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[tee_bee]

Chime on the keep-it-in-the-alloted-time comments. Practice your presentation and time your presentation. When you practice, you should have a minute's wiggle-room, just in case.

On a side note, I'm chairing a panel at MLA. Four presenters on the panel (including yours truly) all more big name than yours truly.

Once, I sat in the audience during a session in which one of the presenters absolutely would NOT STOP TALKING. The chair handed over the "finish now card" three or four times, but the speaker would NOT STOP TALKING. It was soooo awkward.

I don't want to hijack the thread--but I'm having bad dreams about this happening on my panel. Probably it won't. But what would you do?

I have gotten up and said "If you don't shut him up, I will" when the blowhard when 2x over time. I was discussant on that panel. It would be harder to do from the audience. Some throat clearing might work, but that's passive aggressive. I'd let the panel or conference organizer know that the chair wouldn't enforce time, and that failure to do so was really a problem. During the panel, you might get two or three of you to walk out en masse, but that means you might miss a useful or important presentation. My sense is that anyone who goes far over time is not doing anything useful or important, because good scholars know how to give a proper presentation.

[pink_]

At MLA, there are timers for you to use.  You can set it so that a light blinks, you can set it so that it beeps, or you can set it to do both.  I have only set the lights, but I also warned my panelists that I would set the beeper (and didn't tell them otherwise).  It was very effective.

[neutralname]

•Practice, practice, and more practice. Time your presentation.

Such good advice.  I give it to my students all the time.  Yet I have never once followed it.

At one of my first conference presentations, I was so nervous that I never even noticed the moderator's notes saying "5 mins", "1 min" and "STOP".  But I think I did finish about on time.  I looked up and saw these little pieces in paper in front of me.

These days I'm pretty good at knowing how many PPT slides to do for a presentation and can moderate how much I say depending on how much time I have.

[d_f_b]

In my field, the session chair generally stands up if someone starts to go really overtime. I've only had to do that a couple times, and only once have I had to resort to actually saying something.

But it's your job, you do what you've got to do.

[mickeymantle]

I was wondering if anyone has ever gone to a panel where the chair/commentator did not show up at all, and never sent any explanations to anyone.  This happened to a friend of mine, and I cannot believe this uber example of unprofessionalism.

[lizzy]

I did see this happen once, but the weather was bad and the panel presenters weren't buddies with the chair, so no cell phone #.

The presenters handled it very well. They introduced themselves with a minimum of bragging and posturing, then gave their papers (all within time limit!) and there was a reasonably productive discussion period after. It actually ran better than most of the panels with chairs at that particular conference. 

But, it was probably a fluke.

[tee_bee]

I would just talk over the speaker saying, "I'm going to have to break in and stop you right here so the rest of the panel can present their topic."  However, I would more likely be the one who would not stop talking because when I get in front of an audience I have no clue what I am saying or how long it is going on.  It would be a favor to me if you made me stop and put me and everyone else out of their misery. 

You're my new hero.

[systeme_d]

The only thing I would add to Gbrown's excellent list is this:

• Lighten up.  Would it kill you to make a joke somewhere in that masterful disquisition on your most fascinating and yes, very, very serious topic?

[lizzy]

The only thing I would add to Gbrown's excellent list is this:

• Lighten up.  Would it kill you to make a joke somewhere in that masterful disquisition on your most fascinating and yes, very, very serious topic?

Yes.

And, along these lines, try to interject a bit of lightness into the question/discussion period, too. I'm thinking here of a tendency to respond to questions and comments from a defensive standpoint.

Instead, treat every comment/question with the expectation that it is made to help and encourage you, and to aid you in developing and improving the material you're presented--even if it's not.

I think (at at least I like to hope) that most people are well-meaning in their responses, but there's always one or two nasty, trollish types who want to play the gotcha game or the I'm smarter than you game. If one of them appears at your panel, being gracious and firm will do a lot to keep your dignity intact and draw more constructive remarks from other people in the audience.

[peppergal]

For the love of all that is holy, do not decide to rewrite your paper the night before the presentation.  The result will be incoherent and rambling, and will not bear any resemblance at all to the handout you sent to the conference organizers, and which is distributed to your audience.

Seriously, I spent the whole talk flipping around in the handout, trying to find the material the speaker was talking about.  I checked the handout several times, wondering if we had been given the wrong handout.  But the speaker's name and the title of the talk matched what was in the conference guide...

Then, in the coffee break, the speaker admitted he had rewritten his talk the night before, and that the result was not what he had hoped for.

[mickeymantle]

I can understand a situation like the one previously described.  But I am talking about a situation where the absence was never accounted for.  In addition, my friend's co-panelists traveled from overseas (Asia) to attend this conference.  Do we want other countries' scholars to believe that the United States's academic community possesses no sense of respect for other cultures?  Small things do mean a lot.

[lizzy]

That is rude. The no-show chair should have contacted the panelists afterwards to explain and apologize.

[august_leo]

These are chimes:

Your font size should be a MINIMUM of 28 point font (maybe down to 18 for references and figure axes). Most people farther away than row 5 will not be able to read anything below 28 point.

Embrace "white space." Love it. Your slides should always include a lot of white space.

If all you have are bullet points, do consider pictures now and then (e.g., Columbus).

Shorten your bullet points as much as possible (also embraces white space). For example, "The participants were given the underwater basket weaving questionnaire" becomes "underwater basket weaving questionnaire" or at least "participants completed underwater basket weaving questionnaire." Or "These data replicate the study by Smith and colleagues" becomes "(we) replicated Smith et al.,"

Don't use anything besides white or yellow type color on blue or black slides. Red on blue is too hard to read (a talk I saw today did that, ugh).

[systeme_d]

Good point about colors, August_leo.  BPN posted this site on another thread, and I'm convinced it could be really, really helpful for folks with a less-than-perfect sense of color and design -- of which there are many.

http://www.presentationzen.com/

[grasshopper]

The only thing I would add to Gbrown's excellent list is this:

• Lighten up.  Would it kill you to make a joke somewhere in that masterful disquisition on your most fascinating and yes, very, very serious topic?

Yes.

And, along these lines, try to interject a bit of lightness into the question/discussion period, too. I'm thinking here of a tendency to respond to questions and comments from a defensive standpoint.

I heartily agree, and think that the only thing that will make this work is a 24-hr, conference-wide open bar.

Possibly a karaoke machine.


Oh! That would be fun! Imagine presenting your research to, oh I don't know, "Bohemian Rhapsody."