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Presenting Your Research: Research Posters and Presenting to Different Audiences

Learn how to effectively communicate your research, either on a poster at a conference or verbally in a different setting. Topics include basic design principles, best poster practices, general design tool options and more.

Content first, then design

Before diving into graphic design tools, focus on creating the content for your research poster. This approach ensures your poster accurately reflects your research narrative, rather than forcing your findings to fit a predetermined layout. By developing your content first, you'll have a clear understanding of what information needs to be presented, making it easier to choose an appropriate poster layout later. Remember, a well-designed poster complements your research; it doesn't dictate it. Start with your research story, and let the design follow.

800 words

A movie trailer doesn't give away the whole plot, or show every actor in the film. It is a 60 second preview of a 2 hour long movie that gives people general idea of what the movie is about and entices them to see it. A research poster is like a movie trailer; it is supposed to give people a quick taste of your research to get them excited to learn more. A good conference poster will have about 800 words, with no more than 1000 words. That means you will need to seriously distill your research to the most important aspects. Everything from your title to your citations need to be critically examined and all non-vital aspects need to be removed. Below is a very general guide for how to allocate the word count by section. This will, of course, be different for different disciplines. 

Word Counts of Sections of a Research Poster
Poster Section Suggested Word Count
Title 8-15
Authors & Institutions 25-50
Introduction 100-200
Methodology 100-200
Results/Findings 100-200
Analysis  100-200
Conclusion

100-300

Citations

 50-100
Acknowledgements 10-100

Here are some tips for skimming down your word count:

  • Use Bullet points
  • Pictures and figures are worth a 1000 words (See the Graphs & Graphics section for how to do this effectively)
  • This is not the place for lots of citations. Avoid unnecessary in-text citations like quotes and only cite absolutely essential works for understanding your research. 
  • Provide handouts: Lots of researchers will have printed handouts with longer bibliographies, QR codes with links to their research's websites, information about the upcoming accompanying article, etc. 
  • Prepare a Verbal presentation: Posters are not designed to stand alone. They are supposed to be accompanied by you, giving more details about the research to interested onlookers. Check out the section on Presenting Your Research to Different Audiences for more tips on how to prepare the verbal portion. 

KISS Principle

A good way to approach summarizing your research is to use the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. The KISS principle operates on the belief that the simplest approach is the best approach.  More complexity leads to more issues. Apply this to your poster content and keep things as simple as you can while still getting the job done.  Here are some areas that probably should be covered: 

  1. The problem (what’s the question?)

  2. Its significance (why should we care?)

  3. How your particular research addresses the problem (what's your strategy?)

  4. The experiments/research performed (what did you actually do?)

  5. The results obtained (what did you actually find?)

  6. The conclusions (what did you think it all means?)

  7. Caveats (and reservations)

  8. Future prospects (where do you go from here ?)