Presentations
How to list presentations on a CV
Group your invited talks by reach: local, regional, national and international. Harvard Medical School and UCSF go by the organization that invited you, so a national society’s meeting in your city is national. Give each talk’s year, title, type, host and place. Your school decides whether posters and abstracts go with your talks or your publications.
Updated
What counts as a presentation
Harvard Medical School’s examples include research seminars, oral abstracts, grand rounds, visiting professorships, invited lectures, plenary talks, moderating a session and serving on a panel. Stanford names grand rounds, keynote speeches and named lectureships. UCSF asks you to name the type of each presentation, such as podium, workshop or poster.
Harvard Medical School keeps these out of its presentation lists:
- Talks to lay audiences, which go under education of patients and service to the community
- Talks in formal courses and teaching of trainees, which go under teaching
- Posters and abstracts not given as a talk, which go with abstracts in the bibliography
- Organizing a meeting or course, which goes under leadership or professional societies
- Talks given by your trainees or collaborators
Local, regional, national, international
Reach matters for promotion. Harvard Medical School expects the reach of your work to broaden with rank. At Stanford, a regional reputation is required for promotion to associate professor and a national reputation for promotion to full professor.
Harvard Medical School sorts talks this way:
| Reach | What counts |
|---|---|
| Local | Talks at or arranged by Harvard and its affiliated institutions, even when the audience comes from abroad |
| Regional | Invitations from New England institutions outside Harvard and its affiliates |
| National | Invitations from US institutions outside New England, and a national organization’s meeting held near you |
| International | Invitations from organizations outside the US, an international organization’s meeting held in the US, and organizations whose annual meetings are periodically held outside North America |
For talks given while you were appointed at another school, Harvard Medical School applies the same idea around that school. Its example: for someone appointed in Philadelphia, talks in Pennsylvania, New Jersey or Delaware, outside their own institution, count as regional.
Stanford treats regional as outside Stanford’s university, health systems and affiliated sites, and within 200 miles of your assigned location. UCSF keeps three lists: international, national, and regional and other invited presentations. A talk goes by the organization that invited you, whatever the meeting’s location, and grand rounds go under regional and other.
Posters, abstracts and oral abstracts
- Harvard Medical School lists a talk given from a selected abstract with your invited presentations, labeled (selected oral abstract), or grouped apart under each reach.
- When a co-author gave that talk, Harvard Medical School lists the abstract in the bibliography, noted as a selected oral abstract presented by that co-author.
- Harvard Medical School lists posters and abstracts from the last 3 years in the bibliography, unless they have become full papers.
- UCSF lists a poster with your invited presentations only if you presented it. Other posters go to conference abstracts.
- Stanford lists an abstract that was also a poster or a talk in one place only.
- AAMC’s CV template keeps oral presentations and poster presentations under separate headings, each split into national or international and local or regional meetings.
How to write each entry
- Harvard Medical School lists talks by year, oldest first, within each reach. AAMC’s template lists them newest first.
- Give the year, the title and the type of talk, then the host and the place. UCSF asks for the year, the organization and your role.
- Stanford asks for the city and state or country of each talk, even when it seems obvious.
- Harvard Medical School asks you to name an outside sponsor, such as a company that funds a talk at an academic medical center, in parentheses after the course name. Each list opens with one of two lines: that no talk below had an outside sponsor, or that the sponsored talks below name their sponsors.
- AAMC’s template marks invited talks with an asterisk or another explained mark.
An example
Ada Lane is an assistant professor of medicine. Her presentations are grouped the way Harvard Medical School asks: local invited presentations, then regional, national and international ones.
| Reach | Year | Title and type | Host and place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local | 2024 | Sepsis care in small hospitals / Grand rounds | Department of Medicine, Alder Valley Medical Center |
| Regional | 2023 | Early warning scores on the ward / Invited lecture | Alder Valley Hospital Association, Sacramento, CA |
| National | 2025 | Time to antibiotics after triage / Panel discussion | Society of Fellowship Programs Annual Meeting, Denver, CO |
Build it in ScienceDex
Pick the section. Talks go in Local invited presentations or in Regional, national and international presentations. Each prints under your format’s heading.
Set the scope. In Regional, national and international presentations, each talk needs its Scope, which is its reach: regional, national or international, by your school’s rules.
Fill in the talk. In the AAMC format, write the type after the title, as in “Sepsis care in small hospitals / Grand rounds”, put the host and its city in Host, and add the Date. The line prints the date, the title, the host and the scope. The Harvard Medical School format adds a field for the sponsor, and for regional, national and international talks, the location and a Selected oral abstract box.
Keep posters with abstracts. Posters and abstracts without a talk go in your Bibliography: set the entry’s Bibliography section to Abstracts, poster presentations, and exhibits. In the Export center, Abstracts and posters can leave them out of a file.
See your reach. In Analytics, Invited talks by reach shows your invited presentations by the reach of the host, over time.
Faculty privacy sets out who can open your CV.
Questions
Do posters go on a CV?
Yes. Where they go depends on your school. UCSF lists a poster you presented with your invited presentations and other posters under conference abstracts. Harvard Medical School lists posters not given as a talk in the bibliography, for the last 3 years. Stanford lists each abstract in one place only.
Is a national meeting in my own city a national presentation?
At Harvard Medical School and UCSF, yes, when the national organization invited you. Both go by who invited you, whatever the meeting’s location. Stanford defines regional by distance: outside Stanford and within 200 miles of your assigned location.
Where do grand rounds go on a CV?
Grand rounds at or arranged by your own institution are local at Harvard Medical School. Grand rounds elsewhere take the reach of the host. UCSF lists grand rounds under regional and other invited presentations, and Stanford lists them with invited presentations.
Should I list talks my trainees gave?
Harvard Medical School leaves talks delivered by trainees or collaborators off the presentation lists. When a co-author presented your selected abstract, it goes in the bibliography, noted as presented by that co-author.
Sources
- General Instructions for Preparation of the Faculty of Medicine Curriculum Vitae Harvard Medical School. Read .
- CV Guidelines for Appointments, Reappointments, and Promotions Stanford Medicine. Read .
- Introduction to Criteria for a Reputation Beyond the Local Area (Regional or National) Stanford Medicine. Read .
- The UCSF CV in the Advance Application UCSF Faculty Academic Affairs. Read .
- Create My CV AAMC. Read .