Poster Presentations

1
Poster Presentations

• Content and Design
• McNair Scholars Program 2007

2
Content What to Include

• Your poster can be thought of as a visual
  abstract or a summary of your paper with an
  emphasis on visual aid

3
Who is your audience?

• What conference will you be at?
• General academic, specific field, peers,
  students, faculty and experts, etc
• Try to capture the attention of your audience,
  but keep it academic

4
The Basics

• Title (including author names and institutions)
• Introduction/background
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion, conclusion, and implications for
  future research
• References (optional)
• Be sure to acknowledge your sponsors (if any) and
  base institution (i.e. CMU)
• Here is a link for a print-quality CMU word
  mark http//mediabank.cmich.edu/graphics/cmulogos
  /default.htm

5
Introduction or Background

• This should introduce your reader to the basic
  idea behind your area of research, or the
  foundation of your study
• This is not a comprehensive introduction
• This will often be the shortest part of your
  poster

6
Methodology

• Convey the gist of your methodology
• Dont focus on every detail of your methods, only
  the most important. For example, if your
  participants were 48 female and 52 male, but
  this isnt an integral part of your study, then
  you can feel free to leave it out

7
Results and Findings

• This is going to be the crux of your poster
• Use graphs, charts, and images where possible
• Ideally you will be able to offer the reader a
  graphic representation of the results that will
  convey a wealth of information
• Use text sparingly if possible

8
Discussion and Implications

• OK, the reader understands your results, now
  what?
• What are the overall implications of your
  research?
• How do your results differ from previous
  findings?
• What about future research?
• Where do we go from here?
• Where should future authors focus their efforts
  based on your results?
• Remember, keep it brief

9
How to Create a Poster

• Steps
• Open a new PowerPoint presentation and access the
  Page Set-up menu (File Page Set-up)
• Designate the width as 48 inches and the height
  as 36 inches
• Change the slide to a landscape orientation and
  close the window
• Create and format text boxes to contain titles,
  headings and content of your poster
• Insert images by using the Insert Object,
  Picture, etc. menu options
• Graphs and charts may be created either through
  PowerPoint itself, or through Excel and inserted
  as an image

10
(No Transcript)
11
(No Transcript)
12
(No Transcript)
13
Some Design Tips

• Use a basic font like Arial or Times Roman avoid
  using dark backgrounds
• Your poster should be able to be read at a
  distance of 4 feet
• Use lots of pictures, graphs, tables, charts and
  drawings avoid a lot of text
• Each part of the poster should be
  self-sufficient most people will only read a
  portion
• Poster should be symmetrical and balanced and
  look good up close and from a distance
• Use an outlined form and bullets for easy reading

14
Example 1
http//campus.murraystate.edu/academic/faculty/ter
ry.derting/posterdisplay.html
15
Example 2
http//www.imedia.mie.utoronto.ca/people/takesh/AM
IA_poster_screen.jpg
16
http//depts.washington.edu/anthweb/news_events/fi
les/poster.FEATHERSJOHN05.gif
17
Example 3
http//depts.washington.edu/anthweb/news_events/fi
les/poster.FEATHERSJOHN05.gif