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Creating a Poster

Posters are one way to present your work. We can print large, color posters (several feet in each dimension).

Poster Content

In general, your poster should include

  • Names of collaborators and their affiliations
  • Sponsor of project
  • Web site for more information, as appropriate
  • Background/motivation
  • Problem you're solving
  • Your approach
  • Results
  • Future Work

Use pictures, figures, and graphs to explain your work. (You know the old adage: a picture is worth a thousand words.) Use text sparingly.

Venn Diagram of What People Want To See

The Process

  1. Create an outline of your poster's content, including the problem you're solving, your approach, and your results. You can't present very much in a poster, so make sure that your problem is focused. Discuss your outline with you mentor/advisor.
    • In later iterations (after you're more sure about the content), you could create a PowerPoint presentation, where each “section” is a PowerPoint slide. When it comes time to create the poster, you'll copy the slides' contents onto the poster.
  2. Create a layout design for your poster based on the story you want to tell. Discuss layout with your mentor/advisor.
    • Make sure the layout flows well and that you're allotting appropriate space for each part. (Give the most space to the parts you want the audience to focus on.)
  3. Add the content (from the first step) to the poster. Adjust the layout as necessary.
  4. Iterate over the content and the layout. The poster will evolve as you fine-tune what you want to present.
  5. Print the poster.

Resources

Example Posters

Here is a poster template. Use your creativity!

Instructions

We use PowerPoint or OpenOffice to create a poster. The paper on the printer is 3 feet wide, so you should make the width of the poster 3 feet and the height 2 feet. You can usually do this in the “Page Setup” or similar menu.

Printing Instructions

The printer is accessible from a Windows machine (the department office's machine is set to access the printer) so, it can print any type of document which can be printed from Windows.

You should probably create a PDF document and then print it from Acrobat Reader. Before printing the poster, modify the printer settings such that “the long edge of the document is printed horizontally”. That way, the poster will print the perfect size for the frames.

From Mac

  • Under “Print”, select “Page Setup”.
  • Go to “Options”. Change format for to the appropriate printer, change the paper size to the appropriate size, and then change the orientation of the printing, if necessary.

Miscellaneous Suggestions

  • Use sans-serif fonts, such as Arial, Helvetica, and Tahoma
  • Use at least 16 point font size
  • For a conference, you may want to print your poster on 8.5”x11” handouts as publicity.
  • Buy a poster tube for easier transportation.
students/poster_prep.1287410487.txt.gz · Last modified: 2010/10/18 14:01 by admin
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