how to make a good poster board presentation

Academic Writing / Conferences

Presenting a Poster Presentation: Tips and Reflections

by Purdue Global Academic Success Center and Writing Center · Published December 9, 2015 · Updated December 8, 2015

By Amy Sexton, Kaplan University Writing Center Tutor

Active professional development and scholarship are extremely important for educators, and conferences can provide an excellent avenue for both. As a virtual employee, I find it especially refreshing to attend physical conferences and interact face-to-face with colleagues in my field. I recently had the opportunity to present at a poster session at the Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy in Savannah, GA. As a writing tutor, I constantly help students with tasks related to information literacy, so I wanted to attend and present at this conference. I have presented workshops and traditional presentations at conferences before, but I had never presented a poster presentation, so that is what I proposed. I wanted to broaden my horizons and try something new and different. Designing and making the poster and then presenting to a group of educators was interesting and fruitful and resulted in numerous takeaways, including practical suggestions for designing and producing posters and thoughtful reflections.

Designing and Creating a Poster: Prior to this conference, my experience with primarily visual communication had been limited to PowerPoint presentations and the occasional bulletin board, so I needed assistance with poster design. I found the following sites and articles helpful:

Creating Effective Poster Presentations – This site contains comprehensive links that cover important elements from planning to presenting the poster (Hess, Tosny, & Liegel, 2015).

How to Distinguish a Good Poster Design from a Bad One – This article gives helpful guidelines and pictures of good, bad, and ugly poster designs. As a visual learner, I appreciated seeing examples (“How to Distinguish”, n.d.).

Free Research Poster PowerPoint Templates – While I did not use a template, I found it helpful to see templates and examples (“Free Research Poster”, 2015). I would definitely use a template if I had arranged to have my poster printed (see below).

When I created my poster, I first wrote a PowerPoint presentation and then printed the slides and arranged them on a 36X48 trifold poster board. I used adhesive tabs to attach the slides to the poster. This worked well, and I was happy with my poster design, but, as always, hindsight and reflection have helped me pinpoint some things I may have done differently. I share these here in hopes that they may be helpful to others who may not be very familiar with poster design and creation.

One reason that I did not use a template was I realized that doing so would require a special printer to print the larger PowerPoint slides. I do not have a special printer, so I would have had to arrange for a printing company to print my poster. The starting price for printing a poster the size of mine is $45 at PosterPresentations.com (“Price Guide”, 2015), and a quick Internet search suggests that this is a typical price. While this may seem expensive, to compare, it is approximately the same amount that I spent preparing my poster. Also, if I had flown to the conference rather than driven, as many conference attendees do, having the poster printed and shipped to the hotel or conference site would have been necessary. Obviously, having a poster printed would be an extra step that would need to be factored into the planning process.

Conference Reflections: Preparing the poster, traveling with it, and setting it up at the conference went smoothly, but, once I was in the room and presenting with colleagues, I noticed that many of the other presenters had a related, tangible action that they discussed with conference participants, such as a study, project, or course revision. The presenters to my left talked about an ongoing traveling librarian program at their university; the presenter on my right detailed the successes of implementing an information literacy component using Web 2.0 technologies into a library research course. While my project had good ideas and research, I have not yet implemented any of my findings (other than to publish an article on this blog: Exploring and Preventing Plagiarism in a Digital Age ), so I am now thinking about ways that I can use the knowledge I gained from my research in my daily work and future presentations.

Overall, proposing and presenting this presentation was a worth-while and fun professional learning experience. Perhaps best of all, it was something new and unfamiliar, which forced me to step, metaphorically, into the shoes of our students as each and every course they begin is likely new and unfamiliar to them.

Free research poster PowerPoint templates. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.posterpresentations.com/html/free_poster_templates.html

Hess, G., Tosney, K. & Liegel, L. (2015). Creating effective poster presentations: An effective poster. Retrieved from http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/index.html

How to distinguish a good poster design from a bad one. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nuigalway.ie/remedi/poster/media/Posters_Good_and_bad.pdf

Price guide: Products and services. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.posterpresentations.com/html/price_guide.html

I Really Want to Present at a Conference: The Keys to a Successful Submission Process: Part One

October 12, 2016

by Purdue Global Academic Success Center and Writing Center · Published October 12, 2016 · Last modified April 8, 2020

The Icing on the Cake: Presenting at Academic Conferences with Colleagues

May 18, 2016

by Purdue Global Academic Success Center and Writing Center · Published May 18, 2016 · Last modified March 27, 2018

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Hi Kathleen, Thank you for your feedback! I am so happy that you found my blog post helpful and that it has inspired you to consider doing your own poster presentation!

Fantastic blog, thanks! I’ve never done a Poster Presentation, but now I feel that I can do one in the future!

104: How to Give a Perfect Poster Presentation

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It’s a tragic fact: many jaw-dropping, eye-opening, and heart-pounding research results never makes an impact on the scientific community.

And it’s partly your fault.

By “your,” of course, I mean all of us. Because when we waste the opportunity to share our results in their best light at a scientific conference or poster session, our viewers may overlook this valuable insight.

But we can do better! With a little planning, collaboration, and hard work, we can make even a humble poster presentation a vehicle for inspiring the next discovery and building our scientific network.

Let’s get started!

Poster Perfect

A poster session is a unique opportunity for a young scientist.

As a viewer, you get the chance to engage in a casual conversation with other scientists, often one-on-one, about a topic that interests you. It’s an opportunity to ask for clarity, pose a question, or offer ideas without an audience of 200 staring at the back of your head.

As a presenter, you get all of those benefits, as well as an opportunity to build your network and identify collaborators. You also get many chances to practice your ‘pitch’ as new visitors step up every few minutes. It will sharpen both your skill as a communicator and your research plan.

And while there are probably some guidelines for being a good poster-viewer, in this episode, we focused our discussion on the best ways to prepare and present a poster.

Before You Begin

As with any presentation, answering a few questions before you get started will save you hours in front of the computer.

Know Your Audience

If you are presenting to the Microbiology Conference, you may want to include more detailed background information than if you’re presenting to other experts in your sub-field at a Malaria Symposium. Space is limited, and thinking ahead about what your audience may, or may not, know will help you prepare for the proper range of visitor experience.

Start Early

You may be a wizard of poster creation and can put off your design until the night before you fly to the conference, but that’s a bad idea. Instead, leave extra time before printing share your file with collaborators for review. They need time to look over your work and offer feedback before it’s committed to (gigantic) paper.

Practice, Practice, Practice

You’ll also need time to practice presenting the poster. More on this later, but sometimes the act of presentation lets us see where we have gaps or mistakes in the logic or design. It’s a good idea to practice with people from outside your lab because if they are already familiar with your work, they won’t notice when you skip steps or fail to explain a concept clearly.

Find Your Story

It may sound odd, but poster presentation is a form of story-telling. The best posters make that story clear and concise.

Even if you have multiple projects in the lab, choose ONE to present in your poster. Start by jotting down a central question you’re trying to answer, or a hypothesis your lab is testing. Keeping this key idea in mind as you prepare the presentation will give you a firm structure on which to hang the other elements.

Making a Poster

There are a couple of broad guidelines to keep in mind as you create your poster.

First, remember that the poster is a visual form, and space is limited. That means you should avoid printing long paragraphs of text. Instead, use the space to display graphs, images, and figures, with a few bullet points or figure legends to help the viewer track the story.

Second, stick with a ‘standard’ layout. Your viewers have been trained for years to look for titles at the top and conclusions on the bottom right. You make viewing your poster harder by moving these elements around.

Third, maintain consistency within your poster. Stick with one or two fonts, and be sure that headings, bullets, and figures are matched in style, weight, and size.

Finally, give your work some breathing room. White-space is important, and will make the poster more readable.

Poster Pieces

Manuscript titles are often formulaic and a bit dull as they describe the basic findings of the research paper, but your poster title can be more creative. The goal is to catch a viewer’s attention while also letting them know what they’ll see when they visit.

Again, remembering your audience, include enough information to help them understand your main question or hypothesis. Avoid paragraphs, and include a figure or diagram if you can.

Hypothesis / Main Question

This section is an absolute must, so don’t forget it! It lets the viewer instantly understand what the poster is about and what they can expect to learn if they follow you through to the conclusion.

Again, a diagram or figure works great here. Use this section to help the viewer understand your experimental approach to the question. You don’t need to detail every last step – save that for the paper you publish!

This is where the action is. Remember – you don’t need to include every experiment you’ve ever done. Just describe the results that help address the main question/hypothesis.

Use descriptive figure titles that help the viewer understand your conclusion. “Gel of Protein X” doesn’t help anyone, but “Protein X is Up-Regulated After Drug Treatment” tells them what they should expect to see in the scan.

Cut out extraneous information or parts of the image, and use arrows or boxes to help direct attention to the relevant parts.

Double check this section for readability – axes and labels can often be too small to read from a four-foot distance.

Conclusions

Another chance to draw a diagram! Or use 2-3 bullet points to help summarize what you’ve found.

Other Sections

Some posters include acknowledgements or future directions. These are optional and might make sense on a case-by-case basis.

Every poster should include the author’s contact info, though! This allows people to reach out even if you’ve stepped away from the poster, and helps collaborators keep in touch after the meeting.

Presenting a Poster

Crafting the perfect poster is only half the battle, now it’s time to describe that work from start to finish.

Timing is Everything

Walking a viewer through your presentation should take roughly five to seven minutes. That doesn’t seem like a long time, but it’s an important target. Many presenters take too long to share the poster, leaving the audience bored, uncomfortable, and searching for a way out.

By telling your story in five minutes, you let the audience guide the conversation. If they’re satisfied with your description, or bored out of their minds, they can move on to another poster.

If they’re excited and want to learn more, they can ask questions or probe the results more deeply.

Act Like an Actor

As you present, remember that you mustn’t turn your back on your audience! You’ll be tempted to turn to look at the poster yourself, closing off the conversation. Instead, keep an open stance and point out relevant sections off to your side.

Also, check your enthusiasm. Too many poster presenters seem bored, tired, or listless. If they don’t think their work is exciting, why should their audience?!

Stop a moment to notice your energy level, and try to step it up as you present. Make eye contact, welcome new viewers as the approach, and modulate your voice.

Your enthusiasm for your work can be contagious.

Tailor Made

Because most poster presentations occur one-on-one, it’s imperative that you actively tailor your pitch to the person standing in front of you.

When they step up, you can briefly ask about their background or interest in the subject. If they’re a neophyte, you’ll want to avoid jargon and check that they’ve understood each section before moving on. If they’re an expert, they may want to skip straight to the results!

Be aware of their cues and body language, and let them help steer the conversation.

That’s it! Now you’re a poster-presenting-pro! Go make a splash at your next poster session, and be sure to share YOUR tips and ideas for poster presentation in the comments below.

For more information on attending conferences, check out Episode 097: Conference Like the Pros – How to Plan, Network, and Win

I’m Getting Seasick

This week, we sample a very special ethanol that has probably traveled farther than we have.

Jefferson’s Ocean Bourbon spends its time in a barrel bobbing around on a research ship as it sails around the world! Supposedly, all of that rocking, equatorial heat, and sea spray mimics the way bourbon tasted when it was shipped back from the New World.

Best part: you get to read the Captain’s Log of each batch’s journey!