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Eight Steps To A Successful Poster Presentation
- Rules for Poster Presenters
- General Guidelines on Preparing Your Poster
- Poster Content
- Don't Go Overboard With Color!
- How Small Is To Small?
- Why Use Graphics?
- Equations
- You're done! What's next?
References
A wealth of material on creating poster presentations is available
on the web. Listed below are the primary sources of material
for the guidelines presented here.
http://www.siam.org/siamnews/general/poster.htm
http://cals.arizona.edu/ecat/pubs/posters/
http://fbox.vt.edu/eng/mech/writing/courses/presentations/poster/sld001.htm
http://honeybee.helsinki.fi/mmeko/OPINNOT/how_to_prepare_a_poster.htm
Rules for Poster Presenters
Presenters are required to attend the poster session, and must remain with
their poster to discuss their work with conference attendees.
Please refrain from eating during the poster session. Murphy's Law: As soon
as you place a bite in your mouth, an excited viewer will want to know more
about your research.
Don't wander from your poster; you may leave an interested viewer
or judge puzzled about your poster's contents.
Typically, those interested will approach your poster and ask you questions;
however, you may want to be a bit more proactive and approach those who may
look interested in your work. However, don't take this piece of advice to
extremes and tackle conference attendees who are more interested in
eating and networking than looking at posters.
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General Guidelines on Preparing Your Poster
Prepare your poster for a multidisciplinary audience. Some attendees may be
experts in your research area, the majority will not. Remember, there will
be undergraduates as well as professionals in the audience. Therefore, design your
poster so that a general audience can understand your work.
The useable space on the 4-ft-high by 8-ft-wide display boards is slightly
less than the stated dimensions. To improve readability, don't entirely
cover the available space.
English-speaking viewers are used to reading from top to bottom and from
left to right.
Avoid overwhelming the audience with too many numbers, words, or complicated
graphs.
Keep your text short. Get the message to the audience as quickly as possible
Use caps and lowercase letters instead of all caps to improve readability.
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Poster Content
The arrangement of the sections of your poster should tell a 'story'. Like
any good story, the poster should contain the following sections:
a Title page, which includes the title of the project, your name,
your collaborators and their affiliation. When designing your poster, make
sure the title of the poster is clearly displayed at the top of the center
panel.
an Introduction that should include clear statements about the
problem that you are trying to solve, the characteristics that you are
trying to discover or the proofs that you are trying to establish. These
should then lead to a statement of project goals.
a Theory or Methodology section that explains the basis of the
technique you are using or the procedure that you have adopted in your work.
You should also state and justify any assumptions, so that your results
could be viewed in the proper context.
a Results section that illustrates the main results of the research
project.
a Conclusion section, which lists the main findings of your
research, and a Future Work section that contains your ideas about how the
work could be progressed and other tests that can be applied, etc.
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Don't Go Overboard With Color!
Don't use
too many
colors. As one reference put it, you are creating a
poster not decorating a room.
Avoid using bright garish colors like bright
green , pink ,
orange or lilac .
Pastel shades convey feelings of serenity and calm while dark bright
colors conjure images of conflict and disharmony.
Choose background and foreground color combinations that have high
contrast and complement each other - black or
dark blue on white or very light grey is good.
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How Small Is To Small?
Use 16 point or larger font size in the poster, so that it is readable from
at least six feet away. Your prospective audience will not approach your
poster if the topic is not clear from a "safe distance".
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Why Use Graphics?
For increased audience interest. It is necessary to catch and hold
audience attention before they can receive your message.
For increased understanding. If information is of a complex or
technical nature, it may be necessary to communicate the information
visually as well as verbally for the message to be understood.
For enhanced retention. People retain visual images far longer
than the written word.
For increased efficiency. Studies indicate that the same message
can be communicated faster by using visuals.
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Equations
Last but not least, let's discuss equations. As applied mathematicians, we
both have struggled with not overwhelming our audience with equations. Here
are some tips.
Equations
* should be kept to a minimum
* present only the necessary and important equations
* should be large enough
* should be accompanied by nomenclature to explain the significance of
each variable
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Your poster is complete, now what?
Edit, edit, edit !
reduce your information to brief but concise, legible statements
whenever possible, reinterpret text as charts, graphs or
illustrations
use point form it is easier to read than sentences
Spell check and proof text very, very carefully before printing.
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Questions regarding the 2003 Tapia Poster Selection process should be directed to:
Brian M. Dennis
Poster Committee Chair
2003 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference
bmd@cs.northwestern.edu
The subject line should read: "Questions about 2003 Tapia Poster Selection".
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