Presenting at the General Assembly 2018: A quick ‘how to’ from the EGU

Presenting at the Assembly: A quick ‘how to’ from the EGU (Credit: EGU/Foto Pfluegl)

The schedule is out, presentation slots have been assigned and it’s time to start thinking about putting yours together. Whether you have an oral, poster or PICO slot, we have a suite of simple guidelines to get you ready for the conference!

Orals

The guidelines for oral presentations are online. All oral presentations should have the dimensions 16:9 or 4:3 and last about 12 minutes, with 3 minutes for questions. Oral presentations take place over four 90-minute time blocks. Make sure you’re in the presentation room approximately 30 minutes before your time block starts, so your presentation can be uploaded or so you can connect your laptop to the system. There will be a lecture room assistant to help you get everything ready.

Posters

Guidelines for poster presentations are also online. Importantly, the poster boards landscape and are 1978 mm by 1183 mm. Posters should be hung between 08:00 and 09:00 on the day of your scheduled poster presentation using tape available from roaming assistants. Please retrieve your poster at the end of the day (between 19:00 and 19:30). Those that are not collected will be disposed of. By the start of the General Assembly, EGU will have sent your Authors in Attendance Time – during this time, you must be present at your display.

If there is a gap in the corresponding oral session, conveners may call upon poster presenters to give a short ad hoc summary of their posters. Therefore, it might be useful to have a couple of slides (1-2) prepared in advance to help illustrate your findings.

PICOs

For the sixth year now we have a different kind of presentation: Presenting Interactive COntent (PICO). The guidelines for PICO presentations are available online. PICO sessions combine the best of oral and poster presentations. Every PICO author presents their slides in a “2 minutes madness”. After these short presentations, all attendees have enough time to watch the presentation again on interactive screens and hold discussions with the author and other attendees. These presentations are shown on widescreens, but some of the screen space is used for branding of the contribution and navigation, so the ideal dimensions for your presentation are the classic 4:3 format. You can also use the 16:9 format, just alert one of the conference assistants if this is the case, as they’ll help you determine the best position of the navigation buttons, so they don’t detract from your presentation. One thing to keep in mind is that, unlike in the past, PICO presentations no longer support Prezi.

For tips on how to make a PICO presentation, why not download the How to make a PICO guide. For a first-hand account of what it’s like to take part in a PICO session, take a look at this post by early career scientists in the Seismology Division too.