Guidelines for Speakers and Chairs
BSHS
Guidelines for Speakers
Length of presentation
When preparing your presentation, please keep in mind the time you have been allotted. For stand-alone papers or papers in an organised panel, this will normally include both presentation time and the time for questions and discussions.
Please resist the temptation to exceed your allotted time or to abuse the patience of the audience by speaking or reading your presentation very fast in an attempt to fit in more material. BSHS conferences attract an international audience and very fast speech is an obstacle to communication between delegates with different first languages. A short presentation, which leaves more than the expected amount of time for questions and discussion, is preferable to one that has to be cut short in the middle without any questions at all.
Printing
We are unable to guarantee that printing facilities will be available to delegates at the conference venue. If they are, we will normally inform delegates of this fact in advance, via the conference website. If you need a printed copy of your paper or notes in order to present, we recommend that you produce them in advance and bring them with you.
Slideshow presentations
Most presenters at BSHS conferences use slideware software for their presentation, and all presentation rooms will be equipped with laptops or PCs connected to projectors to facilitate this. Powerpoint is the most widely used software, and the most widely supported at conference venues. We recommend therefore, that delegates use Powerpoint or a fully compatible open source equivalent to produce their presentations. We cannot guarantee that slideshows that rely on the installation of other software or continuous internet access throughout the delivery will be supported.
Please do not assume that you will be able to beam your slideshow directly from your own laptop. Connecting and disconnecting laptops can cause delay and inconvenience to other speakers, and reduce the amount of time available for presenting in your session. You should therefore bring your slideshow to the conference on a memory stick and, ideally, have a backup copy available on a cloud server or in an email account.
On the day of the presentation, you should arrive at the room you are speaking in before the start of the session. If at all possible, load your presentation onto the room’s laptop or PC before it starts.
Distressing content
BSHS supports the efforts of HSTM scholars to engage fearlessly with the past, without attempting to sanitize it. Many topics in HSTM concern historical injustices and tragedies that it is the responsibility of historians to understand and confront. Examples include the development and use of technologies of violence; experimentation on human subjects; pathologisation of bodily difference; and discredited theories of race, sexuality, and gender, and the policies and behaviours those theories have supported. Please bear in mind, however, that audience members may find images, texts, and even individual words relating to these subjects distressing. If you believe that anything in your presentation may be a cause of such distress, then please indicate this at the start of your presentation. If your historical sources use offensive language – for example, racial slurs – it is best to avoid speaking this language yourself, especially if you are not a member of the historically-targeted group. You might instead present the text on a slide, so that the audience can see it without hearing you repeat it; you might choose to censor the offensive terms by partly obscuring them, without fully concealing what was said or written.
In short, if your material is shocking, please warn the audience; do not set out to use your material to shock the audience yourself.
On the day of your presentation
If possible, arrive at the room in which you will be speaking some time before the start of the session, both in order to load your slideshow presentation onto the room’s laptop or PC, and in order to introduce yourself to the chair of your session and discuss any requirements that you have for the session with them and the other speakers.
Photography and social media
If you would prefer that audience members not take photographs or videos during your presentation, and/or that they not tweet any of your remarks, please include this information on your first slide and tell the chair of your session when you meet them.
Responding to questions and comments
Both comments and questions are legitimate forms of engagement at BSHS conferences, and are usually friendly, collegial, and a sincere response to your intellectually-stimulating presentation. However, both questions and comments can sometimes be or seem to be hostile and/or self-serving on the part of the questioner or commentator. Do not feel obliged to respond if you find yourself in this situation. A simple ‘thank you for your comment’ or ‘thank you for your question; I don’t think I can answer it now’ is sufficient. The chair of your session will try to ensure that a hostile or self-indulgent questioner/commentator gets no more than one attempt to misbehave, and your disarming reaction will signal to your chair that you would like to move on.
Programme changes, failure to book, and dropping out
The BSHS will endeavour to produce a draft of the conference programme by the time that booking opens, so that delegates can plan their travel and accommodation needs, but any such programme is provisional before booking closes. We will endeavour to accommodate reasonable requests for changes to the programme until the conference opens, but since all changes have consequences for other delegates, we may not be able to adjust the programme simply in order to accommodate a speaker preference.
Unless papers have been approved by the BSHS for remote presentation, it is a requirement of inclusion that at least one author books a place at the conference in order to present it in person. If no booking has been made by the advertised deadline, the BSHS reserves the right to withdraw the paper from the programme. Conversely, if you find yourself unable to attend the conference and need to withdraw your contribution, you should inform the following individuals as soon as you can:
(i) the BSHS Programmes Coordinator [insert email address] (if your paper has been accepted, but you have not yet booked a place at the conference]
(ii) the BSHS Programmes Coordinator [insert email address] and the BSHS Executive Secretary (office@bshs.org.uk) (if your paper has been accepted and you have booked a place at the conference)
(iii) the organiser(s) of your symposium, if you were scheduled to participate in an organised panel, roundtable discussion, workshop, or other session.
Become a Member
Join the BSHS, gain access to our publications, events and grants and help us support the history of science.
BSHS
Guidelines for Chairs
At BSHS Annual Conferences, Chairs of sessions play an important role in helping to ensure that each conference session runs smoothly and to time, and that it is a productive and positive experience for all participants, in line with the values and aims of the BSHS.
In summary, your role as Chair is to: (i) introduce the speakers, and ensure that they have an equal opportunity to present their work (ii) ensure that the speakers’ requests regarding photography and tweeting of their presentation are respected (iii) manage the Q&A or discussion portion of the session, and ensure that all participants are treated respectfully and equitably (iv) make any announcements requested by the BSHS (v) inform the conference desk and/or AV support of any technical problems as soon as possible.
In advance of the session
Please arrive at the session room several minutes before the session starts, in order to meet with your speakers, check that they have loaded their slide presentations (if any) onto the room laptop or PC, and confirm with them (i) how they would like to be introduced (ii) whether they have any special requirements or requests, e.g. a request that photographs of their slides not be taken during their presentation.
The room should contain (i) a set of ‘traffic light’ cards for use during the speaker’s presentations (ii) guidance on the projection equipment and how to report any technical problems.
At the start of the session
Please identify yourself at the start of the session, identify the session by its title, and announce any unavoidable changes to the advertised schedule for the session (due, for example, to the absence of a speaker) or special features of the session. These may include if, in an organised panel, questions will be taken after each speaker or at the end of the session or both, and how long, in a roundtable discussion, each panellist has been asked to speak for.
Introducing the speakers
Please check with the speakers how they wish to be introduced, but also try to make sure that your introductions are equitable: if you introduce one speaker by title, name, and institution, you should probably introduce all speakers that way. Do try to keep your introductions brief.
During the speakers’ presentations
In a standard session, or an organised panel, your most important job during the presentations is to keep each speaker to the time allotted to them. Please use the ‘traffic light’ cards supplied for this purpose. You may also need to act if (i) the session suffers from any kind of disruption or technical difficult that affects the ability of the speakers to present or (ii) it becomes apparent that speakers’ wishes regarding photography and social media reporting are not being respected.
Questions, comments, and discussion
As Chair, your job is also to manage the question and discussion period. When this happens will depend upon the type of session you are chairing and what has been decided and advertised in advance. In a standard session, time for questions will be included in the time available to each speaker. Please do not deviate from this format; it inconviences delegates who, for whatever reason, need to leave or arrive after the session has started. In an organised panel, it may have been decided when the panel was proposed to have questions and discussion after each paper, or reserve these until the end.
As indicated in the Guidance to Speakers, both questions and comments are legitimate forms of response to a paper delivered in a standard session or organised panel, but speakers are not obliged to engage with hostile or self-indulgent questions or comments. As Chair, please take note if your speakers’ responses indicate that they wish to move on. You may wish to instruct the audience that there is no automatic right to a follow-up question or comment, and so participants should ask their most pressing question first; whether or not a second question or comment is possible will depend on how many other participants have things they wish to say.
In selecting questioners, please strive to be equitable: avoid favouring one part of the room over others, because it falls more directly within your visual field; avoid favouring scholars you recognise over those you don’t; avoid favouring senior scholars over junior ones; avoid favouring scholars of one gender, race, or ethnicity more than scholars of another. Please resist any temptation, if it occurs, to answer questions on behalf of a speaker. It is not the Chair’s prerogative to ask the first question, but you may wish to be ready with a question or comment if (i) the audience is slow to start asking questions or (ii) the discussion favours one or more presenters in an organised panel or roundtable at the expense of others.
At the end of the session
Sessions do sometimes overrun due to the enthusiasm of their participants, but please ensure that the session ends as soon as possible after its scheduled close, so that delegates can benefit from the break and/or refreshments, and the room is available for the next scheduled event. If you have been asked by the BSHS to make an announcement at the end of the session, please do it after you have asked the audience to thank the speakers.
Please ensure that the ‘traffic light’ cards and equipment instructions are left in place for the Chair of the next session.
If you have any concerns about anything that happened during the session, please bring them to the attention of the conference officer at the BSHS Conference Desk at the earliest possible opportunity.