A session offered through the Lebanese Library Association by Dalal Rahme to Masters Students at the Lebanese University to introduce them to Poster Sessions.

1. Preparing for a Poster
Session
D A L A L R A H M E
D A T A S E R V I C E S L I B R A R I A N
A M E R I C A N U N I V E R S I T Y O F B E I R U T
D A L A L . R A H M E @ A U B . E D U . L B

2. The Poster Session

3. Why Posters?
Small number of speaking slots
Conferences need attendees
Grants justifications
Do good science and present it well on the poster => Peers Endorsement

4. The Poster Session
3 components:
1. You
2. Your Poster
3. A Handout

5. You
•Dress business casual (wear comfortable
shoes)
•Wear a smile
•Arrive early but don’t leave early
•Be ready to talk about your work in 10
seconds
•Work all audience at once
•Be self-confident not arrogant

6. The handout
Handouts usually include a picture of your poster, your abstract, a list of references you used
and your contact information.
1) Your handout can be like a pamphlet or a small booklet
2) The cover has a picture of your poster
3) The back cover has your contact info. Your picture can be useful for people to remember
you.
The poster
B&W
Or colored
Abstract
List of
References
Contact
Info Your
Picture
Front Cover Back CoverInside

7. Your Poster
What do you want the person passing by your
poster to do? Engage in a discussion about the
content? Learn enough to go off and want to try something for
themselves? Want to collaborate?
All the above? None of the above but something
else?
=> Style Accordingly

8. The Title
The title is only thing the attendees will see before they approach you.
Not less than 72 Points
Short
Comprehensible to a broad audience
No Jargons

9. Poster Content
Summary of the motivation
Hypothesis to be tested
Method used
Major results
Conclusions
Future work/ recommendations

10. Layout and Format
• No less than 28
point font
• Title: 72 point
font
Check for specific
conference
requirements
regarding exact
poster dimensions
40% of the poster is
blank
• Use active tense
• Use bullet points
• Use colored graphs
• Use one or 2 fonts
• No funky fonts
• Under Title: Your
name, email,
affiliation
• Logo
Printing
Considerations

11. Keep content concise
1. Text clarity, precision and economy of words
2. Charts or graphs often says more than hundreds of words
3. Have a clear and obvious set of conclusions
4. (Only then will they go to the results, followed by the methods)

12. Poster Design
Depend on the conference type and subject: check previous conference posters.
Most common scientific posters follow the four columns design
Ready-made templates are available online
One can create his one template in PowerPoint
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c9Kd_mUFDM), Word
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UylugmaCHk) or Illustrator

13. Chart Tools
There are plenty of free online chart tools i.e: https://www.onlinecharttool.com/

14. For Maps
Cartodb: https://carto.com/

15. For Social Networks
Gephi: https://gephi.org/

16. Your Poster, Your Personality
1. Use it to draw passerby to take a
closer look
2. Scientific collaboration often starts
for reasons other than the shared
scientific interest

17. IFLA Winning Posters for the past 4 years

18. Posters by Students from School ranking #1 in the world in
Information Science

19. My posters
Presented
at IFLA
http://library.ifla.org/view/creators/Hakim_Rahme=3ADalal=3A=3A.html

20. References
Erren, T. C., & Bourne, P. E. (2007). Ten Simple Rules for a Good Poster Presentation. PLoS Computational
Biology, 3(5), e102. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.0030102
PowerPoint brochure template for download: http://www.tomium.info/powerpoint-handout-
template/powerpoint-handout-template-simple-brochure-templates-for-powerpoint-download/
Poster templates from UIUC: http://publicaffairs.illinois.edu/marketing/templates/researchposter.html
Images from:
http://www.thegirlcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Kids-Prints-Be-Creative700.png
https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/96039
https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/96037/2017_MastersShowcasePoster_Smith.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
https://www.ifla.org/professional-committee/awards/poster-session