The following guidelines were developed by Ming
T. Tham (1997) and reprinted here for use in the CIVL 1101 Civil Engineering
Analysis.Introduction
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.
How much poster space are you
allowed?
In your poster presentations you are limited to a poster that is 36 inches
high and 48 inches wide (Display Boards come in a folded 36 inch by 48 inch board).
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.
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, and
- a Conclusion section, listing
the main findings of your investigation.
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
There are several stages in planning a presentation.
Gathering the information
First, ask yourself the following
questions.
- What is the objective of the
investigation?
- 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 basic idea. 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.
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. Record 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 color or number coding,
or circles and lines to help you identify and categorize the
information. This activity should help you focus further on the
content you can use with confidence.
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.
Poster Design
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 readers think
"Yes!" or "I see!" and leave with the
impression that they have 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 general guidelines:
-
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 colors sparingly and with
taste
- colors should be used only to
emphasize, differentiate and to add interest. Do not use colors just to
impress!
- try to avoid using large swathes of bright garish colors
like bright green, pink, orange or lilac.
- pastel shades convey feelings of
serenity and calm while dark bright colors conjure images of
conflict and disharmony.
- choose background and foreground
color 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 colored 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
really 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
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 5 to 6 feet.
- 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 can appear disrupted. For example,
In this
sentence, I want to emphasize the word
'emphasize'.
In this sentence, I want to emphasize
the word 'emphasize'.
- use underlined text, the
bold face or italics or combinations
to emphasize words and phrases.
- if you use bold italicized
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
- 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
- do not attempt to have more than
six line-graphs on a single plot
- instead of using lines of
different thickness, use contrasting colored 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 color or style of the
line
- diagrams and drawings,
- should be labeled
- drawings and labels should be
large and clear enough so that they are still legible from a
distance
- do not try to cramp labeling 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 and scale 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
- Review, review and review
- make draft versions of your poster
sections and check them for
- mistakes
- legibility and
- inconsistency
in style
- try different layout arrangements
- ask your partner, friends,
colleagues or supervisor for their 'honest' opinions
- be critical
Copyright Information:
Document Title: Poster
Presentation of Research Work - Tips and guidelines
Author:
Ming T. Tham
Updated: August 2009
|