Moravian College Honors Program | Poster Presentation

Poster Presentation

Each Spring semester, the Alumni Association, the Honors Program, and the SOAR program sponsor a Poster Presentation. This Presentation is an opportunity for Honors Candidates, SOAR students, and other students engaged in scholarly and creative activity to share the results of their work, meet each other, and receive constructive feedback from other members of the College community. The Colloquium also allows the College community to see the results of independent studies, summer projects, and nearly completed Honors projects. During your second semester of Honors (or the semester after you complete a SOAR project), you are expected to present your work as a poster.

Presentation Guidelines

Please treat this document as a set of guidelines and suggestions rather than strict rules; you and your Advisor should determine the best way to organize and present your work. For example, if you have created visual art or a musical composition, a showing or performance might be appropriate.
In a poster presentation, you summarize the key ideas in your work in a poster so that viewers can quickly see what you have done, and can talk to you directly if they have specific questions. Readers should be able to get a sense of what you have done very quickly (10-30 seconds), and should be able to understand your entire poster in about 5-10 minutes. You might, for example, present 10 to 15 pages of text and graphics sequentially from left to right. With a poster, you don't need to be present for people to learn what you've done, and people can spend as little or as much time as they like on each part of the poster.

It is often helpful to split your presentation into several sections.  For example:
 

Title The title of your project, your name, and your advisor's name.
Introduction Brief overview of the project and presentation.
Question or Hypothesis What questions does the project try to answer?
Method How does the project try to answer the questions?
Result What did you learn, discover, or accomplish?
Conclusions What are the main findings and conclusions?
What are the next steps, if any?

Try to make your presentation as clear and concise as possible. Whenever possible, eliminate or define specialized language, including acronyms. Charts, graphs, and illustrations are often easier to understand than text or large tables. Similarly, a list of bulleted items is often easier to read than a similar number of sentences.
Depending on the layout, you may find it helpful to number the sections.

Presentation Materials

You may find the following suggestions helpful if you are preparing a poster or visual aids for an oral presentation.  Expectations vary from discipline to discipline; consult with your advisor or a member of the Honors Committee if you have questions. The Honors Committee will supply a poster board for each of the candidates.
 

Font Size Use 18 point fonts or larger for the text, and 24 point fonts or larger for titles and headings.  Avoid italic type, since it is often more difficult to read; bold is better for emphasis. People viewing a poster should be able to read the title and headings from 15-20 feet away, and the text from 5-10 feet away. Similarly, overheads or slides should be clearly readable from the back of the room.
Amount of Text If you are printing the text for sections of your poster on 8.5 x 11 paper, try to have no more than 100-150 words on a sheet, and fewer words are often more effective. 10-15 pages should be plenty for a poster or oral presentation. Your goal is to summarize your work, not to explain all of the details. 
Graphics Charts, graphs, maps, etc. should be clearly and accurately labeled; someone looking at it should not need to refer to anything else to understand what is being displayed.
Illustrations Crop or enlarge illustrations to remove non-essential information or focus attention on specific details.
Color Color can be very helpful for graphics and illustrations, but should be used with care; unnecessary patterns can be confusing. Color can be distracting for text; it's usually best to use black text on a neutral background. 

 

For More Information

The following WWW resources may be helpful; please let us know if you find others.

The following books and papers may also be helpful; if you find others, please let us know.