Please pay careful attention to these points as you prepare your formal seminar presentation!

When you submit a title or abstract in advance, the title of the talk you actually give could be slightly changed when you actually deliver the talk.  However, any major change in your topic must be cleared in advance with the seminar coordinator.

These items on your slides should be absolutely perfect : Spelling, punctuation, grammar, capitalizations, abbreviations.

There should be absolutely no internal inconsistencies in your talk. Your oral presentation should not contradict your slides, and slides should not contradict each other.

Keep in mind that the average attention span for slide shows is about 15-20 seconds per slide . Don’t dwell at length on any slide. Either boil down the point you are trying to make to a single slide, or break the data into more than one slide.

Use a minimum of 15-point type, but do not use huge letters. Arial (the font you are reading) is probably the easiest font to read from all places in the room. Do not format everything in bold type; use bold only for headers or emphasis.

White font on black or dark blue background is probably the easiest to read, even though it is not as easy to prepare. Avoid red and green backgrounds and fonts (someone in your audience could be red/green color blind).

Always have a backup with you of your slide show, preferably in a different format. For instance, if your talk is on a CD, carry a duplicate of your talk on a flash drive.

Practice, practice, practice, until you can: deliver your talk within the time limit; smoothly, at a reasonable speed; without long pauses or unnecessary tics or words (y’know, uh . . .etc.), face-on to the audience, without burying your eyes in note cards, etc.

Your are expected to be thoroughly knowledgable about your topic, but not cocky.  Be confident, but avoid acting like a know-it-all.

Medical topics must be presented from a mainstream medical perspective, not from a chiropractic or homeopathic perspective.

Be prepared for someone in the audience to be obnoxious, trying to test your poise and knowledge. Don’t be afraid to say, “we did not investigate that” or “I’m not sure about that” or even “I don’t know”. One alternative could be to say, “that would be interesting to look into.”  But don't try to hide lack of preparation

And the usual . . . Don't try to prepare your talk at the last minute, because it probably will be obvious.  Don't leave anything to chance.  Be as prepared as you can be.  Try not to be nervous.

It is very strongly recommended that you practice your talk with the seminar cooordinator a few days before you deliver it.  The coordinator usually will have a few helpful suggestions for making your presentation more effective.