Guidelines

Panel Chairs:

• Briefly introduce yourself and the panelists. You can do this at the beginning or one-at-a-time before each presenter makes his/her presentation.
• Please be brief and generous with your introductory remarks.  Remember the audience are there to hear the presenters.
• If there is no discussant may choose to make a few concise remarks expounding on the panel theme and/or the significance of the papers after all presentations are complete.  Please remember you are not the discussant.  Be kind and succinct.

Panel Timing:

• All panels are one (1) hour and 30 minutes long. Please keep a tight rein on the length of  presentations
• Allocate 60 minutes for panel presentation divided equally among all presenters.  Allocate 5 minutes for your own remarks and housekeeping business.  Give the discussant 10 minutes.  The remaining 15 minutes should be used for Q&A with the audience.
• Please be polite yet firm when enforcing time limits, passing notes to presenters to remind them of the time remaining.
• Limit the number, and control the nature, of the questions and/or remarks using your best common sense.
• Contact each panel member well before the conference to secure a current resume and the paper to be presented. Set your deadline two (2) weeks before the conference.

Moderators for Roundtables:

• Introduce all roundtable participants at the beginning.
• Have each presenter keep his or her opening remarks to 5 minutes.
• Try to balance the exchange so that no one person monopolizes the discussion.
• Be sure the audience participates as much as it seems to be appropriate.

Panel Presenters:

• Most importantly, common courtesy and professional etiquette demand that all those who are presenting papers stick to their assigned time limits?
• It is also important to provide your FINAL paper to both the chair and discussant at least two (2) weeks before your panel date.
• Of equal importance is your responsibility to send the chair a one (1) or two (2) paragraph resume, not a 20-page vitae
• Send a copy of your paper to the chair so he or she can follow along as you present.
• If you have a remote presenter using the Internet make every effort to ensure that they can both see and hear other presenters and audience participants.

Roundtable Presenters:

• Your job is to lay the groundwork for the exchange of ideas among other roundtable members and the audience.
• Please limit your opening remarks to 5 minutes -- less if you have three (3) or more presenters.
• You should also send the moderator a brief resume.

Discussants:

• As you know, the discussant’s job is to find a common thread and link the papers into a general thematic framework.ASPAC encourages professional respect for, and collegial behavior toward, all our fellow conference attendees. Biting criticism and commentary is inappropriate and strongly discouraged.
• The discussant’s role is secondary to the presenters’; limit your remarks to 10 minutes or less.
• You too should send a brief resume to your panel chair so he/she can introduce you.

Audience: 

• Members of the audience have a responsibility too!  Courtesy and good manners should be your guiding principles.Please do not interrupt the chair, presenters, or discussants while they are speaking. There will be time at the end to ask questions or make comments.
• When you ask questions or make remarks, be brief and to the point. There are others who wish to ask questions too
• Make your question relevant!
• Real colleagues support each other by attending panels, not sightseeing or hanging around the registration desk. You expect people to come to your panel and you should attend theirs.

[Adapted from a proposal by Bill Head, Program Chair, 2003 meeting of the Southeast Conference of  AAS]