How to present your paper at International Conferences?

Recently I stumbled upon this blog post by Karthik K, a fellow blogger & a Microsoft Student Partner. Thought it would be useful for you.


How to present your paper at International Conferences?


Now, you have built your robot with fully your own ideas. And you think of presenting your newly INNOVATIVE robot at a conference. There are some rules that are to be followed while you submit your paper details to theconference people. For all the conferences, symposiums or any other competitions, they follow one single format for submitting a paper. There are some steps to follow to impress the conference representatives.
Here are some shortcuts for impressing the representatives. You will have to jump over some important hurdles to get your paper impressed. Let me start with it now.

Step-1: Select your topic first
The first step for you to prepare a paper is to select the right topic you would like to work (research) on. Always choose the topic which you are much interested in. There are a wide variety of topics for you to choose upon.
I have listed below some topics which I love to research on.
1) Nanotechnology
2) Space elevator
3) Cryptography
4) High performance networks
5) Image processing
6) Optical engineering
7) Virtual reality
8) Parallel computing
9) Artificial intelligence
10) Atomic computing
11) Nano robots
12) Nano satellites
13) Server Virtualization
14) Embedded systems
15) Open source software development
The above said topics are some which are mostly common and are interesting to work upon. Start thinking from now on. Always remember, you have got a portable natural storage system with you already, ” YOUR BRAIN”. You are capable of doing!! Each of your innovations contribute to this world.!!! You may also choose from a very wide variety of fields which you are interested in.

Step-2: Working upon your topic
This is the step, where you put your idea to work. You will have to do a lot of research on the topic you choose. There are various ways thru which you can work upon. At first, if you have got your idea clear, you will have to first check whether someone had already worked on the topic or idea that you have worked on. There are a number of ways thru which you can do this.
I use the following sites to check for the ideas, whether someone had done before. These are called as “patents”.
http://www.indianpatents.org.in/
www.google.com/patents
http://www.indianpatents.org.in/
And now that you have found that your ideas are unique, you may proceed to Step-3. But, in case you find that your idea has already been used, try to understand it completely and change your idea so that it overcomes the flaws that are mentioned in the patent. Mostly they will be mentioned in the conclusion section of the paper.

Step-3: Making ready your ABSTRACT and PAPER
Abstract is the first thing which will be sent for any conference or symposiums. The abstract is the complete gist of what your paper contains.
Always remember the following points before you submit your abstract. This is the general IEEE format of an abstract. The abstract must have a word limit of 150-300 words.
WORD LIMIT – 150 to 300 words
FONT – TIMES NEW ROMAN
FONT SIZE – 12pt
LINE SPACING – 1.5pt
MARGINS – 1”
ALIGNMENT – Justified

Step-4: Send your abstract
Once you are done with your abstract, you are ready to mail it!! Here are some tips on mailing your abstract.
1) Be formal, use words like Respected sir/madam.
2) Use phrases such as “Please find the enclosed copy of my abstract in thins mail”, etc.
Some institutions may require you to send a hard copy of you abstract, along with the paper. You may need to enclose a letter with that sometimes. Check the organization or the website of the competition on how to submit your paper.

Step-5: Presenting the PAPER
This is the final thing of your hard work. You after all the formal procedures are over, you will be asked to present the paper at the place defined by the conference people.
You will have to make your slides in such a way that it reaches the audience clearly. Use bullets to number your points.
Make sure your slides do not have any irritating background colors. Use simple templates to make your slides.
Given below is the general format for a presentation. Follow this order for your slides strictly.
TITLE (With your name)
AGENDA
INTRODUCTION
OBJECTIVES
YOUR UNIQUE WORK
METHODS
YOUR FINDINGS AND ALGORITHMS (If any)
CONCLUSION
QUERIES
REFERENCES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Almost 99.9% of the competitions follow the IEEE format for a paper.
And that’s it!!!! THE PRIZE IS YOURS FOR SURE!!!!
While presenting the paper, always have in mind that “YOUR PAPER IS THE BEST AMONG ALL AND YOU CAN WIN THE EVENT”. Be confident in yourself.
A future post will cover a complete detailed description about each and every step in detail.