the morning docket, I suggest you get there at least 20 minutes early, and don’t be surprised if people come strolling into your presentation late. Regardless of what you have been told or thought, attendees tend to come late to early morning presentations. The number of presenters scheduled in your time slot is also something you should keep your eye on. In consideration of the amount of time given for each presenter and depending on how well the room is managed, it might be the case that you will have absolutely no time to check anything before you start your presentation. There have even been times when there was no timekeeper and my presentation started five or even ten minutes behind schedule. This is very bad time management that can be attributed to the organizers’ poor planning, and if they ask for evaluations at the end of the conference, you should absolutely complain about it. Nevertheless, there is no need to panic in such cases; just be ready to go as soon as you step onto the stage. If you find yourself in a bind for time, you can skip over your Overview and skim your Background slides. You want to make sure you can get to the Results, the Discussion and the Conclusion.

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Once you are ready to go, take a deep breath and start. You’ll likely be nervous at the start, but once you shake off the initial nervousness, if you are well-practiced, the presentation will soon become automatic. I always keep my notes in view, just in case I suddenly ‘get stuck,’ but surprisingly, I find myself almost never having to look at them if I have sufficiently practiced. I said that the presentation will become automatic once you get going, but does that mean it will also get boring? Will it sound like I am a robot repeating semi-memorized points? The short answer is, “No!” In fact, the more practiced you are, the more comfortable you will be when you are up on the stage. The people who have not practiced sufficiently might rely so heavily on their notes or their research paper that they are the ones who begin to sound like robots. To relate this concept to a different form of presenting, I have coached ‘memorized’ speech givers with some success. The ones who have practiced enough are the ones who give the dynamic speeches. Those who have not tend to be robotic. The same is true of academic presentations. If you have practiced enough, you will be able to add your own passion when needed and raise and lower your volume appropriately. (Of course, I reiterate here that it is not really a good idea to memorize the talking points for your presentation. Just practice enough so you are ready.) There is one more thing I wish to mention. Once you have finished giving your presentation and you’ve done an admiral job, you’ll not only be relieved but also energized. You did what you set out to do, and it feels good to have done it successfully. I hate sounding glib, but there really is great enjoyment to have presented your research successfully. It is fun to be there and fun to finish, and you might be surprised to know that it is even fun to answer the audience’s questions and listen to their comments during the Q & A time!!

Attire Recently, one of my graduate students expressed great surprise that one of her most admired research scholars gave his presentation in a t-shirt. “Is that really OK?” she wondered aloud. Sure it is, but in a sense, he earned the ‘right’ to wear a t-shirt. I am sure he was unconcerned about what audience members thought of his attire. He had already achieved his ‘expert’ status on the topic through books and journal papers, so he probably could have given his presentation in his swim trunks and still drawn

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his audience. For most of us, casual smart would be a good standard. I used to wear a necktie every time I presented, but now I wear a shirt that buttons and slacks without a necktie. I want to look serious but not stiff. You can decide what that means to you. You certainly don’t want the audience members to think, “Oh, that guy doesn’t care about how he looks, does he?” Wait until after you have published three or four books before you start presenting in a moth-ridden t-shirt.

Audience Members Most of the individuals who come to your presentation are there to hear what you have to say. Presumably, they have read your abstract and were interested in the topic. I would say they make up about 98% of the attendees who will take a seat in the presentation room. Nevertheless, the other 2% can be … how can I put this nicely … irritating. For the most part, you should simply ignore the ones who are irritating, but it might be nice to know what to expect from those who are less-than-interested in what you have to say. The first irritating type of attendees are what I call the ‘groupies’—not rock and roll groupies, and they likely aren’t your groupies either based upon their behavior. They simply enter the room together and obviously know each other. They probably aren’t interested in your topic and unfortunately, have somehow chosen your presentation room as their personal coffee shop. They usually are talking when they arrive, and they continue talking when you are ready to start. Don’t wait for them to quiet down because they may not. Many folks are very talkative when they spot colleagues they haven’t seen for a while, but they normally stop talking as soon as you are about to begin. However, I have witnessed as a presenter and as an audience member those who won’t stop talking even after the presentation has already begun. Generally speaking, other audience members will put pressure on them to ‘shut up’ with a furrowed-brow stare or two. Normally, this works. If it doesn’t and you find yourself getting distracted, your only strategy will be to treat them like junior high school kids in the classroom. Stop talking and just stare at them until they become quiet (but do keep a smile on your face—at least at first). Remember to thank them for quieting down. I think I’ve only had to do this one time, so it is likely that you won’t get to that point. If push comes to shove and they still won’t quiet down, I would again stop, stare at them and put my index finger over my lips. Again, I would make sure I thank them for

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quieting down. Maybe they don’t deserve a thank you for their rude behavior, but believe me when I say that everyone in the room other than those behaving rudely will be very impressed by your courteous behavior, and those folks who are interested in your talk will be grateful because they can now pay attention to what you have to say. With that said, some presenters will actually invite trouble by saying that they are willing to take questions from audience members during their 20-minute presentation. This is a MONSTER mistake IMHO. Unless you are giving a hands-on workshop where this is a common practice used for guiding and helping the participants to attain a certain level of understanding, allowing free-reign on questions during a 20-minute presentation will result in chaos, and you will end up chasing rabbits down their holes (as my wife likes to say). I have witnessed this mistake a couple of times. If you make such an offer, there is a very good chance that some audience members will take you up on your offer, and consequently, there is a very good chance that you will not even be able to finish your own presentation on time without skipping slides. Moreover, you will almost certainly lose track of what you had been talking about  in the presentation once you have diverted your attention to the question being asked. A second reason you should never take questions during your presentation is that there is a fairly good chance that you will end up answering some of the questions that potentially could be asked once you begin to discuss the main points in your presentation, so you will just end up repeating what you have already said. Another unsettling behavior you may experience is to have audience members suddenly arise from their seats and leave. If you have ever been to any conference, you realize this is commonplace. It is one thing to leave an auditorium, but in a smaller room, it is fairly obvious when someone pops up suddenly from their chair and bolts for the door. We should cut these people some slack. They could have an appointment to meet someone at a certain time; they might be giving a presentation in the next time slot but in a different room and wanted to see part of your presentation; they might not feel well (it would be better if they puked in the bathroom and not all over the floor in your room); they might realize that they are in the wrong room (you’d be surprised at how often this happens); they might be completely disinterested in your study or were expecting something completely different. Suffice it to say that I never let these people bother me. It is what it is. The final problematic person is the unsolicited questioner. The unsolicited questioner, as the name implies, shoots up his or her hand prior to the

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Q & A session designated for the end of the presentation. The first time this happened to me, I really wasn’t prepared for it. I had already given a few presentations at that point, and nothing like that had ever happened to me previously. A man in the audience suddenly shot up his hand about ten minutes in and was waving it frantically. I tried to ignore him for a few seconds, but he just kept waving his hand wildly at me. I finally succumbed thinking I must have confused the audience by not explaining something properly. His question was mundane, and I would have answered it in the next few minutes if he had waited. I lost track of where I was and even recall saying something like, “Now where was I?” A couple of minutes later he shot his hand up again and starting waving it madly to make sure that I saw him. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake again, so I said something along the lines of, “Would you hold your question till the end? I will gladly take your question then.” He said “OK,” so I thought the drama had concluded. About 15 seconds later, I was quite surprised to see him stand up abruptly and with as much fanfare as possible gather up all of his materials, creating quite a din in the process; he then stormed out of the room. It actually shook me up a bit to be honest. I was wondering if the other audience members thought I was some kind of ogre for asking him to wait. I was wrong about their feelings, and my instincts had been right on the money. Several audience members who talked to me after I had finished mentioned how glad they were that I asked that man to wait and were happy to see that he had departed. The general agreement was that he had just wanted to draw attention to himself, and when he couldn’t have it, he had no reason to stay. I was relieved, and from that point forward, I vowed to never take questions during the presentation regardless of any frantic contortions being made audience members trying to get my attention. After that first encounter, it is true that I have had to deal with this kind of situation a couple of additional times, but I have always asked the person to wait (politely). Of course, these types of audience members are the very rare exception rather than the rule, so in all likelihood you are unlikely to encounter very many attendees who will actually attempt to  disrupt your presentation. On the contrary, during the after-chat, you might just find yourself ensconced in deep discussions with one or two of the attendees who are really interested in what you have just presented. As I previously mentioned, my most trusted coresearcher and I simply attended one another’s presentations, talked for hours afterwards, and the rest is history in the form of joint presentations and publications.

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In Brief The crux of this chapter rests on the idea that you simply need to be your best on game-day. That means getting to the conference site in advance and making sure your presentation has been placed on the desktop of the computer in your presentation room. That also means getting sufficient rest so you feel your best. That means staying at a place where you can sleep comfortably. That means dressing smartly to look the part. If you attend to the seemingly small matters, they won’t derail you so you can focus on the main matter at hand—giving your best performance. Who knows? You might just find yourself talking with others who have enjoyed your presentation so much that they now want to collaborate with you.

CHAPTER 7

Ghosts in the Machine: The Virtual Presentation

Abstract  In this chapter, I discuss the virtual presentation and what can be done to properly prepare for an online presentation. The chapter starts by discussing some of the benefits of the virtual presentation such as cost and convenience, but this is followed by some of the negatives associated with online presentations, exemplified by a discussion of the seemingly ubiquitous sterile atmosphere created by a lack of realistic interaction and the potential for technical troubles. The chapter then turns to the various ways in which virtual presentations can take shape and how to prepare for them effectively. The chapter finishes up by talking about the hybrid conference model and what that entails. Keywords  Virtual presentation • Video • Streaming video • Practicing • Audience • Hybrid ­conference

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What was once only imagination has now become a reality: the virtual conference. Of course, with virtual conferences come virtual presentations, which have become a standardized practice since the onset of the COVID pandemic and virtual conferences seem to be here to stay—at least for a while anyway. Virtual presentations come in two flavors—the recorded presentation and the live telecollaborative or streaming presentation. Although there are some significant differences, there are also some similarities, which I will discuss. However, before we dive in, let me point out the good and the bad of virtual presentations.

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The Good Side of Virtual As for the good points of the virtual conference, there are primarily two: cost and convenience. As you can imagine the cost is so much cheaper than the in-person conference that it is not even funny. The conference fee still must be paid, but even that is often dramatically reduced in price. In addition, there are no hotel fees, no transportation fees and no extraneous fees associated with eating out, doing some shopping or visiting some interesting places. Generally speaking, I would say that the virtual conference is at least 20 times cheaper than the in-person international conference and probably at least ten times cheaper than the in-person national conference—even  one that requires you to stay at a hotel. The second benefit of the virtual conference is the convenience. You can stay in your extra bedroom, office or living room and give your presentation. This may make you feel very comfortable in cozy and familiar surroundings. Nevertheless, IMHO, virtual conferences are almost entirely bereft of the benefits that make face-to-face conferences enjoyable, so I don’t consider the convenience and low cost as outweighing the many and more important benefits that can be had in the face-to-face conference.

The Bad Side of Virtual The first problem with the virtual conference is the audience. You cannot see them, and in some cases, you don’t even know how many audience members are in your virtual presentation room. This makes it hard to get a sense that you are talking to anyone at all. This is much worse than teaching in  the virtual university classroom because, generally speaking, you will know who is in your classroom and who is talking and why. Rather than feeling like a normal conference presentation, the virtual mode feels more like you have suddenly decided to stand up in Starbucks to explain to everyone sitting there why it is better to order a chocolate mocha frappe than a cup of American-style black coffee. It is hard to know what anyone is thinking but as you look around the room and see the blank faces, it just doesn’t seem to feel right (more discussion coming in a couple of paragraphs), and you sit back down wondering if anyone was paying attention. The second problem is technical. Technical problems experienced at the face-to-face conference are truly rare these days (they do occur albeit very, very rarely). Online virtual conferences are the new kid on the block. Technical problems do occur with individuals and with entire conferences.

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Fortunately for me, I haven’t encountered significant problems personally, but some of my former graduate students have, and I also  heard from other individuals who had experienced various intermittent connectivity and compatibility problems even while attending the same conference in which I had successfully presented without having any troubles at all. This is one reason some virtual conferences opt for prerecorded videos, which can be uploaded and ideally watched whenever attendees wish. (This also makes internationalization more ‘friendly’ because conference attendees from across the globe, residing far from the conference venue, can view a presentation by their favorite scholar at their leisure, rather than having to get up at 2:00 AM to watch the streaming video.) This eliminates some problems but certainly not all. One of my grad students, who had her paper accepted at a very prestigious conference, told me that during the first two days of the conference, the organizers could not properly fix the sound. The complaints came raining down upon them in droves, and it led to all kinds of unforeseen troubles. Eventually they got the problems ironed-out, but the conference ended up being kind of a mess. The third trouble spot is more psychological than physical, and it is related to the first problem I mentioned. There is an unexplainable uneasiness about the virtual presentation. Perhaps God did not want us to communicate our ideas in such a sterilized manner. If the virtual presentation is live, you are speaking to a computer screen—not to individuals. There is no one there! In fact, even if we see an iconic square with someone’s name and even someone’s picture, they may be having coffee or lunch in another room or even playing Candy Crush on their phone. It just feels very, very cold and lifeless. If the presentation is recorded, the feeling is similar but even stranger, inasmuch as you are there listening to your own presentation on video. You are wondering if anyone besides you is even watching it. It is almost like an out-of-body experience—only worse because you can only see yourself and no one else. In addition, it doesn’t even feel as if you have given a presentation because you made the presentation and recorded it a month or two before the conference. Your only job is to make sure that it has been properly uploaded so that it can be played. Getting back to this idea of a sterile atmosphere, when I recently uploaded a prerecorded presentation, and it was played by the organizers (no audience members were visible when  using the chosen platform), I doubted if there was anyone watching my video but me. It turns out there were at least a few, but I have no idea how many. Because the Q & A session that followed my talk, using an application called Chat Box, only

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revealed those audience members who wished to ask questions or give comments. Thus, I can only be sure that there were three in attendance. One attendee asked a question and two commented that they liked the talk. There was no way of knowing how many actually watched the video. I can only be sure of one because she asked a relevant question. I am not voicing these opinions as a gripe session. I simply want you (as presenters) to be aware that virtual and face-to-face presentations have little in common concerning sense of presence, so you will know what to expect. This may be a trend of the future, so we had all better understand what to expect and how to make ourselves properly prepared. If virtual becomes the standard rather than the exception, hopefully you can better prepare yourselves to deliver high-quality presentations.

Performing in the Virtual World The remainder of this section will be dedicated to providing some guidance  so that  you not only  survive the online virtual conference experience but you give yourself every opportunity to excel. There will be some tips and some advisable practices aimed at helping you. The first thing to be aware of is the platform that is being used by the organizers. There are so many different ways to organize and deliver online conference materials that it is really quite dizzying. To date, I have given seven presentations virtually. Six times out of the seven, the delivery method was different, and five times the platforms were different. In three of these cases, the organizers offered some kind of pre-presentation training (in two cases, it was not needed due to the familiarity of the telecollaborative tool). A key point here is that you should take advantage of any training session being offered!!! Even if you say, “Ha! I know how this platform works, so I won’t have any problems,” you might find an unpleasant surprise waiting for you once you start to present. I have always attended all training sessions that have been offered, and I have never regretted it. In many cases, the training seems pretty straightforward, but you often learn things that might have given you a jolt if you had not been prepared. For example, the platform for one of my more recent virtual conferences disallowed embedding videos in PowerPoint and blocked videos from running even as uploaded files. I was very, very glad I had attended the training session because I had a two-minute video I really wanted to play just before the end of my presentation. I was able to ask the tech guy how I should go

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about playing my video, and he explained to me very clearly what I needed to do. Had I not attended the training session, I would have been in panic at game-time and probably would have simply abandoned the video. This would have diminished the quality of my presentation dramatically as all of the points discussed in the presentation were leading up to watching that video. On another occasion no training was offered, and on game-day, I had a lot of trouble understanding how the system worked. As my presentation time drew near, I fired off a very frantic message saying I could not log in to the website. In fact, I actually had logged in correctly, but I hadn’t understood how the system worked. Before my message was responded to by the organizers, I suddenly realized that the platform only allowed the presenters access to the plenary talks and the individualized track in which their uploaded videos were housed. As I had never experienced anything like this previously, I thought I was not logging into the system correctly. I am sure that the organizers were worried about a platform crash so restricted access to the various tracks. Had they offered a short training session, this would have become clear to everyone. We may not have liked it, but at least this would have been understood. Along those same lines, when you are practicing your presentation try to recreate the environment. Generally speaking, I practice my presentation for the face-to-face conference with my PowerPoint slides printed out as handouts with my notes scrawled on them. I am not too concerned about where I practice—even in the airplane! For the online presentation, I want my practice sessions to mimic the actual presentation as closely as possible, so I will practice using my PC and the telecollaborative tools as suggested by the conference. If that is not possible, I use Zoom to practice my presentation, so I can get a feel for what it will be like at zero hour. This is a good way to get a sense of time as well. Online presentations do take a minute or two longer because we need to navigate within the platform the conference has provided. The benefit of using Zoom is that you can also record yourself and then watch the video to see if there are any additions or adjustments that need to be made. As far as preparing for the presentation  is concerned, whether prerecorded or live, preparations should be the same as for a regular

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presentation. I do find that I can prepare just a tiny bit faster for the prerecorded video when compared to the live version. Perhaps this is just because of the relaxing atmosphere surrounding the production of the video. Nevertheless, please be mindful of the fact that there is no audience in front of you. That makes it easier, right? Actually, it makes it more difficult. As for the prerecorded videos, there is a tendency to lose energy by the second or third slide. When giving a presentation face-to-face, the audience is always there in front of you, so I never lose my momentum. However, when recording a video, I need to imagine that the audience is sitting there listening intently. As a case in point, one of my very vivacious Brazilian grad students recently sent me a video of her conference presentation and asked me to have a look at before she uploaded it to the conference website. I found a very minor flaw in her explanation of one of the slides, but what was more interesting was that her enthusiasm kept waning as she worked her way through the presentation. It seemed like she was running out of steam and simply stumbled across the finish line. This was very uncharacteristic of her presentations in the past. They were always full of energy from start to finish, but the lack of an audience made it hard for her to maintain her level of enthusiasm on the video. I mentioned the flaw and also commented about her level of energy. Fortunately, her improved version not only addressed the weakness on the slide, but she was also able to keep her energy level higher throughout. However, this problem is not unique to prerecorded videos. Virtual presentations that are live can suffer the same fate because the virtual aspect reduces the interactive sense presenters have as they stand in front of an actual audience. I recall a number of featured speakers who upon giving their online presentations started out strong and quickly fell into a kind of presentation trance. I suspect this had more to do with their being online rather  than their  being unprepared and simply reading from their notes (the latter would be even worse online). Nevertheless, the presentations become almost unwatchable as the presenters droned on. How can you avoid these problems? The overly simplistic answer is that you must envision the audience as being in the same room as you. If it helps

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you, attach a picture of a smiling audience on the top of your computer’s monitor behind the camera (I’m not joking!!). In that way, there is always an audience to look at either while you are recording the video or when giving a live tellacollaborative presentation. This is just a device to remind you that there will be an audience watching your presentation.

(Photo of students used with their permission)

Here is a photo of my seminar students to aid me in keeping my presentation on track and full of energy! I think it is easy to see why a photo of others can help to keep you engaged during the online presentation.

The Mixed Approach Some conferences operate using a dual format. That is, you can present virtually or in-person. These hybrid conferences allow you to give your presentation live or virtually, along the lines that have previously been discussed. All of the benefits and problems associated with virtual

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presentations are still in play at the hybrid conference, so if you value cost savings and time savings, you might wish to take the virtual option. However, if you value interaction and live audiences, presenting at the venue is the right choice for you. In my case, this is an easy decision. I always want to meet and discuss matters directly with those who attend my presentation, so I will take the face-to-face mode every single time. In fact, I was recently invited to give a lecture, oddly enough, on academic presentations. I was asked if I wanted to do it virtually (from the venue) or as a hybrid. I chose the hybrid  mode, and it was a very pleasant experience indeed to see the smiles and the head nods from the audience members.

In Brief In conclusion, there are probably three key differences between the online presentation and the face-to-face presentation. The first major difference, of course, is that fact that you won’t be giving a ‘live’ performance in-person. You either will be sending in your prerecorded presentation or giving your presentation pseudo-live via some kind of video streaming. What that means in practical terms is that you simply cannot get the same vibes from your audience, so you must remember to keep the sense of your audience at the forefront of your mind. Otherwise, it is extremely easy to lose any sort of passion, and this is something that even the most vivacious personalities need to keep in mind. The second caveat is to be aware of how the online conference will be conducted. Make sure you know well in advance what steps you will need to take for submitting your presentation and what steps you will need to take to log-in to the conference site. In addition, make sure you read all of the information sent to presenters prior to the conference. There may be valuable tips on who to contact if you have a problem as well as warnings concerning certain features that the conference platform does not allow and what (if anything) can be done to overcome such obstacles. Also, save all of the emails sent from the conference in a separate file so that you can easily access this information on the day of the presentation. If the conference organizers offer a training session, take the time to attend. The information is often conducted by one of the technicians who should be able to answer any questions you may have regarding the online system. Lastly, know who to contact if things go sideways. If you don’t see any information about this, ask the organizers directly.

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Finally, know the time you are supposed to be presenting or, alternatively, the time your video will be played as a presentation. If you have uploaded your presentation video weeks prior to the conference, it might be a good idea to refresh your mind by watching it yourself either at the same time as the audience members or before they view it. In this way, you’ll be ready to answer any of their questions. In addition, pay attention to the questions. When you are performing live, it is generally much easier for both you and the audience to use the slides as contextual clues to the question being asked; however, when you are online, such clues are often obscured. In other words, you might have to ask for clarification from the questioner—better to get it right than do drift off on a tangent. In addition, make sure you know where you are supposed to be during the Q & A session. You should familiarize yourself with the conference website so you can easily navigate to the webpage where you are supposed to be during the presentation and after it has finished. It is best to know these things well in advance of your presentation. The virtual presentation has now become a reality. Despite this, if I have my druthers, I would always choose the in-person, face-to-face conference. Why? The interaction with the audience members cannot be reproduced online. There may be some interesting questions posed by audiences online, but I have never experienced any deep discussions with other members, which is something that happens regularly following ‘live’ performances. The closest any conference has come to mimicking live interaction was through a platform that allowed attendees to use avatars that could walk around within the virtual conference site, which was replete with presentation rooms and a main hall. The platform allowed the real people behind the avatars to turn on their cameras and microphones whenever they were in close proximity to another ‘attendee’. This might be the future as this certainly seemed to be a bit more interactive, and it did allow for more genuine interaction. Nevertheless, there is still a long way to go if virtual hopes to challenge the face-to-face mode, so unless the virtual conference can mimic actual interaction more realistically and naturally, participants will continue to be ghosts in the machine.

CHAPTER 8

The Seven Deadly Sins: What Not to Do!

Abstract  In this chapter, I offer some caveats to would-be presenters regarding recurring troubles that I have witnessed over the years. The chapter discusses some of the problems associated with reading a paper aloud and what strategies can be used to bolster stage presence. The chapter then examines the importance of giving positive feedback during the Q & A and also being properly prepared by emphasizing some ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ when giving an academic presentation. The chapter then discusses the basic technological mastery expected for presenters as well as offering some ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ for slide preparations as well. The chapter also discusses why even excellent data must be supplemented with application and, finally, the chapter talks about the importance of following the submitted abstract during the presentation. Keywords  The Paper Reader • The Feedback Artist • The Unprepared • The Technophobic Resister • The PowerPoint Abuser • The Numbers Freak • The Pointless Blatherer

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Mark R. Freiermuth, Academic Conference Presentations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21124-9_8

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Earning your stripes without effort—just so you can show your friends, potential employers and colleagues the new line on your CV—is not what presentations are supposed to be about. The ultimate aim of presenting is to share your research with colleagues so that they may learn about your research. Beyond that, it is an opportunity to field questions and offer insights to others who may be interested in researching something along the same lines or who are thinking of conducting research on related topics. Even beyond that, sometimes your colleagues can offer suggestions and point out potential trouble spots in your own research—better to learn it early rather than later. What I am trying to say here is that your aim

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should be professionalism, and that always means being at your best when presenting and being ready on game-day. As a conference attendee, you are likely to see some presenters that really don’t give a concerted effort and in some cases even seem satisfied despite that fact, but you really shouldn’t be tempted to follow this perilous path. When it comes to presenting, the easy path is the far more dangerous one. I refer to this chapter as ‘the seven deadly sins’ because I managed to find seven kinds of presentation types that don’t adhere to professionalism. The foibles mentioned here often times result in the irritation of audience members who have spent good money to attend a conference, and frankly, do not want to be irritated. Here is a list of the exasperating seven. . The Paper Reader 1 2. The Feedback Artist 3. The Unprepared (The Non-practicer and The Repeater) 4. The Technophobic Resister 5. The PowerPoint Abuser 6. The Numbers Freak 7. The Pointless Blatherer Before you lodge a protest I need to clarify some points. Not all of the abovementioned ‘sinners’ are inherently bad; as with many things in life, it is often the faulty applications made by the presenters that cause them to spin out of control. Other entries on this list have no excuses and no place to hide. You will encounter some of these folks when you attend others’ presentations, but you don’t have to become one—not even once.

The Paper Reader There are many presenters who prefer to read their papers to the audience rather than use note cards or who read the PowerPoint slides aloud so as not to lose track of where they are in the presentation. Concerning the former, there is nothing inherently wrong in the reading of a paper to an audience. Many second language learners, in particular, feel an attachment to the paper version of the ‘plan’ they have so carefully laid out, and I myself decided to read my presentation notes at the first ‘big’ conference I attended simply because I was so nervous. The problem lies not in the reading of the texts as written but in the manner of reading them. As I mentioned  earlier, when I had my

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presentation abstract accepted at a renowned conference in my field as a graduate student, I was—to be frank—a bit scared that my reputation would be ruined before my career even got started. Thus, I decided to write down exactly what I wanted to say on paper and read it aloud. I no longer do this, but I certainly am not opposed to others reading their papers to the audience. I reiterate here that the way the paper is read is of critical importance. I think there are two mistakes that presenters make when reading their papers. The first is somewhat understandable, and non-native speakers of the conference language tend to make this type of mistake, but they certainly are not alone. Paper Readers simply start reading with their heads buried in the notes they are clinging to, while completely ignoring the audience members. The Paper Reader tends to get lost in the text, and the audience ceases to even exist after a few minutes. Paper Readers may even tell themselves while they are practicing to look up and acknowledge the audience now and then; however, on game-day with the audience there, nerves take over and they simply forget to look up or are so worried about losing their place that they cannot bring themselves to look away from the paper. Before they know it, they find themselves at the Q & A without having glanced at the audience for 15 minutes. Moreover, regardless of how much enthusiasm Paper Readers plan to generate using volume and intonation, because they have unwittingly eliminated their audience, their voices tend to become incrementally weaker as they proceed. By the end of the presentation the voice of a Paper Reader lost in the text often resembles the monotonous buzz of a faulty television set. The second mistake is not really a mistake at all; it is simply a lack of preparation. In such cases, Paper Readers make the decision that because they have not prepared, they can just read their paper allowing them to skip practicing the presentation. This kind of Paper Reader is more easily identified because the reading and the slide show may become disjointed or even mismatched as the presenter fumbles around trying to manage everything. Additionally, even though this type of Paper Reader is reading from notes, the presenter will often tend to make errors and may appear to be unaware of what he or she is reading because in many cases, it is the first time the notes are actually being read aloud! The reading itself may include sudden stops and starts because the Paper Reader really does not know the content of the sentence being read and the sentence that follows it. Presenters who try to pull this off generally fail and to watch such a spectacle is unpleasant to say the least.

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Before I mention possible solutions to those who intend to read, I also want to issue one very important warning. There is a new phenomenon gaining popularity whereby presenters manage their slides with one hand and use their phones, where they have stored their notes for each slide, in the other. Perhaps your goal is to save the planet, but do it on another day or in another way because this just doesn’t play well. You will end up stumbling your way through the presentation, stopping, starting, squinting and stuttering. Your phone is simply too small to be a proper way to linguistically support your slides, and you will have more than enough on your plate by just trying to manage the presentation on the laptop; the phone just adds one more problem to manage. In addition, if the presentation room is equipped with a microphone and speakers, because the phone will be held near your face, it will often cause interference with the sound system resulting in a crackling sound or worse yet, a squealing sound. Do not use a phone for your notes under any circumstances!!! I mentioned at the start of this section that reading your paper is not inherently bad. Actually, although I no longer prefer this type of presentation, it can be a good way to make sure your points are clearly understood in the correct context. The problem raises its ugly head at the point of delivery, but this can be overcome. I refer back to the one presentation when I had  decided to read my ‘paper’ as a graduate student. At that point in my life, I had been to a number of small conferences and so tacitly understood the pitfalls of reading my paper; I just wanted to make sure I included everything I needed to say and reading seemed like the safest guarantee. What I did to avoid dissing my audience was directly related to how I prepared my notes and by practicing. The strategies I used proved to be very effective; as a result, the audience remained engaged throughout my presentation. The first strategy was to increase the text size on my notes from a small font size (10 or 12) to a much larger font size (16 or 18) and also to increase the space between the sentences to 1.5 or double for the entire document. Obviously, I did this to make reading the notes that much easier—it meant more pages to print out, but it proved to be invaluable when on the stage. This also helped me to avoid getting lost in the notes. I cannot tell you the number of times a Paper Reader starts reading the notes at a nice distance only to slowly start bringing the notes closer and closer to his or her face. Sometimes The Paper Reader ends up with the notes actually partially obscuring his or her face, or resorts to bending over and staring down at the dais so as to see the notes more clearly. These are not good looks!

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The second strategy that proved useful was to highlight texts in various colors. Why did I do this? There are two reasons for this. The first is so that I could easily see what I had just read and the second is so that at every color switch point, I could look up at the audience and acknowledge that they were still with me without losing my place. As an example, let’s take the previous paragraph and use it as notes for the conference. I think it will become exceedingly clear why one way is significantly better than the other: Version A:

The strategies I used proved to be very effective; as a result, the audience remained engaged throughout the presentation. The first strategy was to increase the text size from a small font size (10 or 12) to a much larger font size (16 or 18). Obviously, I did this to make reading the notes that much easier—it meant more pages to print out, but it proved to be invaluable when on the stage. This also helped me to avoid getting lost in the notes. I cannot tell you the number of times a Paper Reader starts reading the notes at a nice distance only to slowly bring the notes closer and closer to his or her face. Sometimes The Paper Reader ends up with the notes actually partially obscuring the face or resorts to bending over and staring down at the dais so they can see the notes more clearly. These are not good looks!

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Version B:

The strategies I used proved to be very effective; as a result, the audience remained engaged throughout the presentation. The first strategy was to increase the text size from a small font size (10 or 12) to a much larger font size (16 or 18). Obviously, I did this to make reading the notes that much easier—it meant more pages to print out, but it proved to be invaluable when on the stage. This also helped me to avoid getting lost in the notes. I cannot tell you the number of times a Paper Reader starts reading the notes at a nice distance only to slowly bring the notes closer and closer to his or her face. Sometimes The Paper Reader ends up with the notes actually partially obscuring the face or resorts to bending over and staring down at the dais so they can see the notes more clearly. These are not good looks!

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Version B is obviously much easier to read and the switches in color (only three or four colors are sufficient) are cues for presenters to look up; when they return their gaze from the audience and back to their notes, there is no trouble in finding the jump-off spot. This helps presenters avoid the dreaded zombie note-lock that often occurs a few minutes into the presentation  or the equally troubling panic caused by getting lost while  reading. If no color printer is available, presenters can alternate between shaded, underlined and unshaded texts to achieve the same purpose, or even use border boxes as is shown here in Version C.

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Version C:

The strategies I used proved to be very effective; as a result, the audience remained engaged throughout the presentation. The first strategy was to increase the text size from a small font size (10 or 12) to a much larger font size (16 or 18). Obviously, I did this to make reading the notes that much easier—it meant more pages to print out, but it proved to be invaluable when on the stage. This also helped me to avoid getting lost in the notes. I cannot tell you the number of times a Paper Reader starts reading the notes at a nice distance only to slowly bring the notes closer and closer to his or her face. Sometimes The Paper Reader ends up with the notes actually partially obscuring the face or resorts to bending over and staring down at the dais so they can see the notes more clearly. These are not good looks!

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As you can see, while reading either Version B or C, it is quite easy to read a sentence, look up and then find your place once again. If you plan on reading your paper, why don’t you try one of these suggestions?

The Feedback Artist As is the case with The Paper Reader, The Feedback Artist is not always a negative. With that said upfront, the negative version of the Feedback Artist is capable of being the most annoying kind of presenter imaginable. The first type to be discussed is the insulted Feedback Artist, who is the most dangerous animal known to conference goers once he or she becomes cornered. Because Feedback Artists display their full colors during feedback, they normally are identified during the Q & A—although at times they may invite feedback during their presentation causing them to come out of hiding a bit earlier. Although the presenter invites questions and comments, the insulted Feedback Artist will refuse to listen to comments or might even criticize the questioner—sometimes completely missing the question being asked or the point being made. When giving presentations, we must expect feedback, and we are always expected to address any honest questioner with a pleasant demeanor—even if we think the comment or question is incredibly stupid. Before denigrating an audience member, remember that they took 20 minutes out of their lives to come and hear you speak. As the old saying goes, “You can catch more flies with honey than with flypaper.” Treat them with kid gloves even if you think the question or comment is inane or even insane. You would be surprised at how fast a presentation can go from “Fantastic!” to “That guy presenting is a jerk!” I mentioned that we should treat all honest questioners with respect and graciousness; that implies that on rare occasions, you may encounter an audience member who is not really interested in your presentation. This type of person may think they know more about the topic than you do. Don’t let those audience members win the day by addressing their nasty question or comment with a surly or nasty comment of your own. As I have previously mentioned, some attendees may even try to interrupt your presentation midway with a question or comment to draw attention to themselves; stay calm and carry on. You can and should politely ask them to wait until the end of your presentation; and if they try to dominate the Q & A session, again politely address them by saying that you would like to hear others’ questions as well. Don’t get sucked in to becoming a bad version of the Feedback Artist when an unruly attendee lurking

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in your audience suddenly flags you with frantic waving. Recall that this very scenario became a reality during one of my own presentations many years back. As a preemptive measure, to stop this from even becoming as issue, the final comment I generally make during the Overview slide is something along the lines of, “I’ll gladly take your questions at the end.” This strategy has worked well. Regarding feedback, the upshot is that those who are really interested in your presentation will respect you when you answer their questions and address everyone in a polite manner. Those who are truly interested in your topic will see even negative situations for what they are and respect you even more by your handling of those situations with the proper deference. I consider the second kind of Feedback Artist as being the good, the bad or the ugly. I call this kind of Feedback Artist ‘the returner.’ The good version of this type of Feedback Artist listens intently to what the audience member is actually asking and returns the ball back to the questioner with the intention of engaging the person in a fruitful discussion. The purpose for the return is to hear what the audience member has to say with the aim of considering various perspectives. The return usually includes content back to the original questioner, with the aim of clarification or expansion. AM:

You provided various data that demonstrate why you think Michael Jordan is the best NBA player ever, but don’t you think that LeBron James is a better overall player? GFA: In what ways would you say LeBron is better? Could you give me some examples? AM: Well, LeBron has a higher shooting percentage than Jordan and is a better passer. GFA: I see your point, but I consider how tough MJ is especially in big games and even though Jordan gets a lot of points because of free-­ throws, it means he is getting fouled a lot because that is the only way to defend him…. In this completely fictitious example, there is content going back and forth and the Good Return Artist is playing his or her part by engaging the audience member. Be aware that in your audience, there may be a big-shot in your specialty who will likely present you with comments or questions during the Q & A.  Generally speaking, the scholar is simply trying to engage you in discussion to help you to see potential weaknesses, make

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you aware of something or to shine a little light on an alternative viewpoint. The cure is still the same, enjoin that person in discussion so that everyone in the room can be enriched. The bad Feedback Artist does not really engage the questioner at all— he or she simply takes what the questioner asks or comments on, and then simply returns it—usually with this one question, “What do you think?” This version of The Feedback Artist has no intention of engaging the audience member even though in most cases that is what the question asker is hoping will transpire. Actually, the question asker probably wants to know what you as the presenter think, so to simply return the volley without content does not bring any fruit to other audience members. Besides that,  it’s a bad look because it appears as if the audience member may know more about the topic than you do. You might think you are playing the ‘humility’ card, but it will seem to everyone else that you are playing the ‘I don’t know card.’ In most cases, as the presenter, you are the one who will know the most about your own research. Don’t be afraid to share what you know! The ugly Feedback Artist goes one step further. After asking the audience member, “What do you think?” The original question asker generally feels compelled to say what he or she actually thinks. The ugly Feedback Artist simply acknowledges what is has been said and appears completely disinterested in the response—an odd behavior in light of the fact the presenter just a few moments earlier returned the question to the audience member. Unlike the bad Feedback Artist who appears to be unknowledgeable, the ugly Feedback Artist appears arrogant and unwilling to engage the question asker further. To avoid becoming an unpleasant insulting Feedback Artist, a bad Feedback Artist or the unenviable ugly Feedback Artist, it is VERY important to listen carefully to the questions being asked or the comments being offered by audience members. If you do not understand the point or question simply say so!! You’d be surprised at how often no one actually understands the question that is being asked, so if you do not understand it, try to engage the audience member in discussion—that’s for the benefit of everyone in the room. Clarity is king! Once your session has finished, it is nice to hear others discussing how engaging your whole presentation was while they are happily munching on their favorite cookie during the tea-break.

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The Unprepared The Unprepared are really the unforgiven in my book. There are not many positive scenarios that come to mind from the two sides of this coin. Heads is the Non-practicer and tails is the Repeater—both are bad looks. One could examine it from almost any angle, but it’s still a lose-lose proposition. The Unprepared Non-practicer jumps up on stage usually with much ado; however, it very quickly becomes apparent that the presenter has not prepared much at all. Non-practicers tend to read whatever happens to appear on the slide being projected. When they transition to a new slide, they tend to be momentarily struck ‘dumb’ for just a few seconds as they try to absorb what they see on the screen. They then start to read the slide aloud—often with hesitation, stops and starts. When they look at the audience, they lose their focus, so they tend to focus on the laptop or on the projected screen. Because they resort to reading, there are consequences related to the slides they are showing the audience. If they have simply cut and pasted huge swaths of texts from a paper, the projected slides are simply reflections of a paper. The text size tends to be too small, and because there are no bulleted and organized points, the audience will have difficulties grasping the main points. On the other hand, if they do have bulleted points, the audience will still likely have difficulties understanding the main points because there is no added explanation supporting the points—leaving the audience guessing as to the reasons why the points are so important. The Repeater is a villain indeed. Repeaters tend to have one presentation that they created many years ago; they tend to pedal it at different conferences by simply altering the title a bit here and there. I have put them in the category of The Unprepared because they never really prepare anything new. When compared to the Non-practicer, the Repeater may appear smooth and slick. Whereas the Non-practicer’s true colors become evident within a few minutes, the Repeater’s con-job may fool most or even all of the audience. However, comparing the two, I would rather listen to the fumbling, bumbling, stumbling Non-practicer than the smooth Repeater. Why? Because the Repeater doesn’t share anything new. It is simply regurgitation of the 15-year-old stuff. How can the audience recognize the con? One hint is the referenced research. If the most recent citation is from 20 years ago, it is likely that it has been at least 15 years since the original presentation was concocted. At one time, it may have been wonderful stuff, but as time passed, the

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cutting-edge blades on the research have become increasingly dull. Nevertheless, this might not be sufficient evidence to bring an indictment, so what are some other clues? First, the research just doesn’t seem to have the pizzazz that one would expect. It seems like the conclusions are nothing new because, in fact, the findings are nothing new! Second, as Repeaters tend to be the laziest of sinners, they may have simply changed the title from a presentation they gave six months earlier … and one year earlier … and five years earlier. Hence, they may be tripped up on time. If their presentation was originally planned for 45  minutes and they are giving a 15-minute mini-presentation, Repeaters will literally need to start jumping across bunches of slides—usually in the closing moments—as they realize they won’t get anywhere even close to the conclusion if they don’t. The opposite problem occurs when their presentations are planned for shorter time slots—say 20  minutes—and they are presenting at conference that has longer time slots—say 40 minutes. The Repeater will simply come to the end of the presentation at the 20-minute mark and start taking questions. Nonetheless, it may be difficult to arrest The Repeater on such circumstantial evidence, so the best way to uncover their deeds is to attend a second presentation at a different conference. I once attended a keynote address at a very famous conference in the field of language learning. I had never heard the scholar speak previously, but I found myself a bit surprised that at one point she started scrolling ahead through dozens of slides like a crazy women as the end of her time approached. Still, I couldn’t believe that such a renowned scholar would resort to ‘do-overs,’ so I thought, “Hmmm … perhaps she was simply overly ambitious and spent too much time discussing her earlier slides.” After the session, I saw one my old colleagues, and we decided to get a snack at a nearby café. I asked her what she thought of the keynote speaker. She said something along the lines of, “I walked out. She’s been pedaling that same exact presentation for years. She never changes it.” Here is my message to Repeaters; if the research being touted is so important, why not run even the smallest of experiments so that you can illustrate the relevancy of the topic? In addition, look for some research that is a bit fresher. It is perfectly fine to rely on old and established research but find out what others have been saying about the topic—you might even find something very intriguing that sparks your gray cells to try something you hadn’t thought about previously. It is OK in my book to present the same research at different conferences, but, undoubtedly, you will have learned something more from one conference to the next, so

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why not add a little here and subtract a little somewhere else? It will not only seem fresher to the audience, but it will be for you as well. The cure for The Non-practicer is rather simple: Practice! Practicing is not that fun to be honest, but it is a lot better than giving an embarrassing presentation. I learned my lesson the hard way. I decided not to practice at all for a very, very tiny conference of about 20 people. All I can say is that I do not look back at the moment with happy thoughts. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but it schooled me very well.

The Technophobic Resister Technical problems happen. Although their occurrences have diminished significantly over the years, problems do crop up at conferences. This is often related to different set-ups or versions of software in different locations. What you prepare in your office or home might be completely different from what you might find on the conference computers. Many conference organizers now ask for your slides to be submitted in advance so that they can do a trial run of your presentation just to make sure everything is OK. Also, the conference organizers can use the slides as a backup if something goes wrong with your memory stick or the internet connection. I think this is a great practice! As a practical matter, I also send myself a version of my own presentation via email as well as keeping a copy in a cloud drive. With that said, The Technophobic Resister’s problems are in no way related to onsite problems that occur due to ‘Acts of God’ or incompatible software. Although it is certainly the case that Technophobic Resisters are on the decline, just when you think they have become extinct, you are surprised by one at a conference. For the most part, they are discovered in full view of the audience, displaying a lack of knowledge of even the most basic computer applications. For example, they might give their presentation in preparation mode rather than presentation mode, or they won’t know how to go back and forth between slides or they might use MS Word to give their presentation. They might need help even getting their presentation started. When I see them struggling mightily with PowerPoint for example, I’m always struck by questions such as, “How did they create the presentation in the first place when they do not even understand the basics of the application? Perhaps they hired their grad students to make the slides for them?” It is mysterious indeed.

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Some presenters resist at levels that are shocking. The most egregious instance of this occurred at a very famous conference on language learning and teaching. I referred to his presentation at an earlier point, but as this person played the part of The Technophobic Resister perfectly, let’s recall the story to make the point. The keynote speaker was introduced with a list of accolades longer than both of my arms. He received thunderous applause and once at the podium, he started telling an anecdote. That was fine (I thought). Then he told another and another and another and another. There were no projected slides at all. I began wondering if, unbeknownst to me, I had been transported back to 1955 with Marty McFly. Finally, after 30 minutes in, he said, “OK, I am going to show you some slides now.” (“Finally!” cried my internal voice.) He then called out to some unfortunate graduate student volunteer to put up the first slide. Yes, there in the middle of the auditorium sat an OHP (“Overhead Projector” for those of you born after 1995 and please don’t confuse this kind of OHP with the computer-based versions that are used on occasion today). I thought it was a museum piece when I first saw it sitting in the room, but it was now being used at the plenary session. To make matters much worse, the transparency’s texts, which were being projected onto the massive screen behind the presenter, clearly had been produced using the poorest of photocopies with a font size of about 10 for all of the texts he was so intent on showing. The black splotches and miniscule texts made the document virtually unreadable by audience members. As the story goes, I walked out after the second blotchy sheet appeared wondering if I was the only one who thought the presentation was horrifyingly bad. Because the auditorium was attached to a mall, I sat down for a snack at a café. As there was a seating shortage, another conference-goer strolled over and asked if she could sit with me. I of course obliged. After chatting a bit, we decided to address the keynote speaker, to which she said, “That was terrible, wasn’t it? One of the worst I’ve ever experienced,” I breathed a sigh of relief but I took note of how The Technopobic Resister could really ruin the party. For The Technophobic Resister, I just want to say, “Please learn to use the newer applications.” You don’t have to become Steve Jobs, but you should have enough knowledge to give a PowerPoint presentation at the very least. If you are fearful, ask a friend or even a student to teach you the basics. Then, familiarize yourself with the application. To be honest, most technophobes have mastered how to use MS Word; once they have understood the basics of PowerPoint, it is actually much simpler to use in my

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opinion. If it takes one weekend to learn it, then take one weekend to learn it. It is one of the lifelong skills needed for modern conference-goers.

The PowerPoint Abuser On the continuum of knowledge, The PowerPoint Abusers find themselves on the other end of the continuum when compared The Technophobic Resisters or at least they think they know how to use presentation applications. I won’t spend much time talking about PowerPoint Abusers but they do warrant a mention because they appear at almost every large conference. PowerPoint Abusers use their slides not their content to attract the audience’s attention. In the simplest form this takes shape in various ‘interesting’ slide transitions from fading in and out to disappearing checkerboard patterns. Before you label me ‘Grump of the Year,’ please consider that the audience has come to your presentation to view ‘content’ not ‘spectacle,’ and slide transitions are usually just a part of a bigger problem. PowerPoint Abusers often also add things like bulleted points that spin their way onto the slide or bounce like a basketball. Having bulleted points that appear sequentially is perfectly fine, but they don’t need to come spinning across the screen like an out of control helicopter blade. It’s not impressive; it is distracting! As for graphics, they are very good additions to slide presentations when they are used to clarify information. These can range from figures that help explain abstract concepts to charts or graphs that help explain data. On the other hand, adding a dancing gorilla GIF to the bottom of your slides when giving a presentation on ‘gorilla migration’ might not be the best way to convince audience members that you are serious about your topic, and I doubt they will be in awe of your knowledge of technology. Save the dancing gorillas to wake up your students in class but not for your audience members at the conference. Although, the former is a rather obvious distraction, PowerPoint Abusers often make a more egregious error. They put too much content on one slide, or they don’t summarize points as bullets or both. This results in unattractive slides usually with a font size that makes the texts unreadable for audience members. Sadly, this is still a prevalent problem at conferences.

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Why do presenters constantly fall into the trap of using small font sizes? I think the primary reason is related to putting all related points to a subtheme of the research on one slide. This is actually very tempting to do, but I have learned that it is far better to split the content into two or three slides just to keep the content viewable. What matters most to the audience is their ability to easily see your content. This is also why it is important to summarize and use bullets as separators rather than plastering one slide with a cut-and-paste of your literature review, which naturally would force you to use a smaller font. The question is, “How small is too small?” Checking a recently given presentation, I found my smallest font to be 19 point. I feel that I really couldn’t comfortably go much smaller than that, so I would say if you can keep your main points at 20 point or larger and your smaller points at 18 point or larger, you will be fine. I would not go smaller than 18 point for any bulleted point. If it seems that PowerPoint keeps reducing the size of your fonts to smaller than 18 point automatically on the slides, you can split the one slide into two. After all, you don’t want the audience to be straining to see the slides.

The Numbers Freak The Numbers Freak is a subtle creature who is not exposed until the end of the presentation. The Numbers Freak, as you might have guessed, loves data and loves displaying data in various forms. Their presentations are filled with tables and graphs but also with terms like pretest, posttest, probabilities, significance, ANOVA and Tukey’s—to name a few. Before you yell, “Stop! Those are critical elements for quantitative studies,” please let me explain. First, qualitative data and quantitative data are both very useful in advancing research. I’m sorry, but I have to say this, “Quantitative data are not more powerful than qualitative data.” They are both extremely valuable when presented properly to audience members. Then, why should I pick on Numbers Freaks? It is not to say that the data they present are unimportant, but it is to say that the data they present must tell us something of value. I have been to countless numerically data-driven presentations in which the presenters gave the audience extremely valuable information after presenting their data. However, I have also been to a number of presentations in which the presenters

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displayed reams of data in various forms only to come to the end of the presentation with few or no conclusions. I recall one presentation in particular that epitomized this problem. After the presenter had shown us graphs and tables ad nauseam, she came to the end of her presentation and said something akin to, “So that’s my presentation for today. Are there any questions?” I glanced around to see if anyone else in the room was feeling a bit bewildered by the onslaught of data that were just dumped on our heads, when a gentlemen sitting adjacent to me shot his hand into the air. She politely called on him, and he asked rather bluntly, “So … what was your point?’ She appeared dumbfounded by the question, so he continued with something along the lines of, “I mean, you gave us all of these data. What is your conclusion? What does it all mean?” I thought to myself, “Oh good. At least we’ll have an answer.” Unfortunately, she could not answer. She didn’t know the importance of the data she had just spent 20 minutes telling us all about. The upshot here is that playing the numbers game is perfectly fine … to a point. There must be a significant amount of time spent explaining the value of the numbers—at least as much as the time spent displaying the various graphs and tables. Numbers without proper explanations are no better than dancing gorilla GIFs at the bottom of your slides.

The Pointless Blatherer The Pointless Blatherer really has nothing to say. I have found that such long-winded souls really have no real points to enlighten the audience and the content of their presentation, oftentimes, is unrelated to what they have submitted in their abstract, making the attending of their presentation that much more vexing. Pointless Blatherers are a bit different when compared to The Unprepared, inasmuch as Blatherers have no content of value to share with the audience. This is why the abstract describing their presentation is often mismatched with what the audience gets to see firsthand (although this is not always the case). There are also times in which the presenter simply provides the audience with tired information that is of little value. I have noticed that these types of presentations tend to be based upon classroom activities, which can be stellar indeed, when done properly, but when delivered poorly without any clear objectives are close to useless. How can one avoid this trap? First, carry out your project according to what you have said you were going to do in the submitted and accepted

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abstract! You have made a promise to the audience that you are going to deliver A-B-C, so you should do everything in your power to deliver A-B-­ C. If you can’t deliver something because it didn’t work out as you planned (this does happen on occasion), you must inform the audience that although you are going to talk about A and B in the presentation, you are unable to talk about C for the following reason. As for in-class action research presentations, I think it behooves the presenter to provide some justification for carrying out the in-class project while also discussing issues audience members might need to consider if they plan on doing something along the same lines. Don’t just tell us about ‘100 different ways to use dancing gorillas in the ESL classroom;’ tell us about why we would want to use dancing gorillas, what to expect if we decide to use dancing gorillas and how to properly carry out any activities involving dancing gorillas. If you fail to attend to such details, your presentation will have little lasting value. If the truth be told, although I have attended quite a few presentations of pointless blathering, I cannot recall even one of them because at the foundational level, such presentations have nothing to really offer, so in fact are completely forgettable.

In Brief In this chapter, I have pointed to various paths that result in poor quality presentations. I will take a moment to summarize how to avoid falling into these traps by providing a small table. Bad presentation styles

Tips to avoid disaster

The Paper Reader The Feedback Artist

Use looking-up strategies. Be enthusiastic. Be prepared to answer questions. You’re the expert on your topic. Don’t reuse old materials. Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. Learn the basics of presentation software; such applications are not very difficult to learn. Don’t turn your presentation into a spectacle. Don’t put too much information on each slide.

The Unprepared

The Technophobic Resister

The PowerPoint Abuser

(continued)

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Bad presentation styles

Tips to avoid disaster

The Numbers Freak

Make sure you explain your data thoroughly so that there is a clear conclusion with enough meaning so that the audience has something to take home with them. Make sure the audience understands the reason for your presentation and stick to what your abstract has promised.

The Pointless Blatherer

With a bit of attention to some of these details, you can avoid falling into any of these traps, and if you have prepared properly, most of these problems can and will be avoided on game-day. The positive result for you? Cheering audiences—OK, maybe that is a stretch, but you will probably have appreciative audiences who will enjoy learning something from you, and you might even find a colleague or two who is excited by what you have been working on. To me, that is the real treasure of attending conferences in-person. If you do well on the stage, you will probably do well off the stage as well.

CHAPTER 9

The Top Five

Abstract  In this chapter, I offer a brief summation of the book looking to the top five most important considerations. The first point the chapter mentions is the abstract and talks about the importance of getting it right. The second point discusses choosing the right conference and how to make sure the conference is reputable. The third point talks about the importance of properly preparing one’s slides. The fourth point returns the discussion to proper practicing and why it is so critical for success. The fifth and final point discusses the personal value of actually presenting a well-thought out and well-practiced presentation. The chapter wraps up with some encouraging words for would-be presenters. Keywords  Abstract • Conference selection • Slide preparation • Practice

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Mark R. Freiermuth, Academic Conference Presentations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21124-9_9

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When I started thinking about this book, I wanted to keep things light. If you have read the previous eight chapters, you have noticed a lack of citations. My aim from the outset has been to provide easily accessible information in the form of advice and what to expect at every turn of the presentation journey. If you hadn’t realized it before, I think by now you can see that giving a presentation is actually a journey just as many other academic pursuits tend to be. As I have given you a wide array of tips up to this point, I hope you can say that you have found at least some of this information useful. With this in mind, I thought, “Why not provide the top five things I think are the most important?’ So here we go…

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Number One Number one is the writing of the abstract. It should be as good as you can make it. Make sure you do not exceed the word limit, but just as important, come as close as you possibly can to the word limit. As mentioned previously, I always try to be within 10% of the word limit, so if conference organizers have a 250 word count limit, would-be presenters should shoot for at least 225 words but not more than 250. Also make sure that your information is logically presented. Why is your study important? Do you cite some relevant research? What is your purpose? How did you carry out your plan? Did you achieve your goals? What do you plan to tell the audience? For the most part, your abstract should answer all of these questions. Finally, make sure there are no errors. Even native speakers of the conference language can make errors, so be careful. If you are a non-native speaker of the conference language, it is critically important to have a native speaking scholar take a look at your abstract. I am not only referring to grammatical errors here but content errors as well. Remember, in most cases, the reviewers are looking for any excuse to reject your abstract. Don’t get stung by a silly mistake.

Number Two Choosing the best possible conference is item number two. You should be careful about choosing a conference. Conferences have reputations. This is completely independent of the amount of advertising the organizers engage in. There are many less-than-good conferences that have very slick websites, and on the flip-side, there are very nice little conferences that have not spent that much time and money on making fantastic websites. In other words, you will need to dig a bit deeper to identify the conference’s quality. Are the on-site organizers well-known in your academic discipline? How did you hear of this conference? Are there other conferences being given by the same organizer at the same venue but on completely different topics (bad of course)? Have you heard of any of the keynote speakers? If you get positive answers to all of the above questions, you also need to consider whether it is online or face-to-face. As previously mentioned, I prefer face-to-face conferences for a whole host of reasons but am also aware that online conferences do have their advantages, and in some cases, a conference might suddenly be switched to an online version at the

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organizer’s whim (this has happened to me twice already). Good conferences should give you a warning about the switch far in advance of the conference dates.

Number Three Preparing your slides is number three. Of course it is! Your slides are the backbone of your presentation. Your slides should be neat and clean. You can prepare them devoid of any background colors and design or with a predetermined colored design, which in PowerPoint can be easily changed based upon your preferences— both for color and pattern. I prefer colored slides because I think it is a bit easier on the eyes, but that is just my preference. In either case, they should be appealing to the eyes but not distract the audience’s attention away from your content. That means they should not contain unnecessary animated GIF characters blowing kisses or doing backflips, but they should also be easy for the audience to read. Try to keep the fonts at 18 point (using Times Roman as an example) or larger. Remember, it is better to have more slides that are readable than fewer slides that no one can read. In addition, don’t simply cut and paste text from your paper onto your slides. Otherwise,  you will be more tempted to read directly from your actual slides or from your paper. It is also somewhat disconcerting to see your projected slides covered from top to bottom in text. Use shortened versions of the points you would like to make. In this way, even if you do need to read certain parts, you won’t be lured into reading directly from the slides. The audience members can also read, and they can read faster than you can speak! If you decide that you must read your paper aloud, make sure you use a printed-out copy with a large enough font size so you will be able to see the text easily, along with some kind of markings (either various colors or designs) to help you to remember to look up at the audience, and of course, do not use your phone for your notes. It’s simply a very bad look, and it doesn’t work unless you possess Superman’s vision. Regarding content, make sure that you follow the pattern laid out in the abstract. The abstract is the promise and the presentation is your aim to fulfill that promise to the best of your ability. If the project was uncompleted at the time of the abstract submission and things turned out differently from the abstract, you must explain why your presentation looks a bit different from the abstract!! Your audience will likely be quite accommodating if you explain yourself. If you simply skip the explanation, you may find the audience’s attitude changing for the worse.

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Number Four Practice! It may seem as if I am beating a dead horse, and you might be saying, “Why do you keep harping on something everyone knows?” to which I would answer, “If everyone knows this, why are there so many presenters bungling their presentations so badly?” The answer to your question and to mine is that everyone knows that practice is important, but I think there is a lack of seriousness regarding how important it actually is. There is this false sense of security culled from preparing the presentation materials; you feel ready to present because you have just put all of the information on the slides. In other words, you may feel as if the preparation of the slides is your practice. This is flawed reasoning based on the idea that preparations make one familiar enough with the slides and the data they contain, so practice is simply unneeded. I guess this is because everyone has busy schedules, so practice slips into the place of the lowest priority when it absolutely should be given the highest priority. Once you step on to the stage, you take your reputation with you. Don’t sully it by not properly preparing yourself to be the best you can be when you stand to face your audience. Even if your content is fantastic, they won’t be impressed if it is accompanied by incoherent babbling. As I previously mentioned, I recommend practicing at least seven times from start to finish. You can adjust the frequency down later if you feel you don’t need to practice that many times, but it is good place to start. If you are a non-native speaker of the conference language, you might need to practice more than seven times. Check to see how smooth it is once you have practiced seven times. If you need a couple of additional trial runs, that’s fine, but don’t practice so much that you start hating the fact that you decided to give a presentation.

Number Five The fifth and final point is to relish the experience. In a sense, that is what this book has been all about from the very beginning. The academic presentation is the culmination of your research and the best way for you to talk about what you are interested in regarding that research. Sure you will be nervous; most of us are at game-time. However, if you have taken the proper steps, the presentation should be a very rewarding experience. Inevitably, when my graduate students have finished their first academic presentations in front of a live audience, they are thrilled that they have been able to successfully present their work. Personally, as their professor, I

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become almost as happy as they are simply by watching their performances and seeing their reactions. There is a deep satisfaction along with some relief to be finished presenting, but the ‘big’ rewards come following the presentation. Sure, you will be able to put a notch on your academic CV, but what is more important is to see that others are actually interested in what you have to say. Sometimes your audience may be huge, and you will get loads of questions and wide-ranging discussions, while other times, your audience may be quite small, so there will be only a few questions but with more intimate and focused discussions. In either case, the one-to-one discussions that follow the Q & A are often the most rewarding part. Such discussions might lead to a deeper chat over a cup of coffee or even a plan to conduct some joint research together, and that really is the cherry on top of ice cream sundae. This is exactly how I met my most trusted colleague and research partner from Taiwan.

In Brief At the close of Chap. 9, I won’t summarize the five points here because the main points are in fact summaries of other chapters. What I do want to say is that I hope that by reading through this book, you were able to find some valuable tips about how to prepare yourself and what to expect on this journey. The imagery I have been constructing throughout this book is that academic presentations do not simply entail a person standing up in front of an audience at a predetermined point in time. The good presentation is built upon the solid steps that are taken in advance of being up on the stage. If the stage represents the summit of your journey, you do want to reach the top of that mountain in good shape, don’t you? Miss a few steps on the stairway to the peak and you come tumbling down the hill, but plant your foot firmly on each step and you reach the summit in tip-top shape where you can place your flag of success saying, “I really did it, and I did it right!” At that point, you can reap the rewards of your hard work. Good luck on your journey!

Index

A Abstract, 13, 15, 22–39, 42–45, 50, 62, 64, 96, 101–105, 114, 132, 145, 147, 148, 153, 154 Attire, 113–114 Audiences, 3, 7, 9, 27, 30, 35, 36, 48–50, 62, 64, 65, 67, 72, 75, 76, 78, 80, 83, 84, 93, 95–97, 106, 113–116, 121–123, 125–128, 131–134, 136, 138–141, 143–149, 153–156

D Data, 23, 72, 75, 97, 145–147, 155 Data-driven, 146 Datum, 72 Description, 38–39 Discussion, 93

B Background slides, 84, 86

H Handouts, 49, 50, 68, 69, 75, 78, 80, 124

C Colloquium, 101, 104–105 Conclusions, 93, 94 Coresearchers, 101–104, 111, 116

G Graduate students, 3–7, 10, 80, 113, 122, 132, 133, 144, 155 Group presentation, 100–106 Guidelines, 27, 28, 68

I International Teaching Assistant (ITA), 3–7

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Mark R. Freiermuth, Academic Conference Presentations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21124-9

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INDEX

K Keynotes, 9, 14–17, 61, 142, 144, 153 M Methodology, 90 N Non-native speakers, 5, 6, 26, 39, 43, 80–97, 101, 102, 153, 155 Non-practicers, 131, 141, 143 O Objective Slide, 87 Overview Slide, 83, 84 P Patterned questions, 31 Patterns, 27–37, 39, 43, 44, 64, 110, 145, 154 Plenary presentations, 14 Plenary session, 7, 144 Plenary speakers, 17 Plenary talks, 8, 124 Poster, 45–47, 96 Practice, 3, 5, 9, 69, 79–82, 97, 103, 105, 110, 113, 115, 124, 143, 155 Practiced, 80, 97, 103, 113, 155 Practicing, 79, 80, 82, 97, 124, 132, 133, 143 Practicing the presentation, 132 Preparation mode, 143 Preparations, 48–62, 124, 132, 155 Prepare, 5, 16, 48, 49, 105, 123, 125, 141, 143, 154, 156 Prepared, 48, 68, 79, 105, 123, 132, 133, 141, 149

Preparing, 47, 48, 78, 79, 96, 105, 124, 154 Preparing for the presentation, 42–97, 155 Proceedings, 43–44, 96 Proposal, 12, 13, 22–27, 32, 35 Purpose Slide, 87 Q Question and Answer (Q & A), 94 R Reject/rejected/rejecting/rejection, 13, 27, 30, 31, 39, 102, 153 Researchers, 4, 8, 15, 18, 19, 23, 37, 76, 101, 110, 111 Researching, 130 Research/researched, 3–5, 9, 10, 15, 16, 18, 22, 23, 27, 28, 31–33, 35–38, 43, 44, 65, 69, 70, 72, 76, 78, 100–102, 104, 110, 111, 113, 130, 140–142, 146, 148, 153, 155, 156 Results, 93 Reviewers, 23, 24, 26, 28, 31, 36, 37, 153 Reviewing process, 23 Review/reviewed, 22–24, 31, 32, 146 S Slides, 8, 45, 46, 48–62, 64–81, 96, 97, 105, 112, 124, 125, 128, 131–133, 139, 141–147, 154, 155 T Title slide, 55, 64, 65, 82, 83

 INDEX 

U Undergraduate classes, 4 Undergraduate students, 10 Unprepared, 131, 141–143, 147, 148 Unprepared reading, 125

V Videos, 4, 122–128 Videotaped, 4 Virtually, 123 Virtual presentation, 120–128

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