Poster & Poster Presentation

Poster & Poster Presentation

Poster & Poster Presentation

Assignment Summary & Support:

1) Your team will produce a poster[1] presenting your findings from your research and literature review with final posters due by 9 am Mon. Mar. 12 Week 20.

This will be supported by:

  • a brief introduction to scientific posters and poster presentations (in-class Wed. am Jan. 17 Week 12);
  • a “poster tour” of posters produced by other Evergreen students (due by 1 pm Tue. Jan. 30 Week 14), details below;
  • a short workshop on designing posters (in-class Tue. pm Jan. 30 Week 14);
  • peer review of poster drafts (due by 9 am Wed. Feb. 28 Week 18 for in-class workshop);
  • faculty review of posters (due by 9 am Mon. Mar. 5 Week 19 to faculty for review); with
  • final posters (due by 9 am Mon. Mar. 12 Week 20 to send to printer)

2) Your team will present your poster and see your classmates’ posters in a public session[2] on Wed. Mar. 14 Week 20.

This will be supported by:

  • the work above;
  • a workshop on presenting posters (in-class Wed. am Mar. 14 Week 20); just prior to
  • the public poster session (Wed. am Mar. 14 Week 20)

What is a poster?

[from ] Posters are a special type of presentation. When well designed, they are not simply journal papers pasted onto boards. Nor are they mounted sets of presentation slides. Rather, posters, when effectively designed, are something in between.

[excerpted from http://personal.cege.umn.edu/~smith/supplements/poster/guide.htm] A scientific poster is a communication tool which combines a verbal presentation with a visual aid. They are given to a small group of people, are limited in time and range of view, and are informal and interactive. […] Incorporating good basic graphic design principles, using good quality art materials and papers, and the use of color as an organizing tool will contribute to the professional approach of this scientific communication. […] You must use visual short-cuts and plan your verbal presentation carefully to do posters well.

[from https://guides.nyu.edu/posters] Posters are widely used in the academic community, and most conferences include poster presentations in their program. Research posters summarize information or research concisely and attractively to help publicize it and generate discussion. The poster is usually a mixture of a brief text mixed with tables, graphs, pictures, and other presentation formats. At a conference, the researcher stands by the poster display while other participants can come and view the presentation and interact with the author.

Your poster is an opportunity to combine both a small number of words and a few, well-chosen and well-placed images, to quickly and clearly communicate (from about 10 feet away) the most interesting and important aspects of your research, as well as to share ways for viewers to find out more about your topic.

Poster Design and Requirements

During the Poster Design Workshop (in-class Tue. pm Jan. 30 Week 14), we will go over and decide on required design elements and content for your poster.

In preparation for this workshop, you will complete the Poster Tour assignment, detailed on the next page.

Poster Tour and Write-up

due 1pm Tue. Jan. 30

  • Complete Tour and Write-up before Physics Lab on Tuesday January 30, 2018.
  • Bring your Write-up (described below) with you to Physics Lab, which begins with a Poster Design Workshop.
  • You may complete the Tour by yourself, with your team, etc. but are responsible for your own individual Write-up.
  • Write-ups will be collected at the end of the Poster Design Workshop and will be evaluated on effort and completion.

Tour

In order to help you design an attractive, functional poster, we are asking you to examine at least 10 of the posters on display in the Lab I and Lab II buildings (all three floors, including faculty office wings as well as outside classrooms and lab rooms; don’t just look on one floor and in one area). Choose at least 5 posters to take notes on things like the following:

  • Poster title, authors, and date (if available)
  • What strikes your interest?
  • What works well?
  • What doesn’t work well?
  • Is the poster self-explanatory, or does it require explanation from a presenter?
  • How would you redesign the poster to improve it?
  • Does this poster rank as one of your favorites and, if so, why?

Before you begin your poster tour, familiarize yourself with some online guides to good poster design

(e.g., or https://guides.nyu.edu/posters; we welcome your additional suggestions for good guides)

As you review the posters on display in the Lab I and II buildings, keep in mind that they may have been produced with different requirements than the ones we will discuss and decide on in our January 30 Poster Design Workshop. The main task of any poster, however, is to combine both a small number of words and a few, well-chosen and well-placed images, to quickly and clearly communicate (from about 10 feet away) the most interesting and important aspects of the topic you researched and any conclusions you drew, as well as to share ways for viewers to find out more about your topic.

Write-up

Type up a summary of what you learned from your Poster Tour about what is more effective and less effective for poster design. Include some initial thoughts about design elements that you found particularly effective and would like to include in your own team’s poster, and what you found especially unappealing and would like to avoid in your team poster.

Relevant Program Learning Goals:

  • Improve your ability to articulate and assume responsibility for your own work.
  • Strengthen your collaborative skills and the ability to respond in useful ways to the work of colleagues.
  • Improve your skills in clear communication of mathematical and scientific ideas, both orally and in writing.

Relevant Project-specific Learning Goals:

  • Apply and integrate knowledge from chemistry, mathematics, and physics to contexts outside textbooks and lab exercises, particularly energy.
  • Identify, quantify, and apply energy transformations.
  • Link energy transformations to societal impacts.

[1] The program budget will pay for your 24”x36” color poster.

[2] To which the Evergreen community will be invited.

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