Research Poster Planning

So you need to make a research poster! The first step in creating a research poster is to brainstorm, plan, and organize.

Consider your purpose

Posters allow you to network, communicate, get feedback, and disseminate your research. It's important to keep in mind that the heart of a research poster is about communication. You are trying to present your research in a clear and digestible way. Only include the most important information and figures. You will not be able to include every piece of information! Generally, posters are presented at conferences in poster fairs where you will stand in front of your poster and engage with interested people who wander around.

Poster Organization

Create a written outline

Your first step is to create a written outline. You can start by brainstorming which pieces of your research need to be included. What are the most important points? Is that communicated in the title? Don't worry too much about the details for now.

Decide on sections

You will organize your information into sections that make up the bulk of the poster. Sections generally mimic the sections used in research publications. A typical poster has 4 to 8 sections and the specifics of the poster, including academic discipline, dictate which sections to use. Here are some sample sections, though you should not use all of these! We'll talk in the next parts of this guide about how to organize and design the section layouts.

• Introduction section types:

  • Introduction

  • Condensed Abstract

  • Background

  • Hypothesis

  • Objectives/Purpose

• Research section types:

  • Materials

  • Methodology

  • Analysis

  • Models

  • Results

• Conclusion section types:

  • Conclusion

  • Recommendations

  • Implications

  • Discussion

  • Acknowledgments

  • Contact Information

Getting Started

Now that you've brainstormed content and decided on section headers and software, it's time to start putting your document together. You'll need to consider:

1. Setting up the document to be the proper poster size

2. Deciding on the design of your title block

3. Deciding on the design of your section headers

4. Deciding on the design of your section content

5. Deciding on a background color / design

Blocking out and organizing sections

At this point, you need to consider both the content of your sections and the design. This is where it's helpful to have already written the content of your research poster because you can start blocking out your section headers and filling in content to know how long each section is.

Title Area

Make sure your title is extremely clear and legible from a distance: it's the first thing that people read. Also include your name. You might also include your department name, other researchers, and your institution (Clemson University).

Sections

For a typical research poster, you will have multiple sections (ex: Introduction, Methods, Results...) organized into columns. Each section block should have the section header and then the content of the section. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to organizing sections. Start by creating text boxes, filling them in with information, and moving them around on the poster.

The next section of this guide will cover the basic principles of design, including color, font, and space. The section after that will show examples of research posters. Keep in mind the five decisions you need to make as you learn about design and look at other posters.

A note on brevity

By this point, hopefully you're starting to fill in some research information for your poster. The type of content varies by field, so do some research to see how your discipline hands sections and language. But remember that one of the most important considerations in a research poster is to be brief and concise. Your research is very cool and you want to include all the information! But cut, cut, cut. Your poster will be much much easier to understand and communicate better with less information. It sounds counterintuitive, but it's true.

A note on templates

At this point, you might be thinking - surely Clemson has poster templates available to us? Currently, there are no university-wide standard poster templates. You might be able to find some department or college-specific templates but they are not intended to be used for all Clemson content. You could use those templates as inspiration. The following sections of this guide will explain best design practices for your research poster and then will give examples of good and bad posters.