Hi everyone. Just asking people's opinions. Between oral and poster presentations, which would you prefer? A few conferences in the past, hardly anyone asked me anything during poster presentation, but then again there were so many posters. The last conference in June last year, I did an oral presentation in a broad-area conference. Hardly anyone asked me anything, I also wondered if anyone was listening because my slot was just after lunch, people could have been sleepy after food and heat etc.

I am thinking which one to go for (the next conference), oral presentation or make a poster. Any ideas to share?
thanks satchi

Personally, i prefer giving oral presentations.  I find it a more effective way of getting across the key 'messages' of my research.

It often depends on the material/content too.  Say, if it is a biggish conference where the talks are expected to be more polished accounts with lots of data and analysis and all you have is some preliminary data, a poster might be more appropriate. If it is a small scale conference where they are looking for talks about works in progress, do a talk.

I have been to many poster sessions where i spend 5 minutes looking at a poster and not taking a single piece of info away from it.  I find myself just staring at them getting really bored, even at the well designed ones. So for me, if i can get away with giving a talk, i'd prefer to give a talk.

Yes, I agree with Sim. Oral presentations are much more effective at getting your message across, but also to increase your professional visibility. It is so much easier to take in well presented information via an oral presentation and I agree poster presentations can be a waste of time unless you are willing to engage with people one-to-one (or small group) for the whole poster presentation slot..

hi thanks for your responses :-)

a friend also told me he always takes poster presentations because he finds them less stressful and he can always go sight-seeing after!

I dont think I can cope with an oral presentation now, what with questions being asked *sigh*
I think I will go with a poster presentation instead. I also don't have concrete results yet... I just have bits here and there, I guess poster will have to do for now...

thanks again for sharing

most people will not ask horrible questions unless they are trying to show off, at least that is my opinion. If they do something like that, just say something like 'that is a point I have yet to consider, but will do so in the future, thank you for your contribution'. (Then you can mentally add NOW GO AWAY- but of course don't ever put that bit into words!):$

thanks joyce will keep that in mind!!! (up)