OMED0104 Analytical Methods and QA/QC Principles Poster Presentation Guide

OMED0104 Designing posters

What it should include

• A short title
• An introduction to your burning question
• An overview of your novel experimental approach, your amazing results in graphical form
• Some insightful discussion of results, major takaways - keep to three
• A listing of previously published articles that are important to your research that you have cited
• Brief acknowledgement of the tremendous assistance and financial support
• All text should be kept to 500-1000 words, a person could fully read your poster in 5-10 minutes.

A big chunk of the poster real estate is below a viewer’s field of vision – I prefer landscape to portrait for this reason

What to put in each section

Title

Should briefly convey the interesting issue, the general experimental approach, and the system (e.g., organism) [approximately
1-2 lines]

Abstract

Do not include an abstract on a poster (a poster is an abstract of your research, so having two summaries is a waste of valuable poster space). Some meetings require an abstract, of course, and if that’s the case be as brief as possible.

Introduction

Write this section to target an intelligent person who is not in your field.

In the first two sentences get your viewer interested in the issue or question that drove you to take up the project in the first place.

Place your issue/question in the context of published, primary literature – what is known and what is unknown!
Pitch a novel hypothesis then briefly describe (briefly) the experimental approach that can test your hypothesis. Keep length to less than 200 words.

Materials and methods

Briefly describe experimental equipment and procedure, Use figures and flow charts to illustrate experimental design if possible. Include a photograph or labelled drawing of organism or setup. Mention statistical analyses that were used and how they allowed you to address hypothesis. Keep length to approximately 200 words.

Results

Para 1. State whether your experiment procedure worked. Briefly describe qualitative and descriptive results
Para 2. Begin presentation of data analysis that more specifically addresses your hypothesis.

Provide engaging figure legends that could stand on their own (i.e., could convey some point to reader if viewer skipped all other sections, which they will do).

Show figures rather than tables whenever possible.

Conclusions

Remind the reader of the major result and quickly state whether your hypothesis was supported.

Try to convince the reader why the outcome is interesting, compare to what is known.

Add sentence on future directions of research. Keep length to less than 200 words.

Literature cited

Follow format described in rubric.

Acknowledgments

Thank individuals for specific contributions (equipment donation, statistical advice, laboratory assistance, comments on earlier versions of the poster). Mention who has provided funding. Do not list people’s. Keep length to approximately 40 words.

DOs and DON’Ts

Below are the top 10 tips:

1. The number one mistake is to make a poster too wordy. Aim for 700 words or less.
2. The second-most common mistake is related to the first: a failure to maintain a pleasing amount of white space around text boxes and figures. A cramped poster is hard to read, and the brain simply cannot effectively process the information provided, regardless of how amazing it is.
3. Avoid titles with colons if you can: they are overused.
4. Format the title in sentence case e.g. 

Effect of ken and barbie knockouts on sexual preference in Drosophila melanogaster

NOT

Effect of Ken and Barbie Knockouts on Sexual Preference in Drosophila Melanogaster

Or

EFFECT OF KEN AND BARBIE KNOCKOUTS ON SEXUAL PREFERENCE IN DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER

5. Use Sans serif fonts (e.g. Arial, Helvetica, Verdana) for readability from a distance

6. Don’t vary the width of text boxes (it’s visually distracting).
7. Whenever possible, use lists of sentences rather than blocks of text.
8. Use italics instead of underlining. Underlining draws too much attention to a word.
9. Use only a single space between sentences.
10 Avoid color combinations that create problems for those with color-deficient alleles. Approximately
8% of males and 0.5% of females have some degree of color-vision deficiency (example).