Oral Presenter Guidelines

All oral presenters, except for workshop presenters, must visit the Speaker Ready Room to upload and test their presentation the day before their talk. The Speaker Ready Room is located in Conference Room A in the UC Davis Conference Center.

Types of oral presentations at Worm 2025:

Please note: Workshop presenters should consult their workshop organizer for further details. They should not upload workshop presentations in the Speaker Ready Room.

• Platform talks are selected by the program committee and organizers after carefully reviewing submitted abstracts in a given topic. Platform talks are a total of 11 minutes (nine-minute presentation followed by two minutes of Q&A and then one minute for transition between speakers).
• Invited speaker presentations are a total of 29 minutes (25-minute presentation, four minutes for Q&A, and one minute for speaker transition). 
• Keynote address is a total of 60 minutes (three minutes for an introduction, 45 minutes for the talk, and 12 minutes for Q&A. 
• Workshop presenters have varying lengths of presentations. Workshop organizers will contact speakers regarding the schedule. Presentations will be loaded onto the workshop organizer’s laptop in the workshop room. Workshop presenters do not need to go to the Speaker Ready Room.

Important Notes:

• Projection will be 16:9 format.
• Computers in the room are PCs. MACs will not be available, please consider this when making your presentation.
• Presenters will use the computer mouse, not a laser pointer, so that attendees can see which part of your presentation you are referencing when they watch the recording.
• File name: Your presentation file should be labeled with the following information: presentation number, surname, weekday, and room.

Bring your talk on a flash drive in any format other than a PDF. You will be able to test the equipment, view your slides, and run through your presentation in the Speaker Ready Room. Technical support will be there to help you. On the day of your presentation, speakers should arrive at the meeting room (see the schedule of events to find the location of your session) 30 minutes prior to the beginning of their session to check in with the session chair and for any last-minute instructions. You will not be able to upload your talk in the meeting room. Your slides will be available in the session room after you visit the Speaker Ready Room.

The Speaker Ready Room (Conference Room A in the UC Davis Conference Center) will be open at the following times:

• Saturday, June 28: 3:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m.
• Sunday, June 29: 7:30 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
• Monday, June 30: 7:30 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
• Tuesday, July 1: 7:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
• Wednesday, July 2: 7:30 a.m.–10:00 a.m.

Timing*

To keep  sessions on time and allow people to move between concurrent platform sessions, the chair may alert you as follows as the speaker timer counts down:

• After 7 minutes (timer goes from green to yellow), “2 minutes remain, start Q&A”

• After 8 minutes and 30 seconds, “30 seconds remain, wrap up”

• After 11 minutes (timer goes to red), “STOP”

*For invited speakers, the timer will go from green to yellow at 25 minutes and will go to red (STOP) at 30 minutes.

Answering questions

There will be audience microphones for attendees to ask questions. The session chair will select questions from the audience as time allows. All participants will also be able to leave questions for the speaker in the Conference App.

Contacting live technical support

Technical support will be monitoring your presentation from the Speaker Ready Room. There will also be a large help button on the podium that you can click if you run into a problem.

Recordings

All oral presentations will be recorded and made available to registrants through July 31, 2025.

Device

You will use the computer at the podium for your presentation. You will not be able to use your own computer.

File format

Please use any presentation file format, except .pdf, to upload your presentation in the Speaker Ready Room. The presentations will be loaded onto PCs. 

Privacy and recordings

All oral presentations will be available for registered attendees to view online until July 31, 2025. Sharing of results without permission is a violation of the Code of Conduct, but you should be aware that we cannot monitor whether online attendees take photographs, screenshots, audio recordings, or video recordings of your presentation.

Preparing effective oral presentations 

• We encourage presenters to use color-blind-friendly palettes and accessible fonts. An online tool such as Coblis will help you prepare a presentation that is more accessible.
• Keep visuals clear and easy to read. Embed your fonts. Simple graphs, charts, and diagrams are much more meaningful to an audience than complex, cluttered ones.
• Avoid using too many patterns and graphics in one frame.
• Use a minimum of words for text and title frames. Five to six lines per frame and five to seven words per line are the maximum—fewer is better.
• Use upper and lower case lettering, which is more legible than all capital letters.
• Vary the size of lettering to emphasize headings and subheadings, but avoid using more than three sizes per frame.
• Select Sans Serif type (example: Arial), which projects better and is easier to read than Serif type.
• Maintain the same or similar type size from frame to frame, even if some frames have less copy than others.
• Keep all type horizontal, even in charts.
• Consider color with care. A dark background with highly contrasting text and graphics is most readable. Cool colors (example: deep blue, turquoise, purple) appear to recede and make white or light colored text more readable. Do not use red for text; it is extremely difficult to read.
• Highlight your main point or heading with a dominant color (example: yellow for the heading, white for body text). Avoid the use of intensely bright or saturated colors that compete with the text.
• Maintain a consistent color scheme. Use no more than six colors throughout your presentation.
• Select backgrounds to enhance your text or graphics.
• Remember the basics of good design: Plan a template. Use colors consistently with light fonts on a dark background. Keep text clear and easy to read.

Code of Conduct

All registrants agree to abide by the GSA Conferences Code of Conduct. Our Code of Conduct was established to communicate a transparent set of standards and guidelines for acceptable behavior at GSA Conferences and to provide a positive, safe, and welcoming environment for all attendees. Note that all sessions will be moderated and actively monitored for disruptive behavior. Any attendees disrupting the session in person or online will be removed.