Presentation Help & Guidelines

CIMR Symposium Workshops

Center for Internship, Mentoring, and Research

RSVP to join a CIMR Symposium Workshop

Abstract Writing Workshop - Friday, February 9, (view workshop materials below)
Scientific Poster Help Session - Friday, April 12, (view workshop materials below)
Scientific Oral Presentation Help Session - Friday, April 19, 3:00pm-4:30pm
Presentation Coaching Session - Monday, May 6, 3:00pm-4:30pm

Developing an Abstract

Those who evaluate your proposal will likely be unfamiliar with your discipline. Although it is not required that you include all the items listed here, a strong research abstract often includes these elements:

Title- The hook: concise, informative and engaging.
Purpose/Objective- Clearly states the reason for the research and the primary question being addressed.
Methods- Brief description of the design, approach, and tools used.
Results - Summary of the main findings, presented objectively.
Conclusion- Highlights the significance of your findings.

CIMR Abstract Workshop Materials:

Here are the steps and materials needed to submit your proposal/abstract:

Navigate to the Submit Presentation/Poster page
Read and accept the Submission Agreement.
Choose to present either a poster or an oral presentation. Ideally, when your final work is completed, you will submit your paper or poster files to PDXScholar. This might be the PDF of your poster, slides, pre-recorded video, and/or transcript.
Your first and last name and the names of any co-authors.
Your email address - (please share an account that you check daily as we will use it for future communications about the event).
Your class level and the school department or unit under which you study.
Your adviser's name and email address or your project's faculty mentor, if you have one.
Your paper or poster title.
A 150-200 word abstract outlining your research.
After your abstract/proposal is accepted and your paper (oral presentation) or poster is ready to share, you will log in here again and upload the PDF of your poster, slides, optional pre-recorded video, and/or transcript. Check the Additional Files box to include any supplemental files in addition to your main file.

CIMR Poster Help Session Materials:

Tools for Creating Effective Posters

Each student will:

Highlight the main research finding by stating it succinctly and in plain English accessible to a broad audience
Emphasize this main finding statement (or “punchline”) with a larger font size and placement toward the top and center of the poster
Limit poster size to no more than 36" x 48" (90cm x 121cm); landscape or portrait orientation is acceptable
Choose a white background, limiting photos and colored backgrounds to the center portion of the poster
Align text left if more than two lines long
Ensure posters are accessible. PowerPoint resources:
Optional: Students are welcome to include an MP4 video explaining their posters. See below for more information.

Poster Content Suggestions

What did you find? Focus on your primary research finding.
Why is it significant? Emphasize any exciting potential applications or uses, as well as any surprising discoveries. How might your research change the way people live?
What did you do, and how did you do it? Describe your hypothesis and your methods.
What comes next? Would you like to repeat an experiment on a larger scale or with a larger sample? How does your work inform the current thinking in your field? Did your findings raise new questions worth exploring?

Poster Printing & Scholarships

Scholarships to pay for poster printing will be available to all students presenting a poster at SRS. For more information, visit the Poster Competition & Printing page.

Oral Presentations

General Recommendations for Oral Presentations

Oral presentations must not exceed 5 minutes.
After your presentation, you will have 5 minutes to answer questions from the audience.
Time your presentation and practice it in advance.
Do not plan to read your paper or sections of your paper.
In your presentation, summarize your research by highlighting your research questions, methods, findings, and conclusions.
If you decide to post a video recording of your presentation on PDXScholar, each oral presentation will need to be closed captioned or include a written transcript. If you have a written transcript, please submit it with your video.

Oral Presentation Help

Spend time viewing these short oral presentation tutorials.

Optional: Creating Videos

For those who would like to prerecord their presentation to upload to PDXScholar, we recommend using Zoom. These are the basic steps:

Login into Zoom using your PSU email address.
Click Host or Schedule meeting.
Navigate to your presentation or poster.
Click Share Screen.
Click Record to the Cloud.
When finished, end the recording and wait for it to be available.
In the main Zoom menu, find your file under Recordings.
Click download.

Watch the video in the Example Submission: How to Record and Download Your Presentation Using Zoom

The Maximum Length for Videos is 5 Minutes

Optional: Feedback Form

If you would like to invite feedback and questions from those who see your research with the PDXScholar portal you can include a feedback form with your submission. Use this Feedback Form Template. Copy the template, and rename it with your last name. Change questions as you like, or keep it the same. Include a link to your personalized Feedback Form at the end of your abstract. This will allow you to privately receive feedback and questions from conference participants and viewers. Here is an example of how it will look in your submission: Example Submission

cimr@pdx.edu