Scientific Poster- HCR 593
Module 12: Scientific Poster
Posters are a special type of presentation. When well designed, they are not simply journal papers pasted onto boards. Nor are they mounted sets of presentation slides. Rather, posters, when effectively designed, are something in between. Research posters summarize information or research concisely and attractively to help publicize it and generate discussion.
For a poster to communicate the work, the poster first has to orient an audience that is not seated, but that is standing. Often the audience has distractions of noise and movement from other people. Given those distractions, a journal article tacked onto a board fails as an effective poster because the audience cannot concentrate for a time long enough to read through the paper. In fact, given the distractions that the audience faces, many in the audience will not even bother trying to read a journal article tacked onto a board. The poster is usually a mixture of a brief text mixed with tables, graphs, pictures, and other presentation formats.
PowerPoint Presentation:
Poster Format
1. First, the title of an effective poster should quickly orient the audience.
Here are some guidelines for poster titles:
1. Make the title the most prominent block of text on the poster (either center or left justify at the top).
2. Do not typeset the title in all capital letters (such text is difficult to read).
3. Use small words such as of, from, with, to, the, a, an, and and to separate details in the title.
While phrase titles are most common, some researchers effectively use sentence titles for posters that present one main result. In such titles, state the result in the title and capitalize the words as you would in a sentence. Because the sentence title is a stand-alone, as opposed to being part of a paragraph, the period is generally dropped.
2. Second, the poster should quickly orient the audience to the subject and purpose
One good test is whether the audience recognizes the subject and purpose within 20 seconds of seeing the poster. Usually, a poster accomplishes this goal with a well-crafted title and with supporting images. Also, make sure that the type is large enough to be read and that enough contrast exist between the color of the type and poster’s background.
3. Third, the specific sections such as the results should be easy to locate on the poster
Once readers recognize what the work is, they decide how much energy to invest into the poster. For instance, many will read only the motivation for the work, the objectives (or goals) of the work, and then the final results. Others, who have a deep interest in the topic, will try to read the poster from beginning to end. Given these different approaches to reading posters, another characteristic of an effective poster is that specific sections are easy to locate.
4. Fourth, you should design the individual sections of a poster so that they can be quickly read.
Given the distractions that occur while reading posters in a symposium, the poster should not contain large blocks of text. Neither should the poster contain long sentences. If possible, the sections should rely on images: photographs, drawings, and graphs.
5. What software can I use to make a poster? Usually MS PowerPoint
Note:
- Template choice is up to you
- Single slide to contain your work
- These are not to be printed – strictly digital for submission
A sample of a well designed poster
A sample of a poorly designed poster
- Posters rarely need an abstract
- Text is dissolving into background
- Graphs are too small and too many
- Captions not aligned with image
- Too much wording – crammed into space
Resources:
A sample template that you can modify.
