Medical Image Understanding and Analysis - Guidelines for presenters

Oral presentations

Introduce yourself to the chairperson before the start of your session, so that he or she knows you are present. Arrive about 15 minutes before your session to allow yourself time to do this, and to get familiar with the audio-visual controls.

Time: Each presenter has a total time slot of 18 minutes, of which only 15 minutes should be used for speaking, with the remaining 3 minutes left for questions. The session chairperson will enforce these timings to be fair to all presenters.

It is unlikely that you will be able to explain everything in your four-page paper in this amount of time. It is wiser to decide what your key message is, and concentrate on that. All delegates will receive a copy of the proceedings, so it is quite permissible to refer them to your paper for a fuller explanation. Remember also that a range of technical and clinical disciplines will be represented in the audience. You should ensure that your presentation is pitched at an appropriate level.

See your acceptance letter for details of the audio-visual facilities available for presenters this year.

35 mm Slides

• Slides should clarify and complement what you say, avoid trying to put all your spoken words on the slides

• Several simple slides are better than one complicated one

• For both single and dual projection, use duplicates if you wish to refer to the same slide more than once. Blank blackout slides are useful in dual projection to allow both projectors to be operated together.

• A dark background with light text is more restful for the viewer than the reverse. Avoid red or dark blue text as it does not project well.

• Double spaced text is most legible

• Upper case letters are more difficult to read quickly, and should be used sparingly

• When preparing slides using a computer package such as PowerPoint, the default font size in the standard slide layout is usually a sensible one, chosen so that it will be legible when projected. In any case, use nothing smaller than 20 point, and keep titles larger than 36 point

• If transferring a graph or plot from a graphics package, increase the line thickness first, as the default line thickness is often invisible on projection.

• If slides are photographed from A4 sheets, the same sizes apply: No text less than 20 point (7 mm) or less than 36 point (13 mm) for titles.

  Rules of thumb for legibility:

  • Use no more than eight lines of text on a slide.

  • Simplify tables: 3 columns and 8 rows, or 5 columns and 5 rows are enough

  • If you can read your 35 mm slide from 30 cm it should be OK, even better if it is still legible at 40 cm.

  • Text laid out on a landscape format A4 sheet should be legible at 1.8 metres

• Spot all slides in the lower left-hand corner as seen when the slide is correctly oriented for viewing by hand (see below). This will help you and the projectionist correctly to load your slides.
  

• Take the advice of colleagues, or audio-visual professionals in your institution.

• OHP facilities are also available.

Poster presentations

All material must be legible from two metres, Title and affiliations from three metres. In practice, this means a font of at least 20 point is required for the body of the text and at least 40 point for the title.

Posters at MIUA are relatively small compared with some, particularly those at big US meetings. Thus in most cases it will not be possible to present a detailed, comprehensive, completely self-contained poster. Instead, the best strategy is to concentrate on just one or two objectives, which should be stated at the beginning of the text. Remember that all delegates will have a copy of the Proceedings, which includes your four-page paper, so more complicated arguments or expositions may be presented there. The poster is a good opportunity to show high quality images, particularly those with colour, which is not reproduced in the proceedings. Generous time has been written into the programme for poster sessions. This means that authors are present with their posters to talk to delegates: this is your opportunity to expand on all the ifs and buts which wouldn’t fit on the poster!

Handout material is welcome, but remember that everyone has your four-page paper.

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