Natural Sciences Academic Festival

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Instructions for Students

Before the Event

Bringing guests to the Academic Festival
All family and friends are warmly welcomed to the Festival. Please help spread the word! Be sure to indicate the number of guests you will bring when you register online. Contact any Festival committee member if you have questions or need invitational materials.

Tips on developing and delivering poster and oral presentations
Presentations in various fields have many components in common, but standards and formats vary by discipline. Your instructor is the final authority on your presentation.

Poster presentation sites
- http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/IndexStart.html (a succinct, easy-to-follow website that shows actual student poster examples and highlights their strengths and weaknesses)
- http://www.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2004/index.cfm?fuseaction=posters (from the American Statistical Association)
- http://www.siam.org/siamnews/general/poster.htm (from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics)

You may also contact Layne Nordgren in the Digital Media Center [(253) 535-7197 or nordgrle@plu.edu] for help with designing and producing your poster. His tips are available online at http://www.plu.edu/~dmc/workshops.

Oral presentation sites
- http://www.aresearchguide.com/3tips.html
- http://www.ams.org/meetings/guideline-present.html (from the American Mathematics Society)

Poster logistics
Posters will be attached with pushpins to foam core boards that are 8 feet tall and 4 feet wide. Please plan your poster to fit these dimensions. The boards cannot be turned sideways to extend the width without affecting the layout of all the boards. [If you absolutely need more width, please contact Ann, Morken Center Room 238, immediately.] Make sure your poster is not too heavy for pushpins. Some departments provide poster supplies; ask your instructor.

The poster boards will be set up and numbered on Thursday, 27 April. Your board number will correspond to the number assigned to your poster in the Festival Program. Maps of the poster layout will be available in Rieke. Large maps will be displayed on easels. You may attach your poster any time on Thursday or Friday morning. All posters must be in place before the Festival begins at 12:30 p.m. on Friday.

Pushpins will be available at tables or counters in the lobby and/or office area. Use only pushpins to attach your poster; do not use glue or anything else that could damage the boards—they are reused each year. Please do not kneel on the board; kneeling dents them.

Please leave your poster up for one week after the Festival. People who did not have enough time to look at all the posters during the Festival will be encouraged to look at them throughout the week and contact the authors if they’d like further information. Students are responsible for removing their posters by Friday, 5 May. The boards will be put away after that date.

Practicing oral presentations
(To be determined, 2006) The mornings of Friday April ? through Friday April ? Rieke room ? will be set up and available for practicing your talk. There will be a sign up sheet on the door of ?. Please reserve a spot ahead of time. Contact Matthew Hacker (x8701) if you have questions.

Program
The Festival Program should be posted on this website by Monday, 24 April, and back from the printers’ by sometime Wednesday, 26 April.

During the Festival

How to dress
Opinions about appropriate dress for the Festival vary. To some, professional dress symbolizes respect for the student work highlighted at the Festival and enhances the celebratory atmosphere; others are interested only in presentation content. You can’t go wrong by presenting yourself as a professional (no jeans, T-shirts, shorts, tennis shoes, baseball caps). If you are more comfortable with casual dress, you might want to check with your professor first.

Electronic devices
Please be sure to turn off your cell phones or any other potentially disruptive devices before attending oral or poster presentations or demonstrations.

Talks logistics
Computers for the festival will support CD, Zip 100 and 250, USB pendrive, and floppy media. Load your presentation well before noon on Friday and 8:30 a.m. on Saturday. Also, bring your media with you to your presentation in case a machine must be replaced. Although they are rare, expect unexpected difficulties; keep backups of your data and leave yourself plenty of time. Technical support will be available at the Information Desk in the Rieke lobby during the Festival, but there will not be a technician in the presentation rooms.

Parking
During the festival anyone may park without getting ticketed in the Olson, Rieke, and CLT parking lots.

After the Event

Evaluation Form
Please help us make the Festival even better for future participants. Evaluation forms will be available throughout the Rieke lobby and office area. The Festival Committee reads your comments carefully and takes them into consideration when planning the next year’s Festival.

Poster removal
Please remember to take your poster down

Last Modified
2-May-2008

 Downloadable Forms
 Tips for Participants
 Info for Participants

Initial design 2004 K Wahler + JD Hauger, maintained by AF Committee: Some rights reserved.