Making the most of your Research Symposium poster presentation KEN CLINKENBEARD, ASSOCIATE DEAN, GRADUATE COLLEGE OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY The OSU Graduate College – advancing the future by degrees

Planning your poster Discipline specific poster styles—Know your discipline’s poster style—Many online resources are available Poster as a complete standalone entity Poster as a visual guide for you to walk your poster viewer through Organize by: Abstract (?); Intro; Problem/Question/Hypothesis; Study Approach; Methods; Results; References (?); Summary/Conclusions; Acknowledgments Focus—Less can be more—Focus on your central message Define technical terms More visual than text? The OSU Graduate College – advancing the future by degrees

Poster layout There are many layouts, which works best for your Relative sizes of images and text Flow of your presentation of sections You can see sample layouts here: entation entation You can see pictures of posters here: _of_Poster_presenter _of_Poster_presenter Make your poster ascetically pleasing The OSU Graduate College – advancing the future by degrees

Poster visuals & text Make visuals large enough that they can be seen from 3 to 4 feet away from your poster Use Large font The OSU Graduate College – advancing the future by degrees

Practicing presenting your poster For most disciplines, a poster is a means to talk about your research and not a standalone to be understood without explanation Work on how you will “walk” your poster viewer through each section, identify difficult parts needing more practice Ask your advisor or fellow students listen to you explain your poster to get their input for improvements The OSU Graduate College – advancing the future by degrees

Answering questions Clarify the question before you answer Take time to formulate your answer If you don’t know the answer, say “I don’t know the answer to your question” If you think that you have a reasonable speculation—identify it as such and answer The OSU Graduate College – advancing the future by degrees

Poster Do’s and Don’ts Do format your poster along discipline “norms” —see online resources Do arrange your poster with a logical progression of sections Do use technical words with definitions, but not jargon Do use your visuals but not too much text Do have others listen to you present your poster and make suggestions to improve your presentation Do repeat questions for clarity, take time for thoughtful answers, don’t try to “snow” your questioner if you don’t know the answer Do “dress for success”, smile and engage—you know your topic better than anyone—help your listener understand it too! The OSU Graduate College – advancing the future by degrees