Instructions to Speakers

  1. Please keep to your time limit. Nominally, 15-minute talks should allocate 12 minutes for the presentation plus 3 minutes for discussion; 20-minute talks, 17+3; and 30-minute talks, 25+5. The session chair will give a signal a proportionate time before the scheduled end of the talk, and then stand or otherwise make threatening gestures when you are a minute over. At that time please finish the slide you are on and go directly to your final summary slide.
  2. We will project the talks from conference computers. We have a Windows PC machine, and a MAC. Both have Powerpoint and adobe acroread. Please load your presentation on a conference machine well before your session. For Tuesday morning speakers this means Monday evening, or at 8am on Tuesday morning.
  3. By 5 or 10 minutes prior to the session, introduce yourself to the session chair so that they know you are present and have loaded your talk onto the computers.
  4. There will be two screens projecting the same image simultaneously. This is due to the width of the room. If you need to point within the slide, you might use the computer mouse to point on the screen, or with a laser pointer please point to both screens in turn.
  5. It is generally helpful if you face the audience, not the screens, while you speak. It is useful to clearly indicate you have finished your talk, such as by saying "Thank you for your attention," so that the session chair can lead applause.
  6. During questions, let the chair call on people, and wait until they get a microphone. Try not to engage in a private debate with one questioner. (There should be lots of break time for private discussion.) If you don't understand or don't hear the question you can ask the session chair for help.
  7. Consider mentioning a) investigations that existing x-ray missions (especially Chandra) should perform and (b) those observations that require the capabilities of planned x-ray missions, in order to advance the topic addressed in your presentation. This may be more practical for the talks with longer time slots.
  8. Please keep to your time limit.