How can you make a great scientific poster? Here are some tips!

1. 1Challenge the future
Tips for a great scientific poster

2. 2Challenge the future
What is the goal of a poster?

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What is the goal of a poster?
Posters serve as …
a source of information
a conversation starter
a summary of your work
an advertisement of your work

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What do you want to show?

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What do you want to show?
• It’s an enormous question, so take the next 4 steps:
• 1) Write down the theme of your poster will be.
Make it one sentence. And reduce it to a noun
• 2) Write down what you want to achieve,
like: “tell the audience about the history of cars” or
“show our research on oil”

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• 3) make questions with the theme in mind:
What is it? What are the best parts? How many people
use it? How long has it been around?
• 4) Put them in the right order. What is most important?
What is most crucial?

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Use the right balance

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Use the right balance
Get your message across with
effective visual displays of data and
small blocks of supporting text.
Think of your poster as an illustrated
abstract.

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Keep your audience in mind

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Keep your audience in mind
• Think about: who is your audience? What will attract
their attention?
• Maybe only students will be there but there might be
some professors present. Your poster might be meant
for an elementary school… your audience is crucial.

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Content:

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Content:
• Tell readers why your work matters, what you did, what
you found, and what you recommend.
• Avoid excessive focus on methods – it’s the results and
implications that count!

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Colour

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Colour
• Use color cautiously. Dark letters on light background
are easiest to
• read. Stick to a theme of 2-3 colors. Avoid overly bright
colors – they
• attract attention but wear out reader’s eyes.

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Must haves for your poster

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Must haves for your poster
• 1. Title
• 2. The main question
• 3. Research method
• 4. The most important results
• 5. Conclusions
• 6. Full contact information. You want to be found – the
reader should not have to look up anything to find you

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Show the cohesion

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Show the cohesion
• 1. Use lines and arrows to show how the parts are
related
• 2. Use numbers if needed
• 3. Use figures and tables
• 4. Give the figures and the tables clear titles
• 5. Use legends

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And …..

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And …..
• What is your core message? What do you really really
want to tell people? Keep that in mind while creating
every part of your poster
• Keep it short: only 10 to 20 lines of text in a box. And
rather 10 than 20.
• Illustrate!
• Make the names of the paragraphs interessting
• KISS  keep it short and simple

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Tips for a great scientific poster

22. 22Challenge the future
References:
• Frontpage: https://www.flickr.com/photos/brianauer/2402882692
• Goal: https://www.flickr.com/photos/angietorres/4564135455/in/
• Balance: https://www.flickr.com/photos/86639298@N02/8560840624/
• Show: https://www.flickr.com/photos/4nitsirk/14707997759/
• Audience: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jesuspresley/6922073675/
• Content: https://www.flickr.com/photos/10ch/3347658610/
• Colours: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kaneda99/206508326/
• Must: https://www.flickr.com/photos/taylar/3449004611/
• Cohesion: https://www.flickr.com/photos/olyvia-nodsle/3051524662/
• & https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjornmeansbear/4836568068/
• George Hess / NC State University / Raleigh NC 27695-8008
• www4.ncsu.edu/~grhess george_hess@ncsu.edu © 2014