Guidance on poster preparation for IB Sustainable Engineering
Adapted from material prepared by Helen East, Language Unit, CUED
1. What is a technical poster?
A technical poster aims to give a concise, visual description of a piece of research or coursework – it is often a précis of a full report or paper. Even though there is no accompanying report for this exercise, you are strongly advised to organise your material under draft report headings first, and then to cut it back to the key content on the poster. The aim is for the main story to be absorbed by the reader in no more than 5 minutes. Pictures, diagrams and graphs help to get messages across quickly and accurately. Avoid long pieces of prose: use bullet points instead. Presentation is important – good graphic design facilitates interest and easy reading, but should not be over-elaborate, becoming a distraction in itself.
2. What should be included?
You are producing a single page poster, in electronic form. You are limited by space, and must be very selective about what you include. Identify about three key points you want to make, and cover them clearly, without getting buried in details. You must start with the following: § poster title, your name, crsID § brief introduction to the problem being presented and end with: § conclusions § references, in full In between, use the appropriate combination of text and figures to get the message across – but remember that figures and bullet points are much easier to interpret quickly than plain text or tables of data. Avoid acronyms, jargon and ‘chatty’ style – this is still a technical piece of work.
Tips on writing the sections of your poster
Total length of text: generally aim for no more than about 500 words (excluding references). This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule though: some excellent posters can be very information-dense and have high word counts so long as the material is presented in an accessible way. Introduction: Get the reader interested, explaining concisely what the poster is about. State your problem, give it context and summarise how the issue has been addressed. Length: typically 50-150 words. Methods and Results: Describe the data and how you have analysed it. The detail will be much less than you’d use in a written report. Avoid long paragraphs of text: extended bullet points are much better. Lots of pictures, diagrams, drawings. Use figure captions so that the reader can understand the figure without reading more of the text. Length: typically 200-400 words (but will vary a lot). Conclusions: Summary of what you’d like the reader to remember from your work. Brief reminder of the main purpose of the investigation, and highlight why your results are interesting. Length: typically 50- 150 words.
1 References: You must declare the source of any information you cite by providing a reference. This guards against plagiarism, but it also allows the reader to follow up on your work and to read about it in more detail. There are standard formats for citing references: see guidance on CUED library website. You’ll probably use quite a lot of web references: give the full address and include the date you accessed it. Try to use original articles, books and journals rather than just media reports. Aim for 5-10 references. Provide a full list of references as a section on your poster (can be in very small writing!).
3. Poster design Many people find that a very convenient tool for producing posters is Powerpoint, but you are free to use any software you like.
Poster size You are producing your poster as a PDF, but think about how it would appear if printed. We might print out posters at A2 size; when used for a conference or in a big room posters are usually A1 (59.4 ´ 84 cm). However, the poster should be readable at A4 size (or on a roughly A4 size computer screen) – see later notes on font size. Use print quality resolution when pasting in graphics, not Web quality.
Layout and Information Flow
Landscape orientation is recommended – but Portrait is OK if things fit better and the flow of content is clear. In Landscape, use two or three columns. Readers expect to work from top left to bottom right, and are familiar with reading in columns.
Other layouts can work – experiment with storyboards – but you may need to help your reader find their way around (e.g. using numbers, colour, flow charts or arrows). Don’t over-do background colour (e.g. with more background being visible than content boxes, or with an elaborate background photograph that distracts from the content). Textboxes with white background can help to break up the content, and make it stand out against the background (see RH example above). Note that the recommended width of text boxes is between 40 and 100 characters.
2 Storyboarding and Drafting Storyboarding is the experimental planning and revision of both content and layout (on paper or electronically). Identify the main results and figures – does their location catch the eye? Write your text and re-read it a few days later – is it clear and to the point? Drafting and revising are at least as important for a poster as they are for a report – it is much harder to write concisely than at length, and you may have only 2 minutes to get your message across.
Title § The main title should be large – on an A1 template, a font size of 72-90pt is recommended (24- 30pt on A4). It must be visible from a long way back in order to attract people to your poster. § Section titles should also be large and clear to help your audience find the information they need – larger and bolder than the text itself. Fonts § When printed at A4 size (21 ´ 29.7 cm), or viewed at this size on a computer screen, the minimum reasonable font size is 10pt. Each standard paper size is Ö2 times bigger in linear dimensions than the one below (i.e. double the area, with constant aspect ratio of 1: Ö2). Hence to be legible on a template for printing at A1 size (59.4 ´ 84 cm), use about 30pt. § You may use a smaller font size for your list of references so it doesn’t take up too much space. § Sans-serif fonts are clearest for titles, sub-headings, labelling/axes on graphs and figure captions. Examples are Arial, Calibri, Verdana, Trebuchet. § Serif fonts are easier to read for plain text. Examples are Times New Roman, Garamond, Georgia. Some people prefer sans-serif throughout.
Graphics Default formats for graphs in most applications software are terrible! Use the following guidelines: § Do not use header titles – use a proper Figure caption below the graph (and refer to it in the text). § Use a sensible aspect ratio – width to height ratio should not generally exceed about 1.5. § Axis labels and numbering, text on figures, legends and captions should be at least the same font size as the plain text, preferably a little larger – most readers will concentrate on the figures. § Do not colour the backgrounds, or use grid lines; frame the graph area (but not the whole figure), and use a finer line thickness for ticks (inside the axes). § Choose colours, symbol and line styles carefully – the goal is clarity and readability.
Sources ALL sources must be referenced, including figures (e.g. at the end of a figure caption for non-original material, add: ‘[Source: xxxx]’ and put this source in your references). References point specifically to where you found particular bits of information. Bibliography is a bit different: these are sources which provide general background information for your poster.
