Society for Conservation Biology 16th Annual Meeting July 14-July 19 2002
co-hosted by DICE and the British Ecological Society


Guidelines for Spoken Presentations


Conference Material

Welcome page

Registration Form (now closed)

Meeting Sponsors

Travelling from London to Canterbury

Programme and Events

Daily Timetable of Events (including rooms and abstracts)

Field Trips (including details and booking form)

Symposia Details(including timetable and abstracts)

Plenary Speakers (including abstracts)

Workshop Details

Open Lectures and Events

SCB Meetings

Award winners

Cathedral Concert (including details of programme)

Information for Presenters and Session Chairs

Guidelines for Poster Presentations

Guidelines for Session Chairs

Campus Information for Attendees

Support Services

Banking Facilities

Catering Arrangements

Campus Nature Trail (including information about guided walks)

Local Activities

University Links

DICE (Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology)

Anthropology Department

UKC Hospitality

Maps and travel directions

Important reminders

15th July 2002:

Deadline for booking Friday Field Trips

9th July 2002:

Deadline for booking Sunday Field Trips

30th June 2002:

Deadline for all registration

24th June 2002:

Deadline for PowerPoint submission

All talks are allocated a total of 15 minutes, including questions. The only exceptions are certain symposium talks already agreed in advance with the symposium organisers.

Your presentation should be 10-12 minutes in length, followed by a 3-5 minute question and answer period (15 minutes total). Please keep your eye on the chair during your presentation. The chair will indicate to you when you have 3 minutes remaining, and will stand up when you have 1 minute remaining. He or she will have to end your presentation at 15 minutes, whether you have finished or not, in order to keep the session on schedule and be considerate of subsequent speakers. Please practice your presentation beforehand, making sure it does not go beyond the time allotted.

Audiovisual equipment

All sessions for spoken papers will be equipped with an overhead projector, a slide projector with remote control and PowerPoint.

Instructions for slides

We recommend that you bring your own standard carousel tray if possible. Slide trays should fit "industry standard" KODAK Ektagraphic slide projectors and hold 80 slides. Please use the locking ring on your slide carousel to avert potential disaster. Label your slide tray ahead of time with your last name, date, and time of your presentation.

There will be a slide preview room on campus. Access to the slide preview room will be first-come, first-served. There will also be limited availability of slide carousels which also must be signed out no more than 12 hours in advance of your talk and returned immediately following your talk.

Please present your slides to the session projectionist in your meeting room 15-30 minutes prior to the start of your session. This is also a good time to introduce yourself to the session chair, confirm the correct pronunciation of your and your coauthors' names, and mention any special concerns you may have.

Instructions for PowerPoint users

We are very pleased to be able to offer all speakers the opportunity to use PowerPoint in their presentations. This is the first time that speakers at an SCB meeting have been able to use this technology. However we wish to avoid, as much as is possible, technical problems that could potentially be very disruptive to you and other speakers.

**We therefore require that all PowerPoint presentations are sent to us beforehand, so that they can be virus and system compatibility checked and preloaded on to the university network, to be organised according to session.**

No exceptions will be permitted to this. It will not be possible to use your own laptop during your presentation. Nor will you be able to bring cd or floppy files with you to be loaded onto the network.

Please note carefully the following instructions for preparing and sending your PowerPoint file:

  • You are very strongly recommended to send a PowerPoint file of no more than 2.5 Mb. (This is large enough to prepare a substantial PowerPoint talk, provided that you use appropriate file types for such as your graphic images.) We reserve the right to refuse files larger than this.

  • Please send your file if at all possible via email to scb2002@ukc.ac.uk with a subject line 'PowerPoint file'. Your file should be called [your_surname].ppt

  • You may send zipped files if you wish, but remember that the size limit applies to the unzipped PowerPoint file.

  • If you cannot send the file as an email attachment, then please send it on a floppy or CD to the address below. Please note however that we cannot be responsible for the vagaries of the postal service!

  • All files should be received by Monday, June 24th, so that we have enough time for checking and loading. (We have had to set what may seem an early date because of our experience with other deadlines. Most people leave things to the last minute!) If you cannot meet this deadline the opportunity still remains to use standard slides or OHP slides.


These may seem rather draconian instructions! However we have set these conditions to help ensure a smooth-running conference for everyone and hope you will view them in that light.

And finally: no technology can ever be guaranteed to be problem-free. If you intend to use PowerPoint for your talk, you must bring a backup in the form of OHP copies of your slides.

Tips for Preparing and Making Oral Presentations

For research papers based on original research, your presentation should include an introduction to the general topic and the reason you did the work, followed by an explanation of the methods, presentation of results and a clear conclusion of the contribution of the work to conservation biology. Policy and position papers should present adequate background information so that the audience can understand the basis of the issue, and present a coherent argument and evidence for the position.

• Tailor your presentation to the audience

Resource managers, scientists, educators, students, and policymakers attend the conference. This meeting is also going to be highly international, and for many English is not their first language. Scientific terms specific to your discipline should be explained during your presentation. Please make sure you include the relevance of the research to overall conservation efforts.

• Formulate your key messages

Focus on your message and ensure you are clear and concise about what you want the audience to remember after your presentation. The more complicated the message, the higher the risk that your message will be forgotten.

• Keep to the time allotted

Practice your presentation beforehand, making sure it does not go beyond the time allotted. Prepare sufficiently for a 10-12 minute presentation. A 12 minute talk is roughly 6 typed pages (double-spaced, 12 pt. font, 1" margins). The chair will have to end your talk at 15 minutes, whether you have finished or not, in order to keep the session on schedule. Please avoid causing yourself the embarrassment of having to be stopped in mid-presentation, or missing the opportunity to present your concluding statements.

• Educate the audience by telling a story

A spoken presentation differs from a written scientific paper. Tell an interesting and educational story. Your delivery should be carefully planned, but avoid reading your talk. It will be impossible to include everything you know about the subject, so stick to the key points. Cover the important topics and conclude by repeating your key messages.

• Prepare your audiovisuals appropriately

For a 10-12 minute talk, use no more than 12 slides/overheads. Your talk may be presented in a small classroom seating 100, or in a large theatre seating over 600. Make your audiovisuals legible and use at least a 32 pt font. Before submitting your PowerPoint presentation, please ensure it is correctly formatted. If using photographic slides, take the time to preview your slides ahead of time to ensure they are in the correct order, and facing up and forward. A slide preview room is available for this purpose. .

The 6 x 6 rule for audiovisuals will ensure that the audience will be able to read them:

six lines per slide/overhead and six words per line
a six column by six row table
six bars on a chart
six lines on a graph - one graph per slide/overhead

• You cannot over-prepare

Every hour you invest in organising what you want to say and perfecting your skill in saying it will reap abundant returns from your audience. Audiences are extremely appreciative of well prepared and carefully presented talks.

The SCB2002 pages are maintained by Christine Eagle
email: C.M.Eagle@ukc.ac.uk
Conference email: scb2002@ukc.ac.uk
Last updated: 21.05.02