Guidelines for oral and poster presentations

When creating your presentation, please take steps to ensure your content is accessible to all. These include, but are not limited to:

• Avoid overcrowding slides by keeping bullet points to a minimum and text concise.
• Use a legible font and size [at least 24 PT]. Please do not use Serif fonts.
• Do not use colour combinations that others may struggle to distinguish between, e.g., red and green, green and brown, yellow and white, green and blue etc. Check your colour choices using WebAIM’s contrast checker.
• Include images where possible (and ensure you have permission to use them) - these can be useful to replace text. Please use images that do not rely heavily on a UK cultural context to convey a meaning, as we have an international audience.
• Avoid flashing images and GIFs.
• Consider having one slide per minute, to avoid rushing to get through all the slides.
• Think about how your slides will look to delegates at the back of the room - this can be a particular issue with tables and figure labels.
• When you have finished creating your poster, you can use Accessibility Checker in Microsoft Office to check accessibility issues and the Hemingway App to check your language is clear and straightforward.
• See tips for creating accessible PowerPoint presentations.

We acknowledge that there are ongoing debates over language, within and outside our communities and activisms, and welcome informative and productive conversations about this at the conference.

We request that your choice of words is inclusive and respectful when you present your work. 

For example, we recommend using the term ‘visible difference’ rather than ‘deformity’, or ‘higher weight’ rather than ‘obesity’.

Here are some related resources you may find helpful: 

• Journal Article Reporting Standards for Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (JARS–REC) (apa.org)
• Person-first or identity-first: The importance of language
• Writing respectfully: Person-first or identity-first language
• What words should we use to talk about weight? A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies examining preferences for weight-related terminology (PDF)
• Health at every size (HAES)
• Inclusive language for higher weight people
• What is visible difference?

Use gender-neutral language to refer to your participants where appropriate, if you have a mixed gender group. 

Contextualise your work e.g., if your participants are all white British and able bodied, be explicit and mindful of this when reporting findings (i.e., whom your work is representative of and whom it generalises to).

Be mindful of jargon and avoid/minimise colloquialisms and idioms where possible, as some audience members may not be familiar with them. If you do use these in your presentation e.g., it is part of presenting your findings, please provide additional context or explanation to situate this and clarify meaning.

Please be careful in making assumptions about your audience when interacting with them (e.g., when answering questions about your poster) - some aspects of diversity are not visible. Please refrain from ableist assumptions and language, as well as assumptions related to sexual and gender identity and class. If asking for audience participation, it can help to use a poll and read out the findings rather than ask for a show of hands.

Links are great for navigation, but you need to signpost your links to help those using assistive technology. Avoid using the URL itself, and don't use words like "click here". Instead, use descriptive text as your link text..

Please use closed captioning for videos (e.g., platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and YouTube allow auto-generation of transcripts for free, which may only need light editing and save time) and alt text for images. Alt text should convey the content and purpose of an image concisely and precisely. Programmes such as MS Word can help you generate this easily. Please also use this for charts to convey key points concisely.

Please send your slides to Emma Thomas (researchevents@uwe.ac.uk) by 17:00 GMT on Monday 3 June 2024 for us to preload your presentation into the correct room on the day. If you are unable to send your presentation in advance, please bring it with you on a USB stick and attend your room in plenty of time to load it onto the laptop. Please let us know if you would be happy for your slides to be shared with delegates after the event.

Each presentation is 15 minutes: 12 minutes to talk and 3 minutes for questions.

At the start of your presentation, the Chair will briefly introduce you, and you will have 12 minutes to deliver your presentation. After you have finished, the Chair will coordinate the questions.

When delivering your presentation, remember that everyone gets nervous. Take your time and enjoy!

For symposia, the total time is 90 minutes. You can choose how best to use the time allocated, but please be careful to stick to the 90 minutes.

• We recommend a poster size of A0 (84cm x 118cm) - portrait orientation only.
• Poster boards (approximately 100 cm x 150 cm) will be set up for you to display your poster on.
• Posters that do not fit within these dimensions may not be allowed to be displayed. 
• If you use the whole of the poster board, delegates may find it hard to read what is at the bottom of your poster. Try to make your poster as easy to read as possible. 
• Make sure you clearly display the title of your project, your name, your department or faculty and your institution at the top of your poster.
• Avoid overcrowding your poster by keeping bullet points to a minimum and text concise. Include images where possible (and ensure you have permission to use them) - these can replace text. Please use images that do not rely heavily on a UK cultural context to convey a meaning, as we have an international audience.
• Use a legible font and size [at least 28 PT] to ensure the text is legible from a good distance. Please do not use Serif fonts.
• Do not use colour combinations that others may struggle to distinguish between, e.g., red and green, green and brown, yellow and white, green and blue etc. Check your colour choices using WebAIM’s contrast checker.
• For sustainability purposes, we recommend not bringing additional A4 paper handouts copies of your poster. As well as being able to view your poster on the day, all posters will be displayed on the conference app for delegates to view at a later date.
• When you have finished creating your poster, you can use Accessibility Checker in Microsoft Office to check accessibility issues and the Hemingway App to check your language is clear and straightforward.

Find out more about the eight-step process that guides you on how to make an academic poster in PowerPoint.

Watch the YouTube video

We acknowledge that there are ongoing debates over language, within and outside our communities and activisms, and welcome informative and productive conversations about this at the conference.

We request that your choice of words is inclusive and respectful when you present your work. 

For example, we recommend using the term ‘visible difference’ rather than ‘deformity’, or ‘higher weight’ rather than ‘obesity’.

Here are some related resources you may find helpful: 

• Journal Article Reporting Standards for Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (JARS–REC) (apa.org)
• Person-first or identity-first: The importance of language
• Writing respectfully: Person-first or identity-first language
• What words should we use to talk about weight? A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies examining preferences for weight-related terminology (PDF)
• Health at every size (HAES)
• Inclusive language for higher weight people
• What is visible difference?

Use gender-neutral language to refer to your participants where appropriate, if you have a mixed gender group. 

Contextualise your work e.g., if your participants are all white British and able bodied, be explicit and mindful of this when reporting findings (i.e., whom your work is representative of and whom it generalises to).

Be mindful of jargon and avoid/minimise colloquialisms and idioms where possible, as some audience members may not be familiar with them. If you do use these in your presentation e.g., it is part of presenting your findings, please provide additional context or explanation to situate this and clarify meaning.

Please be careful in making assumptions about your audience when interacting with them (e.g., when answering questions about your poster) - some aspects of diversity are not visible. Please refrain from ableist assumptions and language, as well as assumptions related to sexual and gender identity and class. 

Please send the PDF file of your poster to Emma Thomas (researchevents@uwe.ac.uk) by 17:00 GMT on Monday 3 June 2024 for us to preload your poster onto the conference app. This applies to all accepted posters – both those for presentation in-person at the conference and those accepted for the app only.

For those able to display their poster on a poster board at the conference, please note the time of your poster presentation session(s) and be present during your session(s).

Please also note the set-up and take-down times in the conference programme. If you do not take down your poster during the allocated time, we will take it down for you to avoid disruption to the main conference.