Scientific Poster Guidelines

Overview: One critical, and often over-looked aspect of doing good science, is communicating your work effectively. This allows others to both learn from your work as well as provides an important opportunity for peer review, a process essential to maintaining the rigor and reliability of science. Scientists communicate their work in a variety of formats, including talks, papers, and using scientific posters. In this project, you will work collaboratively with your research team to build and present a scientific poster.

What should your poster look like? Your poster should contain the following components:

  1. A Title: You should include a short, descriptive title. Make sure that it is easy to read (large font) and visible from a distance! List the names of your group members beneath your title. Please also include a logo for your institutional affiliation (NSC!).
  2. An Abstract (<~120 words): Your abstract is your brief summary of the entire poster, including your results and conclusions. Imagine a viewer who only has a minute or two to read your poster; they should be able to understand it by reading just your abstract. Abstracts should be written last.
  3. An Introduction: Your introduction should introduce your topic and connect it to the most relevant primary literature. Your introduction should be no more than a couple paragraphs long. Use images and bullet points when you can!
  4. Methods: Provide enough detail that someone can understand your project. They do not need to be able to repeat if from your poster! It is fine, for example, to say you cultured bacteria on LB; your audience does not need to know the size of the plates or the volume of LB in each plate. Again, consider a flow chart or other visual representation of your methods.
  5. Results- Describe the data you collected. Include graphs, diagrams, and figures. Raw, unprocessed data is rarely included on a poster (or in a paper). Think carefully about how to best analyze and present your data. Take care to describe all key findings in your (brief) text, referring to specific figures by number.
  6. Discussion and Conclusions: This portion of your poster provides your analysis of your results. You can use this space to compare and contrast ideas, issues, alternate hypotheses, etc. This portion should also reiterate your conclusion(s) and connect it to related findings in the literature. This is also a great place to highlight any next steps needed in this research, even if you don’t plan to continue it.
  7. Figures: You will want to include many visual aids on your poster to help your reader understand and visualize your topic. These figures can also help you attract and keep your viewers’ attention! Each figure should be numbered, have a one sentence descriptive caption, and include a reference.
  8. References Cited: You MUST include a complete list of references for your poster. These references should be in alphabetical order by the last name of the author. (See example below.) Please talk with your instructor if you are uncertain about selecting credible sources as references. (Wikipedia is generally not considered a credible source!)Your references may be listed in a smaller font, or even on the back of your poster if you’re short on space.
  9. Acknowledgements: Be sure to thank any folks who have been especially critical to your work, especially any of the lab techs you’ve relied on!

Printing your poster: Most posters are now prepared digitally. This allows you to be much more effective with your use of space and color.While there are many software options for building a poster, one of the easiest programs to use is PowerPoint. You can change the size of a slide to reflect your desired poster size (40 inches wide by 32 inches high) and then simply place your text where you’d like. Your instructor can provide examples of posters for you to review as well as templates you can use to get started. Once your poster is complete, you have several options for printing it. The Copy Center in the Communications building at the University of Washington is one of the cheapest, most reliable places to print. You can email them your poster, but you will need to pick it up. The posters cost about ~$30 to print. Be aware that they typically have a 2-3 day turnaround.

Copy and Mail Center: Communications B042 (Map:

Presenting your poster: Your poster “presentation” is not a formal speech, but rather an opportunity to engage in small conversations about your work. You should prepare a 1-2 minute “elevator speech” that briefly explains your research question and findings. You can then use your poster to answer any questions viewers might have.