creating a poster presentation
DESCRIPTION
Creating a Poster Presentation. Overview. An engineering poster is: A large document to communicate your work Is composed of: A short title An introduction to your burning question A n overview of your trendy experimental approach Y our amazing results - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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.
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PurposeTo inform readers
ProgressResultsImplications
• Further research• Practical applications
To persuade readers. . .that you know what you are doing!
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AudiencePosters usually aimed at expertsBut, know your audience’s level of
sophistication– Decide which terms need defining– Using good illustrations will make your job
easierBe prepared to give oral explanations at
much simpler and more complex levels
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How people decide which posters to read
• Time available
• Interest in topic
• Attractiveness of poster
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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 captionsTell an interesting story
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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
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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
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Choosing the communication for
the message
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Target Audience:Your peersEvent: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
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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
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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
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Tell an interesting story
Combine text and graphics to make it interesting
Design poster so it is easy to follow the story
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How people read text
Top to bottomLeft to rightPeople 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
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Why would you make a poster like this?
People read text
Top to bottom
Left to right
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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
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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
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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).
How much text?
No more than can be read in just a few minutes
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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.
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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.
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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
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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!
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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
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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
IntroductionMethodologyConclusions
Why study Oxymorons?Giggles-per-hour test apparatusToast is 27x more likely to land butter-side-down
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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.
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Layout: Alignment
Line up text and images to help readers understand process
Use flush left alignment for text
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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
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Poor layoutThe 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
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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
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Parts of a poster
✔ Title– Short, simple, catchy explanation– Follow with names of researchers
Abstract– Unnecessary on a poster– Waste of space
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Parts of a poster✔ Introduction/background–Give bare minimum needed to understand your
hypothesis/problem statement
✔ Design: Explain reasoning
Why design was chosenWhy design has good
chance of success
✔ Experiment: Materials and methods
Describe experimentGreat place to use graphics
Flow chartPhotographsDiagrams
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Parts of a poster
✔ Results– Did experiment work?– What happened?– Show and discuss data collected
✔ Conclusions– Was hypothesis supported?– What happens next?
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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
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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
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Acknowledgements
• Purrington, C.B. 2009. Advice on designing scientific posters. http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/posteradvice.htm. Accessed October 23, 2009.
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Smaples
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Smaples
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Smaples
• http://www.flickr.com/groups/368476@N21/pool/
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