1. Student Research Conference: Preparing for your poster presentation
with Maya Weilundemo Ott
Harvard Graduate School of Education
March 23, 2015
Sources: The Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison
Hess, Tosney, & Liegel (2013). Creating Effective Poster Presentations.

2. What’s so great about presenting a poster?
Share your research in a relatively low-pressure environment
Practice telling the story of your research
Practice answering questions about your project
Gain insights about next steps
Session goal: Prepare to make the most of this opportunity
One-on-one engagement
See range of audience responses to your ideas
Engage with audience’s responses, questions, insights

3. available at many office/copy stores (e.g. Staples)
The basics
Your poster should be presented on a tri-fold board so that it can be displayed on a table
Tri-fold boards typically hold about 15 pages in landscape orientation
You should practice presenting a brief pitch that tells the story of your project
You may also prepare a handout to share with viewers
Alternatively, bring a sign-up sheet and offer to share your handout electronically
available at many office/copy stores (e.g. Staples)
Powerpoint slides make great templates, but avoid busy, distracting backgrounds

4. Be aware of your audience(s)
Who is your audience?
General interest
Expert
Prepare your poster and pitch with a general interest audience in mind
Describe the big-picture context for your research
Articulate the significance of the issue or problem
Provide a concise, jargon-free summary of your methods
Explain how your findings help address the issue or problem
Prepare your handout with an expert audience in mind
Provide a more detailed account of your methods
Acknowledge the limitations of your study
…and be prepared to talk about these details, if someone asks

5. Craft a focused, coherent story about your project
A simple, coherent story will be easier for your audience to understand, respond to, and remember
Ask: What do I most want my audience to learn about my project?
Identify a very small number of key take-away messages
Weave those messages into a coherent story about your project
Your poster should only include text and graphics that directly support your story
Ask: Is this really essential to my story? If not, cut it
Remember that interested viewers can always ask for details

6. Contents of a research poster
Project title
Author name(s), affiliation(s), and address(es)
Context for your study
What does your audience need to know in order to appreciate the significance of your study?
What practical or theoretical issues motivated your study?
Research questions
Methods
What was the source of your data?
What should your audience know about your sample?
How did you collect and analyze data?

7. Contents of a research poster (continued)
Results
What did you find?
How do your results map onto your research questions?
What is your most persuasive or interesting data?
Discussion
How do you interpret or make sense of your findings?
What implications do your findings suggest, in terms of the practical and theoretical issues that motivated your study?
What do you see as next steps for research?
References
Best to include citations in small font at the bottom of this sheet

8. Create a positive first impression
Design your poster to capture the attention of people wandering by
Text and figures should be completely legible at a distance of 4 feet
Overall composition should be visually inviting—not overwhelming
Don’t fight reader gravity—your viewers’ habits for scanning text
For readers of English, reader gravity pulls viewers’ eyes from top to bottom and from left to right
Position the most important content where viewers are most likely to look
Viewers should be able to skim the poster from several feet away and easily make out the most significant points
want viewers to notice and take interest in your poster so that they will pause to learn more about your project. present your research in a way that is easy for those viewers to make easy sense of it
An effective poster is a visual communications tool
Create a display that enhances conversation
Source: Hess, Tosney, & Liegel (2013). Creating Effective Poster Presentations.

9. Design text elements for ease of digestion
Be ruthless about reducing text
Ask: Is this really essential to my story?
Limit blocks of text to 50 words
Create substantive headings that tell the story of your study
For example, replace “Results” with a key finding
Reduce sentence complexity. Replace sentences with phrases
Avoid jargon
Commit to using just one font
Use at least 20-point font
Use dark text—preferably black—on a light background
Left-justify blocks of text
Double-space text elements
Dense blocks of text may be difficult to absorb
At worst, a viewer may become overwhelmed and just move on
complex sentences are difficult for viewers to absorb.
A hurried reader should be able to get the main points from the headings alone.

10. Use graphic elements to emphasize key take-aways
Use graphics to direct viewers’ attention
Use charts, graphs, or other figures to communicate your most important or interesting findings
Use color only to highlight key information
Design clean figures that are easy to interpret. Get rid of chartjunk!

11. Prepare to engage with your audience
Practice telling the story of your project through a brief pitch
…lasting 3 minutes
…lasting only 30 seconds
…using your poster as a visual aid
…to friends or colleagues
At the conference, when people approach your poster:
Wait a few moments, giving them time to scan your poster
Then thank them for stopping and offer a “guided tour” of your project
More productive than just asking, “Do you have any questions?”
Tell the story of your project, using your poster as a visual aid
What I wish I’d known
Plan for a conversation, not a presentation
What sort of feedback would you like from your audience?
“One thing I’m still puzzled by…” or “The results made me wonder…”

12. Questions?
Sources: The Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison
Hess, Tosney, & Liegel (2013). Creating Effective Poster Presentations.