Poster Sessions

1. From 'What is a poster for arts and humanities?'

• A poster is where the researcher directly presents their research results as a visual display, which is positioned on poster board. The poster is usually a mixture of a brief narrative paper, intermixed with tables, graphs, pictures, and other presentation formats.
• Although one can present figures and tables, papers that do not have these, can also be usefully presented as posters. By writing concisely and with a few areas of focus, the presentation can intellectually communicate your research and help synthesize your main ideas and research directions. Frequently a poster can serve as a beginning for a longer journal article.
• The researcher stands by the poster display during an assigned time, usually for a duration of two hours while other conference participants can come and view the presentation and interact with the author.

2. From Lewis-Clark State College

Effective Posters: A poster should be complete and self-supporting so that different viewers may read at their leisure. The author should only need to supplement or discuss particular points raised during inquiry. Remember that several people of varying degrees of interest and experience may be viewing your poster at once. Therefore, you will want to make your points as complete and brief as possible.

Planning: We recommend a space of 3' tall x 5' wide or 4' tall x 6' wide for your entire poster. The most effective use of the space would be in grid plan arranged in columns. This prevents viewers from having to cross back and forth in front of each other. Materials should be mounted on colored poster paper or board. Allow for distance when printing and planning layouts. Standard elements are: Introduction, Methods, Results (with supporting figures), andConclusion or Summary. Type should be easily seen from a short distance. Using the guidelines above, the introduction would be placed at the upper left, and the conclusion at the lower right, both in large type. It is not necessary to post the abstract.

Illustrations: Figures should also be easily seen from a distance. Use clear graphics and large type to accomplish this. The main points should be straightforward without extended viewing, but details should be included for those who might wish to discuss it. Because the amount of text is restricted, the figure legend could contain some of the commentary that would usually be contained in the body of a manuscript.

Text: Minimize narrative. Use large type in short separated paragraphs. Do not set entire paragraphs in boldface or capital letters. Numbered or bulleted lists are a concise but effective way to convey a series of points.

Title: Prepare a banner for the top of the poster indicating the abstract title, author(s) and affiliations(s). Lettering should be about 1 1/4 inches high for the title, 3/4 inches high for the author's names and 1/2 inch high for affiliations.

3. Other Resources:

Colorado State University guide to posters
http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/speaking/poster/

Carol Waite Conner's Guide to successful poster preparation (the standard source for poster preparation)
http://www.sou.edu/AAASPD/PosterPrep.html