Effective Poster Presentations

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Effective Poster Presentations

• Jennifer Hester
• Acknowledgements Some of this material is
  adapted from the work of Dr. Stephen Hutchinson

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Session aims

• Consider strategies for producing and presenting
  effective academic posters
• Content and context of posters
• Presenting your poster

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Whats the point of a poster?

• Discussion
• What actually is an academic poster?
• Why do we use them?
• When do we use them?
• Who looks at them?

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The point of a poster

• The middle ground between writing a paper and
  presenting your findings orally
• Powerful medium of communication
• Oral, written and design skills
• Language skills and social skills

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What makes an effective poster?

• Task one- recall a research poster that youve
  seen
• Why does it stick in your mind? (good or bad)
• What do you think a good poster should have/ be?

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Planning your poster
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Limited space important message

• Task two
• What is the most important thing about the
  research that you are working on at the moment?

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The abstract

• Write a good one
• Make them interested before they get to your
  poster!
• Who is your audience?
• What knowledge can you assume?
• What is in it for them?
• Why should they bother to find your poster?

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Poster content

• Design the poster around one central question
• Answer it!
• What do you want the audience to take away from
  your poster?
• Make sure it is all relevant

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Poster content

• Dont need to repeat abstract in poster
• You can always discuss finer details

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Creating your poster
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Follow the Guidelines

• Task three- highlight key points from the
  guidelines
• Do you know exactly what you need to do?
• Is there any information missing?

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Guidelines

• What size poster board or poster?
• Below the waist is a waste of space
• Laminate or not?
• How will it be pinned up?
• When will it be on display?
• Will you always be stood next to it?

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Creating a Poster

• Components
• Layout
• Colour
• Text
• Images
• PowerPoint

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Components

• What is the story?
• Information must flow
• Title
• Introduction
• Methods
• Results/ Findings
• Discussion
• Conclusions/Summary
• References?

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Use of colour

• Over use of colour is distracting
• Some colour combinations are difficult to read
• Some colours clash
• Use a constant theme
• University corporate colours and logo
• Under fluorescent light when displayed

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Using text

• Keep text minimum
• Use punchy language
• New, exciting, innovative, ground-breaking,
  unique, novel
• Add emphasis by using bold, underlining or colour

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Using text cont.

• Use appropriate font size
• Sans serif type face
• Be consistent
• Section headings 36 point
• Supporting text 24 point

Avoid text like this!
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Using images

• Posters show, not tell
• Attractive to look at
• Match visuals with relevant text
• Use high quality pictures

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My tips for PowerPoint

• Use gridlines
• Lock aspect ratio of images
• Dont use full stops

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Task four

• Create a poster that explains
• Effective poster presentation

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Other issues

• Save your work
• Computers crash
• Leave enough time to get posters printed
• and returned to you!
• Check it
• Airlines lose posters etc

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Presenting your poster

• Are you enthusiastic?
• Are you clear in your main message?
• Are the audience taking home what you want them
  to?
• Do you have contact details?
• A4 copies of your poster?

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Task 5

• In pairs present your posters to one another
• Assume they havent been in this session!
• 3- 5mins tops
• What is your main message?
• Be enthusiastic!

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5 Key Rules

• Remember 5 minutes from 5 feet!
• Follow the guidelines
• Keep it simple
• Use punchy language
• abstract and poster
• Use images
• What is the main message?

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Further support

• Block, S.M. (1996) Dos and donts of poster
  presentation.
• Biophysical Journal, 71 pp.3527-3529.
• Huddle, P.A. (2000) How to present a paper or
• poster. Journal of chemical education, 77 (9)
  pp.1152- 1153.
• Tosney, K. How to create a poster that
  graphically communicates your message Internet,
  University of Michigan. Available from
  lthttp//www.biology.lsa.umich.edu/research/labs/kt
  osney/file/Poste
• sHome.htmlgt Accessed 9 July 2007