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Accepted Oral Presentation Guidelines

Congratulations on having your abstract accepted for a presentation at the 113th AAVSO Annual Meeting!

On this page, you will find information about deadlines, as well as digital format requirements and advice for preparing your slide deck. Please review these instructions carefully. If you have any questions, please contact Lauren Herrington (lherrington@aavso.org).

Instructions

  1. Register for the Annual Meeting before September 27, 2024. (Deadline passed)
    • You can also book your stay at the AAVSO group rate while there's room! (Deadline: October 17, 2024). (Deadline passed)
       
  2. Create your slide deck.
    • You will have 15 minutes for your presentation (plus another 5 at the end for Q&A), so using the classic “2 minute rule”, 7 slides is a good target.
    • For technical reasons, please use a 16:9 ("widescreen") aspect ratio. If necessary, you can pad a 4:3 slide deck to 16:9 using the "Slide size" option under the "Design" tab in PowerPoint. Here's a tutorial.
    • For reference: Instead of a traditional projector, this year's venue features large digital display screens at the front of the room. Your slides will be shown on these display screens.
       
  3. Save your slide deck as PowerPoint format (.pptx).
    • Make sure to export your slide deck as PowerPoint format, .pptx. We will not be able to accept any other formats, such as PDFs, Keynote presentations, etc.
    • Double-check that your slide deck uses a 16:9 aspect ratio.
    • In-person presenters, please use the filename format "[Your last name]_inperson24.pptx".
    • Remote presenters, please use the filename format "[Your last name]_remote24.pptx".
       
  4. Email your final slide deck to Lauren Herrington (lherrington@aavso.org).
    • Please use the filename as your email's subject line, and include your name in the body of the email.
    • The deadline is October 28 @ 11:59 p.m. ET.
       
  5. Email an audio-inclusive version of your presentation to Lauren Herrington (lherrington@aavso.org).
    • This is required for all remote presentations, with a deadline of November 4 @ 11:59 p.m. ET.
    • This is not required for in-person presentations, but we do encourage that you consider sending a recording for us to keep on hand as a backup, just in case you need to change your plans at the last minute (e.g. due to an illness or cancelled flight).
    • An easy way to create a recording is to record yourself presenting to an empty Zoom meeting [instructions].

Please be prepared to schedule a quick A/V check with Lauren via Zoom, to ensure that all necessary tech is in working order and your slideshow appears as it should.

AAVSO Guide for Presenters

New this year: We have updated the AAVSO Guide for Presenters.

The AAVSO Guide for Presenters contains tips for giving a compelling, memorable presentation, based on many years of watching talks at the Annual Meetings and observing what works (and what doesn't). Please consult the guide for advice on slide design, delivery, and more:

Conference Proceedings

You have the option of preparing a full proceedings paper for inclusion in a special "Conference Proceedings" volume—Proceedings of the 113th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Variable Star Observers.

Proceedings papers should be submitted to Joyce Guzik (joy@lanl.gov) by Monday, December 16, 2024. If you do not receive an acknowledgement of your email within a few business days, your email may have been caught by a spam filter; please send a second email without any attachments.

Conference proceedings will not be formally refereed, but will be curated and edited by guest editor Joyce Guzik and AAVSO staff. In short, they should be similar to JAAVSO manuscripts in organization, with sections roughly as follows:

  • Introduction giving motivation for the work and background
  • Methods, whether observational or theoretical
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • References in the same format as in JAAVSO: mentioned in the text as (author(s) date) and listed alphabetically at the end

Please use this downloadable .docx template as a guide for formatting:

Figures and other graphics are encouraged, but should not be much more extensive than those included in your presentation. Conference proceedings should also not include extensive data tables; those should be saved for subsequent publication in an archival journal such as the JAAVSO. Ordinarily, there will be no length limitation, although our staff will request that verbose writing be condensed.