An appraisal of the quality and presentation of scientific papers at the 31st annual conference of the Indian Society of Gastroenterology.
To assess the quality of papers presented at the annual conference of the Indial Society of Gastroenterology, a proforma was completed by selected assessors regarding the time taken to present the paper, the quality of the paper and other aspects of presentation. Forty-six papers were evaluated; fifteen of 38 (39%) papers took more than the prescribed time of 8 minutes; 10% were rated unsatisfactory in quality. The quality and content of slides were rated as unsatisfactory in 17% and 7% respectively. The quality and relevance of the questions asked from the floor were graded as unsatisfactory in 20% and 14% respectively. Of the responses from authors to these questions, 33% were graded as unsatisfactory. In all, 28 (61%) of 46 papers assessed were unsatisfactory on one or more counts. Thus, efforts are needed to improve the quality of papers presented and of their presentation.