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Oral Session Guidelines
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Oral sessions provide an opportunity for several speakers to present their findings/papers in a formal setting. Individual abstracts are grouped with abstracts focusing on a similar topic to create an hour and a half session. Presenters can determine the amount of time allocated for their presentation by viewing their session in the Online Program. Be sure to limit the presentation to the time allotted.

General Information

Presenters must be individual members of APHA and register for the meeting.
LCD projectors, computers and microphone are included in each scientific session room. Internet access is not available in the meeting rooms.
Videos should be captioned to ensure access to people with disabilities.
You will have 15 minutes to present your PowerPoint presentation . Do not go over your allotted presentation time.
At the start of your presentation, verbally disclose whether you have any financial support or conflicts of interest to report. This is required for CE purposes.
Once all presentations are completed, there will be time for live Q&A.
If you are using materials in your presentation (pictures, charts, graphs, video, etc.) that are not original work, seek permission from the original source and cite the source.
Only one presenter per abstract is allowed to present. All co-authors who attend your session must be registered for the meeting. Your co-author(s) can join you for the Q&A portion of the session and help answer questions.

Presentation Tips

PowerPoints should be set to 16:9 screen ratio.
Keep accessibility in mind when designing your PowerPoint and planning your presentation. Checkout our guidelines for accessible presentations .
Include a description of yourself in your introduction. Watch our video on inclusive introductions to understand what they are and why they are important.
Give an opening statement to acquaint the audience with the nature and purpose of the research.
Discuss the same material as reported in the abstract.
Rehearse your presentation beforehand, timing it. Remember that PowerPoint slides add seconds to the talk.
Stay within your allotted time to ensure that all presenters have equal time on the program and allow the audience the opportunity to ask questions.
Know what to omit if you start to go over your allotted time. Session moderators will hold you to the allotted time.
APHA hires room monitors who are responsible for double-checking the room set-up and the audiovisual equipment prior to the start time of your session. If there is an issue, please find a room monitor who will escalate the issue to the appropriate person.

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Preparing the Research Presentation

If you have never presented a paper at a scientific meeting, you should read this article. Even if you have presented before, it is likely that this article contains information that will improve your presentation. This article contains a set of practical, proven steps that will guide your preparation of the presentation. Our assumptions are that you will schedule appropriate planning and preparation time, are interested in doing the best job possible, and know that a quality presentation is a combination of good research and communication skills. This and subsequent articles will focus on planning, preparation, creating visual aids (slides), and presentation skills for a scientific presentation. The intent of this series of articles is to help you make a favorable impression at the scientific meeting and reap the rewards, personal and professional, of a job well done.

To begin with, you need to create an outline of the topics you might present at the meeting. Your outline should follow the IMRAC format (introduction, methods, results, and conclusion). This format is chosen because your audience understands it and expects it. If you have already prepared a paper for publication, it can be a rich source of content for the topic outline.

To get you started, we have prepared a generic outline to serve as an example. We recognize that a generic outline does not necessarily adapt to all research designs, but we ask you to think, "How can I adapt this to my situation?" To help you visualize the content you might include in the outline, two types of examples have been included, one that describes a cross-sectional study using a survey methodology (example A), and a second using a combination of a case-control and cohort designs (example B).

Use the Preparing the Research Presentation Checklist to assist you in preparing the topic outline.