This info is for all parallel session presenters at CUNY 2021. Below are instructions about your presentation, to help you get ready.

1. Please check the conference website schedule to confirm your presentation date, time, and session. The parallel sessions pages on the conference website list the presenters for each session here:

link to Thursday parallel schedule

link to Friday morning parallel schedule

link to Friday evening parallel schedule

link to Saturday parallel schedule

2. Each parallel session will be run via a regular Zoom connection (not the Main Session Zoom Webinar connection). This means that you as speaker will be joining a particular Zoom link on the conference website in the same way as attendees. The links to each parallel session will be posted soon, and you will be able to access them.   

3. Each Zoom session will be hosted by a session Chair, who is in almost all cases a Penn graduate student or postdoc in psycholinguistics. If you have any questions or concerns about your session, please contact me (jmarcus@upenn.edu) and I will connect you with your session chair.  

4.  Here is how each session will work:

A. As a presenter, you should join the zoom session 5-8 minutes prior to your session start. If the session chair is not there, you will be placed in a waiting room. (Note: some session chairs will be doing two sessions in a row, and may only arrive 5 minutes prior to the start of your session).     

B.  You, as a presenter, will be given permission to screen share. The session chair will begin the session by giving an introduction to the session format and guidelines. Please see point 5 below for what this will be.     

C.  During the first ~30 minutes of the session, each presenter will present for 5 minutes. If you have two talks in a session, you may give one 10-minute talk, or two separate talks. All attendees will be instructed to remain muted during the presentations. It is crucial that you stick to your allotted time.     

D.  During the presentation, attendees (including yourself) may directly message the session chair with questions over chat. The session chair will gather these questions for the ~25-minute discussion to follow. Please ask questions of your fellow presenters!     

E.  The session chair will call on attendees to unmute and ask their question.   At each parallel session, the session chair will call on individual presenters in the recommended order listed on the conference website. Each presentation has been allotted 5 minutes; please make sure to keep your chat window open during the parallel session, because the session chair will send ‘time remaining’ warnings to you via private chat. We do need to be diligent about the time limit for each presentation, so that there is also time for Q&A after the presentations. At the 5-minute mark, the session chair will stop your presentation. If you are presenting a second paper at the same session, the clock will restart for your second presentation.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Jessica Marcus, at jmarcus@upenn.edu.

5.  Here is essentially what your session chair will say to begin your session. This will give you a good sense of how each session will proceed.  

“Hello! Welcome to Parallel Session <number here>. My name is <name here> and I will be chairing this session and serving as the Zoom meeting host. I have a few announcements before we get started to make sure the session runs smoothly.

The session will begin with our presenters each having five minutes to present. After that, the presenters will answer questions from you, the audience. You will need to submit your questions via chat; please be aware that you can only send chat messages to me. You can send your questions as the talks are ongoing. Make sure you indicate who your question is for. I’ll collect these questions and when the talks are over I’ll select questions to be asked. If I select your question, I’ll announce that you have a question and will send you permission to unmute. Then you can ask your question aloud. If you would rather I read your question, please just indicate this when you first submit your question via chat.

Okay! Let’s get started! Speakers, you will each have 5 minutes. I will send a 1-minute warning to you via chat, and then jump in to stop you at 5 minutes. So please be mindful of your time, and make sure that you have the chat box opened so that you see your 1-minute warning. Our first speaker is <name here>, who will now share their screen and begin. “