Dear 1998 IRPS Author,
Congratulations! Your paper has been accepted, you're ready to start writing, and you're excited about presenting your work at IRPS. But, before you get started, I'd like to take this opportunity to go over the presentation material guidelines (i.e., RULES) and give you some suggestions to insure that your presentation at IRPS is clear, readable, and well received. The visual quality of your presentation is an ongoing conference issue and because it is so visible, a major item of concern for all of us. Poor quality visuals are hard to read, they distract the audience from your message, and they make you and your company look bad. Remember, a bad visual presentation makes even the best technical work look sloppy and suspect.
Included with this letter are the visual production rules and 8 pages of example artwork. An MSDOS floppy disk is also included. This floppy contains the example artwork and electronic templates in two popular presentation packages (Powerpoint and Freelance). These electronic templates can also be downloaded from the internet at "http://www.irps.org/author98.htm" or "ftp://ftp.irps.org/pub/irps/av/".
You should review everything before you start producing your artwork and follow these guidelines carefully. IRPS poses a unique challenge for presentation material because we project to a large audience (more than 700) and need to keep the house lights bright enough to take notes. A visual that is adequate for a group of 10 to 30 people is usually not adequate for the large audience at IRPS. Following these guidelines will help you produce materials that are easy to see at IRPS.
Because the production of good 35 mm black & white slides is very difficult, time consuming, and costly, we have eliminated 35 mm slides and will be using an electronic presentation system. This does not mean that your presentation can be sloppy. A bad visual is still a bad visual whether it is projected as a 35 mm slide or through an electronic presentation system. At the conference, we will be using a high power electronic projection machine which will be driven by a IBM-PC compatible computer. As a result, your presentation will be completely electronic!
The first step in making your electronic visuals is to produce artwork. Text and data are generally produced with a presentation program, page layout or word processing program, then output onto paper. Since we plan to use Microsoft Powerpoint 4.0 files to display your presentation at the conference, we would prefer that you generate your artwork using PowerPoint 4.0 If you use another electronic format we will be happy to accept that and translate or scan in a paper copy to make an electronic presentation. Regardless of how you produce it, this artwork must be approved. Many authors also use this artwork for the author's corner posters.
Deadline for submitting artwork to paper mentor..............February 16, 1998 Deadline for edits by paper mentor returned to author........February 23, 1998 Deadline for submitting final electronic/hard copy to SAR....March 14, 1998
Your presentation should only have BLACK text and graphics on clear (white) background. This is very important, as color presentations generally have poor contrast to a large audience. Logos and portrait (tall) orientation visuals are not allowed. We will ruthlessly reject any visual created in portrait format or ones that have a company (or university) graphic or logo. The only times affiliation can be mentioned is on the title visual and in the acknowledgements. However, at no time are you allowed to use a company logo or graphic. In addition, the number of the visual must appear in the bottom right of each visual. Please follow the 1998 A/V Rules.
After your artwork has been reviewed and approved by your paper mentor, you will need to send a final paper copy of your presentation and an electronic copy to SAR at the following address:
Roy Walker Phone: 315-339-3968
SAR Associates, IRPS Fax: 315-336-9134
301 North Madison Street email: sar@ntcnet.com
Rome, NY 13440
The electronic copy of your presentation can be sent through the internet by email as attachments or anonymous ftp (send binary to ftp://ftp.irps.org/pub/irps/incoming), or by express mailing a 1.44MB floppy disk (PC or Macintosh formatted), CDROM, or 100MB ZIP cartridge to SAR. The floppy disk we provided also includes a compression program (Winzip) to reduce the presentation file size in transit to SAR. Note, email attachments have size limits. We also request that your electronic presentation be named P##-#.XXX , where ##-# is the paper identifier listed in the preliminary program. For example, if your paper is 2B.3, then name your presentation P2B-3.ppt. The extension "ppt" identifies the type of file (e.g. ppt for powerpoint or pre for freelance). The extension will change to "zip" after compression. If you have any questions about the naming convention, the electronic formats we can read, or electronic transfers please contact Roy Walker at 315-336-3968 or via email at sar@ntcnet.com
And finally, your Session Chair, the Technical Program Chair and the A/V Chair (me) will review your presentation using the electronic system one last time at the conference. The location will be posted at the conference. We will have you project and practice changing pages in your electronic presentation in the same room where you will present your paper. Any pages which violate the rules will be immediately apparent. Visuals do get rejected at this point, and it can be very traumatic changing rejected pages the night before your presentation (i.e., Monday evening for a Tuesday session).
Attendance at the projection review is mandatory and we can not allow any paper into the conference that has not been through this review process (In reality, this has as much to do with logistics as it does with quality control. We use this review to make certain that all the electronic presentations and the author's corner posters are prepared for the next day's sessions). Also, please do not forget to bring to the conference a paper copy of your presentation for the author's corner and we encourage you to bring an electronic copy of your presentation as well.
I wish you the best of luck with your paper and your presentation. My goal is to help you present your work as clearly as possible and I am happy to help you in any way that I can. Please don't hesitate to ask for help or advice. I can be reached during the day at 408-433-7404 or by e-mail at stover@lsil.com. Or you can contact the A/V Vice Chair, Ed Cole at 505-844-1421 or by e-mail at coleei@sandia.gov.
Best Regards,
Mike Stover, 1998 IRPS Audio-Visual Chair
LSI Logic
1551 McCarthy Blvd. MS/K305
Milpitas, CA 95035
WHAT MAKES AN OUTSTANDING PRESENTATION?