As I am also presenting a poster, this isn’t a true-live blog, but rather my thoughts from the poster session. You can see the list of poster titles on the ERES schedule. Based on my own experiences, there are a few components to a poster presentation that help with effective communication:
1. An effective poster: I can go on and on about this, and in fact I have done so. My own poster at the conference was entitled “Best Practices for Effective Poster Design,” a copy of which can be found on my personal blog. If there are three things that I can stress about effective poster design they would be:
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Keep your words clear and concise. Abstracts and large blocks of text don’t belong on a poster. You can have more details on a website if you want, or a link to your paper that has all of the big descriptions, but you poster is the visual aid for your oral pitch. It should not be your paper in visual format.
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Use graphics that are easy to understand and that aid in telling your story. Make sure that your audience knows what they should be learning from each graphic even if you’re not there to explain it to them. You can do this with annotations, captions, and other visual clues. This means that the graphics that you use on your poster might not be exactly the same as the graphics that you use in your paper or in your presentation. Use as many graphics as you need to tell your story (a picture is worth a thousand words!), but no more than is necessary.
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Make sure that whatever organization scheme you choose and the style and colors that you choose don’t distract from the content of the poster. All your stylistic choices should only aid content comprehension, and not detract from it. Things like using clear organizational structure, simple backgrounds, and only a few colors will keep your poster from looking cluttered.
2. A clear and concise oral pitch: I say that your poster is the visual aid for your oral pitch, but that means that you need to have an effective oral pitch as well. An oral pitch for your poster is usually around 5 minutes long, and should take you audience through you poster with a more in depth explanation than is on the poster itself. While you are doing this, you should be referencing graphics, charts, or numbers that are on your poster.
3. Good note-taking ability: This is perhaps the most looked over skill in a poster presentation. By note-taking, I mean you the presenter taking notes on the interactions that you have at your poster. Who did you talk to? Who showed interest? What did you talk about? Did they have ideas or followup questions? Did they leave an email for you? All of these are tools that help you, the presenter, learn during your own presentation. Following up with the people you interacted with will also help develop your networking skills.
That’s it for today folks! Thanks for tuning in and I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning!