creating a poster presentation

School of Engineering

CHS School of Engineering

Creating a PosterPresentation

Overview

• An engineering poster is:– A large document to communicate your work – Is composed of:

• A short title• An introduction to your burning question• An overview of your trendy experimental approach• Your amazing results• Some insightful discussion of aforementioned results• A listing of previously published articles that are important to your research• Some brief acknowledgement of the tremendous assistance and financial

support conned from others

• If all text is kept to a minimum, a person could fully read your poster in under 10 minutes.


PurposeTo inform readers

Progress

Results

Implications• Further research

• Practical applications

To persuade readers. . .

that you know what you are doing!


Audience

Posters usually aimed at experts

But, know your audience’s level of sophistication– Decide which terms need defining– Using good illustrations will make your job

easier

Be prepared to give oral explanations at much simpler and more complex levels


How people decide which posters to read

• Time available

• Interest in topic

• Attractiveness of poster


How do people read posters?

1. Scan poster title

2. Look at pictures

3. Read captions

4. Read text

Biggest, boldest objects get attention first

Add eye-catching graphics

Use keywords and make title text large and legible

Write informative captions

Tell an interesting story


Title = Headline

• Make title intriguing to draw readers in

• Avoid RI&A (Ridiculous Initialisms & Acronyms) that slow down readers

• Capitalize only first word and proper names

• Big enough to be read from 10' away

• Sans Serif type

• No more than two lines of type


Use big, strong clear images

Consider a poster entirely made up of pictures and captions!

• Label significant parts with callouts

• Write informative captions

Carpal tunnel syndrome is a painful condition of the hand and fingers caused by compression of a major nerve where it passes over the carpal bones through a passage at the front of the wrist, alongside the flexor tendons of the hand. It may be caused by repetitive movements over a long period, or by fluid retention, and is characterized by sensations of tingling, numbness, or burning.

Carpal Tunnel


Choosing the communication for

the message


Target Audience:

Your peers

Event:

Conference

Target Audience:

Specialists, but not experts

Target Audience:

General public

Increasing popularity

Target Audience:Peers

• Objectives– To be acknowledged within your research

community– To find research partners

• Title– Same as the published paper. – This type of poster is explained by the

researcher during a poster session


Target Audience:Specialists, but not

experts• Objectives

– To be recognized by industrial partners and academics

– To reach new target audiences– To explain the laboratory research– To find a job for yourself

• Title– Appealing in order to capture and retain the attention

of the reader.– This type of poster is explained by the researcher


Target Audience:Peers

• Objectives– To be acknowledged within your research

community– To find research partners

• Title– Same as the published paper. This type of

poster is explained by the researcher during a poster session


Tell an interesting story

Combine text and graphics to make it interesting

Design poster so it is easy to follow the story


How people read text

Top to bottom

Left to right

People scan, looking for familiar words and phrases

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For facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy, nibh euismod tincidunt laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore et fuegiat nulla facfacillisis at vero eros et accumansan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesant luptatum zzril delenit augue

New method for disambiguating E. Rascal2


Why would you make a poster like this?

People read text

Top to bottom

Left to right


Organizing a poster

Note how lots of white space separates elements

Most important

Least important

Start Finish

Title goes here: use keywords to attract readers

Subhead 1Blah blah, blah, and blah, blah, and blah, blah, blah, blah, and blah, blah, blah,

blah blah,

Caption blah, blah, blah, and blah,

Source of data blah, blah, blah


Poster-making Software

Page layout applications:– QuarkXPress– Adobe InDesign– LaTeX

Also try:– Adobe Illustrator– CorelDRAW– Omnigraffle

PowerPoint• usable, but not as many

features as the others

• important to change defaults


Poster template files for many of the above programs can be found on the internet by conducting a search in Google for “poster template” and then adding the application name (e.g., Powerpoint).

http://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Corel3/Products/Display&pid=1047025934319&trkid=cdgsgoogle&trkid=15646630

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/

How much text?

No more than can be read in just a few minutes


What size text?

• Text should be readable from 6' away

• Text size depends on width of column

– Wider the column bigger the text

– BUT: hard to read really wide columnsUt wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore et fuegiat nulla facfacillisis at vero eros et accumansan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesant luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam no nummy, nibh euismod tincidunt laoreet dolore magna aliquam.

Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore et fuegiat nulla facfacillisis at vero eros et accumansan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesant luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam no nummy, nibh euismod tincidunt laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad min.

Never, ever incorporate "web" graphics without extreme caution. Most web images have 72 dots per inch of resolution, but printing at that resolution looks absolutely terrible, and the figure will be a huge turn-off to prospective viewers. And never, ever assume that your mentor has, or can find, a high-quality image to give you -- if they have anything, it is usually something pulled of the Internet. If you have access to a digital camera, use it to get a high quality photograph of your study setup or organism (e.g., your Drosophila mutant, a close-up of your Arabidopsis in flower). Memory space is cheap on a digital camera, so take 100 photographs to ensure that at least one has crisp detail, good composition, non-distracting background, etc. Sometimes to get the perfect shot you will need to seek out a microscope that has a camera attached to it. Run your best image through Photoshop to adjust contrast, image size, and sharpening. It should look professional when printed; if it does not, start over.


What kind of text?

• Roman/serif font OK for body text– Times– Palatino

– Lucida Bright

– Constantia

– Bookman

• Use italics instead of underlining for emphasis

• Left alignment (Don't justify


Empty space (white space)

• Makes poster more readable and less overwhelming (=less boring)

• Use only half of your poster for text

– Leave room for graphics

– Leave empty space = NOTHING!


Layout should follow principles of document

design

• Hierarchy– Some elements are more

important than others

• Proximity– Keep related items near one

another

• Alignment

Note extra space between

items


Layout: Hierarchy

• Organize ideas in logical order• Leave plenty of white space• Provide navigational aids

– Use subheads before each section– Avoid generic subheads whenever possible

Introduction

Methodology

Conclusions

Why study Oxymorons?

Giggles-per-hour test apparatus

Toast is 27x more likely to land butter-side-down


Layout: Proximity

Keep related elements together

a) Subhead goes right under head

b) Illustrations go next to text

c) Captions go right under illustrations

d) Illustrations discussed in text

3. Side mirrorsImpact Testing 1991–2003

Fig 4. Replacing side mirrors resulted in an increase in accidentsOur results clearly indicated that Leporidae feet had a negative effect on operators, distracting them while they were operating heavy equipment. After the loss (Fig. 4) of a third test vehicle, we were denied permission to continue our experiments and a number of imprecations were hurled at the observers.

Over the course of the experiments, we removed the side mirrors from large equipment and replaced them with hanging “lucky” rabbits feet.


Layout: Alignment

Line up text and images to help readers understand process

Use flush left alignment for text


Alignment with Powerpoint

HOW TO Align a group of objects

1.Hold down SHIFT, and then click the objects that you want to align

2.Choose the alignment you want and click

Background Methodology Implications


Poor layout

The Panama Canal is about 50 miles (80 km) long, across the Isthmus of Panama, that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Its construction, begun by the French under Ferdinand de Lesseps in 1881, was abandoned in 1889 and was completed by the U.S. between 1904 and 1914. Control of the canal remained with the U.S. until 1999, when it was ceded to Panama.

Plans call for widening the canal to accommodate modern freighters.

Profile Map of the Panama Canal

1997 Map of Panama, showing

route of the Panama Canal


Better Layout

The Panama CanalThe Panama Canal is about 50 miles (80 km) long, across the Isthmus of Panama, and connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Construction, begun by the French under Ferdinand de Lesseps in 1881, was abandoned in 1889 and was completed by the U.S. between 1904 and 1914. Control of the canal remained with the U.S. until 1999, when it was ceded to Panama.

Plans call for widening the canal to accommodate modern freighters.

Profile Map of the Panama Canal

1997 Map of Panama, showing route of the Panama Canal


Parts of a poster

✔ Title– Short, simple, catchy explanation– Follow with names of researchers

Abstract– Unnecessary on a poster– Waste of space


Parts of a poster✔ Introduction/background–Give bare minimum needed to understand your

hypothesis/problem statement

✔ Design: Explain reasoning

Why design was chosen

Why design has good chance of success

✔ Experiment: Materials and methods

Describe experimentGreat place to use graphics

Flow chartPhotographsDiagrams


Parts of a poster

✔ Results– Did experiment work?– What happened?– Show and discuss data collected

✔ Conclusions– Was hypothesis supported?– What happens next?


Parts of a poster

✔ Literature citations– List only articles you actually used– Follow standard citation style for your

field

✔ Acknowledgments– List people who helped you– List sources of funding

✔ Further information– How can people reach you if they

have questions, comments, job offers, Nobel Prizes, etc. for you


The End

Just one more thingDon’t forget your spiel:

Prepare a short oral explanation of your project using the poster as a visual aid.Keep it simple—you may have to repeat it

100 times!

Make it adaptable to different audiences


Acknowledgements

• Purrington, C.B. 2009. Advice on designing scientific posters. http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/posteradvice.htm. Accessed October 23, 2009.


http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/posteradvice.htm.%20Accessed%20October%2023

http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/posteradvice.htm.%20Accessed%20October%2023

Smaples


Smaples

• http://www.flickr.com/groups/368476@N21/pool/


creating a poster presentation

Documents

type of poster

scan poster titlelook

research partnerstitlesame

research communityto

published paper

title text large

published articles

picturesread captionsread