1. M AKING A S CIENTIFIC P OSTER Dr. Bethany Cummings, DVM, PhD Former STAR Student bpcummings@ucdavis.edu

2. G ETTING S TARTED 1 power point slide Set the dimensions of the slide Check that these dimensions will work for the poster printer that you will be using

3. T HINGS TO K EEP IN M IND Avoid using too much text Use bullet points rather than paragraphs of text Use figures, tables and flow charts to help explain methods and important concepts rather than text. Use graphics and color Use large font and make figures large!

4. D ESIGNING Y OUR L AYOUT Create text boxes to delineate the sections of your poster: Title Intro Methods Results Conclusions References Support Consider how much you want/have to put in each section.

5. Title Authors Affiliations Abstract/Intro Methods Results Conclusions References and Support Study Design/Methods

6. INTRODUCTION Introduce the big picture and the basic concepts necessary to understand the research. Remember that you are presenting to a broad audience with a wide range of expertise, which may or may not coincide with your project. Pictures!

7. METHODS Keep this as simple as possible Remember that this portion is key if people are going to understand your results Consider using a table to outline study groups Flow charts and diagrams are often very effective methods to explain procedures that you used.

8. RESULTS Try to make each figure simple and easy to understand without having to reference other portions of the poster. Keep figures big and visible from a distance! Figure legends: Include a short (1 sentence) description summarizing the data for each set of figures. Identify individual figure panels with letters for reference in the legend. Identify significant differences with symbols and include a definition of the level of significance indicated by the symbol and statistical analysis used.

9. C ONCLUSIONS Keep this short and in bullet points. Briefly describe the important outcomes of the study. If the study is ongoing you may want to include future directions.