Tips for Creating High Impact Scientific Poster Presentations

8/12/2016

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ACS Webinars™

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8/12/2016

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Molecule of the Week

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Contact ACS Webinars™at acswebinars@acs.org

ACS WEBINARS™

March 6, 2012

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Brent Znosko

Saint Louis University

Ann Newman

Seventh Street Development

Group

Tips for Creating High Impact Scientific Poster

Presentations

8/12/2016

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Disclaimer

• Despite the credentials mentioned previously, others should

be considered the “experts.”

o Colin Purrington, formerly at Swathmore College

o Lisa Balbes, Balbes Consultants

o George Hess, NC State University

• Presented next is my opinion and preference

o Posters that follow these guidelines are not necessarily

good posters…science rules!

o Posters that do not follow these guidelines are not

necessarily bad posters….science rules!

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Who is the Audience?

• My research focuses on the stability and structure

of nucleic acids (http://www.slu.edu/~znoskob)

o People in your field (RNA Society)

o People in closely related fields (American

Chemical Society)

o People in unrelated fields or a variety of fields

(Sigma Xi or University-wide)

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What is the Setting?

• Crowded room

• Dim lights

• Most people there to

socialize

• Poster board

dimensions

• Read information for

presenters

Figure taken from

http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=186

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Designing Your Poster

• Column format (top to bottom and left to right)

• Section headings

• Mostly graphics

• Short phrases in bulleted lists

• 24-32 point (larger for headings) Arial, Helvetica, Verdana,

or Georgia font

• Leave white space

• Light background and dark letters (2-3 colors and no

background pictures)

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Heading

• Title

o Letters should be large (72-100 point)

o Catchy to attract the audience

• Authors and Affiliations

o Names of all authors (including PI), institutions, and

addresses

o Use superscripts if authors are from more than one

institution

o Identify presenting author (asterisk or underline)

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Sample Headings

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Abstract

• Explain why your work is important

• Describe the objectives of your work

• Briefly explain the methods

• Succinctly state results and conclusions

This should be the only section that is paragraph form!

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Sample Abstract

Although tetraloops are one of the most frequently occurring

secondary structure motifs in RNA, less than one-third of the 30

most frequently occurring RNA tetraloops have been

thermodynamically characterized. Therefore, 24 stem-loop

sequences containing common tetraloops were optically melted,

and the thermodynamic parameters ΔHº, ΔSº, ΔGº

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, and T

M

for

each stem-loop were determined. The data for the 24 tetraloops

reported here were then combined with the data for 28 tetraloops

that were published previously. A new model, independent of

terminal mismatch data, was derived to predict the free energy

contribution of previously unmeasured tetraloops. It was also

shown that tetraloops within the sequence 5’GCCNNNNGGC3’ are,

on average, 0.6 kcal/mol more stable than the same tetraloop

within the sequence 5’GGCNNNNGCC3’. More systematic studies

are required to determine the full extent of non-nearest neighbor

effects on tetraloop stability.

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Should the Abstract Appear on the Poster?

• No

o Already printed in program

o Has not changed from what was submitted

months earlier

o Redundant and takes up space

• Yes

o Has changed from what was submitted months

earlier

o Convenience for those who did not read the

abstract in the program

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Introduction/Background

• Get viewer interested

• Describe why this problem is important

• Provide background and definitions

• Place in context of literature

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Sample Introduction/Background

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Methods

• How did you do it?

• What did you use?

• Describe equipment and methods but not with the

detail of a paper

• Use figures, tables, flow charts, etc. to summarize

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Sample Methods

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Results/Discussion

• Show the data

• Include raw data only if absolutely necessary (don’t

show all)

• Use equations, schemes, figures, and tables

• Briefly describe results

• Analyze data

This should be the largest section of the poster!

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Sample Items for Results/Discussion

Figure 4: PDB structure (PDB I.D. 2AW4). The structural

features are described in Table 2.

Figure 4: PDB structure (PDB I.D.

2AW4). The structural features are

described in Table 2.

Loop Sequence

Freq

a

%

b

Loop Sequence

Freq

a

%

b

Freq

a

%

b

AC

GAU

125 11.79

A

U

AA

GAG

C

G

94 8.87

A

U

C

G

176 16.60

AA

GAG

103 9.72

A

U

CC

GAC

G

C

85 8.02

A

U

G

C

146 13.77

CC

GAC

85 8.02

A

U

AC

GAU

U

A

83 7.83

G

C

G

C

117 11.04

CC

AAU

62 5.85

G

C

CC

AAU

C

G

62 5.85

A

U

A

84 7.92

GG

AGA

61 5.75

A

U

AA

CAC

C

G

44 4.15

G

C

G

78 7.36

GA

AAG

55 5.19

A

U

AC

GAU

G

U

42 3.96

A

U

G

U

57 5.38

AA

CAC

44 4.15

U

G

GG

AGA

U

G

42 3.96

C

G

C

50 4.72

Closing bp

5' and 3' Adjacent Base Pairs

Loop

Loop with Nearest Neighbors

Not all combinations are shown due to space limitations.

Table 1: Summary of the protein

database search for 2x3 loops.

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Conclusions

• Remind reader of major result

• Relevance to the published work

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Sample Conclusion

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References

• Format like your field (kind of)

• No titles

1. Johnson, C. A. et al.

(2011) J. Phys. Chem. B

115, 9244-9251.

2. Svozil, D. et al. (2010) J.

Phys. Chem. B 114, 1191-

1203.

3. Sponer, J. et al. (2008)

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys.

10, 2595-2610.

4. Xia, T. et al. (1998)

Biochemistry 34, 14719-

14735.

5. SantaLucia, J. et al.

(1996) Biochemistry 35,

3555-3562.

1. Mathews, D. H., et. al. (1999) J. Mol. Biol. 288, 911-940.

2. Zuker, M. (2003) Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 3406-3415.

3. McDowell, J. A. (1996) Meltwin v. 3.5.

4. Sheehy, J. P., et al. (2010) RNA 16, 417-429.

5. Dale, T., et. al. (2000) RNA 6, 608-615.

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Funding/Acknowledgements

• Collaborators who are not co-authors

• Sources of funding (ask your PI, and don’t forget

about travel grants)

This work was supported by Research Corporation (CC7804

to ML and CC7621 to BMZ), NSF through TeraGrid resources

by NCSA (TG-CHE050039N to ML and TG-CHE070046N to

BMZ), and NIH NIGMS (R15GM085699 to BMZ). VEP and CAT

were part of the Students and Teachers as Research

Scientists program administered by the University of

Missouri-St. Louis.

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Graphics

• Label each axis with units

• Include a legend

• High resolution pictures

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Proofread, Proofread, Proofread!

Be consistent!

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Critiques of Posters

• All co-authors and PI (expect many revisions)

• Lab members

• Friends in the department

• Try submitting to a blog

o http://betterposters.blogspot.com

o http://f1000.com/posters

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Presenting Your Poster

• Be at your poster

• Dress appropriately (business casual)

• Wear a name tag

• Have copies of publications, business cards,

reprints of poster, and notebook

• Hang poster on time and leave hanging until

session is over

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What To Do When Someone Approaches Your Poster

• Introduce yourself

• Look at their name tag

• Ask about their familiarity with your topic

• Give a 1, 2, or 5 minute overview of your poster

o Do not use notes

o Point to figures

o Do not point to text

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MWRM/GLRM 2011

Undergraduate Research Poster Session

Evaluation Form for Poster #_____

Judge: ____________________

Please consider the following while judging the posters:

Overall Appearance & Format 1 2 3 4 5