Home Blog Design How to Design a Winning Poster Presentation: Quick Guide with Examples & Templates

How to Design a Winning Poster Presentation: Quick Guide with Examples & Templates

Cover for how to design a poster presentation

How are research posters like High School science fair projects? Quite similar, in fact.

Both are visual representations of a research project shared with peers, colleagues and academic faculty. But there’s a big difference: it’s all in professionalism and attention to detail. You can be sure that the students that thrived in science fairs are now creating fantastic research posters, but what is that extra element most people miss when designing a poster presentation?

This guide will teach tips and tricks for creating poster presentations for conferences, symposia, and more. Learn in-depth poster structure and design techniques to help create academic posters that have a lasting impact.

Let’s get started.

Table of Contents

  • What is a Research Poster?

Why are Poster Presentations important?

Overall dimensions and orientation, separation into columns and sections, scientific, academic, or something else, a handout with supplemental and contact information, cohesiveness, design and readability, storytelling.

  • Font Characteristics
  • Color Pairing
  • Data Visualization Dimensions
  • Alignment, Margins, and White Space

Scientific/Academic Conference Poster Presentation

Digital research poster presentations, slidemodel poster presentation templates, how to make a research poster presentation step-by-step, considerations for printing poster presentations, how to present a research poster presentation, final words, what is a research poster .

Research posters are visual overviews of the most relevant information extracted from a research paper or analysis.   They are essential communication formats for sharing findings with peers and interested people in the field. Research posters can also effectively present material for other areas besides the sciences and STEM—for example, business and law.

You’ll be creating research posters regularly as an academic researcher, scientist, or grad student. You’ll have to present them at numerous functions and events. For example:

  • Conference presentations
  • Informational events
  • Community centers

The research poster presentation is a comprehensive way to share data, information, and research results. Before the pandemic, the majority of research events were in person. During lockdown and beyond, virtual conferences and summits became the norm. Many researchers now create poster presentations that work in printed and digital formats.

Examples of research posters using SlideModel's templates

Let’s look at why it’s crucial to spend time creating poster presentations for your research projects, research, analysis, and study papers.

Summary of why are poster presentations important

Research posters represent you and your sponsor’s research 

Research papers and accompanying poster presentations are potent tools for representation and communication in your field of study. Well-performing poster presentations help scientists, researchers, and analysts grow their careers through grants and sponsorships.

When presenting a poster presentation for a sponsored research project, you’re representing the company that sponsored you. Your professionalism, demeanor, and capacity for creating impactful poster presentations call attention to other interested sponsors, spreading your impact in the field.

Research posters demonstrate expertise and growth

Presenting research posters at conferences, summits, and graduate grading events shows your expertise and knowledge in your field of study. The way your poster presentation looks and delivers, plus your performance while presenting the work, is judged by your viewers regardless of whether it’s an officially judged panel.

Recurring visitors to research conferences and symposia will see you and your poster presentations evolve. Improve your impact by creating a great poster presentation every time by paying attention to detail in the poster design and in your oral presentation. Practice your public speaking skills alongside the design techniques for even more impact.

Poster presentations create and maintain collaborations

Every time you participate in a research poster conference, you create meaningful connections with people in your field, industry or community. Not only do research posters showcase information about current data in different areas, but they also bring people together with similar interests. Countless collaboration projects between different research teams started after discussing poster details during coffee breaks.

An effective research poster template deepens your peer’s understanding of a topic by highlighting research, data, and conclusions. This information can help other researchers and analysts with their work. As a research poster presenter, you’re given the opportunity for both teaching and learning while sharing ideas with peers and colleagues.

Anatomy of a Winning Poster Presentation

Do you want your research poster to perform well?  Following the standard layout and adding a few personal touches will help attendees know how to read your poster and get the most out of your information. 

The anatomy of a winning poster

The overall size of your research poster ultimately depends on the dimensions of the provided space at the conference or research poster gallery. The poster orientation can be horizontal or vertical, with horizontal being the most common.  In general, research posters measure 48 x 36 inches or are an A0 paper size.

A virtual poster can be the same proportions as the printed research poster, but you have more leeway regarding the dimensions. Virtual research posters should fit on a screen with no need to scroll, with 1080p resolution as a standard these days. A horizontal presentation size is ideal for that.

A research poster presentation has a standard layout of 2–5 columns with 2–3 sections each. Typical structures say to separate the content into four sections; 1. A horizontal header 2. Introduction column, 3. Research/Work/Data column, and 4. Conclusion column. Each unit includes topics that relate to your poster’s objective.  Here’s a generalized outline for a poster presentation:

  • Condensed Abstract 
  • Objectives/Purpose
  • Methodology
  • Recommendations
  • Implications
  • Acknowledgments
  • Contact Information 

The overview content you include in the units depends on your poster presentations’ theme, topic, industry, or field of research. A scientific or academic poster will include sections like hypothesis, methodology, and materials. A marketing analysis poster will include performance metrics and competitor analysis results.

There’s no way a poster can hold all the information included in your research paper or analysis report. The poster is an overview that invites the audience to want to find out more. That’s where supplement material comes in. Create a printed PDF handout or card with a QR code (created using a QR code generator ). Send the audience to the best online location for reading or downloading the complete paper.

What Makes a Poster Presentation Good and Effective? 

For your poster presentation to be effective and well-received, it needs to cover all the bases and be inviting to find out more. Stick to the standard layout suggestions and give it a unique look and feel. We’ve put together some of the most critical research poster-creation tips in the list below. Your poster presentation will perform as long as you check all the boxes.

The information you choose to include in the sections of your poster presentation needs to be cohesive. Train your editing eye and do a few revisions before presenting. The best way to look at it is to think of The Big Picture. Don’t get stuck on the details; your attendees won’t always know the background behind your research topic or why it’s important.

Be cohesive in how you word the titles, the length of the sections, the highlighting of the most important data, and how your oral presentation complements the printed—or virtual—poster.

The most important characteristic of your poster presentation is its readability and clarity. You need a poster presentation with a balanced design that’s easy to read at a distance of 1.5 meters or 4 feet. The font size and spacing must be clear and neat. All the content must suggest a visual flow for the viewer to follow.

That said, you don’t need to be a designer to add something special to your poster presentation. Once you have the standard—and recognized—columns and sections, add your special touch. These can be anything from colorful boxes for the section titles to an interesting but subtle background, images that catch the eye, and charts that inspire a more extended look. 

Storytelling is a presenting technique involving writing techniques to make information flow. Firstly, storytelling helps give your poster presentation a great introduction and an impactful conclusion. 

Think of storytelling as the invitation to listen or read more, as the glue that connects sections, making them flow from one to another. Storytelling is using stories in the oral presentation, for example, what your lab partner said when you discovered something interesting. If it makes your audience smile and nod, you’ve hit the mark. Storytelling is like giving a research presentation a dose of your personality, and it can help turning your data into opening stories .

Design Tips For Creating an Effective Research Poster Presentation

The section above briefly mentioned how important design is to your poster presentation’s effectiveness. We’ll look deeper into what you need to know when designing a poster presentation.

1. Font Characteristics

The typeface and size you choose are of great importance. Not only does the text need to be readable from two meters away, but it also needs to look and sit well on the poster. Stay away from calligraphic script typefaces, novelty typefaces, or typefaces with uniquely shaped letters.

Stick to the classics like a sans serif Helvetica, Lato, Open Sans, or Verdana. Avoid serif typefaces as they can be difficult to read from far away. Here are some standard text sizes to have on hand.

  • Title: 85 pt
  • Authors: 65 pt
  • Headings: 36 pt
  • Body Text: 24 pt
  • Captions: 18 pt

Resume of font characteristics a winning poster presentation must follow

If you feel too prone to use serif typefaces, work with a font pairing tool that helps you find a suitable solution – and intend those serif fonts for heading sections only. As a rule, never use more than 3 different typefaces in your design. To make it more dynamic, you can work with the same font using light, bold, and italic weights to put emphasis on the required areas.

2. Color Pairing

Using colors in your poster presentation design is a great way to grab the viewer’s attention. A color’s purpose is to help the viewer follow the data flow in your presentation, not distract. Don’t let the color take more importance than the information on your poster.

Effective color pairing tactics for poster presentations

Choose one main color for the title and headlines and a similar color for the data visualizations. If you want to use more than one color, don’t create too much contrast between them. Try different tonalities of the same color and keep things balanced visually. Your color palette should have at most one main color and two accent colors.

Black text over a white background is standard practice for printed poster presentations, but for virtual presentations, try a very light gray instead of white and a very dark gray instead of black. Additionally, use variations of light color backgrounds and dark color text. Make sure it’s easy to read from two meters away or on a screen, depending on the context. We recommend ditching full white or full black tone usage as it hurts eyesight in the long term due to its intense contrast difference with the light ambiance.

3. Data Visualization Dimensions

Just like the text, your charts, graphs, and data visualizations must be easy to read and understand. Generally, if a person is interested in your research and has already read some of the text from two meters away, they’ll come closer to look at the charts and graphs. 

Tips for properly arranging data visualization dimensions in poster presentations

Fit data visualizations inside columns or let them span over two columns. Remove any unnecessary borders, lines, or labels to make them easier to read at a glance. Use a flat design without shadows or 3D characteristics. The text in legends and captions should stay within the chart size and not overflow into the margins. Use a unified text size of 18px for all your data visualizations.

4. Alignment, Margins, and White Space

Finally, the last design tip for creating an impressive and memorable poster presentation is to be mindful of the layout’s alignment, margins, and white space. Create text boxes to help keep everything aligned. They allow you to resize, adapt, and align the content along a margin or grid.

Take advantage of the white space created by borders and margins between sections. Don’t crowd them with a busy background or unattractive color.

Tips on alignment, margins, and white space in poster presentation design

Calculate margins considering a print format. It is a good practice in case the poster presentation ends up becoming in physical format, as you won’t need to downscale your entire design (affecting text readability in the process) to preserve information.

There are different tools that you can use to make a poster presentation. Presenters who are familiar with Microsoft Office prefer to use PowerPoint. You can learn how to make a poster in PowerPoint here.

Poster Presentation Examples

Before you start creating a poster presentation, look at some examples of real research posters. Get inspired and get creative.

Research poster presentations printed and mounted on a board look like the one in the image below. The presenter stands to the side, ready to share the information with visitors as they walk up to the panels.

Example of the structure of a scientific/academic conference poster presentation

With more and more conferences staying virtual or hybrid, the digital poster presentation is here to stay. Take a look at examples from a poster session at the OHSU School of Medicine .

Use SlideModel templates to help you create a winning poster presentation with PowerPoint and Google Slides. These poster PPT templates will get you off on the right foot. Mix and match tables and data visualizations from other poster slide templates to create your ideal layout according to the standard guidelines.

1. One-pager Scientific Poster Template for PowerPoint

introduction for poster presentation

A PowerPoint template tailored to make your poster presentations an easy-to-craft process. Meet our One-Pager Scientific Poster Slide Template, entirely editable to your preferences and with ample room to accommodate graphs, data charts, and much more.

Use This Template

2. Eisenhower Matrix Slides Template for PowerPoint

introduction for poster presentation

An Eisenhower Matrix is a powerful tool to represent priorities, classifying work according to urgency and importance. Presenters can use this 2×2 matrix in poster presentations to expose the effort required for the research process, as it also helps to communicate strategy planning.

3. OSMG Framework PowerPoint Template

introduction for poster presentation

Finally, we recommend presenters check our OSMG Framework PowerPoint template, as it is an ideal tool for representing a business plan: its goals, strategies, and measures for success. Expose complex processes in a simplified manner by adding this template to your poster presentation.

Remember these three words when making your research poster presentation: develop, design, and present. These are the three main actions toward a successful poster presentation. 

Summary of how to make a research poster presentation

The section below will take you on a step-by-step journey to create your next poster presentation.

Step 1: Define the purpose and audience of your poster presentation

Before making a poster presentation design, you’ll need to plan first. Here are some questions to answer at this point:

  • Are they in your field? 
  • Do they know about your research topic? 
  • What can they get from your research?
  • Will you print it?
  • Is it for a virtual conference?

Step 2: Make an outline

With a clear purpose and strategy, it’s time to collect the most important information from your research paper, analysis, or documentation. Make a content dump and then select the most interesting information. Use the content to draft an outline.

Outlines help formulate the overall structure better than going straight into designing the poster. Mimic the standard poster structure in your outline using section headlines as separators. Go further and separate the content into the columns they’ll be placed in.

Step 3: Write the content

Write or rewrite the content for the sections in your poster presentation. Use the text in your research paper as a base, but summarize it to be more succinct in what you share. 

Don’t forget to write a catchy title that presents the problem and your findings in a clear way. Likewise, craft the headlines for the sections in a similar tone as the title, creating consistency in the message. Include subtle transitions between sections to help follow the flow of information in order.

Avoid copying/pasting entire sections of the research paper on which the poster is based. Opt for the storytelling approach, so the delivered message results are interesting for your audience. 

Step 4: Put it all together visually

This entire guide on how to design a research poster presentation is the perfect resource to help you with this step. Follow all the tips and guidelines and have an unforgettable poster presentation.

Moving on, here’s how to design a research poster presentation with PowerPoint Templates . Open a new project and size it to the standard 48 x 36 inches. Using the outline, map out the sections on the empty canvas. Add a text box for each title, headline, and body text. Piece by piece, add the content into their corresponding text box.

Basic structure layout of an academic poster presentation

Transform the text information visually, make bullet points, and place the content in tables and timelines. Make your text visual to avoid chunky text blocks that no one will have time to read. Make sure all text sizes are coherent for all headings, body texts, image captions, etc. Double-check for spacing and text box formatting.

Next, add or create data visualizations, images, or diagrams. Align everything into columns and sections, making sure there’s no overflow. Add captions and legends to the visualizations, and check the color contrast with colleagues and friends. Ask for feedback and progress to the last step.

Step 5: Last touches

Time to check the final touches on your poster presentation design. Here’s a checklist to help finalize your research poster before sending it to printers or the virtual summit rep.

  • Check the resolution of all visual elements in your poster design. Zoom to 100 or 200% to see if the images pixelate. Avoid this problem by using vector design elements and high-resolution images.
  • Ensure that charts and graphs are easy to read and don’t look crowded.
  • Analyze the visual hierarchy. Is there a visual flow through the title, introduction, data, and conclusion?
  • Take a step back and check if it’s legible from a distance. Is there enough white space for the content to breathe?
  • Does the design look inviting and interesting?

An often neglected topic arises when we need to print our designs for any exhibition purpose. Since A0 is a hard-to-manage format for most printers, these poster presentations result in heftier charges for the user. Instead, you can opt to work your design in two A1 sheets, which also becomes more manageable for transportation. Create seamless borders for the section on which the poster sheets should meet, or work with a white background.

Paper weight options should be over 200 gsm to avoid unwanted damage during the printing process due to heavy ink usage. If possible, laminate your print or stick it to photographic paper – this shall protect your work from spills.

Finally, always run a test print. Gray tints may not be printed as clearly as you see them on screen (this is due to the RGB to CMYK conversion process). Other differences can be appreciated when working with ink jet plotters vs. laser printers. Give yourself enough room to maneuver last-minute design changes.

Presenting a research poster is a big step in the poster presentation cycle. Your poster presentation might or might not be judged by faculty or peers. But knowing what judges look for will help you prepare for the design and oral presentation, regardless of whether you receive a grade for your work or if it’s business related. Likewise, the same principles apply when presenting at an in-person or virtual summit.

The opening statement

Part of presenting a research poster is welcoming the viewer to your small personal area in the sea of poster presentations. You’ll need an opening statement to pitch your research poster and get the viewers’ attention.

Draft a 2 to 3-sentence pitch that covers the most important points:

  • What the research is
  • Why was it conducted
  • What the results say

From that opening statement, you’re ready to continue with the oral presentation for the benefit of your attendees.

The oral presentation

During the oral presentation, share the information on the poster while conversing with the interested public. Practice many times before the event. Structure the oral presentation as conversation points, and use the poster’s visual flow as support. Make eye contact with your audience as you speak, but don’t make them uncomfortable.

Pro Tip: In a conference or summit, if people show up to your poster area after you’ve started presenting it to another group, finish and then address the new visitors.

QA Sessions 

When you’ve finished the oral presentation, offer the audience a chance to ask questions. You can tell them before starting the presentation that you’ll be holding a QA session at the end. Doing so will prevent interruptions as you’re speaking.

If presenting to one or two people, be flexible and answer questions as you review all the sections on your poster.

Supplemental Material

If your audience is interested in learning more, you can offer another content type, further imprinting the information in their minds. Some ideas include; printed copies of your research paper, links to a website, a digital experience of your poster, a thesis PDF, or data spreadsheets.

Your audience will want to contact you for further conversations; include contact details in your supplemental material. If you don’t offer anything else, at least have business cards.

Even though conferences have changed, the research poster’s importance hasn’t diminished. Now, instead of simply creating a printed poster presentation, you can also make it for digital platforms. The final output will depend on the conference and its requirements.

This guide covered all the essential information you need to know for creating impactful poster presentations, from design, structure and layout tips to oral presentation techniques to engage your audience better . 

Before your next poster session, bookmark and review this guide to help you design a winning poster presentation every time. 

introduction for poster presentation

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introduction for poster presentation

How to Create a Research Poster

  • Poster Basics
  • Design Tips
  • Logos & Images

What is a Research Poster?

Posters are widely used in the academic community, and most conferences include poster presentations in their program.  Research posters summarize information or research concisely and attractively to help publicize it and generate discussion. 

The poster is usually a mixture of a brief text mixed with tables, graphs, pictures, and other presentation formats. At a conference, the researcher stands by the poster display while other participants can come and view the presentation and interact with the author.

What Makes a Good Poster?

  • Important information should be readable from about 10 feet away
  • Title is short and draws interest
  • Word count of about 300 to 800 words
  • Text is clear and to the point
  • Use of bullets, numbering, and headlines make it easy to read
  • Effective use of graphics, color and fonts
  • Consistent and clean layout
  • Includes acknowledgments, your name and institutional affiliation

A Sample of a Well Designed Poster

View this poster example in a web browser .  

Three column blue and white poster with graphs, data, and other information displayed.

Image credit: Poster Session Tips by [email protected], via Penn State

Where do I begin?

Answer these three questions:.

  • What is the most important/interesting/astounding finding from my research project?
  • How can I visually share my research with conference attendees? Should I use charts, graphs, photos, images?
  • What kind of information can I convey during my talk that will complement my poster?

What software can I use to make a poster?

A popular, easy-to-use option. It is part of Microsoft Office package and is available on the library computers in rooms LC337 and LC336. ( Advice for creating a poster with PowerPoint ).

Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign

Feature-rich professional software that is good for posters including lots of high-resolution images, but they are more complex and expensive.  NYU Faculty, Staff, and Students can access and download the Adobe Creative Suite .

Open Source Alternatives 

  • OpenOffice is the free alternative to MS Office (Impress is its PowerPoint alternative).
  • Inkscape and Gimp are alternatives to Adobe products.
  • For charts and diagrams try Gliffy or Lovely Charts .
  • A complete list of free graphics software .

A Sample of a Poorly Designed Poster

View this bad poster example in a browser.

Poster marked up pointing out errors, of which there are many.

Image Credit: Critique by Better Posters

  • Next: Design Tips >>
  • Last Updated: Jul 11, 2023 5:09 PM
  • URL: https://guides.nyu.edu/posters

Creating a Poster

What exactly is a poster presentation.

A poster presentation combines text and graphics to present your project in a way that is visually interesting and accessible. It allows you to display your work to a large group of other scholars and to talk to and receive feedback from interested viewers.

Poster sessions have been very common in the sciences for some time, and they have recently become more popular as forums for the presentation of research in other disciplines like the social sciences, service learning, the humanities, and the arts.

Poster presentation formats differ from discipline to discipline, but in every case, a poster should clearly articulate what you did, how you did it, why you did it, and what it contributes to your field and the larger field of human knowledge.

What goals should I keep in mind as I construct my poster?

  • Clarity of content. You will need to decide on a small number of key points that you want your viewers to take away from your presentation, and you will need to articulate those ideas clearly and concisely.
  • Visual interest and accessibility. You want viewers to notice and take interest in your poster so that they will pause to learn more about your project, and you will need the poster’s design to present your research in a way that is easy for those viewers to make sense of it.

Who will be viewing my poster?

The answer to this question depends upon the context in which you will be presenting your poster. If you are presenting at a conference in your field, your audience will likely contain mostly people who will be familiar with the basic concepts you’re working with, field-specific terminology, and the main debates facing your field and informing your research. This type of audience will probably most interested in clear, specific accounts of the what and the how of your project.

If you are presenting in a setting where some audience members may not be as familiar with your area of study, you will need to explain more about the specific debates that are current in your field and to define any technical terms you use. This audience will be less interested in the specific details and more interested in the what and why of your project—that is, your broader motivations for the project and its impact on their own lives.

How do I narrow my project and choose what to put on my poster?

Probably less than you would like! One of the biggest pitfalls of poster presentations is filling your poster with so much text that it overwhelms your viewers and makes it difficult for them to tell which points are the most important. Viewers should be able to skim the poster from several feet away and easily make out the most significant points.

The point of a poster is not to list every detail of your project. Rather, it should explain the value of your research project. To do this effectively, you will need to determine your take-home message. What is the single most important thing you want your audience to understand, believe, accept, or do after they see your poster?

Once you have an idea about what that take-home message is, support it by adding some details about what you did as part of your research, how you did it, why you did it, and what it contributes to your field and the larger field of human knowledge.

What kind of information should I include about what I did?

This is the raw material of your research: your research questions, a succinct statement of your project’s main argument (what you are trying to prove), and the evidence that supports that argument. In the sciences, the what of a project is often divided into its hypothesis and its data or results. In other disciplines, the what is made up of a claim or thesis statement and the evidence used to back it up.

Remember that your viewers won’t be able to process too much detailed evidence; it’s your job to narrow down this evidence so that you’re providing the big picture. Choose a few key pieces of evidence that most clearly illustrate your take-home message. Often a chart, graph, table, photo, or other figure can help you distill this information and communicate it quickly and easily.

What kind of information should I include about how I did it?

Include information about the process you followed as you conducted your project. Viewers will not have time to wade through too many technical details, so only your general approach is needed. Interested viewers can ask you for details.

What kind of information should I include about why I did it?

Give your audience an idea about your motivation for this project. What real-world problems or questions prompted you to undertake this project? What field-specific issues or debates influenced your thinking? What information is essential for your audience to be able to understand your project and its significance? In some disciplines, this information appears in the background or rationale section of a paper.

What kind of information should I include about its contribution ?

Help your audience to see what your project means for you and for them. How do your findings impact scholars in your field and members of the broader intellectual community? In the sciences, this information appears in the discussion section of a paper.

How will the wording of my ideas on my poster be different from my research paper?

In general, you will need to simplify your wording. Long, complex sentences are difficult for viewers to absorb and may cause them to move on to the next poster. Poster verbiage must be concise, precise, and straightforward. And it must avoid jargon. Here is an example:

Wording in a paper: This project sought to establish the ideal specifications for clinically useful wheelchair pressure mapping systems, and to use these specifications to influence the design of an innovative wheelchair pressure mapping system.

Wording on a poster:

Aims of study

  • Define the ideal wheelchair pressure mapping system
  • Design a new system to meet these specifications

Once I have decided what to include, how do I actually design my poster?

The effectiveness of your poster depends on how quickly and easily your audience can read and interpret it, so it’s best to make your poster visually striking. You only have a few seconds to grab attention as people wander past your poster; make the most of those seconds!

How are posters usually laid out?

In general, people expect information to flow left-to-right and top-to-bottom. Viewers are best able to absorb information from a poster with several columns that progress from left to right.

Even within these columns, however, there are certain places where viewers’ eyes naturally fall first and where they expect to find information.

Imagine your poster with an upside-down triangle centered from the top to the bottom. It is in this general area that people tend to look first and is often used for the title, results, and conclusions. Secondary and supporting information tend to fall to the sides, with the lower right having the more minor information such as acknowledgements (including funding), and personal contact information.

introduction for poster presentation

  • Main Focus Area Location of research fundamentals: Title, Authors, Institution, Abstract, Results, Conclusion
  • Secondary Emphasis Location of important info: Intro, Results or Findings, Summary
  • Supporting Area Location of supporting info: Methods, Discussion
  • Final Info Area Location of supplemental info: References, Acknowledgments

How much space should I devote to each section?

This will depend on the specifics of your project. In general, remember that how much space you devote to each idea suggests how important that section is. Make sure that you allot the most space to your most important points.

How much white space should I leave on my poster?

White space is helpful to your viewers; it delineates different sections, leads the eye from one point to the next, and keeps the poster from being visually overwhelming. In general, leave 10—30% of your poster as white space.

Should I use graphics?

Absolutely! Visual aids are one of the most effective ways to make your poster visually striking, and they are often a great way to communicate complex information straightforwardly and succinctly. If your project deals with lots of empirical data, your best bet will be a chart, graph, or table summarizing that data and illustrating how that data confirms your hypothesis.

If you don’t have empirical data, you may be able to incorporate photographs, illustrations, annotations, or other items that will pique your viewers’ interest, communicate your motivation, demonstrate why your project is particularly interesting or unique.

Don’t incorporate visual aids just for the sake of having a pretty picture on your poster. The visual aids should contribute to your overall message and convey some piece of information that your viewers wouldn’t otherwise get just from reading your poster’s text.

How can I make my poster easy to read?

There are a number of tricks you can use to aid readability and emphasize crucial ideas. In general:

  • Use a large font. Don’t make the text smaller in order to fit more onto the poster. Make sure that 95% of the text on your poster can be read from 4 feet away. If viewers can’t make out the text from a distance, they’re likely to walk away.
  • Choose a sans-serif font like Helvetica or Verdana, not a serif font, like Times New Roman. Sans-serif fonts are easier to read because they don’t have extraneous hooks on every letter. Here is an example of a sans-serif and a serif font:
  • Once you have chosen a font, be consistent in its usage. Use just one font.
  • Don’t single-space your text. Use 1.5- or double-spacing to make the text easier to read.

For main points:

  • Use bold, italicized, or colored fonts, or enclose text in boxes. Save this kind of emphasis for only a few key words, phrases, or sentences. Too much emphasized text makes it harder, not easier, to locate important points.
  • AVOID USING ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, WHICH CAN BE HARD TO READ.
  • Make your main points easy to find by setting them off with bullets or numbers.

What is my role as the presenter of my poster?

When you are standing in front of your poster, you—and what you choose to say—are as important as the actual poster. Be ready to talk about your project, answer viewers’ questions, provide additional details about your project, and so on.

How should I prepare for my presentation?

Once your poster is finished, you should re-familiarize yourself with the larger project you’re presenting. Remind yourself about those details you ended up having to leave out of the poster, so that you will be able to bring them up in discussions with viewers. Then, practice, practice, practice!

Show your poster to advisors, professors, friends, and classmates before the day of the symposium to get a feel for how viewers might respond. Prepare a four- to five-minute overview of the project, where you walk these pre-viewers through the poster, drawing their attention to the most critical points and filling in interesting details as needed. Make note of the kinds of questions these pre-viewers have, and be ready to answer those questions. You might even consider making a supplemental handout that provides additional information or answers predictable questions.

How long should I let audience members look at the poster before engaging them in discussion?

Don’t feel as if you have to start talking to viewers the minute they stop in front of your poster. Give them a few moments to read and process the information. Once viewers have had time to acquaint themselves with your project, offer to guide them through the poster. Say something like “Hello. Thanks for stopping to view my poster. Would you like a guided tour of my project?” This kind of greeting often works better than simply asking “Do you have any questions?” because after only a few moments, viewers might not have had time to come up with questions, even though they are interested in hearing more about your project.

Should I read from my poster?

No! Make sure you are familiar enough with your poster that you can talk about it without looking at it. Use the poster as a visual aid, pointing to it when you need to draw viewers’ attention to a chart, photograph, or particularly interesting point.

Sample Posters

Click on the links below to open a PDF of each sample poster.

“Quantitative Analysis of Artifacts in Volumetric DSA: The Relative Contributions of Beam Hardening and Scatter to Vessel Dropout Behind Highly Attenuating Structures”  James R. Hermus, Timothy P. Szczykutowicz, Charles M. Strother, and Charles Mistretta

Departments of Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering, and Radiology: University of Wisconsin-Madison

“Self-Care Interventions for the Management of Mouth Sores in Hematology Patients Receiving Chemotherapy” Stephanie L. Dinse and Catherine Cherwin

School of Nursing: University of Wisconsin-Madison

“Enhancing the Fluorescence of Wisconsin Infrared Phytofluor: Wi-Phy for Potential Use in Infrared Imaging”  Jerad J. Simmons and Katrina T. Forest

Department of Bacteriology: University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Academic Poster Resources: The Basics

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Effective Posters

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Effective posters created by UC Davis undergraduate student researchers

When deciding how to design your poster, you will want to think carefully about the most effective way to visually present your research to your expected audience. What is the “take-home message” of your work? How will you draw people in?

Many academic conferences include poster sessions as a part of conference programming, but they may also be displayed in stand-alone events such as poster fairs. In a typical poster session, presenters stand near their posters prepared to speak with interested attendees about their work. Many times when submitting for a poster presentation, you need only submit an abstract. 

The best posters typically…

Highlight the main point so that it can be read and understood from a distance

Limit the amount of text to 300-800 words -- less is more!

Include meaningful images, graphics, or charts to convey information

Make use of basic visual design principles

Are accessible to as many people as possible

Include researcher names and affiliations, references, and funding acknowledgments (if applicable)

Academic posters often follow the basic form of an academic journal article, with distinct sections for the Introduction and/or Problem Statement, Methods, Results or Findings, Discussion, and Conclusions. However, in recent years some scholars have criticized “traditional” poster templates and formats, leading to a proliferation of alternative designs. 

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How to Create a Poster Presentation

Getting started, poster design best practices.

  • Don't be too wordy! Keep text concise and clear.
  • Organization is key. Think about what you want to say first and then carefully consider layout.
  • Consider your audience. What will they have questions about? What do you want them to learn from your poster?
  • Make sure your title is descriptive and large enough to be readable from far away.
  • Think about image and font sizes so the poster is readable from 5-8 feet away.
  • Use headings, bullets, and graphics to break up text.
  • Make sure your images and graphics have contrast so they pop on the page.
  • Think about including contact information for those who want more information.
  • Remember, your poster will read left to right just like a page.

Example Posters (Click arrow to scroll through)

Lava Mae Poster

Award Categories

This year posters will be judged in two categories:

Most Visually Appealing Poster Description: A visually appealing poster can be judged based on the following criteria:

  • Do visuals enhance poster content? Is it eye-catching?
  • Are the components of the poster balanced across the space?
  • Easy to read, pleasing-on-the-eye font/ color scheme choices? Is text error-free?
  • Are photographs, graphs, tables, and other graphics creative?  

Best Articulation of Career Development Through Internship Description: In this category, we are looking for the poster to show how the internship impacted the student’s career path and development of career competencies.

  • Poster provides clear description of the internship including student’s responsibilities/accomplishments
  • Poster clearly identifies career readiness skills and how they were strengthened through internship
  • Poster articulates student’s next steps and career goals
  • Poster showcases internship in dynamic way such as “day-in-the-life”

Poster Template

This template will help you get started. Just download this and add your content to the boxes using PowerPoint. Be sure to keep the box sizes the same so that the poster will print properly.

Eagle Intern Fellowship poster template

Need Access to PowerPoint?

Because of the ease of importing images, formatting text boxes, and making slides with extra-large dimensions, many people use PowerPoint for creating posters. For this project, please use the PowerPoint template on this page for your poster. BC students can download PowerPoint for free . You are only allowed one download per computer. If you have received a new computer since your first download, you can re-download it on your new device. For any other technical assistance or if installation does not work, please connect directly with BC Information Technology Services by either calling (617-552-4357) or visiting the IT Help Desk located in O’Neill Library, 3rd floor. For those on or close to campus this summer, you can also use the Library computers that house all softwares.

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What is a poster session?

An overview of poster sessions.

A poster session is a venue in which researchers have the opportunity to share their work with a wide audience in the form of a poster presentation. Poster sessions are often held during conference, professional meetings, or during research days or symposia events. They generally take place in large rooms, and allow for a large number of researchers to present their work during a single session. Presenters often stand by their posters while attendees walk through the room and speak to researchers about their work. 

Image by David Eppstein - CC BY-SA 3.0.

Goals of a Poster Session

To get the most out of a poster session, it is beneficial to think about what your goals are a head of time - what do you hope to get out of the session? While individuals may have their own personal goals, poster session presenters should also adopt the following aims. 

  • Get people interested in your research.
  • Receive feedback to improve your work.
  • Network - find future collaborators, advisors, or job opporutnities.

Components of a Poster Session

While the name "poster session" suggests that posters are the primary focus during poster sessions, posters make up only one component of a successful poster presentation. It's helpful to think of a poster presentation as consisting of three components:

  • A presentation

To learn about the different roles of these three components, visit the Components of a Poster Presentation page . 

General Tips for Success

Dress professionally and comfortably : If you have doubts about standards of dress in your discipline, ask your advisor, mentor, or colleagues for advice. Wear something that is professional, but that also helps you feel confident. Wear comfortable shoes, you will be on your feet for an extended period of time. 

Arrive early : This gives you time to familiarize yourself with the venue, find the nearest restroom, water fountain, coffee shop, and settle in and get comfortable. Introduce yourself to the other presenters and talk to them about their research. 

Bring push pins, a black marker, and white out : Some events require presenters to bring materials (such as push pins) to mount their posters to the display stands. You can also bring white out and a black marker in case you notice any last minute typos on your poster. 

Practice your presentation : Prepare and practice a 1-2 minute oral presentation of your research prior to the event. Talk through your presentation aloud to practice your timing and enunciation. 

Stand near your poster : Make sure you are present to speak to attendees and answer their questions. 

Make eye contact and address all attendees : You may have more than one person come to look at your poster at once. Make sure you make eye contact with everyone, don't just focus on one person. 

Don't leave early : While the crowd may dwindle later in the session, it's a professional responsibility to stay by your poster for the duration of the event. 

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Poster Presentations - Designing Effective Posters

Poster presentations - designing effective posters: home.

The poster presentation is a dynamic communication tool evolving over the past four decades, as a means to accommodate the increasing number of researchers, especially graduate students, seeking a means for scholarly presentations of their research. Since then the poster session at many conferences is a major component of meetings of professional associations and societies in many disciplines used to highlight research results and discuss their significance in an informal and interactive setting. Often posters have their own special location and times for presentation; have their abstracts and presenter contact information list in program booklets or proceedings. Recently, dynamic links to the poster itself are provided for full-poster online viewing. The poster presentation is a highly-used communication tool for students (undergraduate and graduate) to display and discuss their research experiences in class and laboratory settings. This guide provides a variety of resources assisting individuals or teams in designing an effective poster and presenting it in a professional, informal, and rewarding setting, whether it is an upper-division undergraduate class or at a local, national or international meeting of a professional association or society. [email protected]

Designing Effective Posters

A. introduction, b. background readings.

  • C. Design Tips

E. General Remarks

Disclaimer & Permissions

If you are involved in planning a poster session for a conference, symposium, or meeting, consider posting this site to your own program’s Web site to assist those considering submitting a poster. So, please feel free to create a link from your own pages to this site and suggest this site to others,  especially  those planning or organizing a poster session.

Fred Stoss University at Buffalo Libraries

" It takes intelligence, even brilliance, to condense and focus information into a clear, simple presentation that will be read and remembered. Ignorance and arrogance are shown in a crowded, complicated, hard-to-read poster ."   Mary Helen Briscoe

Colin Purrington provides a remarkable guide, " Designing Conference Posters ." This is the single-best resource for helpful hints in designing effective poster presentations.

The rate at which scientific and technical information grows continues to increase. National and international conferences provide a mechanism to facilitate the rapid communication of scientific ideas in the form of poster presentations. The poster presentation is NOT the pasting of a scholarly article on poster board or foam-core and standing by to defend the results reproduced in miniature on the "poster." However, it is far too often that one attends a conference poster session and finds this format to dominate the method of poster presentations. The poster presentation should represent a “...well-designed, eye-catching, and engaging... display of research or scientific information.” The poster should convey the results of research activities as to promote the scientific achievements of the poster's presenter. There is, unfortunately, a lack of presentation standards or authors' and presenters' lack of adhering to such standards, even when loosely defined. This guide provides an inventory of print and Internet resources that provide guidance and instruction for the presentation of scientific and technical information in the form of a poster presentation. This guide includes information resources in the forms of journal articles, books, book chapters, and Internet sites that focus on the planning, design, construction, and presentation of a scientific poster. If you find a resource you feel would be useful to include on this site, please send your comments to  Fred Stoss .

The origins of this site come from an in-class lecture for a general physiology course taught at the University at Buffalo,  Using Posters in Case Studies: The Scientific Poster as a Teaching Tool.  This case study prepared by Charles R. Fourtner, Mary Bisson and Christopher A. Loretz from the Department of Biological Sciences, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, describes the rationale and mechanics of introducing undergraduate biology majors to actively engage in a project to conduct bona fide library research and to then "express themselves in their own discipline." These researchers/educators "adapted the scientific poster as a mode of learning and instruction for our departmental majors" through a General Physiology course. The specific goals of this teaching strategy are to instruct the students:

  • in researching the primary literature and topical reviews on a specified subject
  • in the evaluation of the methodologies, technologies, and experiments serving as the basis of the research they have read
  • in determining the pertinent data and analyses leading to the conclusions reached by experts in the field
  • in concise and logical preparation of data for presentation in a poster format
  • in the oral defense of the material they have presented on their posters
  • in the importance of group discussions and interactions as they develop their formal presentation

Some resources on the shelves (locations in UB Libraries indicated):

  • Block, S.M. Do's and Don'ts of Poster Presentation. Biophysical Journal. 1996. 71 (6): 3527-3529. (Online)
  • Briscoe, M.H. Preparing Scientific Illustrations: A Guide to Better Posters, Presentations, and Publications, (2nd ed.). New York: Springer; 1996. Posters; p 131-149. (SEL REF Q222.B75 1996)
  • Brown, B. S. Poster Design--Six Points to Ponder. Biochemical Education.1997. July; 25 (3): 136-137. (Online)
  • Davis, M. Scientific Papers and Presentations. San Diego, Academic Press: 1997. Poster presentations; p 174-185. (SEL T11 D324 1997)
  • Davis, M. Scientific papers and presentations (Rev. ed.).
  • Burlington, MA: Academic Press: 2005. Poster presentations; p 181-204. (SEL T11 D324 2005)
  • Day, R.A. How to Write & Publish a Scientific Paper (4th ed.). Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press; 1994. How to prepare a poster; p 148-151. (SEL T11.D33 1994)
  • Gosling, P.J. Scientist's Guide to Poster Presentations. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Press; 1999. 139 pp. (SEL REF Q179.94 G67 1999)
  • Hailman, J.P. & Strier, K.B. Planning, Proposing and Presenting Science effectively: A Guide for Graduate students and Researchers in the Behavioral Sciences and Biology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 1997. How to present research: posters at scientific meetings, p 112-115. (SEL QH315.H25 1997)
  • Hartman, K.J. Designing Effective Poster Presentations. Fisheries. 1996 . 21 (7): 22. (SEL Per SH1 .F815). New York :Guilford Press
  • Kline, Rex B. “Poster Presentation,” Becoming a Behavioral Science Researcher :A Guide to Producing Research that Matters. New York :Guilford Press. (LML BF76.5.K54 2009)
  • Knisely, K. A Student Handbook for Writing in Biology (3rd ed.). Gordonsville, VA: W.H. Freeman: 2009. “Poster presentations,” p. 137-146. (SEL QH 304. K59 2009).
  • Koning, R.E. Standards for Effective Presentations. In: Salisbury, FB, editor. Units, symbols, and terminology for plant physiology: a reference for presentation of research results in the plant sciences. New York: Oxford University Press; 1996. p 188-201. (SEL REF QK710.5 U55 1996)
  • Pechenik, J.A. A Short Guide to Writing about Biology, 3rd ed. New York: Longman; 1997. Writing a poster presentation; p 258-265. (SEL QH304.P43 1997)
  • Salisbury, F.B. editor. Units, Symbols, and Terminology for Plant Physiology: A Reference for Presentation of Research Results in the Plant Sciences. New York: Oxford University Press; 1996. Some suggestions about scientific writing; p 163-187. (SEL REF QK710.5 U55 1996)
  • Schowen, K.B. Communicating in Other Formats: Posters, Letters to the Editor, and Press Releases -- Tips for Effective Poster Presentations. In: Dodd, JS, editor. The ACS style guide: a manual for authors and editors, (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Chemical Society; 1997. p 27-47. (SEL REF QD8.5.A25 1997)
  • Scientifically Speaking: Tips for Preparing and Delivering Scientific Talks and Using Visual Aids. 2005. The Oceanography Society. tos.org/pdfs/sci_speaking.pdf Silyn-Roberts, H. Writing for science and engineering: Papers, presentations and reports. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann; 2000. A conference poster; p 151-166. (SEL T11 .S529 2000)

C. Designing Tips

  • University at Buffalo PPT Poster Template . This is the site from which University at Buffalo faculty, students and staff may download a template for a 44" x 36" Research or Informational Poster.
  • BIO 801, Scientific Literature and Writing: Poster Presentations . A good guide with very useful illustrations show poster elements and designs.
  • Creating Effective Poster Presentations: An Effective Poster
  • The Scientists Guide to Poster Design by Katie Everson .This is a new site with many useful tips about posters and poster design. Look for additions in the future.
  • How to Make a Great Poster . Design suggestions regarding layout, formatting, and color selection are shared on this American Society of Plant Biologists education site.
  • Introduction: Poster Sessions . This university writing guide is a great place to start when faced with a poster assignment. Straight-forward instructions and guidance along with examples and additional resources steer tenderfeet and veterans in effective design.
  • Scientifically Speaking . This is a site for effective presentation skills from a sci-tech perspective. It includes a section on designing posters and provides an example of a “good poster” and a “bad poster.”
  • Google Images . Google Image search can help locate appropriate graphic images or photographs or other illustrations for your poster presentations. Just enter the topic, concept, or object for which you are seeking an image and review the results. An advanced search is also possible. BE SURE TO PROPERLY CITE THE SOURCES FROM WHICH YOU USE IMAGES & TEXT: Citing an image or copying text "with quotation mark" is not plagiarizing, but you must provide attribution for using tem.
  • Preparing Professional Scientific. This poster minicourse provides a bullet list for start-to-finish poster design guidance.
  • Society for Technical Communication . A tremendous resource for the science or engineering or health science student interested in pursuing career options as a technical writer, illustrator, editor, or communications specialist.
  • Ten Simple Rules for a Good Poster Presentation. In: PLos Computational Biology Full-text article, Erren TC, Bourne PE (2007) Ten Simple Rules for a Good Poster Presentation. PLoS Comput Biol 3(5): e102. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.0030102

F. Examples

  • EPA: Community Involvement Conference & Training: Posters and Exhibits, 2007. (scroll down the page)

G. Classes & Tutorials

  • Impactful Scientific Posters-The Basics . The American Chemical Society has a VERY good video tutorial about designing a poster for presentation
  • Designing an Academic Poster (Prezi)
  • Poster Presentations: Tips, Tricks, and Planning
  • Making an Academic Research Poster Using PowerPoint
  • Make Poster - Design a Poster like a Pro in PowerPoint 2010 Part 1
  • Make Poster - Design a Poster like a Pro in PowerPoint 2010 - Part 2

If you know of sites, especially from professional associations and societies providing examples of posters send me the URL - [email protected]

Subject Librarian

FredStoss  is the subject librarian for  Poster Presentations - Designing Effective Posters.  He provides workshops or lectures on effective poster design for 40- to 90-minute and is available for research consultations, instruction, curricular support & purchase requests. Contact [email protected] , phone: 716 645-1337.

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Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Introduction

Scientific posters as scholarly works.

  • Posters are scholarly publications that scientists use to communicate findings and discoveries to an audience.  
  • Communication between a scientist and their audience can be interactive or self-contained.
  • Posters allow for brief and efficient communication.
  • Poster events are often featured at professional conferences.
  • Poster presentations function to foster collaborations, generate interest, educate and prompt further research.

Purpose of Scientific Posters

A scientific poster is an illustrated summary of research and a type of scholarly publication that scientists use to share their findings and discoveries with the public.   In contrast to books and journal articles, which provide lengthy and comprehensive examinations of a subject, posters provide an efficient, quick, high-level summary of a research project.   Most academic conferences and many professional events host poster sessions as an opportunity for interested parties to succinctly learn about a wide range of research projects and to make professional connections with other scientists.   The brief exposure afforded by a poster can serve to improve a scholar’s basic understanding of a field of research, help to identify connections that might otherwise have been obscured by details, or serve as the starting-point for learning more about a subject they might not have otherwise known about.   Many productive collaborations have begun with a brief conversation between scientists in front of a poster.

This book will introduce you to the scholarly practice of poster presentations.   You may have taken part in science fairs or similar events earlier in your education.   A professional poster event is fundamentally similar to those events, but the discourse that takes place at the professional-level is a bit different because professional poster events function primarily to create new collaborations between research groups, critically evaluate experimental results and learn about new techniques and approaches that can be used in future experiments.    

Before delving into the details of what scientific posters contain, it is worth describing when, why, and how poster presentations are used by scientists to communicate with others.   Posters are an act of communication, and as with any communication, it is important to know your audience, the situation, your goals, and the process by which audience members will read, hear and understand your poster presentation.

It is also important to remember that scientific posters have evolved over many decades and through the experience of millions of individual experiences.   The advice contained in this book describes the best practices that have emerged to be standard practice because they consistently produce the most efficient and effective communication.   For example, scientific posters contain several distinct parts, which appear in order and include: Title, Abstract, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results, Discussion and References.   This standard mode of organization helps ensure effective communication between presenter and audience not only because it has been found to work, but because audiences have learned to expect it.   Adhering to the standards described in this book will make it easier for your audience to understand your poster because they will know where to look to find the information they need.

Understand your Audience

Scientific posters must provide audiences with a clear, accurate understanding of scientifically valid findings.   They serve to provide an efficient and succinct form of communication.   But their brevity must not come at the cost of misrepresentation, whether in the form of meaningful omission, exaggeration, or other distortion.   A person who reads a scientific poster should come away with the same essential understanding they would have if they had read an essay-length account of the same research, with the only difference being a quantitative difference of detail.   Other goals that posters often serve include prompting further questions, creating professional connections and generating interest.  

Scientific posters are primarily directed to peers or colleagues, people who have equivalent training as yourself but who may know less about the specific subject you are addressing.   However, posters are also often used to communicate research findings to non-experts, members of the general public who are interested in the subject but may lack the training or experience required to assess the research in its full depth.   Which audience your poster should address will depend on the venue where your poster will be presented.

Above all, you should think of your audience as someone like yourself in this sense: as a critical consumer of information, you should constantly subject any claim you encounter to a rigorous

process of examination before allowing it to become part of your memory.   Once you commit something to memory, it is exceedingly difficult to excise it, so it is crucial that you pay close attention to what you allow in, especially when the person offering that information seems trustworthy and authoritative.   Thus, you should design your poster to provide audiences not only with the information you want them to remember, but also all the details they need in order to assess the validity and reliability of that information.

Communicating your Research

People encounter scientific posters two main ways: stand-alone viewings and interactive presentations.   A given poster may be presented in multiple situations, so it is important to design posters that audiences can make sense of without further guidance and that can also serve as a useful tool for illustrating speech.

Stand-Alone Posters – Often posters are made available to audiences without their authors being present.   Sometimes a poster gallery is left standing throughout the length of a conference, so that attendees can peruse them at their convenience.   Increasingly, digital versions of posters are made available through the internet, so that audiences may encounter them months after their original creation.  

Interactive Poster Presentations – In interactive situations, one (or more) of a poster’s authors stands next to the poster and guides the audience through the process of understanding the research the poster presents.   Normally, a poster presenter is prepared to present a brief summary (e.g., 5 minutes) of the poster’s contents, refined to make its findings as clear as possible.   They are also ready to answer any questions an audience member might have about the research contained in the poster.   Sometimes poster presentations are made in a formal organized event.   Poster events are lively, loud and energetic.   Attendees will walk around the event (e.g., inside a convention center) and talk with presenters whose posters they find interesting or relevant to their own work.   Poster events will typically last a few hours so that attendees have enough time to visit and interact with many posters and poster presenters.   This is a good time for scientists to learn from one another and start new research collaborations that could one day lead to new discoveries.

Designing Posters for a Diverse Audience – Because posters have traditionally been presented as part of in-person events, they should be designed with an audience in mind.   Thus, they should be easy for a person to read and comprehend in the midst of a crowded environment and from a few feet away (e.g., 3-5 feet distance).   This means that the most important elements should be printed in large, clear type, and even the secondary elements should be legible from the same distance.   The size of figures and tables should be large enough to read from several feet away.   The content of the poster should also make sense as quickly as possible, thus your writing and images should be as simple to comprehend as possible.   In some situations, such as online galleries, audiences may be able to zoom in or spend lots of time reading a poster, but that should be a secondary consideration.   It is necessary that your poster be clear to a rushed audience at a distance as well as provide considerable information for audiences who can pay closer attention.

Poster Presentation

While a poster accelerates the time it takes to communicate research with an audience, their reception of your poster nevertheless unfolds over time.   A scientific poster is organized in sections so that its Title appears first, followed by Abstract, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results, Discussion and References appears last.   However, audiences rarely read posters in the order that they appear on the poster. Audiences see some elements of the poster before others, and the order in which they “read” your poster will determine what they take away from your poster presentation.   Further, not every audience member will go through the full process of viewing your poster, so it is worth anticipating the points at which people might find most important or the point at which they quit reading.   This way you can help ensure that each audience member will, at the very least, walk away from your poster understanding the most significant findings of your research.

In general, the ordered process that an audience member will likely use to view a scientific poster will go something like this:

1.   Title, Author & Institutions – An audience’s first impression of your poster will be very quick (i.e., 5-30 seconds) and focus on your title and who did the research.   It is very important that the content of your poster grab their attention and that your poster looks professional.   This brief interaction will determine if the audience reads your poster further or if they move on to another poster.   Questions that they will consider:  

Is this poster worth the time it will take me to process in full?   Do I want to stop and talk to the person who is presenting this poster?   What is this poster likely to tell me?   Do I care about this subject?   Is this poster likely to tell me something I do not know? Can I learn something new that I can apply to my own research?  

2.   Abstract – If your poster passes these first few questions, the audience will proceed to reading the poster’s abstract, so as to confirm or dispel their belief that this poster will be worth their time.   They will spend 1-4 minutes reading the abstract.

Did I read that title correctly?   What questions did they ask?   How did they try to answer those questions?   What did they find?   Does that seem plausible?

If all goes well, and the abstract piques further interest, they will then delve into the other parts of the poster with questions like:

How did they come to their conclusion?   How did they conduct their research? Where might they have gone wrong?   Did they frame their research correctly?   What did they really find?   What information from this poster is safe to transfer into my long-term memory?

3.   Figures and Tables – Most audience members will skip ahead to the raw data (or its closest approximation).   They will look at your figures, graphs, maps, tables, images, diagrams in order to gauge the reliability of the data from which you are deriving the information you would like them to leave with.   An experienced researcher will extrapolate from what they know about the practices and limits of research to make a preliminary decision about whether it is plausible that your research is based on acceptable data. Misrepresentations in this part of your poster (e.g., non-proportional graphs, emotionally manipulative pictures, poorly planned experiments) will only serve to lose your audience at this point.

4.   Introduction and Discussion – Once they have generated a basic understanding of your research, audiences will generally turn to the detailed text of your poster both to test their understanding and to assess your methods in more detail.

Did I understand the framing and goals of this research correctly?   What exactly were they trying to prove?   Were there limitations of scope or focus that might alter my understanding of the meaning or importance of this research?   And what did they find?   Does this detailed account align with what they wrote in the abstract or did they leave important parts out?   Where might this go next?   Is this research that I could contribute to?   Is this something or someone I should keep paying attention to because they are planning to do future research that might answer questions I care about?   Could I collaborate with this person?

5. Materials & Methods and Results – If everything else makes sense, audiences will delve into the details of how you conducted experiments, obtained data and how you interpreted it.   By this point, they are invested in your work and will want to know more.   Scientists are inherently critical and they will be looking intently at your work for reasons to dispute your findings, methods and experiments.

6.   References and Acknowledgements – If they are particularly interested in your research, audiences will sometimes read your references and acknowledgements.   This is usually because they are doing similar work, and they want to benefit by following in your footsteps or even collaborating with you in future research.   If they get this far, congratulations you made a lasting and impactful impression with your poster.  

Most poster events consist of numerous individual poster presentations (e.g., professional conferences typically have hundreds of posters displayed simultaneously).   Due to the large volume of people and time constraints at such events, most presenter-audience interactions will not get as far as a poster’s list of references and acknowledgements.   However, this does not mean that your presentation was ineffective.   While you may never know the full impact of your poster on an audience, your poster still serves a very important role within the scientific community, which is to inform, educate and disseminate scholarly findings, discoveries and results to the public.    

Scientific Posters: A Learner's Guide Copyright © 2020 by Ella Weaver; Kylienne A. Shaul; Henry Griffy; and Brian H. Lower is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Creating a Poster

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Quick tips for poster presenters

Giving an effective poster presentation.

  • Additional Reading & Research
  • Do not read your poster.   Use your poster as a visual aid.
  • Prepare a 1 minute, 2-3 minute, and 5 minute presentation of your poster.  This way you are prepared to talk about your project in many different situations.
  • Cover the main points . Tell viewers about your research question, thesis, methods, and findings.
  • If you don't know the answer to a question a viewer poses-- don't answer it.  There is always a chance that someone will ask a question you are not prepared to answer. In that case do not make something up. Offer to follow up with the person after the poster session with more information. 
  • Face the audience.  Do not turn your back to read off your poster while you are presenting to viewers.
  • Be clear.  Talk in an audible, clear tone while you are presenting. Maintain a normal pace and try to avoid talking too quickly.

A description of how to present your poster effectively, with examples. Created primarily with first-time poster presenters in mind. Affiliated with web site  http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/ (c) Copyright 2013 - all rights reserved

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Preparing and Presenting Effective Research Posters

Associated data.

APPENDIX A.2. Comparison of Research Papers, Presentations, and Posters—Contents.

Posters are a common way to present results of a statistical analysis, program evaluation, or other project at professional conferences. Often, researchers fail to recognize the unique nature of the format, which is a hybrid of a published paper and an oral presentation. This methods note demonstrates how to design research posters to convey study objectives, methods, findings, and implications effectively to varied professional audiences.

A review of existing literature on research communication and poster design is used to identify and demonstrate important considerations for poster content and layout. Guidelines on how to write about statistical methods, results, and statistical significance are illustrated with samples of ineffective writing annotated to point out weaknesses, accompanied by concrete examples and explanations of improved presentation. A comparison of the content and format of papers, speeches, and posters is also provided.

Each component of a research poster about a quantitative analysis should be adapted to the audience and format, with complex statistical results translated into simplified charts, tables, and bulleted text to convey findings as part of a clear, focused story line.

Conclusions

Effective research posters should be designed around two or three key findings with accompanying handouts and narrative description to supply additional technical detail and encourage dialog with poster viewers.

An assortment of posters is a common way to present research results to viewers at a professional conference. Too often, however, researchers treat posters as poor cousins to oral presentations or published papers, failing to recognize the opportunity to convey their findings while interacting with individual viewers. By neglecting to adapt detailed paragraphs and statistical tables into text bullets and charts, they make it harder for their audience to quickly grasp the key points of the poster. By simply posting pages from the paper, they risk having people merely skim their work while standing in the conference hall. By failing to devise narrative descriptions of their poster, they overlook the chance to learn from conversations with their audience.

Even researchers who adapt their paper into a well-designed poster often forget to address the range of substantive and statistical training of their viewers. This step is essential for those presenting to nonresearchers but also pertains when addressing interdisciplinary research audiences. Studies of policymakers ( DiFranza and the Staff of the Advocacy Institute 1996 ; Sorian and Baugh 2002 ) have demonstrated the importance of making it readily apparent how research findings apply to real-world issues rather than imposing on readers to translate statistical findings themselves.

This methods note is intended to help researchers avoid such pitfalls as they create posters for professional conferences. The first section describes objectives of research posters. The second shows how to describe statistical results to viewers with varied levels of statistical training, and the third provides guidelines on the contents and organization of the poster. Later sections address how to prepare a narrative and handouts to accompany a research poster. Because researchers often present the same results as published research papers, spoken conference presentations, and posters, Appendix A compares similarities and differences in the content, format, and audience interaction of these three modes of presenting research results. Although the focus of this note is on presentation of quantitative research results, many of the guidelines about how to prepare and present posters apply equally well to qualitative studies.

WHAT IS A RESEARCH POSTER?

Preparing a poster involves not only creating pages to be mounted in a conference hall, but also writing an associated narrative and handouts, and anticipating the questions you are likely to encounter during the session. Each of these elements should be adapted to the audience, which may include people with different levels of familiarity with your topic and methods ( Nelson et al. 2002 ; Beilenson 2004 ). For example, the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association draws academics who conduct complex statistical analyses along with practitioners, program planners, policymakers, and journalists who typically do not.

Posters are a hybrid form—more detailed than a speech but less than a paper, more interactive than either ( Appendix A ). In a speech, you (the presenter) determine the focus of the presentation, but in a poster session, the viewers drive that focus. Different people will ask about different facets of your research. Some might do policy work or research on a similar topic or with related data or methods. Others will have ideas about how to apply or extend your work, raising new questions or suggesting different contrasts, ways of classifying data, or presenting results. Beilenson (2004) describes the experience of giving a poster as a dialogue between you and your viewers.

By the end of an active poster session, you may have learned as much from your viewers as they have from you, especially if the topic, methods, or audience are new to you. For instance, at David Snowdon's first poster presentation on educational attainment and longevity using data from The Nun Study, another researcher returned several times to talk with Snowdon, eventually suggesting that he extend his research to focus on Alzheimer's disease, which led to an important new direction in his research ( Snowdon 2001 ). In addition, presenting a poster provides excellent practice in explaining quickly and clearly why your project is important and what your findings mean—a useful skill to apply when revising a speech or paper on the same topic.

WRITING FOR A VARIED PROFESSIONAL AUDIENCE

Audiences at professional conferences vary considerably in their substantive and methodological backgrounds. Some will be experts on your topic but not your methods, some will be experts on your methods but not your topic, and most will fall somewhere in between. In addition, advances in research methods imply that even researchers who received cutting-edge methodological training 10 or 20 years ago might not be conversant with the latest approaches. As you design your poster, provide enough background on both the topic and the methods to convey the purpose, findings, and implications of your research to the expected range of readers.

Telling a Simple, Clear Story

Write so your audience can understand why your work is of interest to them, providing them with a clear take-home message that they can grasp in the few minutes they will spend at your poster. Experts in communications and poster design recommend planning your poster around two to three key points that you want your audience to walk away with, then designing the title, charts, and text to emphasize those points ( Briscoe 1996 ; Nelson et al. 2002 ; Beilenson 2004 ). Start by introducing the two or three key questions you have decided will be the focus of your poster, and then provide a brief overview of data and methods before presenting the evidence to answer those questions. Close with a summary of your findings and their implications for research and policy.

A 2001 survey of government policymakers showed that they prefer summaries of research to be written so they can immediately see how the findings relate to issues currently facing their constituencies, without wading through a formal research paper ( Sorian and Baugh 2002 ). Complaints that surfaced about many research reports included that they were “too long, dense, or detailed,” or “too theoretical, technical, or jargony.” On average, respondents said they read only about a quarter of the research material they receive for detail, skim about half of it, and never get to the rest.

To ensure that your poster is one viewers will read, understand, and remember, present your analyses to match the issues and questions of concern to them, rather than making readers translate your statistical results to fit their interests ( DiFranza and the Staff of the Advocacy Institute 1996 ; Nelson et al. 2002 ). Often, their questions will affect how you code your data, specify your model, or design your intervention and evaluation, so plan ahead by familiarizing yourself with your audience's interests and likely applications of your study findings. In an academic journal article, you might report parameter estimates and standard errors for each independent variable in your regression model. In the poster version, emphasize findings for specific program design features, demographic, or geographic groups, using straightforward means of presenting effect size and statistical significance; see “Describing Numeric Patterns and Contrasts” and “Presenting Statistical Test Results” below.

The following sections offer guidelines on how to present statistical findings on posters, accompanied by examples of “poor” and “better” descriptions—samples of ineffective writing annotated to point out weaknesses, accompanied by concrete examples and explanations of improved presentation. These ideas are illustrated with results from a multilevel analysis of disenrollment from the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP; Phillips et al. 2004 ). I chose that paper to show how to prepare a poster about a sophisticated quantitative analysis of a topic of interest to HSR readers, and because I was a collaborator in that study, which was presented in the three formats compared here—as a paper, a speech, and a poster.

Explaining Statistical Methods

Beilenson (2004) and Briscoe (1996) suggest keeping your description of data and methods brief, providing enough information for viewers to follow the story line and evaluate your approach. Avoid cluttering the poster with too much technical detail or obscuring key findings with excessive jargon. For readers interested in additional methodological information, provide a handout and a citation to the pertinent research paper.

As you write about statistical methods or other technical issues, relate them to the specific concepts you study. Provide synonyms for technical and statistical terminology, remembering that many conferences of interest to policy researchers draw people from a range of disciplines. Even with a quantitatively sophisticated audience, don't assume that people will know the equivalent vocabulary used in other fields. A few years ago, the journal Medical Care published an article whose sole purpose was to compare statistical terminology across various disciplines involved in health services research so that people could understand one another ( Maciejewski et al. 2002 ). After you define the term you plan to use, mention the synonyms from the various fields represented in your audience.

Consider whether acronyms are necessary on your poster. Avoid them if they are not familiar to the field or would be used only once or twice on your poster. If you use acronyms, spell them out at first usage, even those that are common in health services research such as “HEDIS®”(Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set) or “HLM”(hierarchical linear model).

Poor: “We use logistic regression and a discrete-time hazards specification to assess relative hazards of SCHIP disenrollment, with plan level as our key independent variable.” Comment: Terms like “discrete-time hazards specification” may be confusing to readers without training in those methods, which are relatively new on the scene. Also the meaning of “SCHIP” or “plan level” may be unfamiliar to some readers unless defined earlier on the poster.
Better: “Chances of disenrollment from the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) vary by amount of time enrolled, so we used hazards models (also known as event history analysis or survival analysis) to correct for those differences when estimating disenrollment patterns for SCHIP plans for different income levels.” Comment: This version clarifies the terms and concepts, naming the statistical method and its synonyms, and providing a sense of why this type of analysis is needed.

To explain a statistical method or assumption, paraphrase technical terms and illustrate how the analytic approach applies to your particular research question and data:

Poor : “The data structure can be formulated as a two-level hierarchical linear model, with families (the level-1 unit of analysis) nested within counties (the level-2 unit of analysis).” Comment: Although this description would be fine for readers used to working with this type of statistical model, those who aren't conversant with those methods may be confused by terminology such as “level-1” and “unit of analysis.”
Better: “The data have a hierarchical (or multilevel) structure, with families clustered within counties.” Comment: By replacing “nested” with the more familiar “clustered,” identifying the specific concepts for the two levels of analysis, and mentioning that “hierarchical” and “multilevel” refer to the same type of analytic structure, this description relates the generic class of statistical model to this particular study.

Presenting Results with Charts

Charts are often the preferred way to convey numeric patterns, quickly revealing the relative sizes of groups, comparative levels of some outcome, or directions of trends ( Briscoe 1996 ; Tufte 2001 ; Nelson et al. 2002 ). As Beilenson puts it, “let your figures do the talking,” reducing the need for long text descriptions or complex tables with lots of tiny numbers. For example, create a pie chart to present sample composition, use a simple bar chart to show how the dependent variable varies across subgroups, or use line charts or clustered bar charts to illustrate the net effects of nonlinear specifications or interactions among independent variables ( Miller 2005 ). Charts that include confidence intervals around point estimates are a quick and effective way to present effect size, direction, and statistical significance. For multivariate analyses, consider presenting only the results for the main variables of interest, listing the other variables in the model in a footnote and including complex statistical tables in a handout.

Provide each chart with a title (in large type) that explains the topic of that chart. A rhetorical question or summary of the main finding can be very effective. Accompany each chart with a few annotations that succinctly describe the patterns in that chart. Although each chart page should be self-explanatory, be judicious: Tufte (2001) cautions against encumbering your charts with too much “nondata ink”—excessive labeling or superfluous features such as arrows and labels on individual data points. Strive for a balance between guiding your readers through the findings and maintaining a clean, uncluttered poster. Use chart types that are familiar to your expected audience. Finally, remember that you can flesh out descriptions of charts and tables in your script rather than including all the details on the poster itself; see “Narrative to Accompany a Poster.”

Describing Numeric Patterns and Contrasts

As you describe patterns or numeric contrasts, whether from simple calculations or complex statistical models, explain both the direction and magnitude of the association. Incorporate the concepts under study and the units of measurement rather than simply reporting coefficients (β's) ( Friedman 1990 ; Miller 2005 ).

Poor: “Number of enrolled children in the family is correlated with disenrollment.” Comment: Neither the direction nor the size of the association is apparent.
Poor [version #2]: “The log-hazard of disenrollment for one-child families was 0.316.” Comment: Most readers find it easier to assess the size and direction from hazards ratios (a form of relative risk) instead of log-hazards (log-relative risks, the β's from a hazards model).
Better: “Families with only one child enrolled in the program were about 1.4 times as likely as larger families to disenroll.” Comment: This version explains the association between number of children and disenrollment without requiring viewers to exponentiate the log-hazard in their heads to assess the size and direction of that association. It also explicitly identifies the group against which one-child families are compared in the model.

Presenting Statistical Test Results

On your poster, use an approach to presenting statistical significance that keeps the focus on your results, not on the arithmetic needed to conduct inferential statistical tests. Replace standard errors or test statistics with confidence intervals, p- values, or symbols, or use formatting such as boldface, italics, or a contrasting color to denote statistically significant findings ( Davis 1997 ; Miller 2005 ). Include the detailed statistical results in handouts for later perusal.

To illustrate these recommendations, Figures 1 and ​ and2 2 demonstrate how to divide results from a complex, multilevel model across several poster pages, using charts and bullets in lieu of the detailed statistical table from the scientific paper ( Table 1 ; Phillips et al. 2004 ). Following experts' advice to focus on one or two key points, these charts emphasize the findings from the final model (Model 5) rather than also discussing each of the fixed- and random-effects specifications from the paper.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is hesr0042-0311-f1.jpg

Presenting Complex Statistical Results Graphically

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Text Summary of Additional Statistical Results

Multilevel Discrete-Time Hazards Models of Disenrollment from SCHIP, New Jersey, January 1998–April 2000

Source : Phillips et al. (2004) .

SCHIP, State Children's Health Insurance Program; LRH, log relative-hazard; SE, standard error.

Figure 1 uses a chart (also from the paper) to present the net effects of a complicated set of interactions between two family-level traits (race and SCHIP plan) and a cross-level interaction between race of the family and county physician racial composition. The title is a rhetorical question that identifies the issue addressed in the chart, and the annotations explain the pattern. The chart version substantially reduces the amount of time viewers need to understand the main take-home point, averting the need to mentally sum and exponentiate several coefficients from the table.

Figure 2 uses bulleted text to summarize other key results from the model, translating log-relative hazards into hazards ratios and interpreting them with minimal reliance on jargon. The results for family race, SCHIP plan, and county physician racial composition are not repeated in Figure 2 , averting the common problem of interpreting main effect coefficients and interaction coefficients without reference to one another.

Alternatively, replace the text summary shown in Figure 2 with Table 2 —a simplified version of Table 1 which presents only the results for Model 5, replaces log-relative hazards with hazards ratios, reports associated confidence intervals in lieu of standard errors, and uses boldface to denote statistical significance. (On a color slide, use a contrasting color in lieu of bold.)

Relative Risks of SCHIP Disenrollment for Other * Family and County Characteristics, New Jersey, January 1998–April 2000

Statistically significant associations are shown in bold.

Based on hierarchical linear model controlling for months enrolled, months-squared, race, SCHIP plan, county physician racial composition, and all variables shown here. Scaled deviance =30,895. Random effects estimate for between-county variance =0.005 (standard error =0.006). SCHIP, State Children's Health Insurance Program; 95% CI, 95% confidence interval.

CONTENTS AND ORGANIZATION OF A POSTER

Research posters are organized like scientific papers, with separate pages devoted to the objectives and background, data and methods, results, and conclusions ( Briscoe 1996 ). Readers view the posters at their own pace and at close range; thus you can include more detail than in slides for a speech (see Appendix A for a detailed comparison of content and format of papers, speeches, and posters). Don't simply post pages from the scientific paper, which are far too text-heavy for a poster. Adapt them, replacing long paragraphs and complex tables with bulleted text, charts, and simple tables ( Briscoe 1996 ; Beilenson 2004 ). Fink (1995) provides useful guidelines for writing text bullets to convey research results. Use presentation software such as PowerPoint to create your pages or adapt them from related slides, facilitating good page layout with generous type size, bullets, and page titles. Such software also makes it easy to create matching handouts (see “Handouts”).

The “W's” (who, what, when, where, why) are an effective way to organize the elements of a poster.

  • In the introductory section, describe what you are studying, why it is important, and how your analysis will add to the existing literature in the field.
  • In the data and methods section of a statistical analysis, list when, where, who, and how the data were collected, how many cases were involved, and how the data were analyzed. For other types of interventions or program evaluations, list who, when, where, and how many, along with how the project was implemented and assessed.
  • In the results section, present what you found.
  • In the conclusion, return to what you found and how it can be used to inform programs or policies related to the issue.

Number and Layout of Pages

To determine how many pages you have to work with, find out the dimensions of your assigned space. A 4′ × 8′ bulletin board accommodates the equivalent of about twenty 8.5″ × 11″ pages, but be selective—no poster can capture the full detail of a large series of multivariate models. A trifold presentation board (3′ high by 4′ wide) will hold roughly a dozen pages, organized into three panels ( Appendix B ). Breaking the arrangement into vertical sections allows viewers to read each section standing in one place while following the conventions of reading left-to-right and top-to-bottom ( Briscoe 1996 ).

  • At the top of the poster, put an informative title in a large, readable type size. On a 4′ × 8′ bulletin board, there should also be room for an institutional logo.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is hesr0042-0311-f3.jpg

Suggested Layout for a 4′ × 8′ poster.

  • In the left-hand panel, set the stage for the research question, conveying why the topic is of policy interest, summarizing major empirical or theoretical work on related topics, and stating your hypotheses or project aims, and explaining how your work fills in gaps in previous analyses.
  • In the middle panel, briefly describe your data source, variables, and methods, then present results in tables or charts accompanied by text annotations. Diagrams, maps, and photographs are very effective for conveying issues difficult to capture succinctly in words ( Miller 2005 ), and to help readers envision the context. A schematic diagram of relationships among variables can be useful for illustrating causal order. Likewise, a diagram can be a succinct way to convey timing of different components of a longitudinal study or the nested structure of a multilevel dataset.
  • In the right-hand panel, summarize your findings and relate them back to the research question or project aims, discuss strengths and limitations of your approach, identify research, practice, or policy implications, and suggest directions for future research.

Figure 3 (adapted from Beilenson 2004 ) shows a suggested layout for a 4′ × 8′ bulletin board, designed to be created using software such as Pagemaker that generates a single-sheet presentation; Appendix C shows a complete poster version of the Phillips et al. (2004) multilevel analysis of SCHIP disenrollment. If hardware or budget constraints preclude making a single-sheet poster, a similar configuration can be created using standard 8.5″ × 11″ pages in place of the individual tables, charts, or blocks of text shown in Figure 3 .

Find out well in advance how the posters are to be mounted so you can bring the appropriate supplies. If the room is set up for table-top presentations, tri-fold poster boards are essential because you won't have anything to attach a flat poster board or pages to. If you have been assigned a bulletin board, bring push-pins or a staple gun.

Regardless of whether you will be mounting your poster at the conference or ahead of time, plan how the pages are to be arranged. Experiment with different page arrangements on a table marked with the dimensions of your overall poster. Once you have a final layout, number the backs of the pages or draw a rough sketch to work from as you arrange the pages on the board. If you must pin pages to a bulletin board at the conference venue, allow ample time to make them level and evenly spaced.

Other Design Considerations

A few other issues to keep in mind as you design your poster. Write a short, specific title that fits in large type size on the title banner of your poster. The title will be potential readers' first glimpse of your poster, so make it inviting and easy to read from a distance—at least 40-point type, ideally larger. Beilenson (2004) advises embedding your key finding in the title so viewers don't have to dig through the abstract or concluding page to understand the purpose and conclusions of your work. A caution: If you report a numeric finding in your title, keep in mind that readers may latch onto it as a “factoid” to summarize your conclusions, so select and phrase it carefully ( McDonough 2000 ).

Use at least 14-point type for the body of the poster text. As Briscoe (1996) points out, “many in your audience have reached the bifocal age” and all of them will read your poster while standing, hence long paragraphs in small type will not be appreciated! Make judicious use of color. Use a clear, white, or pastel for the background, with black or another dark color for most text, and a bright, contrasting shade to emphasize key points or to identify statistically significant results ( Davis 1997 ).

NARRATIVE TO ACCOMPANY A POSTER

Prepare a brief oral synopsis of the purpose, findings, and implications of your work to say to interested parties as they pause to read your poster. Keep it short—a few sentences that highlight what you are studying, a couple of key findings, and why they are important. Design your overview as a “sound byte” that captures your main points in a succinct and compelling fashion ( Beilenson 2004 ). After hearing your introduction, listeners will either nod and move along or comment on some aspect of your work that intrigues them. You can then tailor additional discussion to individual listeners, adjusting the focus and amount of detail to suit their interests. Gesture at the relevant pages as you make each point, stating the purpose of each chart or table and explaining its layout before describing the numeric findings; see Miller (2005) for guidelines on how to explain tables and charts to a live audience. Briscoe (1996) points out that these mini-scripts are opportunities for you to fill in details of your story line, allowing you to keep the pages themselves simple and uncluttered.

Prepare short answers to likely questions about various aspects of your work, such as why it is important from a policy or research perspective, or descriptions of data, methods, and specific results. Think of these as little modules from an overall speech—concise descriptions of particular elements of your study that you can choose among in response to questions that arise. Beilenson (2004) also recommends developing a few questions to ask your viewers, inquiring about their reactions to your findings, ideas for additional questions, or names of others working on the topic.

Practice your poster presentation in front of a test audience acquainted with the interests and statistical proficiency of your expected viewers. Ideally, your critic should not be too familiar with your work: A fresh set of eyes and ears is more likely to identify potential points of confusion than someone who is jaded from working closely with the material while writing the paper or drafting the poster ( Beilenson 2004 ). Ask your reviewer to identify elements that are unclear, flag jargon to be paraphrased or defined, and recommend changes to improve clarity ( Miller 2005 ). Have them critique your oral presentation as well as the contents and layout of the poster.

Prepare handouts to distribute to interested viewers. These can be produced from slides created in presentation software, printed several to a page along with a cover page containing the abstract and your contact information. Or package an executive summary or abstract with a few key tables or charts. Handouts provide access to the more detailed literature review, data and methods, full set of results, and citations without requiring viewers to read all of that information from the poster ( Beilenson 2004 ; Miller 2005 ). Although you also can bring copies of the complete paper, it is easier on both you and your viewers if you collect business cards or addresses and mail the paper later.

The quality and effectiveness of research posters at professional conferences is often compromised by authors' failure to take into account the unique nature of such presentations. One common error is posting numerous statistical tables and long paragraphs from a research paper—an approach that overwhelms viewers with too much detail for this type of format and presumes familiarity with advanced statistical techniques. Following recommendations from the literature on research communication and poster design, this paper shows how to focus each poster on a few key points, using charts and text bullets to convey results as part of a clear, straightforward story line, and supplementing with handouts and an oral overview.

Another frequent mistake is treating posters as a one-way means of communication. Unlike published papers, poster sessions are live presentations; unlike speeches, they allow for extended conversation with viewers. This note explains how to create an oral synopsis of the project, short modular descriptions of poster elements, and questions to encourage dialog. By following these guidelines, researchers can substantially improve their conference posters as vehicles to disseminate findings to varied research and policy audiences.

CHECKLIST FOR PREPARING AND PRESENTING AN EFFECTIVE RESEARCH POSTERS

  • Design poster to focus on two or three key points.
  • Adapt materials to suit expected viewers' knowledge of your topic and methods.
  • Design questions to meet their interests and expected applications of your work.
  • Paraphrase descriptions of complex statistical methods.
  • Spell out acronyms if used.
  • Replace large detailed tables with charts or small, simplified tables.
  • Accompany tables or charts with bulleted annotations of major findings.
  • Describe direction and magnitude of associations.
  • Use confidence intervals, p -values, symbols, or formatting to denote statistical significance.

Layout and Format

  • Organize the poster into background, data and methods, results, and study implications.
  • Divide the material into vertical sections on the poster.
  • Use at least 14-point type in the body of your poster, at least 40-point for the title.

Narrative Description

  • Rehearse a three to four sentence overview of your research objectives and main findings.
  • Summary of key studies and gaps in existing literature
  • Data and methods
  • Each table, chart, or set of bulleted results
  • Research, policy, and practice implications
  • Solicit their input on your findings
  • Develop additional questions for later analysis
  • Identify other researchers in the field
  • Prepare handouts to distribute to interested viewers.
  • Print slides from presentation software, several to a page.
  • Or package an executive summary or abstract with a few key tables or charts.
  • Include an abstract and contact information.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Ellen Idler, Julie Phillips, Deborah Carr, Diane (Deedee) Davis, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this work.

Supplementary Material

The following supplementary material for this article is available online:

APPENDIX A.1. Comparison of Research Papers, Presentations, and Posters—Materials and Audience Interaction.

Suggested Layout for a Tri-Fold Presentation Board.

Example Research Poster of Phillips et al. 2004 Study.

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Presentations: Poster Content

  • Poster Design
  • Poster Content
  • Poster Presentation
  • Templates & Examples
  • Oral Presentations
  • Printing & Archiving

Poster Presentation Content

Posters are a visual representation of your research, scholarly, or creative work. Posters should be able to stand alone giving a clear concise representation of your work, without any explanation from you. Below you will find information on what content to include in your poster.  

Keep in mind - You do not have to put everything on your poster, just key points that are essential to the explanation of your project.  Handouts are good way to supply attendees with additional information that you could not include in your poster presentation. 

Tips and Tricks

Throughout a poster you act as a historian , reporter , and lawyer .

Introduction 15% - You are a Historian

Methods/Results 60% - You are a Reporter

Discussion 25% - You are a Lawyer

Title/ Heading

One of the key features of a research poster is a prominent title.  The title may be the only thing a viewer sees before they reach your poster.  Bearing that in mind, it is important that your title is short and compelling in order to capture the attention of the viewer.   

Even though this section appears first, it is often the last to be written. This section should provide viewers with a brief synopsis of the entire poster. 

Usually consists of a summarized combination of the introduction, results, and discussion sections. 

Introduction/ Background

During this section you should act as a historian, providing viewers needed information about your research topic. This section should make up about 15% of your poster and is comprised of three main parts. 

Part 1: Existing facts

In order to give viewers the "full picture", you first need to provide them with information about past research.  What facts already exist? What is already known about your research area?

Part 2: Shortcomings

Once you have highlighted past research and existing facts. You now need to address what is left to be known, or what shortcomings exist within the current information.  This should set the groundwork for your experiment.  Keep in mind, how does your research fill these gaps or help address these questions? 

Part 3: Purpose or Hypothesis

After you have addressed past/current research and have identified shortcomings/gaps, it is now time to address your research.  During this portion of the introduction you need to tell viewers why you are conducting your research experiement/study, and what you hope to accomplish by doing so. 

Materials/ Methods

In the methods and results sections of your poster you should act as a reporter.  These sections report facts about what you did and the information you gathered. 

The methods section is comprised of four parts: 

Part 1: Participants

Who or what was in the study? 

Part 2: Materials/measures:

What did you measure?

Part 3:  Procedures

How did you conduct the study?

Part 4: Data-analysis

What analysis were conducted?

This section contains FACTS - with no opinion, commentary, or interpretation. This section can be portrayed with figures and tables to cut down text from your poster.

Keep in mind when making figures: 

  • Strive for simplicity - Graphics should be simple and clean in order to communicate information quickly.
  • Strong titles are essential. Titles should tell a viewer what is important about the graph or what the graph shows. Keep in mind, viewers only see what you tell them to see, therefore make titles clear and concise . 
  • Make sure axis and data sets are clearly labeled.
  • Be sure to include captions for your graphics. Captions help explain how to read the figure and provides the viewer with additional information.

Example Graphs

Both graphs depict the same information. However, the graph on the bottom presents a more clear and concise message. 

introduction for poster presentation

You will notice the title of the bottom graph tells the viewer exactly what they should notice, "More than 1 in 4 Boulder Bay Public Library computer users are Hispanic or Latino".  The graph on the bottom also uses a darker color to represent Hispanic or Latino populations which draws the viewers eye to that part of the figure. 

Conclusion/ Discussion

Interpretation and commentary takes place in this section. During the conclusion/discussion section you should act as a lawyer, reminding people of why your research experiment/study is important and what significance it has to the field.  This section should make up 25% of your poster. 

In this section you should:

  • Reiterate the research question/problem
  • Highlight the novel or important findings. Explain the meaning of the findings and why they are significant. 
  • Discuss how/if your research question was answered. Explain any new understanding or insight you have gained after you have taken the findings into consideration. 
  • Highlight the importance of your research and how it may be able to contribute to and/or help fill gaps in existing research. 
  • Address study limitations. 
  • Make suggestions for further research

Just like when you are writing a paper a poster should include citations to any material you consulted and obtained information from while conducting your experiment/study. 

Citations are important because:

  • It allows viewers to locate the material that you used, and can help viewers expand their knowledge of your research topic.  
  • Indicates that you have conducted a thorough review of the literature and conducted your research from an informed perspective.
  •  Guards you against intellectual theft.  Ideas are considered intellectual property failure to cite someone's ideas can have serious consequences. 

Acknowledgements

  • list your funding sources (if, you have them).
  • Acknowledge those who assisted you or contributed to your research. 

Best Practices for Handouts

  • Your handout should be double-sided
  • the first side of the paper should include a picture of your poster (this can be in black and white or color)
  • The second side of the handout should include further information about your topic and your contact information.  You could include your literature review and cited references on this side. 
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NSE Communication Lab

Introduction to Poster Presentations

At a conference or departmental event, poster presentations provide an opportunity to present your work to an interactive audience who will flow in and out of the session. This is a chance to not only exchange ideas but also build connections and broaden your professional network. We put together the following articles to help you get started:

  • Digital Poster

Related articles for poster presentations:

  • Elevator Pitch
  • Abstract (general)
  • Figure Design
  • Public Speaking (from BE Comm Lab)

introduction for poster presentation

2019 MIT NSE Graduate Research Expo ( Photos by Gretchen Ertl )

Reference management. Clean and simple.

The key parts of a scientific poster

Scientific poster

Why make a scientific poster?

Type of poster formats, sections of a scientific poster, before you start: tips for making a scientific poster, the 6 technical elements of a scientific poster, 3. typography, 5. images and illustrations, how to seek feedback on your poster, how to present your poster, tips for the day of your poster presentation, in conclusion, other sources to help you with your scientific poster presentation, frequently asked questions about scientific posters, related articles.

A poster presentation provides the opportunity to show off your research to a broad audience and connect with other researchers in your field.

For junior researchers, presenting a poster is often the first type of scientific presentation they give in their careers.

The discussions you have with other researchers during your poster presentation may inspire new research ideas, or even lead to new collaborations.

Consequently, a poster presentation can be just as professionally enriching as giving an oral presentation , if you prepare for it properly.

In this guide post, you will learn:

  • The goal of a scientific poster presentation
  • The 6 key elements of a scientific poster
  • How to make a scientific poster
  • How to prepare for a scientific poster presentation
  • ‘What to do on the day of the poster session.

Our advice comes from our previous experiences as scientists presenting posters at conferences.

Posters can be a powerful way for showcasing your data in scientific meetings. You can get helpful feedback from other researchers as well as expand your professional network and attract fruitful interactions with peers.

Scientific poster sessions tend to be more relaxed than oral presentation sessions, as they provide the opportunity to meet with peers in a less formal setting and to have energizing conversations about your research with a wide cross-section of researchers.

  • Physical posters: A poster that is located in an exhibit hall and pinned to a poster board. Physical posters are beneficial since they may be visually available for the duration of a meeting, unlike oral presentations.
  • E-posters: A poster that is shown on a screen rather than printed and pinned on a poster board. E-posters can have static or dynamic content. Static e-posters are slideshow presentations consisting of one or more slides, whereas dynamic e-posters include videos or animations.

Some events allow for a combination of both formats.

The sections included in a scientific poster tend to follow the format of a scientific paper , although other designs are possible. For example, the concept of a #betterposter was invented by PhD student Mike Morrison to address the issue of poorly designed scientific posters. It puts the take-home message at the center of the poster and includes a QR code on the poster to learn about further details of the project.

  • Anticipate who your audience during the poster session will be—this will depend on the type of meeting. For example, presenting during a poster session at a large conference may attract a broad audience of generalists and specialists at a variety of career stages. You would like for your poster to appeal to all of these groups. You can achieve this by making the main message accessible through eye-catching figures, concise text, and an interesting title.
  • Your goal in a poster session is to get your research noticed and to have interesting conversations with attendees. Your poster is a visual aid for the talks you will give, so having a well-organized, clear, and informative poster will help achieve your aim.
  • Plan the narrative of your poster. Start by deciding the key take-home message of your presentation, and create a storyboard prioritizing the key findings that indicate the main message. Your storyboard can be a simple sketch of the poster layout, or you can use digital tools to make it. Present your results in a logical order, with the most important result in the center of the poster.
  • Give yourself enough time to create a draft of your poster, and to get feedback on it. Since waiting to receive feedback, revising your poster, and sending the final version to the printers may take a few days, it is sensible to give yourself at least 1-2 weeks to make your poster.
  • Check if the meeting has specific poster formatting requirements, and if your institution has a poster template with logos and color schemes that you can use. Poster templates can also be found online and can be adapted for use.
  • Know where you will get your poster printed, and how long it typically takes to receive the printed poster.
  • Ensure you write a specific and informative poster abstract, because specialists in your field may decide to visit your poster based on its quality. This is especially true in large meetings where viewers will choose what posters to visit before the poster session begins because it isn’t possible to read every poster.

➡️ Learn more about how to write an abstract

The technical elements of a scientific poster are:

  • Images and Illustrations

6 key parts of a scientific poster.

Don’t be tempted to cram your entire paper into your poster—details that you omit can be brought up during conversations with viewers. Only include information that is useful for supporting your take-home message. Place your core message in the center of your poster, using either text or visual elements. Avoid jargon, and use concise text elements (no more than 10 lines and 50 words long). Present your data in graphs rather than in tabular form, as it can be difficult for visitors to extract the most important information from tables. Use bullet points and numbered lists to make text content easy to read. Your poster shouldn’t have more than 800 words.

Poster sections should have a logical visual flow, ideally in a longitudinal fashion. For example, in an article on poster presentations published in Nature , scientific illustrator Jamie Simon recommends using the law of thirds to display your research—a 3-column layout with 3 blocks per column. Headings, columns, graphs, and diagrams should be aligned and distributed with enough spacing and balance. The text should be left-aligned while maintaining an appropriate amount of "white space' i.e., areas devoid of any design elements.

To ensure the title is visible from 5 meters away, use a sans serif 85pt font. The body text should use a minimum of 24pt serif font so that it can be read from a one-meter distance. Section headings and subheadings should be in bold. Avoid underlining text and using all capitals in words; instead, a mixture of boldface and italics should be used for emphasis. Use adequate line spacing and one-inch margins to give a clean, uncluttered look.

Appropriate use of color can help readers make comparisons and contrasts in your figures. Account for the needs of color-blind viewers by not using red and green together, and using symbols and dashed lines in your figures. Use a white background for your poster, and black text.

Include no more than 4 figures, with a prominent centerpiece figure in the middle of the poster of your study system or main finding. Dimensions for illustrations, diagrams, and figures should be consistent. When inserting charts, avoid gray backgrounds and grid lines to prevent ink consumption and an unaesthetic look. Graphics used must have proper labels, legible axes, and be adequately sized. Images with a 200 dpi or higher resolution are preferred. If you obtain an image from the internet, make sure it has a high enough resolution and is available in the public domain.

Tools for poster design include Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Publisher, Adobe Illustrator, In Design, Scribus, Canva, Impress, Google Slides, and LaTeX. When starting with the design, the page size should be identical to the final print size. Stick to one design tool to avoid formatting errors.

Have at least one proofreading and feedback round before you print your final poster by following these steps:

  • Share your poster draft with your advisor, peers, and ideally, at least one person outside of your field to get feedback.
  • Allow time to revise your poster and implement the comments you’ve received.
  • Before printing, proofread your final draft. You can use a spelling and grammar-checking tool, or print out a small version of the poster to help locate typos and redundant text.

Before giving a poster presentation, you need to be ready to discuss your research.

  • For large meetings where viewers of your poster have a range of specialties, prepare 2-3 levels for your speech, starting with a one-minute talk consisting of key background information and take-home messages. Prepare separate short talks for casual viewers with varying levels of interest in your topic, ranging from "very little" to "some".
  • Prepare a 3-5 minute presentation explaining the methods and results for those in your audience with an advanced background.
  • Anticipate possible questions that could arise during your presentation and prepare answers for them.
  • Practice your speech. You can ask friends, family, or fellow lab members to listen to your practice sessions and provide feedback.

Here we provide a checklist for your presentation day:

  • Arrive early—often exhibition halls are large and it can take some time to find the allocated spot for your poster. Bring tape and extra pins to put up your poster properly.
  • Wear professional attire and comfortable shoes.
  • Be enthusiastic. Start the conversation by introducing yourself and requesting the attendee’s name and field of interest, and offering to explain your poster briefly. Maintain eye contact with attendees visiting your poster while pointing to relevant figures and charts.
  • Ask visitors what they know about your topic so that you can tailor your presentation accordingly.
  • Some attendees prefer to read through your poster first and then ask you questions. You can still offer to give a brief explanation of your poster and then follow up by answering their questions.
  • When you meet with visitors to your poster, you are having a conversation, so you can also ask them questions. If you are not sure they understand what you are saying, ask if your explanation makes sense to them, and clarify points where needed.
  • Be professional. Stand at your poster for the duration of the session, and prioritize being available to meet with visitors to your poster over socializing with friends or lab mates. Pay due attention to all visitors at once by acknowledging visitors waiting to speak with you.

A scientific poster is an excellent method to present your work and network with peers. Preparation is essential before your poster session, which includes planning your layout, drafting your poster, practicing your speech, and preparing answers to anticipated questions. The effort invested in preparing your poster will be returned by stimulating conversations during the poster session and greater awareness of your work in your scientific community.

➡️ How to prepare a scientific poster

➡️ Conference presentations: Lead the poster parade

➡️ Designing conference posters

A scientific poster can be used to network with colleagues, get feedback on your research and get recognition as a researcher.

A scientific poster should include a main heading, introduction, methods, results, conclusion, and references.

An e-poster is a poster fashioned as a slideshow presentation that plays on a digital screen, with each slide carrying a sliver of information.

A handful of tools can be used to design a poster including Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Publisher, Illustrator, In Design, Photoshop, Impress, and LaTeX.

Start the conversation by introducing yourself and requesting the attendees' names, affiliations, and fields of interest, and offering to explain your poster briefly. Alternatively, you can give attendees ample time to read through your poster first and then offer to explain your poster in 10 seconds followed by questions and answers.

introduction for poster presentation

Free Editable Poster Presentation Examples

Poster presentations are a popular presentation format for research and clinical findings. These presentations effectively communicate the research data and concepts to the audience using a balanced combination of visuals and text. We will also look into a few poster presentation examples to see how they help communicate with the audience perceptively and concisely.

1. What is a Poster Presentation?

A poster presentation is a short, concise yet clear way of communicating your research, study findings, concepts, and ideas. There are two most critical elements in any poster presentation example: a poster and a brief explanation.

Creating a poster presentation starts with analyzing and evaluating information or synthesizing ideas to present all necessary data and facts. The properties of an effective poster presentation are:

  • The flow of information is well-organized and easy to follow.
  • The text is easy to read, as a large font is used, and the information is not cluttered.
  • Allows to convert to a mind map or a timeline diagram from the Gantt chart
  • The balanced use of visuals, text, colors, and graphics makes the poster presentation attractive without losing its functionality.

What is Poster Presentation

2. The Poster Presentation Examples

Poster presentations include a part of the information from the research paper or the main text. So, it is crucial to pick the right amount and type of information, which is part of the analysis phase. Let us review some poster presentation examples to understand the salient features of well-made poster presentations.

Example 1: Nursing Poster Presentation Example

This nursing poster presentation example shows a nursing research paper's findings in a well-organized manner. It uses columns and rows to break down the information into different segments to make the text more readable. It also uses graphics, including graphs, bars, and charts, to show the relevant data and figures.

You can see that the flow of the information is very smooth and very understandable. The audience can quickly go to the section they want to read without skimming through the information for the required text.

Nursing Poster Presentation Example

Example 2: Medical Poster Presentation Example

The medical poster presentation example presented here is the perfect sample to product the summary of a medical research paper in organized and readable layout. It is a clinical case study with learning objective and case presentation. The case presentation also includes an image placeholder to explain the problem more clearly. The other important section in this poster presentation example are nutritional intervention, topic discussion and references.

Medical Poster Presentation Example

Example 3: Research Poster Example

This editable research poster example is an excellent tool for any project team to produce their findings and information. The format is straightforward because it breaks down information into many sections. You can quickly put in the relevant information in every section without formatting issues. The title contains the logo, poster title, and author information. The later areas include project introduction, goals, and description. The central section presents the evaluation strategy, findings, and reference literature. We have the conclusion and implication, acknowledgment, and contact information in the concluding paragraph.

Research Poster Example

Example 4: App Poster Presentation Example

This app poster presentation example also deals with health behavior theory analysis. You can take inspiration from this template and show your research findings using this research poster example. It combines text and visuals to present the data and information attractively and effectively. It makes efficient use of tables to deliver the data, while some graphics and charts are also used to give information in an easy-to-understand manner.

App Poster Presentation Example

Example 5: Scientific Poster Presentation Example

This scientific poster presentation example is a template focused on presenting the summary of research in an easily readable format. The template starts with a logo and introduction to the study, and a list of authors. The later parts include abstract, introduction, results, discussion, and other relevant sections. Another distinguishing feature of this poster presentation example is the detailed guidelines presented in each area. So, even a beginner can create an effective poster presentation using this template and guidelines.

Scientific Poster Presentation Example

Example 6: Psychology Poster Presentation Example

This document's psychology poster presentation example shows a scientific poster that produces the relevant information in a very effective and well-organized layout. The layout is immaculate yet collects a good amount of data without clutter. You can see a pie chart and a lot of bullet text. The central part of this research paper example is exciting. It has two parts, each with a circle in the center and four sections. It gives inspiration for presenting a large amount of text interestingly.

Psychology Poster Presentation Example

Source: EdrawMax Online

Example 7: Science Poster Presentation Example

This science poster presentation example uses columns to divide the content into manageable parts. The content division makes it easy to read, easy to edit, and makes going to specific information straightforward. Colorful headings and background color make this template attractive without distracting the flow of information and losing focus on the text.

Science Poster Presentation Example

Example 8: Good Poster Presentation Example

A good poster presentation example must be editable, well laid out, well organized, and guidelines for the poster presentations. The main sections are an introduction, method, results, conclusions, and bibliography. This example can also see placeholders for charts, graphs, and figures. The use of the right size of the font, proper text format, and proper use of graphics makes any poster presentation an excellent tool for communication.

Good Poster Presentation Example

Example 9: Mathematics Poster Presentation Example

Mathematics poster presentation examples are based on graphs, charts, and maps to show the statistics, mathematical functions, and data. Mathematicians need less amount of text and rely more on data presentations. This example shows how to include numerous charts and graphs in one poster presentation without losing any value in information and readability. It uses classic blue and a good size font for the contained text.

Mathematics Poster Presentation Example

3. Online Scientific Poster Maker

A poster presentation example must present the information and data in an engaging, readable, and attractive layout. It is essential to communicate your important information effectively without losing anything to the structure. An online scientific poster maker is a tool that allows you to create scientific posters in less time and with all essential elements. EdrawMax Online is a great candidate for your best scientific poster maker because it has an easy-to-use editor, great font and layout toolkit, and an excellent collection of templates. You can use the professionally made scientific poster templates for inspiration and a quick start. These templates are fully customizable, so you can add your text and graphics to create an attractive scientific poster. Also, you can import your data easily with a few clicks and export your poster in many file formats.

4. Key Takeaways

Scientific posters and poster presentation examples are more complex than other posters because their information needs to be accurate and complete. Also, the text, data, and graphics must be visible even from a distance. Therefore, an excellent scientific poster maker like EdrawMax allows you to create a perfect poster presentation easily and quickly. A good choice of charts, graphs, and data representation also contributes towards a more effective poster presentation. You cam find more science diagrams or poster presentations in the Templates Community .

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COMMENTS

  1. How to Design a Winning Poster Presentation (Examples & Templates)

    Step 3: Write the content. Write or rewrite the content for the sections in your poster presentation. Use the text in your research paper as a base, but summarize it to be more succinct in what you share. Don't forget to write a catchy title that presents the problem and your findings in a clear way.

  2. PDF Effective Poster Presentations

    vii. Definition is used when a subject requires the understanding of terms, ideas, or phenomena, while Redefinition gives new understanding or new meaning to a topic. Sections to consider including in a poster. Depending on the event, sections may be predetermined, but here are examples of standard headers and the type of content for each:

  3. Introduction

    Most posters are divided into four columns with the Introduction section typically taking up 20% of the total area on the poster. You will likely want to use 22-point to 26-point font in the Introduction section so that your audience can comfortably read the text. The total number of words contained in the Introduction will likely be around 200 ...

  4. Research Guides: How to Create a Research Poster: Poster Basics

    Posters are widely used in the academic community, and most conferences include poster presentations in their program. Research posters summarize information or research concisely and attractively to help publicize it and generate discussion. The poster is usually a mixture of a brief text mixed with tables, graphs, pictures, and other ...

  5. How to prepare a scientific poster

    Poster presentations at scientific conferences can provide early-career researchers with valuable opportunities to practice their communication skills, receive feedback on their research, and expand their network. ... The lack of a proper introduction on posters that have a very specific topic and a lot of specific jargon has frustrated me in ...

  6. PDF How To Make An Effective Poster

    First Thing First: The Title and Abstract. The title of your abstract is very important. Reflect the content of the paper. Specific and Succinct. Use key words for indexing and for searches. 250 Word Max. Includes the following: The research question or problem. The methods.

  7. Creating a Poster

    In general: Use a large font. Don't make the text smaller in order to fit more onto the poster. Make sure that 95% of the text on your poster can be read from 4 feet away. If viewers can't make out the text from a distance, they're likely to walk away.

  8. Academic Poster Resources: The Basics

    Academic posters often follow the basic form of an academic journal article, with distinct sections for the Introduction and/or Problem Statement, Methods, Results or Findings, Discussion, and Conclusions. However, in recent years some scholars have criticized "traditional" poster templates and formats, leading to a proliferation of ...

  9. Components of a Poster Presentation

    Poster. While your presentation is arguably the most important element of a poster presentation, the poster itself is generally what catches people's attention. This portion of the guide discusses the role that your poster plays in presenting your research. For information about formatting and designing your poster, see the Designing Your ...

  10. How to create an effective poster presentation (plus 3 free templates)

    Stick to a color scheme. If you'd like to use a few different colors in your poster, stick to a color scheme that includes two or three shades. Then use them in a consistent pattern. For example, dark green for headings, light green for subheadings and yellow for section borders.

  11. Libraries: How to Create a Poster Presentation: Getting Started

    Make sure your title is descriptive and large enough to be readable from far away. Think about image and font sizes so the poster is readable from 5-8 feet away. Use headings, bullets, and graphics to break up text. Make sure your images and graphics have contrast so they pop on the page.

  12. How to make an academic poster

    The introduction section at the top of the poster should have a larger font than this . 3.6. Colour. It is a good idea to stick to one or two colours for main text; anymore and your poster may look too busy. ... Poster presentations are generally more relaxed than oral presentations. You will need to arrive on time to put your poster up ...

  13. Poster Presentation

    Poster presenters should dress professionally and understand all parts of their poster. Most poster presentations take place in a large room with dozens to hundreds of individual poster presentations occurring simultaneously. A typical presentation lasts 5-15 minutes. Typical audience size for an individual poster presentation will be 1-5 people.

  14. Introduction to Poster Sessions

    An Overview of Poster Sessions. A poster session is a venue in which researchers have the opportunity to share their work with a wide audience in the form of a poster presentation. Poster sessions are often held during conference, professional meetings, or during research days or symposia events.

  15. Poster Presentations

    Subject Librarian. FredStoss is the subject librarian for Poster Presentations - Designing Effective Posters. He provides workshops or lectures on effective poster design for 40- to 90-minute and is available for research consultations, instruction, curricular support & purchase requests. Contact [email protected] , phone: 716 645-1337.

  16. Introduction

    Scientific Posters as Scholarly Works. Posters are scholarly publications that scientists use to communicate findings and discoveries to an audience. Communication between a scientist and their audience can be interactive or self-contained. Posters allow for brief and efficient communication. Poster events are often featured at professional ...

  17. Ten Simple Rules for a Good Poster Presentation

    Posters are a key component of communicating your science and an important element in a successful scientific career. Posters, while delivering the same high-quality science, offer a different medium from either oral presentations [] or published papers [], and should be treated accordingly.Posters should be considered a snapshot of your work intended to engage colleagues in a dialog about the ...

  18. LibGuides: Creating a Poster: Presenting Your Poster

    Use your poster as a visual aid. Prepare a 1 minute, 2-3 minute, and 5 minute presentation of your poster. This way you are prepared to talk about your project in many different situations. Cover the main points. Tell viewers about your research question, thesis, methods, and findings. If you don't know the answer to a question a viewer poses ...

  19. Preparing and Presenting Effective Research Posters

    Conclusions. Effective research posters should be designed around two or three key findings with accompanying handouts and narrative description to supply additional technical detail and encourage dialog with poster viewers. Keywords: Communication, poster, conference presentation. An assortment of posters is a common way to present research ...

  20. Presentations: Poster Content

    Poster Presentation Content. Posters are a visual representation of your research, scholarly, or creative work. Posters should be able to stand alone giving a clear concise representation of your work, without any explanation from you. Below you will find information on what content to include in your poster.

  21. Introduction to Poster Presentations : NSE Communication Lab

    Learn how to prepare and present a poster presentation at a conference or event with tips and resources from the NSE Communication Lab. Find out how to design a digital poster, write an elevator pitch, and deliver a public speaking presentation.

  22. The 6 key parts of a scientific poster

    2. Layout. Poster sections should have a logical visual flow, ideally in a longitudinal fashion. For example, in an article on poster presentations published in Nature, scientific illustrator Jamie Simon recommends using the law of thirds to display your research—a 3-column layout with 3 blocks per column.Headings, columns, graphs, and diagrams should be aligned and distributed with enough ...

  23. Free Editable Poster Presentation Examples

    This nursing poster presentation example shows a nursing research paper's findings in a well-organized manner. It uses columns and rows to break down the information into different segments to make the text more readable. It also uses graphics, including graphs, bars, and charts, to show the relevant data and figures.