Advice on designing scientific posters

An effective title conveys to viewers the issue, the approach, and the system (organism). Make the title catchy in order to reel in potential viewers. Maximum length: 1 to 2 lines.

Don't include an abstract on a poster. If you are presenting your poster at a meeting, you will probably be asked to submit an abstract; however, this abstract is for inclusion in the "meeting catalog," not for your poster. If, for some reason, you must include an abstract section on your poster, don't make your abstract long; aim for fewer than 50 words.

Get your viewer interested about the issue or question while using the absolute minimum of background information and definitions. Quickly place your issue in the context of published, primary literature. Provide a description and justification of your general experimental approach, and give a hint at why your study organism is ideal for such research. Be sure to also give a clear hypothesis. Use a photograph in this section to quickly orient your viewers. Maximum length: approximately 200 words.

Briefly describe experimental equipment and methods. Consider these guidelines:

• Use figures and tables to illustrate experimental design, if possible.
• Use flowcharts to summarize reaction steps or timing of experimental procedures.
• Include photograph or labeled drawing of organism.
• Mention statistical analyses that were used and how they allowed you to address hypothesis. Maximum length: approximately 200 words.

In the first paragraph, mention whether the experiment worked (For example, "90% of the birds survived the brain surgery"); then, in the same paragraph, briefly describe qualitative and descriptive results ( "surviving birds appeared to be lethargic and had difficulty locating seeds"). In the second paragraph, begin presentation of data analysis that more specifically addresses the hypothesis. Refer to supporting charts or images, and provide engaging figure legends that can stand on their own; provide tables with legends, too, but opt for figures wherever possible. Maximum length: approximately 200 words, not including figure legends.

Remind the viewer of hypothesis and result, and quickly state whether your hypothesis was supported. Be sure to discuss why your results are conclusive and interesting. Point out both the relevance of your findings to other published work and the relevance to real organisms in the real world. And be sure to include the future directions of your resource. Maximum length: approximately 300 words.

Follow standard format for your discipline exactly (don't wing this!). Find a journal article that supports your needed fact. Also, if you haven't read a journal article completely (for example, if you read only the abstract) do not cite it. Maximum length: approximately 10 citations.

Thank individuals for their specific contributions to your project (equipment donation, statistical advice, laboratory assistance, comments on earlier versions of the poster). Mention who has provided funding. Show sincerity, but retain formality. Do not list people's titles. Also include in this section explicit disclosures for any conflicts of interest or conflicts of commitment. Maximum length: approximately 40 words.

Use this section to provide your e-mail address, Web site address, and, if applicable, a URL where readers can download a PDF version of the poster.

 Tip   In PowerPoint, format the URL so that it isn't in color and underlined. Maximum length: approximately 20 words.

The number-one mistake is to make your poster too long. Densely packed, high-word-count posters are basically manuscripts pasted onto a wall. Posters with 1,000 words are ideal. Tip: To view your word count in PowerPoint, click the File menu, select Properties, and the click the Statistics tab. If you feel that your experiment warrants an exception to this advice, ask someone, "What text, figure, or table can I delete or modify?"

Titles with colons are clunky. These titles are sometimes used to inject humor into an otherwise boring poster topic, or to provide greater detail. If you absolutely must have a title with a colon, be sure that it's not overly silly and that it doesn't force your title text to spill onto a third line.

Format the title by using sentence case. Do not use title case or all caps, which both undermine naming conventions that depend on font formatting (for example, Latin binomials, genes, and alleles).

• Do not add bullets or otherwise punctuate section headers. The use of a larger font size for headers, coupled with a simple bold format, is sufficient for demarcating sections.
• Avoid blocks of text longer than 10 sentences.
• When using acronyms and numbers within the body copy, scale down the font size by a couple of points so that the size of the acronyms and numbers doesn't overpower the lowercase text, which they would do if you left them at the default font size.
• Don't trust the TAB key to insert the correct amount of space when you are indenting a paragraph (the default tab space is usually too big). Set the tab space manually by using the ruler in the document.

Approximately 8% of males and 0.5% of females have some degree of color-vision deficiency. Because there are so many different kinds of these deficiencies, it is sometimes hard to remember which colors and color combinations are "safe." To see your poster as people with color deficiencies would see it, you can upload an image of your poster (as a PDF file or JPG file) onto the Internet and run it through the free Vischeck service, which is located at http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckURL.php).

In general, avoid using red and green together, and opt to use symbols and patterns instead of colors wherever possible.

Complete the entire poster in a single environment. Switching between a PC and an Apple Macintosh computer can invite disaster down the road, sometimes in the form of lost image files, garbled graph axes, or printing problems.

• Use a sans serif font (for example, Helvetica) for title and headings and a serif font (for example, Palatino) for body text (serif fonts are much easier to read at smaller font sizes).
• The width of text boxes should be approximately 40 characters (which is, on average, 11 words per line).
• Wherever possible, use lists of sentences, rather than blocks of text.
• Use italics instead of underlining.
• When using acronyms and numbers within body copy, scale down the font size by a couple of points so that the size of the acronyms and numbers doesn't overpower the lowercase text, which they would do if you left them at the default size.
• Set line spacing of all text to be exactly one, in case you have used superscripted or subscripted text.
• Correct any errors in spacing within and between words, especially before and after italic text. Note that you can use a single space between sentences (the "double space" convention was needed for typewriters, and people are slow to lose the habit). Use the find-and-replace feature to globally replace all double spaces with single spaces and to locate locations where too many spaces occur between words.
• Format your literature cited contents according to the guidelines for your respective discipline. When asking somebody to proof your poster, specifically ask them to be critical of your citation style. If your reference list becomes too long, you can reduce the font size and make a two-column citation list.
• You can't use PowerPoint to wrap text around inserted figures. If you want to do this for a particular section, create the paragraph or section as a separate Word file (which you can use to wrap text), and then insert the Word file into your PowerPoint poster.

• Graph titles are not appropriate for laboratory write-ups and manuscripts, but they are great for posters. Having short, informative titles helps lead the viewer more effortlessly through your poster.
• Add miniature illustrations to any of your graphs or tables. Visual additions help attract and inform viewers much more effectively than text alone.
• Most graphing software programs automatically add a key. If possible, you should delete the key and directly label the different elements in the graph. Because interpreting keys is sometimes very difficult, you should make your graphs as easy to read as possible.
• Y-axis labels aligned horizontally are much easier to read and should be used wherever space allows.
• All graphs should have axis labels formatted in sentence case. Do not use title case or all caps.
• Never use colored backgrounds, grid lines, or boxes in your graphs. If your graphing program provides these by default, delete them.
• Never display two-dimensional data in 3-D. Three-dimensional graphs may look good, but they obscure the true difference among bar heights.
• Make sure that details on graphs (and photographs) can be comfortably viewed from a distance of up to six feet away. A common mistake is to assume that figure axis numbers, labels, and figure legends are somehow exempt from font-size guidelines. On the contrary, most viewers will read only your figures.

• If you include a photograph, add a thin gray or black border to make the photograph more visually appealing. Just remember not to overpower the image with an overly thick line. Choose a line color that is subtly pleasing but barely noticeable to the viewer.

• Use caution when incorporating graphics that you found on the Internet. Most Web images have 72 dots per inch of resolution, but printing at that resolution looks terrible, and the graphic will be a huge turnoff to prospective viewers. If you have access to a digital camera, use it to get a high-quality photograph of your study setup or organism. To get the perfect image, you may need to find a microscope that has a camera attached to it.
• Institutional logos are great on departmental letterhead and college athletic caps, but the logos are less effective on posters. If you must add a logo, use a small version of the logo at the bottom of the poster in the acknowledgments section. An exception to this advice is when meeting organizers require you to include a meeting or society logo at the top of the poster.
• If you are attaching higher-resolution (for example, 1200-dpi) images or photographs directly onto your 300-dpi poster, choose matte finishes for illustrations whenever possible to minimize glare, because some of your viewers will be standing to the side of your posters at crowded poster sessions.

• Hearing     If your subject of your poster is an audio topic, such as a bird song or whale communication, include a button-activated sample of your featured sound on your poster. Record your sample sound, and then affix this button-activated device to an empty area in the appropriate section. Fill the picture frame with a figure legend on how to activate sound, or fill with a picture of the sound-generating organism. You can get these devices in electronic or department stores about $10, or you can find them on the Internet.
• Smell     If your topic is related to olfaction, make sure that one of your figures is a scratch-and-sniff figure. If your topic is related to a vile odor, perhaps put the odor into a plastic bag next to an invitation to "open the bag, if you dare."
• Touch     If your topic is related to texture, make sure that you glue onto your poster an actual object, rather than a photograph.
• Sight     If you have three-dimensional data or complex molecular structures, software programs can print stereoscopic images that are viewable with inexpensive 3-D glasses. Consider having the stereoscopic figure hidden under a hinged panel on which the normal figure is displayed. Have a pouch near the figure so that viewers can help themselves to the glasses.

• Wear a name tag, if possible, so that viewers know that the poster belongs to you.
• Do not refer to your notes when explaining your poster.
• Speak to your viewers as you explain your poster.
• Point to specific parts of your poster whenever possible so that viewers are aware of your progression.
• Keep a black pen and correction fluid in your pocket in case a viewer discovers an embarrassing typo.
• If more viewers arrive halfway into your discussion of the poster, finish the walk-through before beginning discussion for the latecomers.
• Exhibit professionalism at all times when displaying (or standing by) your poster. Imagine that a viewer will be considering your application for a job ten years into the future or will be considering your graduate school application next week.
• Bring a small manila envelope of business cards to attach to your poster. Glue one of the cards to the outside of the envelope so that viewers will know its contents, and write "please take one." (Note that your institutional logo will be on your cards, so having the logo on your cards will reduce the compulsion to place a logo on the actual poster.)
• If you must leave your poster, affix a note stating the expected time of return or where you can be found.
• Have on hand, but do not aggressively peddle, manuscripts and reprints of your work.
• Also have on hand full-color, "shrunken" versions of your poster on 8.5" × 11" paper.
• Thank your viewers for visiting. If they have stayed more than four minutes, you have succeeded.