Description
Competency
In this project, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following competency:
Prepare and perform a variety of verbal communications
Scenario
You work for CON-voke, an organization that helps develop and run conventions and conferences on a variety of topics. You have been tasked with delivering the opening remarks at a conference on a topic of your own choosing. Attendees will be coming from all around the world, and your opening comments will need to welcome them to the conference, give an overview of the topic, and set the agenda for the meetings and sessions.
Directions
You will need to write your opening remarks, create supporting materials and visuals to enhance your presentation, and then deliver those remarks. Please note, citations are required for this project if you use resources (such as images or text). If no resources are used, they will not be required.
Part 1: Conference Topic: To begin, you must choose a topic for your conference. You may choose a topic for an academic conference based on your area of study, a professional or trade event focused on your career, or a fan conference celebrating a popular genre or piece of entertainment. Read through the resources in the Supporting Materials section to learn more about each of these types of conventions to help inform your choice.
The way you write your opening remarks will depend on your audience. You will want to consider the following:
What style of presentation your audience will expect, given the type of conference and topic
What kind of language you should use to address the audience
What familiarity your audience will have with the topic
Part 2: Integrate Visuals and Supporting Materials: Use the Conference Floor Plan document and Proposed Schedules document to plan your comments, and consider how you can visually present these resources during your remarks, and/or create other supporting materials to give to attendees to enhance your presentation.
Consider the following:
Would it be beneficial to refer to a presented graphic, or would a handout be more useful to enhance your presentation?
What other materials can you create that would be useful for your presentation or help to enhance it for your audience?
Speakers can use visuals to enhance their presentations
Part 3: Write Your Remarks: In your remarks, you will need to succinctly present the important information that attendees will need. Detail the purpose of the conference, and introduce the main topics or themes that you expect presenters to discuss. You should also be sure to explain the pertinent details of the space, how to get around, the schedule of events, and any other important details. Your script should be approximately 1,000–1,500 words for a 10-minute presentation.
Items you might consider include:
Friendly introduction
Topic introduction
Schedule
Map/orientation
Thanks for coming
Remarks on the topic
Part 4: Practice Delivering Your Remarks: Your opening remarks should be brief, about 10 minutes. Record yourself giving the presentation as you would deliver it to attendees, complete with supporting visuals. Once you have completed this part, review your presentation and complete the Opening Remarks Reflection document in the Deliverables section to help identify areas of improvement.
What to Submit
Every project has a deliverable or deliverables, which are the files that must be submitted before your project can be assessed. For this project, you must submit the following:
Recorded Opening Remarks
Create a brief video recording of your opening remarks (1,000-1,500 words), welcoming attendees and explaining the schedule of events and other important information.
Opening Remarks Reflection
Reflect on your written remarks, and complete a brief questionnaire about ways to improve. This document also has questions about potential changes that could be made, depending on your audience and topic.
Supporting Materials
The following resource(s) may help support your work on the project:
Citation Help
Need help citing your sources? Use the CfA Citation Guide and Citation Maker.
Conference Floor Plan
This map of the conference hall will show you where the different meeting rooms are, as well as other facilities. Use this document as a starting point for detailing the organization of the conference to your audience.
Proposed Schedules
These proposed schedules can provide you with information about the conference sessions, but they can be adapted or changed to fit your topic and conference type. Use this document as a starting point when drafting your remarks.
Reading: Academic Conferences 101: What They Are, Why Go, How to Present and How to Pay for It All
In this article from the APA, you can learn what academic conferences are and how they benefit attendees.
Reading: Organising Academic Conferences
This guide provides information on several aspects of planning an academic conference.
Reading: Your Complete Guide to Academic Conferences
This resource provides a great overview of academic conferences, including the different types of sessions that can be offered at a conference and reasons people choose to attend.
Reading: What is a Conference?
Review this resource, which is particularly useful for those who have never attended a conference. It compares different types of conferences and discusses their formats.
Reading: Cons for Pros—and Fans
This Shapiro Library article looks at the ways a professional conference can benefit a wider audience.
Reading: Trade Show Participation
In this Shapiro Library article, you can learn more about trade shows and the purpose they serve.
Reading: The Pros of Cons
This Shapiro Library article details the basic format of a fan convention. Though written to provide librarians with information for how a convention can help them, it applies widely to any reader looking for more details on the structure of a con.
Reading: Video Guide
Review the tutorials and resources in this document if you need help with the audio and video components of this project.
