SECTION 5 - making a Scientific Poster

Review of Section 4

In Section 4 you:

• looked at how to collect and store information from sources to answer your research questions

• found out how to conduct an interview with an expert

• learnt how to cite and reference the sources you use

What is a scientific poster?

A scientific poster is an illustrated abstract summarizing your research– it combines short texts and images.

• It is designed to communicate scientific messages about research activities.

• It is used to show research results at conferences and academic gatherings.

• It is presented to a small group of people and is academic and interactive.

• It is not selling a product, so should not look like an advert.

• It should incorporate skillful graphic design, appropriate use of colour, careful selection of images and informative text.

• It should NOT have any flowers or other decorations on it. 👎

Activity 1:

1. In groups, look at scientific posters from previous semesters.

2. Now try to label the outline of a scientific poster below. Where do the following sections go? :

   • Finding (A)

   • References ( B )

   • Methods ( C )

   • Recommended Finding ( D )

   • Title ( E )

   • Authors ( F )

   • College ( G )

   • Significance ( H )

   • Finding 1 Image and caption ( I )

   • Future Research (J )

   • Introduction (background to the problem) ( K )

3. To check your answers, see Fig. 1 in Section 1 introduction.

Activity 2 : Evaluating posters

1. Look at the formatting and content requirements for the poster in Appendix 6 .

2. Your teacher will show you some examples of posters, using the rubric form below, give each poster a grade and decide together which is the 'best' example. Explain your decision.

Click to open the Poster Rubric Form below. You don't need to read all of it, just decide between 'Very Good' to 'Poor' for each element. Your teacher will explain how to use this rubric form.