Hi everybody,

Currently I'm working on a conference paper and I'm little confused which framework should I follow. I'm familiar with the general content of of writing a research paper:
1) Abstract
2) Literature Review
3) Methodology
4) Analysis
5) Conclusion

I've already covered point one and two, however, my concern is should I apply these guidelines in my conference paper or not? Can somebody please tell me the difference between conference paper and research paper cause I'm running out of time... somebody who has been involved previously in preparing conference papers and whether this kind of paper entails more general approach and is there a specific framework for preparing a conference papers?

Thank you in advance

Regards,
Edi

I will try to give you some suggestions, just based off my own experiences. There is no magic formula and a lot of it depends on how much time you will have to present. A typical, but by no means universal, arrangement is to have 3 people on a panel, with each person presenting from about 15-20 minutes with time reserved for questions either at the end of each presentation, the end of the entire panel or both.

So the first thing is to figure out how much time you have. If you are not clear, clarify this with the conference organisers.

Second, are you using any audio-visual equipment, such as powerpoint, video clips etc? Make sure the conference facilty allows for this.

Third, given the amount of time, think of what you can cover coherently. Often, you are going to be giving an overview rather than the details of your research or your topic.

My approach is usually to find three main points for discussion and then organise the presentation around those.

Introduction--discuss your three main points and what you plan to cover--set the framework.

Then discuss each point, one, two three. Remember the magic rule of "three"--three points to make on each of your main points, for instance--try to organise things in this manner.

After you present your main points, then conclude. What is the current situation, dilemma, whatever...

Think about the style in which you like/want to present.

Some people just read a paper--I personally find this style boring, but it is not uncommon to find.

If using power point, remember to not overclutter the slide with text.

Hope this helps!

I would go with Olivia's suggestions (up).

I would only add that, from my experience, the most effective conference papers are those that restrict the focus to quite a narrow area. So for example, if you have 20 minutes you couldn't possibly go through your points 1-6 above and do each one justice in the time allowed. Good papers (and good presenters by default) often give a brief overview of the whole project at the start and then say something like "and today I am going to concentrate on 'x' aspect of my reserach'. It is clear then to the audience which particular aspect of your reserach you are going to discuss. Once the audience understands the context in which your paper has been formulated, they should be able to focus their attention on the particular aspect of your reserach that you are presenting.

Hey Edi! I've written a few research papers and present at a few conferences- I'm going to hazard a guess that it depends a little on what discipline you are in, but for mine (clinical psychology) the conference presentation will roughly follow the structure of the research paper. You will usually have about 20 minutes to present. If you are presenting in a symposium- where several of you are presenting together in a group- like Olivia describes- then you need to check with the others how long you will each have. If you are presenting alone then check the conference guidelines for how long you have. The general rule is that a slide per minute is about right in terms of speed of presenting, but that can be a bit flexible.

Normally you would begin with an introduction, where you can give the background to to your project, and a very quick summary of your lit review, which should lead to your research question(s). So a very brief version of a research paper intro. In a presentation you might choose to focus just on one research question, rather than the several that you might focus on in your written paper, just because you won't have very long to present loads and loads of results and analyses. This might take a few slides.

Then you would briefly present your method, which should usually only take 1-2 slides.

Then your results (with tables/figures), which might take several slides depending on what type if analysis you've done and what type of figures you need to present.

Then conclusions (possibly including a slide for limitations), which should again only take maybe a couple of slides.

Finally a summary (1 slide) and references. Some people also include a slide at the beginning with the layout of the presentation, but if you're following the usual style and it's pretty clear then there isn't always a need for this.

And of course, at the end you can ask if there are any questions, although the chair person will probably do that for you!

Good luck with it!
KB