Scientific meeting format

Today Maren Mochizuki explains how scientific conferences are organized for optimum exchange of ideas and knowledge.

Similar to many other scientific meetings, the ASHS annual conference offers several days of presentations and tours running simultaneously.  Sometimes it is a challenge to decide what to attend at any given moment!

Well in advance of the meeting, presenters submit abstracts or brief synopses of their research.  Conference organizers use this to determine the credibility of the work and suitability for presentation; once approved, conference attendees use the abstracts to determine which presentations to attend.

The typical format for research presentations is either an oral or poster presentation.  In either case, presenters briefly discuss the problem or question they seek to address, research methods and results using photos, graphs, and tables.

Oral presentations are usually conducted using a presentation program such as Microsoft Powerpoint and last 10-12 minutes with an additional 2-3 minutes for questions from the audience. In other oral presentation formats such as colloquia or workshops organized around a particular topic, about 30 minutes may be provided for each presenter to provide more depth.

Posters are typically 3 ft x 4 ft in size and are available for self-paced viewing for the duration of the conference.  In addition, each presenter has a one-hour time slot in which he or she is present at the poster to answer questions and interact with other attendees.

At this year’s ASHS Annual Conference, UCCE Farm Advisors and staff conducted three oral presentations and three poster presentations and were co-authors on at least four other oral presentations and two other posters.  The research presented will be topics for future posts.

To browse the conference program, please visit http://ashs.confex.com/ashs/2010/webprogram/meeting.html

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