4th Year Workshop

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# 4th Year Workshop
## Conferences and presentations
### Ian McCarthy, Emory University
### Economics PhD Professionalism Workshop

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# Presentations

Discussing and presenting your work at conferences (and just with other people) is very different than writing the paper. In these slides, we'll talk about how conferences work, and we'll talk about some best practices for presenting.

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# Conferences

So how do conferences work?

- Different submission rules/norms for different conferences
- Split into "smaller" and "larger" conferences

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# Smaller conferences

- Usually 1-2 days
- Often 30-45 minutes to present
- Submit a full draft (or close to it) for consideration
- Call for papers can be hard to find, not widely circulated - check with advisers in your field

--
**great** way to meet new people and network

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# Larger conferences

- Think AEAs or major field conferences (American Society of Health Economists, Econometric Society, etc.)
- Conference organized around "sessions", each with a few papers
- Short presentation time (10-20 minutes max)
- Call for papers usually widely circulated
- Unwritten rule: **much** better chance of acceptance if you organize an entire session or submit as part of someone else's session

--
good opportunity to strengthen existing relationships

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# The "conference circuit"

- Critical to building your network
- Critical for people to see your work
- Who do you see here? 
  - potential referees
  - potential editors
  - potential letter writers
  - potential co-authors
  
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# Seminars

- Not a concern right now...
- More informal process
- If you have a reason to go somewhere, consider initiating the invite yourself
- Great place for comments on your work and networking

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# Submitting to a conference

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**Do** use conferences/seminars for
- networking
- "pre-review"
- learning
- fun!
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**Don't** use conferences/seminars for
- creating deadlines for preliminary work
- publicly criticizing others' work
- free booze
]

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# Presenting

OK - so you've made it into a conference or seminar of some kind. Now you need to present your paper. This can be a little scary...

<br>
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  ![](https://media.giphy.com/media/4hg2NN9Nj4CTqAA3xn/giphy.gif)
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# Presenting: Introduction

Some [rules](https://www.brown.edu/Research/Shapiro/pdfs/applied_micro_slides.pdf) for starting your presentation:

1. **Motivation**: Quickly convince your audience on the value of your topic

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I mean really quickly...like 1-2 slides. Use fun anecdotes and stories. You **do** enjoy this, right!?

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# Presenting: Introduction

Some rules for starting your presentation:

1. **Motivation**: Quickly convince your audience on the value of your topic
2. **Question**: Clearly state your research question

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As Jesse Shapiro writes in his rules, "research questions are motivated by economics and not by the economics literature"

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# Presenting: Introduction

Some rules for starting your presentation:

1. **Motivation**: Quickly convince your audience on the value of your topic
2. **Question**: Clearly state your research question
3. **This paper**: What do you do that's different and relevant? What are you adding?

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Again, be quick here.

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# Presenting: Introduction

Some rules for starting your presentation:

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Be specific but not too granular. Consider skipping this step for a short presentation format.

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# Presenting: Main Paper

Let's assume you killed the first 5-10 minutes. Your audience is hooked. Now...

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How to you effectively deliver the main content of your paper?

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# Presenting: Main Paper

Please, please, please, please...

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- Don't just recite the paper in the same order
- Use the presentation format to offer something new
- Need not be linear like a paper

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# Simple example

`$$\begin{align}
Pr(\text{Service})_{it} = &\Phi(\beta_{0} + \beta_{1} F_{it} \\
                   & + \beta_{2} Y_{t} + \beta_{3} Y_{t} \times F_{it} \\
                   & + \beta_{4} \text{FPMarket}_{it} + \beta_{5} F_{it} \times \text{FPMarket}_{it} \\
                   & + \beta_{6} Y_{t} \times F_{it} \times \text{FPMarket}_{it} + \beta_{7} H_{it}  \\
                   & + \beta_{8} D_{it} + \beta_{9} HMO_{it} + \beta_{10} HHI_{it})
\end{align}$$`

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# Simple example

`$$\begin{align}
\color{red}{Pr(\text{Service})_{it}} = &\Phi(\beta_{0} + \beta_{1} F_{it} \\
                   & + \beta_{2} Y_{t} + \beta_{3} Y_{t} \times F_{it} \\
                   & + \beta_{4} \text{FPMarket}_{it} + \beta_{5} F_{it} \times \text{FPMarket}_{it} \\
                   & + \beta_{6} Y_{t} \times F_{it} \times \text{FPMarket}_{it} + \beta_{7} H_{it}  \\
                   & + \beta_{8} D_{it} + \beta_{9} HMO_{it} + \beta_{10} HHI_{it})
\end{align}$$`

- High versus low profitable service offering
- Determined in Horwitz (2005), based on interviews, MedPAC and ProPAC reports, and literature

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# Simple example

`$$\begin{align}
Pr(\text{Service})_{it} = &\Phi(\beta_{0} + \beta_{1} \color{red}{F_{it}} \\
                   & + \beta_{2} Y_{t} + \beta_{3} Y_{t} \times F_{it} \\
                   & + \beta_{4} \text{FPMarket}_{it} + \beta_{5} F_{it} \times \text{FPMarket}_{it} \\
                   & + \beta_{6} Y_{t} \times F_{it} \times \text{FPMarket}_{it} + \beta_{7} H_{it}  \\
                   & + \beta_{8} D_{it} + \beta_{9} HMO_{it} + \beta_{10} HHI_{it})
\end{align}$$`

- Ownership type (for-profit, not-for-profit, government)

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# Simple example

`$$\begin{align}
Pr(\text{Service})_{it} = &\Phi(\beta_{0} + \beta_{1} F_{it} \\
                   & + \beta_{2} Y_{t} + \beta_{3} Y_{t} \times F_{it} \\
                   & + \beta_{4} \color{red}{\text{FPMarket}_{it}} + \beta_{5} F_{it} \times \color{red}{\text{FPMarket}_{it}} \\
                   & + \beta_{6} Y_{t} \times F_{it} \times \color{red}{\text{FPMarket}_{it}} + \beta_{7} H_{it}  \\
                   & + \beta_{8} D_{it} + \beta_{9} HMO_{it} + \beta_{10} HHI_{it})
\end{align}$$`

- Indicator for high share of patients going to for-profit hospitals ($\geq$ 15%)
- Construct share of for-profit patients using "distance-weighted" measure of hospital markets:

`$$w_{ij} = \frac{N_{j}}{\left(1+a \times d_{ij}^{2} \right)^{2}}$$`

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# Simple example

- Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (sum of square market shares)

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# Simple example

What does this example highlight:

- Discussion of data and methods simultaneously
- Much clearer than an equation first then lots of slides of content, or vice versa

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# Presentation: Results

- Show with figures whenever possible
- Do not discuss every result and every robustness check and every sensitivity analysis
- OK to discuss some of the biggest vulnerabilities and how you deal with them
- Have a final takeaway to wrap up your story

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# Presentation: Other rules

**Slide design**

- Minimalist design
- Take out superfluous Beamer stuff
- Cut out text whenever possible
- Figures and pictures much, much better than text
- See Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham's [Beamer tips](https://github.com/paulgp/beamer-tips/blob/master/slides.pdf)

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# Presentation: Other rules

**Slide content**

- People look at the slides while you talk...slides should aid your talk, not replace your presence
- They are complements, not substitutes
- Slides **are not** a stand-alone, self-contained document

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# Presentation: Other rules

- The slides are for the audience, **not you**
- Practice, practice, practice
- You really shouldn't need the slides

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# Presentation: Major no-no's

Now for some things that you absolutely should not do in a presentation...

1. "I'm running out of time, so I'll talk fast"

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Then I'll stop listening. Plan better and adjust with content, not with speed of your voice.

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# Presentation: Major no-no's

Now for some things that you absolutely should not do in a presentation...

1. "I'm running out of time, so I'll talk fast"
2. "Sorry this table is so small"

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I'm sorry I no longer care about your paper.

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# Presentation: Major no-no's

Now for some things that you absolutely should not do in a presentation...

1. "I'm running out of time, so I'll talk fast"
2. "Sorry this table is so small"
3. "I'm not sure why this is so blurry"

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It's blurry because you were lazy and just copied something from your paper into your presentation!

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# Presentation: Major no-no's

Now for some things that you absolutely should not do in a presentation...

1. "I'm running out of time, so I'll talk fast"
2. "Sorry this table is so small"
3. "I'm not sure why this is so blurry"
4. ...let me continue to argue with you over this while the rest of the audience checks twitter