Promotion

Making a Poster Presentation?

Whenever you attended congresses, you are always witness to many different types of posters. Posters are an excellent way of promoting your work, but you have to be aware that the way in which you present your poster reveals a lot about yourself, and the work being displayed. The following guide will help you when preparing professional posters for conferences and events and includes a list of recommended references if you want to find out more.

Step1: Deciding What Information to include

Your poster should tell readers what, when, where, who, how and why as well as so what? And now what? You should aim to "answer" each of these questions in a sentence or two, using language that the "intelligent layperson" can understand. In more formal "research" terms these are often listed as the introduction, methods, results, discussion and conclusions and references. The method is central to the validity of your study so must be clearly detailed but you may want to keep this as brief as possible to allow more space for information on the background to the study (the why), the results and a view on the implications of the results and proposed follow-up studies.

Step 2: Designing your Poster

When preparing your poster, your resources are likely to be limited, and you also have the added challenge of surrounding poster displays in the Exhibition “competing” with yours. Therefore, you must carefully plan your poster to ensure it attracts the maximum possible number of visitors. Every poster Exhibition is different so it is essential to carefully read any instructions provided by the organisers of the Poster Exhibition. If you don’t respect the requirements stated, you may not be permitted to display your poster or you may find that your poster will not fit on the poster boards provided for the Exhibition. Here are some basic tips:

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Only use primary colours for the text (not shocking pinks and yellows). Use complementary colours...