How to Create a Great Academic Poster Content

Why a Poster? An abstract of your larger work Show-cases work to people in different fields Has more of your personality than a paper Interactive Great for networking

ENSC 4906 Requirements Introduction Materials and Methods Results Discussion and Conclusion Overall layout and aesthetic appeal Response to Questions

Title Grab a reader’s interest Tell them what the research is about Short and Comprehensive Make readers think “I’m interested, tell me more”

Introduction Designed to get reader interested Pitch your idea State hypothesis Answer “Why?”

Materials and Methods Quick overview Minimal detail – just major steps Answer “When?”, “Where?” and “How?”

Results Largest Section Qualitative and Quantitative Summarize data in graphs, photos etc. Don’t get stuck using just text Answer “What did you learn?”

Discussion / Conclusion Not your results May not need both Remind reader of major results Answer “Is the hypothesis supported?” Answer “Why are these findings are important?”

Other Important Stuff Future Directions – “What’s next?” Acknowledgements – “Who helped?” Citations – “Who’s work did you build on?” Disclosures – “Do you have any conflicts of interest?” Logos – “Do we need them?” Yes!

Tips for the Whole Poster No more than 500 words! Less is more Read in 5-10 minutes 50-50 text/graphic split Your poster is an abstract - don’t include one

Helpful Links A Great Tutorial: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/31071/title/Poster- Perfect/ http://research.lib.buffalo.edu/poster-presentations#DesignTips https://projects.ncsu.edu/project/posters/EffectiveAbstract.html http://colinpurrington.com/tips/poster-design http://www.sicb.org/newsletters/fa97nl/sicb/poster.html https://www.adelaide.edu.au/writingcentre/learning_guides/learningGuide_ac ademicPosters.pdf A Great Tutorial: http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ld/resources/pres entations/designing-poster/designing-poster My favourite: http://betterposters.blogspot.ca/

Papers Erren, T.C. and P.E. Bourne. 2007. Ten simple rules for good poster presentation. PLoS Computational Biology. 3(5), 0777-0778. Miller, J. 2007. Preparing and presenting effective research posters. Health Research and Educational Trust and more....

How to Create a Great Academic Poster Past Posters

Tips from the Presenters Lots of visuals with minimal text Use extra visuals if possible Ie. Video! Put in a logical manner Balance of colour Divide sections with boxes or lines Put Carleton logos and contributing bodies If you have to strain at graphs, too small Grayscale may be needed in graphs and tables