ICPCE 2021: Conference Information and Tips

While the Covid pandemic lingers, it continues to affect us both mentally and physically. When faced with life adversities, such as the pandemic, one of the remarkable human traits that come to the fore is resilience.

With this in mind, the theme of the ICPCE 2021 Virtual Conference is: ‘Redefining Resilience’.  

ICPCE 2021 is an interdisciplinary event that brings together scholars and practitioners from a range of backgrounds to consider research, policy, rhetoric, and practice on how we can redefine resilience. 

Here is some information to ensure the smooth running of the conference:

General guidance

• Here’s the link to the conference website, where you will find the conference programme, and the timetable for the parallel sessions.
• All times are UK times. For your convenience, there’s a UK clock on the conference homepage.  Alternatively, you can use 24timezones.
• There will be a single Zoom link for the three-day event. You can find it on the conference programme.
• There will be separate links for the parallel sessions. You can find them on the timetable for the parallel sessions.
• Put your full name when you sign in on Zoom. Unregistered participants (i.e., not on our list) will be removed from Zoom rooms. We have a list of registered participants.
  
• Registration fees are non-refundable.

For paper presenters

• All the Zoom links are available from the timetable for the parallel sessions.
• Please join your respective Zoom room 10 minutes before your scheduled time. The session chair will make you a ‘co-host’ so you can share your screen. 
• Please stick with the 15-minute time frame (10 minutes for presentation; 5 minutes for Q&A). 

Conference proceedings

• All abstracts will be included in the conference proceedings to be published in the March 2022 issue of Psychreg Journal of Psychology. To give you an idea, here are the conference proceedings of ICPCE 2019, held in Malaysia.
• Only registered participants will be included in the conference proceedings. Co-authors who have not registered will not be included in the conference proceedings. 

Tips for oral presenters

How to manage your time

• You will only have 15 minutes to deliver your paper’s most important information (10 minutes for presentation; 5 minutes for Q&A). Therefore, it is important that you efficiently manage your presentation within the allotted time (Do not ramble, do not make unnecessary comments, do not share the story of your life).
• There will be chairs for each session. After your presentation is introduced, have at least a minute to have the audience ready to listen. This can be done by showing your title slide and telling what your research is all about. 
• The chair will give you a cue if your time is nearly up. 
• We advise you to use no more than one slide per minute of your allotted time.
• It is better to decrease the amount of information presented on one slide rather than to confuse the audience with slides that contain too much information and cannot be read quickly.

How to structure your presentation

• Stick with the general outline of a written research paper for your paper presentation (research problem, related studies, method, results, conclusion, and implications). Listeners expect and are familiar with this universal and logical format. 
• Choose a font that is easy to read. Popular fonts include Arial, Times New Roman, or Century Gothic, but any professional-looking font is fine, as long as you use it consistently.
• Keep your PowerPoint simple and professional. We know it’s tempting to impress us with your amazing animations skills, but we’re not after that. We just want to know what your research is all about. 
• Limit your bullets (preferably five lines), excluding the slide’s title and subtitle. 
• Each slide should have no more than 1–3 points to make. And the entire presentation should have no more than a total of three major points, all of which should be repeated in your Conclusions slide.
• Pictures, diagrams, and videos are very helpful and important in presentations. Tables usually contain too much information and may confuse the audience unless a key row or column can be highlighted, or significant results can be seen easily.

Is it your first time to have a paper presentation?

How to explain the contents of your presentation

• Bulleted items on slides should contain keywords to remind you of what to say at that point in your presentation or to emphasise an idea that you are presenting.
• Using complete sentences after bullets will slow down your presentation and distract you from key points.
• Pictures, diagrams, and videos can demonstrate a complex idea quickly or show evidence to support a claim. To use them efficiently, you must make them immediately understandable to your audience.
• Orient the audience to your picture, diagram or video; pointing out exactly what they are seeing. This may include using an overall descriptive title for the image, and pointing out exactly where you want your audience to focus. This will allow you to educate everyone at the same time and orient any listener to a previously unfamiliar image.
• References, if important, should be used within the presentation and not on a separate slide at the end of the presentation. It’s pointless to put your references at the end of your presentation – they’re too small to be read; just put a QR code instead.
• Please leave your email address on your last slide, so that listeners can get in touch with you if they have questions about your research.
  

How to answer questions about your research

• There are people who will ask questions not because they want to learn or because they have an idea how to improve your research – but because they want to show off that they can criticise your research. It’s sad, but it can happen.
  
• Address the question as best as you can. If you don’t know the answer, just be honest. We have not heard of anyone who has been assassinated for not knowing the answer in their paper presentation. 
• Take it easy. Think of a paper presentation as your chance to share to people about your research. Although your research might have lapses, it’s still a product of your hard work – be proud of it. Anyone can be an audience, but it takes courage to present your research. 

A few more tips

• Don’t overcomplicate your presentation, it won’t make you sound intelligent; it just makes you sound pretentious. Here’s a particle physicist who managed to explain his science in a less complicated way – a particle physicist!
• Don’t try to wow us with highfalutin words. Intelligent people know how to get their message across in an accessible way. If you are confident with your research, you don’t have to sugarcoat it. 
• Paper presentation is all about sharing your research; you are not in a competition with anyone to make your research sound so esoteric and philosophical – so just be natural and have fun. 

We look forward to seeing you at the ICPCE 2021!