Poster PresentationsEffective

Presentation outline

• Why research posters?• Visual communication tools• Critique• Details about poster format and design• Helpful links

Why give Scientific Posters?

• To serve as a basis for structured communication

• To convey findings in scientific research

• To share ideas with colleagues

• To get criticism and constructive input to the project

• To serve as an alternative to longer oral presentations

• To learn how to organize and effectively present research data

An effective poster- visual communications tool

Why poster presentation?• a source of information• a conversation starter• a summary of your work•an advertisement of your work

Features of effective poster

focused on single message

a picture is worth a thousand words

well organized

Focused

Graphics

Organized

Know your audience

Most audiences includes people in • same field of specialization • closely related field • unrelated fields(Woolsey 1989)

Adapted from Hess, G.R., Tosney K., and Liegel L., (2010). Creating Effective Poster Presentations. http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters

Not a standard research paper stuck to the board

• Explain why your work is important • Describe the objective(s) of your work • Briefly explain the methods • Succinctly state results, conclusions, and recommendations •Include Main Reference(s)

• http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/NewSite/examples/GeneFlowInLions/

Two Types of Posters

Largedocument printed

on a special printer

Banner-style title

Multiple Panel Poster - which can be mounted on colorful poster board

One Sheet Poster

or a …

Effective posters share the following traits:

• Viewer-friendly style with large (not small) typeface & informative subheadings

• Use pictures, drawing and cartoons to present the majority of the information

• Small offerings of information vs. long paragraphs of text (bullets not sentences)

• Logical and orderly progression of presentation of information

• Summary statement(s) of key aspects • Easily understood language without jargon or

undefined acronyms

Is there a standard format?• Title, telling others the title of the project, the people

involved and their affiliation.

• Introduction that should include clear statements about the problem that you are trying to solve, the characteristics that you are trying to discover or the proofs that you are trying to establish. These should then lead to declarations of project aims and objectives.

• Theory or Methodology section that explains the basis of the technique that you are using or the procedure that you have adopted in your study. You should also state and justify any assumptions, so that your results could be viewed in the proper context.

• Results section that you use to show illustrative examples of the main results of the work.

• Conclusion section, listing the main findings of your investigation.

• Further Work section that should contain your recommendations and thoughts about how the work could be progressed; other tests that could be applied, etc.

In Summary

• Tell viewers ... • the context of your problem and why it is

important (Introduction), • your objective and what you did (Objective &

Methods), • what you discovered (Results), and • what the answer means in terms of the

context (Discussion).

• Minimize text - use images and graphs instead.

• Keep text elements to 50 words or fewer.

• Use phrases rather than full sentences.

• Use an active voice.

• Avoid jargon (depends somewhat on audience).

• Left-justify text; avoid centering and right-justifying text.

• Use a serif font (e.g., Times) for most text - easier to read. Sans-serif font (e.g., Helvetica) OK for titles and headings

Text sizes

Title: 85 point

Authors: 56pt

Sub-headings: 36pt

Body text: 24pt

Captions: 18pt

Stay focus on your message and keep it simple!

Selected resources

• http://www.tc.umn.edu/~schne006/tutorials/poster_design/

• http://www.postersw.com/