What is a Scientific Poster?
A scientific poster summarizes information or research concisely and attractively to help publicize and generate discussion. A poster should consist of brief text mixed with tables, graphs, pictures, and other presentation formats.
Your Poster Layout
Title
A good title should inform the reader about what is contained within the poster. The title should be clear and concise while also avoiding bias or provoke human emotion.
Your Name, Contact Information, Institution, & Affiliations
You should include all the names and contact information of all the authors. If there are multiple authors, they should go in the order of prominence. The institution and affiliations are important because it tells readers where the research was done.
Abstract
The abstract is a basic summary of the entire poster. Each of the following sections should have 2-4 sentences that that talk about them: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion
Introduction
The introduction tells the reader why the research is important and provides background information about the issue or topic that is being studied. The goals and objects of the research should be included in the introduction.
Hypothesis
What are you going to be studying?
Materials & Methods
The Materials & Methods section tells the reader how the research was conducted. This section provides detailed information about the techniques, methods, instruments, and equipment used in the research.
Results
The results contain data collected by the researcher. Data can include measurements, descriptions and/or observations.
Different ways scientific data can be displayed as visuals:
- graphs
- equations
- tables
- figures
- diagrams
- maps
- charts
- photographs
Discussion
The Discussion section provides an interpretation of data, especially in context to previously published research.
Citations/References
This section provides the viewer with detailed information about about all the source's authors. Citations/References bring recognition to the scientists who conducted the research and/or the journal article where the research was originally published
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements can include the name of scientists who contributed to the research but not provide substantial contribution that would justify authorship, funding sources, and the names of research centers, institutions, and organizations where research was conducted.
Watch this video to find out what design choices you should make for your poster
Tools & Resources
Software
PowerPoint is the easiest software to use when you are creating a poster.
If you want a more in depth information on how to create a poster on PowerPoint, UIC's School of Public Health has a poster guide with more information.
Public Domain Photos
Many Flickr users have chosen to offer their work under a Creative Commons license, and you can browse or search through content under each type of license.
An extensive library of free stock photos, images, and audio, available for free use.
Open-i enables search and retrieval of abstracts and images (including charts, graphs, clinical images, etc.) from the open source literature and biomedical image collections.
Pixabay's content comes from a community of creatives, sharing royalty-free HD photos and stock images. All contents are released under the Pixabay license, which makes them safe to use without attribution.
UIC PhotoShelter has provides a gallery multiple versions of the UIC logo which includes specific colleges as well.
Sources that have Scientific Poster Examples
This poster session group holds a gallery of photos taken from research conventions
This gallery includes examples of research posters as well as commentary that explains whether a poster is appealing or not
Explore More
Books
Academic and Scientific Poster Presentation by ISBN: 3319612786Publication Date: 2017-09-12This book offers the first comprehensive guide to poster presentation at academic, scientific and professional conferences. Each chapter explores different factors that impact upon how posters function, and how they fit within today's conference practices, as well as provides guidance on how to address compilation and presentation issues with the poster medium.
Articles
- WASP (Write a Scientific Paper): Preparing a poster by Victor Grech
Publication Date: 2018
A poster is a visual communication tool, but crucially, it is absolutely not a research paper directly transposed onto a board. It shows the results of research but it does not explain in detail in the way that a conventional paper does. This paper will explain how poster creation accedes to newspaper article writing theory, while adhering to the IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) format. - How To Give a Scientific Talk, Present a Poster, and Write a Research Paper or Proposal by Ronald A Hites
(2014). Environmental Science & Technology, 48(17), 9960–9964.
The author discusses ways on how to provide scientific talk, present a poster, and write a research paper about chemistry. The author offers tips on how to present a more specialized level of talk using visual slides or PowerPoint in front of audiences at a conference or at an academic seminar.
Poster Printing Services
The library does not offer poster printing services. Please go to UIC's Creative and Digital Services or a commercial printer to print your poster.
Sources
Content
ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/scientificposterguide/ (Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial)
https://guides.nyu.edu/posters
Image(s)
https://openi.nlm.nih.gov/detailedresult?img=PMC3669572_JPP-4-130-g004&query=poster&it=xg&req=4&npos=20