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Right, you are to present your research work
as posters. What do you do? Panic? What the hell are posters? Surely you
have posters of the Spice Girls or Take That
(depending on your inclination of course)!. No, those are not the kind of
posters we are referring to although the purpose is similar. We are
concerned with the use of posters to present technical information, not
images.
A poster is simply a static, visual medium
(usually of the paper and board variety) that you use to communicate ideas
and messages. The difference between poster and oral
presentations is that you should let your poster do most of the 'talking';
that is, the material presented should convey the essence of your message.
However, that does not mean that you can disappear to the pub or where
ever you fancy. You have to 'stand-by-your-poster'! Your task as the
presenter is to answer questions and provide further details; to bask in
praises or suffer difficult questions; and to convince others that what
you have done is excellent and worthwhile.
Easy or what? But wait ...
first, stop and think!
The purpose of poster presentations is not to
have boards upon boards of information. Better to hand out a report in
that case. If you are presenting your poster at a conference or
convention, you would have limited space. The space you are allowed will
determine the content of the poster. Find out how much space you are
allowed!
Is there a standard format?
Yes, there is! As with an oral presentation,
there is normally:
- a Title page, telling others the
title of the project, the people involved in the work and their
affiliation.
- a Summary of the project stating
what you have set out to do, how you have done it, the key findings and
the main results.
- an Introduction that should include
clear statements about the problem that you are trying to solve, the
characteristics that you are trying to discover or the proofs that you
are trying to establish. These should then lead to declarations of
project aims and objectives.
- a Theory or Methodology
section that explains the basis of the technique that you are using
or the procedure that you have adopted in your study. You should also
state and justify any assumptions, so that your results could be viewed
in the proper context.
- a Results section that you use to
show illustrative examples of the main results of the work..
- a Conclusion section, listing the
main findings of your investigation, and
- a Further Work section that should
contain your recommendations and thoughts about how the work could be
progressed; other tests that could be applied, etc.
You therefore have to present certain pieces
of information but have limited space. So, before you rush away to put pen
to paper or fingers to keyboard, spend a few moments or even hours to plan
your presentation. This is very important. Unlike oral presentations,
where some ultra-smooth talkers may be able to divert attention from a
poorly planned presentation, with posters, poor planning is there for all
to see.
Planning is crucial if you do not want to be
afflicted by the 'headless chicken' syndrome. There are several stages in
planning a presentation.
a) Gathering the
information
First, ask yourself the following
questions.
- What is the objective of the
investigation?
- Has someone done the work before?
- How have I gone about with the study?
- Why did I follow this particular route of
investigation?
- What are the principles governing the
technique that I am using?
- What assumptions did I make and what were
my justifications?
- What problems did I encounter?
- What results did I obtain?
- Have I solved the problem?
- What have I found out?
- Are the analyses sound?
Although the above list is by no means
exhaustive, you should get the gist. You have to stand back and think
again about the What's, the How's and the
Why's of the work that you have done. You have to examine
critically, the approach that you have taken and the results that you have
got. Be ruthless in your assessment: better to be a masochist than the
victim of a sadist  . Ideally, you should have done this throughout your project
anyway. In doing so, you will have a clearer idea of the objectives and
the contributions that you have, or have not, been able to make. This
means that you will know better, the information you have at your disposal
for presentation.
Such brainstorming often yields loads of
responses. Jot your answers on a BIG piece of paper, not necessarily in an
ordered fashion. The intention is to note as many points as possible, so
that you do not miss any important aspects. The ordering and pruning of
the information come later. From your list, note the common areas, topics
or pieces of information, and group them together. Use colour or number
coding, or circles and lines to help you identify and categorise the
information. This activity should help you focus further on the content
you can use with confidence.
b) Deciding on the content
If you follow the above presentation
format guidelines, then the content is more or less determined for
you. However, given that you have limited space, you now have to decide
between what is important and what is not necessary. Your decision should
be based on at least 2 factors, namely:
- What are you trying to achieve by
presenting the posters? Is it to sell a product? Is it to tell
people what you have done? Is it to tell people of a new discovery? Is
it to convince people that one product or technique is better than
another?
- Who will be attending the
presentation? Are they technical people? What is the level of their
knowledge of your subject area?
The answers to these questions define the
type of content to include and set the tone of the
presentation.
An advertising billboard is a poster. If well
designed, it will be attractive and engender a lasting impression; earnest
but not boring. Importantly, it should shout out to you - "buy
me!" or you would think "I want that!" Similarly, in
using posters to convey technical information, they should be designed
such that the reader thinks "Yes!" or "I see!"
and leave with the impression that he or she has learnt something new.
Ultimately, poster design is a personal matter and different individuals
will have different views on how best to present certain information.
Nevertheless, here are some 'rules-of-tham' ™ to guide you:
- Plan,
plan and plan!
- Keep the material simple
- make full use of the space, but do not
cramp a page full of information as the result can often appear messy
- be concise and do not waffle. Use only
pertinent information to convey your message
- be selective when showing results.
Present only those that illustrate the main findings of the project.
However, do keep other results handy so that you may refer to them
when asked
- Use colours sparingly and with
taste
- colours should be used only to
emphasise, differentiate and to add interest. Do not use colours just
to impress!
- try to avoid using large swathes of
bright garish colours like bright green, pink, orange or lilac. Yuck!!
- pastel shades convey feelings of
serenity and calm while dark bright colours conjure images of conflict
and disharmony.
- choose background and foreground colour
combinations that have high contrast and complement each other - black
or dark blue on white or very light grey is good.
- it is better to keep the background
light as people are used to it (for example newspapers and books)
- if you insist on having a dark
background, use coloured paper so that you would not have to spray
white paper with ink. Not only is this cheaper, you would also not
face the problem of a soaked and distorted page.
- avoid the use of gradient fills. They
may look great on a computer display, but unless you have access to a
high resolution printer, the paper version can look tatty.
- Do not use more than 2 font types
- too many font types distracts,
especially when they appear on the same sentence
- fonts that are easy on the eyes are
Times-Roman and Arial.
(This is Times-Roman while this is
Arial)
- Titles and headings should
appear larger than other text, but not too large. The text should also
be legible from a distance, say from 1.5m TO 2m.
- Do not use all UPPER CASE type in your
posters. It can make the material difficult to read. Just compare
the two sentences below:
- WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS LINE WHERE ALL
THE CHARACTERS ARE IN UPPER CASE?
- What do you think of this line, where
only the first character of the first word is in upper case?
- Do not use a different font type to
highlight important points
- otherwise the fluency and flow of your
sentence will appear disrupted. For example,
- In this sentence, I want to
emphasise the word 'emphasise'.
- In this sentence, I want to
emphasise this word 'emphasise'.
- use underlined text, the bold
face or italics or combinations to emphasise
words and phrases.
- if you use bold italicised
print for emphasis, then underlining is not necessary -
overkill
- Equations
- should be kept to a minimum
- present only the necessary and important
equations
- should be large enough (see point
5)
- should be accompanied by nomenclature to
explain the significance of each variable
- A picture is worth a thousand words
… (but only if it is drawn properly and used appropriately)
- graphs
- choose graphs types that are
appropriate to the information that you want to display
- annotations should be large enough,
and the lines of line-graphs should be thick enough so that they may
be viewed from a distance (see point
5)
- do not attempt to have more than six
line-graphs on a single plot
- instead of using lines of different
thickness, use contrasting coloured lines or different line styles to
distinguish between different lines in multi-line graphs.
- multi-line plots or plots with more
than one variable should have a legend relating the plotted variable
to the colour or style of the line.
- diagrams and drawings,
- should be labelled
- drawings and labels should be large
and clear enough so that they are still legible from a distance
- do not try to cramp labelling to fit
into components of a drawing or diagram. Use 'arrows' and 'callouts'
- clipart
- should only be used if they add
interest to the display and complement the subject matter.
Otherwise, all they do is to distract attention from the focus of
the presentation.
- can also be 'dangerous' as you may
spend more time fiddling about with images and choosing appropriate
cartoons than concentrating on the content.
- Check your spelling
- there is nothing more amusing or
annoying than spelling mistakes on public display, especially if they
are on the title page.
- spelling mistakes give the impression
that you have not put in the effort; careless; not bothered; not
worthy of high assessment scores.
- Maintain a consistent
style
- inconsistent styles give the impression
of disharmony and can interrupt the fluency and flow of your messages.
- headings on the different pages of the
poster should appear in the same position on all pages.
- graphs should be of the same size
especially if they are to be compared.
- if bold lettering is used for emphasis
on one page, then do not use italics on others.
- captions for graphs, drawings and tables
should either be positioned at the top or at the bottom of the figure.
- Arrangement of poster components should
appear smooth
- you would probably be preparing sections
of the poster on A4 sized paper before sticking them onto mounting
boards or display stands.
- remember that you are using posters to
tell a story about what you have done and achieved. As in report
writing, the way you arrange the sections should follow the
'storyline'.
- sometimes it is helpful if you provide
cutouts of arrows to direct attention to the sequence of the
presentation
- use a new page to start off a new
section (see format)
- Review, review and review
- make draft versions of your poster
sections and check them for
- try different layout arrangements
- ask your friends, colleagues or
supervisor for their 'honest' opinions
- be critical
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