Making posters
In poster sessions, students and researchers try to convey their research to an audience walking through a busy hall. To reach and engage that audience, posters should be eye-catching, to the point, and easy to understand. This section is from here
How to prepare a classic scientific poster
While the status quo of scientific posters is far from perfect (see video above), academic supervisors, organizations and conference may require scientific posters in a pre-defined format. Below you will find a few tips to prepare a scientific poster that meets those expectations.
Guidelines
Basics
- Title and other required sections are present
- Complete author affiliation & contact information is included
- The poster conforms to the requirements of the conference or program where it will be presented
- Font is consistent throughout
- Spelling is correct throughout
- Grammar is correct throughout
- Acronyms are defined on first use
- Content is appropriate & relevant for audience
Design
- All text can be easily read from 4 feet away
- Flow of the poster is easy to follow
- White space used well
- Section titles are used consistently
- Images/graphics are used in place of text whenever possible
- Bullet points/lists are used in place of text whenever possible
- All images are relevant and necessary to the poster
- Charts are correct – i.e. appropriate type for data, data is correct & correctly represented
- Text color and background color are significant in contrast for easy reading
- Background color doesn’t obscure or dim text
- Images are clear, not pixilated or blurry
Content
- The “story” of the poster is clear
- The content is focused on 2-3 key points
- Title is clear & informative of the project
- Problem, or clinical question, is identified and explained
- Current evidence related to project is listed
- Objectives are stated
- Methods are described
- Results are presented
- Conclusions are stated
- Implications to practice and to other professions are presented
- References are listed
- All content is relevant and on the key points
- Content is not duplicated in text and graphics
Oral presentation
- Presenter greets people
- Presenter is able to give a concise synopsis of poster
- Presenter is able to explain all diagrams and sections
- Presenter speaks fluently – i.e. doesn’t stumble, leave sentences/thoughts hanging
- Presenter has questions to ask viewers