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Poster Resources

Constructing your poster is an important process! Tips and advice below will guide you to format and present your work in a clean, organized, and appealing way and effectively communicate your message to the reader.

 
  • Size: for the Corporate Partners Student Poster Session, posters are required to be 36’’X48’’. 
  • Keep titles and headings short, but descriptive enough to catch the reader’s attention.
  • Readers should be able to easily follow the story you’re presenting of your work.
  • Poster should be colorful and visually appealing. Always err on the side of more visuals and less text.
  • Be smart about the use of space. Putting too much content makes a poster crowded and harder to follow.
  • Arrange figures and text to be aligned so the poster feels organized.
  • Font size should allow viewers to read your poster standing six feet away.
  • Figures:
    • Add captions and/or descriptions for all figures.
    • Clearly label content that the reader needs to understand (e.g. axes, lines, etc).
    • Construct the figure in a way that the reader will take away the correct message.
  • Download Virginia Tech poster template

There are many ways to structure the material in your poster. Below is just an example of some different sections that you could include.

  • Title:
    • The title should be descriptive and captivating to your audience. This is the first thing a reader will see at the top of your poster.
    • Remember to include acknowledgements of any co-authors, collaborators, or funding organizations.
  • Introduction:
    • What is the problem you are trying to solve with your work?
    • What is your main research question(s)?
    • Is there any previous work that you are building upon?
    • What data are you working with?
    • The introduction can either draw the reader in and help them understand the context or it can confuse them.
  • Methods:
    • Introduce the novel method or your application of a statistical technique to a new problem.
    • Often this section includes a lot of math or formulas describing the methods. Be sure to make it accessible to your audience.
    • Depending on your work, this may be the most important section of your poster. Spend time making sure you convey the message clearly!
  • Results:
    • Present the outcome of your work.
    • Convince your audience that the statistical analysis or research that you’ve done is exciting, worth learning more about, and good to apply in their own work.
    • Graphs, plots, tables, etc. are extremely helpful in showing the benefits of your method.
  • Conclusion:
    • Review the story of your poster. Enumerate the key takeaways. What have you learned?
    • This is another place to persuade your audience the value of your work. Why does it matter?
    • What are your next steps? Are there still more problems to address? How do you plan to approach them?
  • Ask yourself what you want the reader to learn from your poster.
  • Pick a few main topics or areas that you need to cover to achieve that goal.
  • What figures are you going to highlight? Visuals help drive home the message!
  • Identify any areas of future work that you can explain or perhaps gain insight for from readers.
  • Summarize the previous points into a 2-3 minute talk or elevator pitch that you can present to anyone who comes up to your poster.
  • Practice presenting to multiple friends or colleagues in advance of the poster presentation.
  • Come to the Corporate Partners Poster Workshop (September 26th) to practice and get feedback!