Posters as a form of academic communication

There are a wide variety of academic means of communicating ideas and information. You will use most, if not all, forms of communication relevant to your discipline while reading for your degree. One such method of communication is the poster. It is often used in the context of conferences and exhibitions. In this context it is distinctly different from the poster that provides advertisement or commercial headlines. A scientific poster, for example, contains many of the basic sub-sections that form the basis of most other forms of professional communication. There should be identifiable sections that provide:

•  Title
•  Authors
•  Introduction and background
•  Main content, which should include substantiated discussion (i.e. referenced evidence), not speculation.
•  Summary
•  Conclusions
•  References

Images

Your poster may contain "attractive" pictures or diagrams, but these should not be there merely for decoration, they should all serve a purpose in communicating information to the reader. Remember that images you find online are not necessarily copyright free,we recommend you use some of the excellent sources of copyright free images described in our Images Guide.

References
As with any other piece of academic work, all the material you use in your poster must be correctly acknowledged and referenced. We recommend you include the references within the poster, perhaps in a numbered style to avoid interfering with the text

Examples

Have a look at other research posters around your School buildings and other buildings you go into and perhaps consider talking to a member of staff with a draft copy of your poster before final submission. You'll find lots of examples in the links on this page too.