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Changes to Contributed Papers and Oral Presentations

In response to requests to make national meetings more fruitful experiences, AAPThas elevate the status of contributed posters at its national meetings. Poster presentations offer a better way to communicate ideas. They give presenters more time to interact with interested parties, offer participants more time for questions and comments, and generally increase visibility of the presenter’s work. Poster sessions allow participants to scan many posters and to then spend quality time studying posters of greatest interest to them. The changes outlined here will affect only contributed presentations and will not affect the lengths or number of invited talks at national meetings.

Planning to contribute a title and abstract for an AAPT Meeting? There are two options:

1. You can contribute a poster (preferred mode of presentation).

  • Poster sessions will have plenary status; they will be unopposed by other sessions or committee meetings.
  • Poster presenters will have 2 full hours to present their work.
  • Poster sessions will be scheduled at “prime” times and will be available during the conference (without presenters), enabling people to view them at their convenience.
  • Poster sessions will be organized by topic, to help participants identify posters of most interest to them.
  • Poster sessions will enable one-on-one discussions with the people who are most interested in your poster.
  • Poster sessions will enable presenters to more efficiently distribute handouts.
  • Poster sessions will allow the possibility for presenters to give demonstrations using small equipment and/or computers.
  • Posters that answer a call for papers may be publicized in a contributed oral presentation by the same author.

2. You can contribute an oral presentation.

  • Oral presentations will be allocated 8 minutes plus 2 minutes for questions and transition. (For comparison, the American Astronomical Society allows 5 minutes for contributed oral presentations, with 3 minutes for questions and transition.)
  • Oral presentations will be scheduled in (typically many) competing parallel sessions.
  • Contributed oral presentations that answer a call for papers may be used to summarize a more detailed poster by the same author on the same topic.