Speaker Resources | DrupalCon Pittsburgh 2023

Follow these guidelines to make your session description shine and find the right attendees for your session. 

• Body font is not all bold.

• Title is clear and direct. A potential attendee can understand the general idea without reading the session description.

• Title is 65 characters or less.

• Title has been entered in sentence-case. Avoid: "The First Drupal 8 Release Candidate Is Here." Embrace: "The first Drupal 8 release candidate is here." (Do capitalize the first word after a colon, such as “Diversity and inclusion: Building a stronger Drupal community.”).

• Title punctuation: 

  • Use an en dash (-) to show a hyphen and use an em dash (—) for emphasis but without space on either side. Examples: “Story City—An interactive, rich media map case study” and “A new process for building user-centered websites”.

  • Don’t use more than one exclamation mark.

  • Don’t put a period at the end of your title.

  • Don’t insert a hyphen if it’s typically not used to join two words; incorrect: “How to re-format a page”.

  • Insert one space (not two) after a colon.

  • Don’t insert spaces after a slash. Correct: “How to organize a DrupalCamp/Meetup”.

• Title does not include characters such as emojis or arrows.

• Description includes a 2-3 sentence introductory paragraph that explains the fundamental “why,” then is expanded with a detailed descriptive paragraph.

• Three learning objectives are listed, state the desired outcome, and finish the sentence “At the end of this session, attendees will be able to…” Action verbs (“apply,” “perform,” “develop,” etc.) rather than “learn” or “understand” have been used. 

• Target audience is specific about the type of person who will get the most out of your session and finish the sentence “This session is for…” (Stating “anyone” is not helpful to reviewers or attendees.

• Prerequisites explain what knowledge or experience you assume an attendee will have when coming into your session and finish the sentence “Attendees will get the most out of this session by being familiar with…” (Stating “none” is not generally helpful to reviewers or attendees.).

• Language is plain, clear, concise, and inclusive.

• Jargon has been avoided or defined.

• Acronyms have been spelled out. Choose common Drupal acronyms such as: CWG, JSS, UI, DevOps, SQL, CMS... but avoid those originating from outside of the digital world (NATO, FDIC, EOD), and try to avoid ‘text speak’ (IMHO, IRL, BRB).

• Session content does not shame competitors, tools, communities, etc.

• Content considers the expertise of diverse participants.

• Panel composition is intersectional.