MEETINGS
JSM Pro Offers Poster, Presentation Tips
Russell V. Lenth, 2008 JSM Program Chair
M
any resources are available to provide guidance for preparing oral and poster presentations for statistical meetings. For example,
there are guidelines on the JSM web site at
www.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2008/pdfs/ImprovingStatisticalPosters.pdf and www.
amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2008/index.cfm?fuseaction=speakers. I recommend all presenters take a look at these materials after reading
the following tips that may be especially useful to new presenters or those with limited time to prepare.
Avoid Software Anxiety: Use What You Know
the title and authors’ names and affiliations. This needs to be huge.
One barrier people face is that it can take a lot of time to master the
Think about it. You want to attract interest in people walking by, and,
software needed to make presentation slides or a poster. Perhaps it is
on an 8-foot board, the title will look puny if it doesn’t fill at least half
not much of a stretch to use PowerPoint if you are accustomed to writ-
that width. I suggest at least 2-inch-high (144-point) letters for the
ing in Microsoft Word, but laying out a poster is likely to be a daunt-
title and 1- to 1.5-inch letters for the authors.
ing task. Similarly, LaTeX users may not know of a special-purpose
Talk Tips
package for making slides or posters—or may not want to deal with
learning its intricacies.
Finally, a few brief tips for oral presentations. Most speakers require
It is possible to prepare an excellent presentation using the same
at least one minute per slide. A contributed talk should have 12–15
tools you use for ordinary writing. You can’t do fancy backgrounds,
slides, and definitely no more than 20.
logos, or transition effects, but it does not hurt to sacrifice glitz in
Usually, an ‘outline’ slide is unnecessary, especially in a short talk.
favor of content. What you do need to do is alter the page shape and
You lose a minute by having one. If you have only 15 or 20 minutes,
font size, but that is easy. The following trick works well for both talks
the whole talk can be just an outline. Make it your goal to attract inter-
and posters.
est in your work, not to present it in detail.
Suppose you type some material as you always do in Microsoft
Learn the keys you need to press (probably F5 or Control-L) to
Word or LaTeX, but you make one change. You tell the software to
start your presentation. Better yet, have it open in presentation mode
lay it out for paper that is, say, 5 inches wide and 3.75 inches high,
(i.e., rename PowerPoint presentations with a .pps extension). You save
with .25-inch margins. If you then save the document as a PDF file
valuable time and look like you know what you’re doing.
and display it in full-screen mode in Acrobat Reader, everything is
Embed your fonts in the presentation, especially in PowerPoint,
expanded to fill the width and height of the screen, and all the fonts
and most especially if you are from outside the United States (see
are expanded accordingly. In LaTeX, this is accomplished with one
Options menu, Save options, Embed TrueType Fonts).
line in the document preamble:
This year, you will be asked to upload your talk to a central site
before the meetings, and your meeting room will have a PC with your
\usepackage[paperwidth=5in,
talk installed. This should save a lot of hassles during the sessions, but
paperheight=3.75in, margin=.25in]{geometry}
it also requires advance preparation. I am optimistic that this will pro-
To make a presentation, just add enough page breaks and section
vide a better experience for both presenters and attendees. n
headings to make each topic fit in one screen. The same idea applies
to graphs. To make the lines and symbols bolder and the axis and tick
JSM Panel to Feature The Black Swan
labels big enough to be readable by the audience, construct the graph
in a small size so its elements are enlarged when the graph is stretched
Author, Statisticians
to fill the screen or page.
Nassim Nicolas Taleb’s popular book, The Black Swan, takes
numerous jabs at statisticians, financial analysts, and “quants” in
Posters on the Cheap
general. At the core of his argument is that standard tools used
Poster presenters are provided an area that is 8 feet wide and 4 feet
by such analysts for measuring risk are inappropriate; he has
high—that’s a lot of real estate. While most posters these days seem to
gone so far as to call these analysts “incompetent.”
be prepared using special software and a poster printer, this approach
Statisticians and quants responded to these criticisms in a
can consume a lot of time and money (more than you might guess).
series of reviews of Taleb’s book that appeared in the August
It is possible to put together a nice poster presentation by making
2007 issue of The American Statistician. Following the reviews,
several panels on ordinary-sized paper. You can use full-page prints of
Bloomberg News interviewed TAS Editor Peter Westfall, who
a PowerPoint presentation, or use the paper-size trick above to make
gave further critical comments that can be found on Bloomberg’s
the fonts bigger when printed using the option to fit it to the page. For
web site,
bloomberg.com (keyword searches: “Taleb outsells
a poster I did for Salt Lake City last year, I used virtual dimensions of
Greenspan” and “managers incompetent”).
4.4 inches by 3.4 inches (with letter-sized paper) and I think it turned
During this year’s JSM, there will be a panel discussion that
out just about right.
focuses on Taleb’s message. The panel will include Taleb, Robert
The panels can be mounted on construction paper (or even gift
Lund (TAS and JASA book reviews editor), Aaron Brown (AQR
wrap) to add color and emphasis. Time spent with scissors and glue
Capital Management), Stanley Young (National Institute of
can be a relaxing break from your usual routine, and you have infinite
Statistical Sciences), and Donald Rubin (Harvard). Westfall will
flexibility in deciding how to arrange the panels. Unlike a poster-sized
moderate. The panel will take place Wednesday, August 6, at
print, you can carry your poster presentation to JSM in a suitcase.
10:30 a.m. It should be lively, so consider attending.
One other important matter: You need a big banner at the top with
JULY 2008 AMSTAT NEWS 21
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