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Poster Printing: Poster Content

Poster sessions at conferences and professional meetings are a way to visually convey the details of your research or conclusions. This guide will offer you the basics in design, content and printing resources.

Elements of a research poster

The most common sections included on a scientific poster are:

  1. Introduction/Objective - Clearly state your hypothesis and include just what is highly relevant.
  2. Materials and Methods - Briefly describe how data was gathered and the databases, software and equipment used.
  3. Results* (largest section) - Briefly discuss your data and add supporting images, tables, etc., with labels to describe all graphics.
  4. Summary/Conclusions* - A few bullet points describing major conclusions and future research potential in the topic area. Was your hypothesis supported?
  5. References - Use AMA citation format to credit sources that were cited.
  6. Acknowledgments (optional) -  people who have provided assistance, contributions, or funding.  

*Results and conclusions are the most important sections.

Design Quick Tips

1.  The ideal poster is:

  • clear
  • concise
  • catchy

2.  Summarize your message in one sentence for the title.

3.  Suggested font sizes:

  • Title: 100 - 120 points
  • Body text: 21 - 36 points
  • Headers: double the body text points

4.  Sans Serif fonts are easier to read on a poster.

5.  Use two or three colors, not more.

6.  A lighter background with darker text is easier to read.

7.  Balance the content with the white spaces.

8.  Add a qr code that links to a copy of your poster or your research paper.

What to consider when designing your poster:

Unlike a formal presentation, your poster audience is not captive.  Your poster should contain a combination of brief text, tables, graphs, and images to quickly communicate your research to someone walking by.  You want passerby to: 

  1. Stop and read more.
  2. Remember something from your research.
Step 1: Read the requirements!  Whether it is for a conference poster session, or class, there are usually guidelines about poster size, format, or content.  Abide by these guidelines over anything you see here. 

 

Step 2: Make an outline. There is not one correct way to organize posters, but they are typically organized in columns. The results section should in the center area with the other sections on the sides and bottom.

Step 3: Start assembling your poster. 

Method 1: Use one of the Touro PowerPoint templates.  It saves you a lot of time.

Method 2: Start from scratch using Powerpoint.  Set the slide size before you do anything else! 

Step 4: Proofread!  Have someone else proofread your poster.  Then proofread yourself again.  The more proofreaders you have, the better your poster will be. Once your poster is printed large, mistakes will be very noticeable.  Choose "Ignore All" to remove the red squiggly lines from names and abbreviations.

Step 5: Save as PDF or PPT and schedule a printing appointment. 

Poster Size

  • There is no official standard poster size. 
  • Use the size recommended by your class, conference, or poster session guidelines.
  • If you’re unsure, use the most common poster size, 36” by 48”. 

Images

  • Whenever possible, use bright colors (bright red, electric blue, etc.) in your microscope images.  Avoid dark colors that are too close to black - they look fine on screen but they will not print well. 
  • Always expect fluorescent images to appear darker in print than on screen.

 

General Guidelines

General guidelines

  • Be consistent. Stick to 1 font, preferably a sans-serif, and only a few colors.
  • Less is more. 
    • Use less than 800 words. Posters don’t require complete paragraphs.  Use bulleted lists whenever possible. 
    • 2/3 of your poster should be white space.
  • Don't cause eye-strain:
    • Use fonts of 18 pt and larger (we recommend 24 pt as the font for the body of your work)
    • Use easy to read fonts (Arial, Calibri, Comic Sans, Times New Roman) instead of the fun ones (Cursive fonts, WingDings, etc).  
    • Use a light background. It'll be easier to read.
    • Avoid background images and patterns. They're distracting and often don't print correctly.
    • Avoid colors that clash or are too similar.  
    • Use 2-D graphs, not 3-D graphs.
    • Use high resolution or vectorized graphics.
    • Choose a short, catchy, descriptive title using sentence case (Your title looks like this) instead of title case (Not Like This) or all caps (THIS IS HARD TO READ).
    • Your title should be the largest font size on your poster.
    • Include your name and affiliation at the top. They should be smaller than your title, but larger than your main text.
    • Each section heading (Introduction, Methods, etc) should be clearly denoted in a larger font size.
  • Graphics! Use them whenever possible, both for quantitative and qualitative data.

Layout example:  Image result for designing a conference poster

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