Powerpoint template for scientific posters Swarthmore College

1
Title Title Title Title Title (This is your
thesis) Your name here
Conclusions Tell me about the quality of the
water in the lake based upon your observations.
Be sure to refer to specifics from your results
to tell me why you have come to your
conclusions. You should attempt to tell me what
may be responsible for the present quality of the
lake. Are there specific contributing
factors? You can, of course, start your
conclusions in column three if your results
section is data light.

Introduction In this section, you give a brief
overview of what you did. Make sure to clearly
state the intended goal of the work you did. In
the scientific method, this would be the
statement of hypothesis with a bit of background
about why you are interested. In short, why
should the casual observer be interested in what
you are doing. Remember, fewer words are better!!
Results Tell us about what you discovered in your
study of the lake. This should probably include
very specific information about the chemical
tests. Try to give other information that will
help the casual observer to understand what you
are doing. Be sure to indicate what the "normal"
results should look like. You should probably
arrange this information in some sort of table to
help observers in interpreting your data. This is
a Microsoft Powerpoint template that has column
widths and font sizes optimized for printing a 36
x 48 posterjust replace the tips and blah,
blah, blah repeat motifs with actual content.
You will find that the text typed into this
template will fit quite nicely into an 8.5 by 11
format (in other words, standard paper size).
Table A. Tests performed at lake during field trip
Be sure to separate figures from other figures
by generous use of white space. When figures are
too cramped, viewers get confused about which
figures to read first and which legend goes with
which figure. Figures are preferred but tables
are sometimes unavoidable. A table looks best
when it is first composed within Microsoft Word,
then Inserted as an Object. If you can add
small drawings or icons to your tables, do so!
Materials and methods In this section, you
describe what you were testing and how you went
about testing it. Be sure to include the
different tests you ran, observations that you
made and the different pieces of equipment that
were needed to carry out your study. Don't tell
me what you discovered yet, that goes into the
next section
Literature cited Be sure to list the different
sources of information used to help you. Include
web sites and any books or parts of
books. "Google" is not a reference. That would
be like listing the library as one of your
sources!

Figure 2. Insert some illustrations that will
help you to explain what you found (do these look
familiar?)
Acknowledgments I thank Mr. Puskala for endless
amounts of truly intriguing information about
lakes. It has changed my life forever, and I
have decided to donate one half of my future
salary to ensure that Mr. Puskala is able to by
the essentials in life such as condominiums on
several continents, a personal jet and new
Lamborghinis or Ferraris every year.
Figure 3 Don't forget to pay attention to the
different organisms you and your partner
observed. These can be strong indications of the
quality of the water that you are studying.
Figure 1. Photograph or drawing of organism,
chemical structure, or whatever focus of study
is. How about a map of the lake???