6BM040 Honours Research Project Assessment Brief Component 2 | University of Wolverhampton

6BM040 Assessment Brief

Component 2- assignment details

You will produce and electronically submit a scientific poster summarising your Project via the Canvas topic in semester 2 by Monday 23th February at 2pm and present it at a designated poster session (details regarding date/time will be published during semester 2). 

The poster MUST be submitted as a pdf, ppt or pptx file.

The poster should be A2 in size (594x420mm (4 x A4 pages). For details on the presentation and content of a scientific poster see below

Presentations will be double-marked so you will be assessed by your own project supervisor plus one other member of academic staff. Guidelines on how the poster presentation will be assessed and a copy of the assessment grid are detailed below. 

Poster Presentations will be assessed using the following marking criteria: 

Frequently asked questions.

1.How big should the poster be?

You poster should be A2 in size (594 x 420mm). This is important that you set before you start designing your poster or your text and figures will all be the wrong size!

2.How do I create my poster?

There are a variety of programmes which can be used to create a poster, including Microsoft Office Visio or you could choose to use Microsoft Office PowerPoint, which may be easier as you are more likely to be familiar with this programme.

3.What sections should I include in my poster?

Title: Keep this short and punchy. It should convey the key message about your project. Try to get it in to one line if possible. Font size should be approximately 36 points. Use a sans serif font, such as Arial, for clearer text. 

Authors: Underneath this you should include the names of the authors (Student and Supervisor). Font size: approx 24 Points.
Sub-headings: Font size should be approx 24 point.

Body of text: Font size should be approx 18 points. 
Remember people need to be able to read your poster easily when standing about 1m away

Introduction: This section should include a brief overview of the relevant background information. You may include a few key reference citations (remember to use the Harvard format). 

Objective or Aim: A clear statement to explain what the main purpose of the project was and what you intended to determine. One or two sentences at most.

Methods: A concise account of experimental methodology and design. You should state the statistical techniques used in the project. It may be helpful to provide a figure to explain your experimental set up or design, remember to give the figure a heading. The methodology should be written in the same style as you would expect to see in a research paper.

Results: This section should include text highlighting the main findings or your project and illustrative examples of the main results of the work. Data can be presented in a variety of ways (tables, graphs, histograms, diagrams, photographs etc). Select the method which displays your results to their best advantage. Figures should have clear headings and should be referred to in the body of the text. Statistical data should be included where appropriate.

NB. The results section can contain preliminary or incomplete data, as you may not have completed your data collection and analysis.
Discussion: A succinct critical analysis of the data presented. Include an assessment of the success achieved in fulfilling the original objectives of the project. The evaluation should relate the results obtained to the published work of others (key reference citations can be included). Comment on the relevance of the results.
NB. If you are not able to draw any conclusions on incomplete data sets you could hypothesise on what you expect your results to show.

Conclusion: A brief but accurate statement of the conclusions which you have reached after analysis of the results. 

References: All references which you have cited in your poster should be included here, a maximum of 10 is sufficient for a poster. Harvard format – Correct use of the Harvard referencing system. For further information and help on referencing access this interactive guide (https://www.citethemrightonline.com/).
Font can be smaller for this, approx 16 points.

4.How do I design my poster?

Your poster should be concise, comprehensive, simple to follow and eye catching – not an easy task! A poster can be made in a range of layouts depending on what you include and personal preferences. Some words of advice though, you should make sure that the poster is easy to read. This can be done by ensuring there is enough white space, so that the writing and figures aren’t too close together; make your headings clear and make sure that the layout of the information is in a logical order, you don’t want your reader to get lost on their journey through your poster!

There are books in the library (also available online) which can help with the design of your poste, for example:

Rowe, Nicholas. Academic & Scientific Poster Presentation A Modern Comprehensive Guide. 1st ed. 2017. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017. Web.
You can also ask your University Supervisor for advice.