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Oral Presentation Guidelines

Presenters should bring their presentation to the Speaker Ready Room the day prior to their scheduled session so the technician can load presentations onto the appropriate session room laptop. If your travel plans prevent you from meeting this schedule, you may bring them the morning of your presentation day. This will also provide the opportunity to ensure fonts will display correctly and embedded videos will play correctly.

The Speaker Ready Room is located in Room 18 at the Huntington Convention Center and will be open during the following days/hours:

Tuesday, November 10           7:00 am - 5:00 pm
Wednesday, November 11     7:00 am - 5:00 pm
Thursday, November 12         7:00 am - 5:00 pm
Friday, November 13               7:00 am - 5:00 pm
Saturday, November 14          7:00 am - 1:00 pm

Please do not send us your slides in advance. Please bring them with you on a USB drive on the day of your session.

Once you have collected your badge, please visit the Speaker Ready Room located in Room 18. Here you can upload your slides with a technician to the main system (please ensure that you have the room number for your session - this can be found on the program guide).

Your slides will then be ready and waiting for you when you arrive in your room. Please visit the speaker preview to upload your slides at least 90 minutes before your speaking slot, or even the day before if you are finished with working on your presentation.

When saving your presentation, please use the following naming format:

Time_ Day_Room_LastName.pptx
Example: 1100_Wed_GrandBallroomA_Smith.pptx

Presentation Guidelines:

  • Slides should be formatted for ’16:9’ ratio within the ‘Design’ menu of Microsoft PowerPoint.
  • The display resolution of the data projectors will be 1920 x 1080 pixels as standard. It is not necessary to scan images for your presentation at a greater resolution, as it will not enhance the image and it will take longer to load your presentation.
  • Graphics, tables and text should be of a sufficient size to be clearly visible at distance. In general text should not exceed 6 lines of bold text containing 6-7 words per line. Large amounts of information should be split over several slides.
  • When choosing fonts for your presentation, please ensure that they are supported by Microsoft Office. If you require a specific font, please bring the font file along with your presentation to the Speaker Ready Room. If a non-standard font is used within a presentation, this will result in a substitute font being inserted by PowerPoint. A list of supported fonts can be found on the Microsoft website: http://support.microsoft.com.
  • It is best to avoid complicated slide transitions.
  • We support most movie files; however, the most reliable for us are movie files with the .mp4 extension. Please avoid QuickTime .mov files.

Audio Visual Information for Presenters

  • A Confidence Monitor will be provided by the Huntington Convention Center. Presenters are advised to avoid using their own laptops but if you need to use your own laptop, please speak to your room technician prior to your session on the closest break time.
  • Any presentations containing movie or video clips will require a copy of the video file as well as the PowerPoint file.
  • Speakers should bring their presentations saved onto a USB memory stick or drive. We can accept emails too, but on a drive is much faster.

Accessibility Guidelines

A special thanks to the DEI committees of the four societies that participate in the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (JMIH): the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH); the American Elasmobranch Society (AES); Herpetologists League (HL); and the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles (SSAR) who made the guidelines from which these have been derived.

Layout

  • Use colors with sufficient contrast, but avoid a stark white background.
  • Avoid using a lot of text on each slide.
  • Leave a space at the bottom for captions.

Font

  • Use at least size 24.
  • Use sans serif fonts like Arial and Calibri for readability.
  • Bold words for emphasis rather than using all caps, underlines, or highlights.

Text

  • Avoid special effects like shadows.
  • Use at least 1.5 spacing.
  • Use short sentences, simple words, and bullet points.
  • Avoid jargon.

Images and figures

  • Ensure figures are colorblind-friendly. You can check your images here.
  • Use shapes, patterns, and/or labels to indicate differences, categories, or labels rather than just color.
  • Verbally describe images.
  • Ensure key points on each slide are given verbally and visually.
  • Label data lines on graphs directly and avoid reliance on keys when possible.
  • Lines in graphs and labels should be thicker than they would be for a typical document.

Additional tips

  • Use the microphone, even if you have a loud voice.
  • You can perform an accessibility check in Microsoft Office and Adobe in the tools menu under “Check Accessibility” or “Accessibility” respectively.
  • Use gender-inclusive language (Guide to gender-inclusive language).

While the default assumption is to allow open discussion of SVP presentations on social media, presenters have the right to request that attendees not disseminate the contents of their talk. The following icons may be copied and included on presentation slides to clearly express if you do not want your results posted:

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