Elsewhere on Ulster
Academic posters are a form of your work communicated through text and graphics. Find resources here to help you research, structure and communicate your ideas.
Academic posters are a dynamic way to present key ideas effectively and efficiently. The skill lies in conveying complex ideas with clarity. When developing a poster, you need to find and analyse information, structuring and presenting your argument in a direct and visual manner. Posters as assignments are used to:
Posters are used for campaigns, at academic conferences, in advertising and for public health. Posters are developed with an imagined audience in mind, and the presentation of the poster should reflect the audience's requirements.
The planning of your poster is fundamental to its success. You must reflect on what your poster is about, who your audience will be and why you are developing it.
A poster presentation assessment is an opportunity for you to demonstrate strong transferable skills such as:
A poster presentation allows you to summarise your project in a concise and aesthetically pleasing format. If you have been asked to create a poster for assessment, then the poster's purpose is to:
Your audience will typically be your assessor and your peers will be the imagined audience. For example, if you were developing a health literacy poster, your imagined audience might be the patients or service users.
Academic posters are a critical medium for communicating complex scientific data in a visually digestible format. They serve a pivotal role at scientific conferences, symposiums, and seminars, offering researchers a platform to showcase their work, share findings, and promote dialogue within the scientific community.
An effective academic poster can engage the audience, encourage questions, and spark meaningful conversations, thereby leading to new collaborations and insights. However, making an academic poster that stands out is not an easy task. It requires the ability to simplify intricate data into a concise, visually appealing, and comprehensible format that can quickly grab the attention of the passersby.
When creating a poster for assessment, academic rigour needs to be maintained. Evaluate your assignment brief, and pay attention to the instructional terms. The content of your poster will be dependent on what you are being tasked to do!
You need to present a clear message, supported with a focused and consistent argument with a logical progression.
Due to the limited amount of space, you will need to carefully control the amount of information you present, providing either a brief overview of your work or a deeper exploration of one particular aspect. It is easy to overestimate how much writing you can include on an academic poster, so try have a clear idea about exactly what it is you want to communicate to your audience. Try summarise the main point you want to communicate in a sentence or two.
Posters allow you to communicate information visually rather than relying heavily on text. To avoid large blocks of text, consider what information can be more effectively or concisely communicated using images, charts, or diagrams. You can also save space by strategically using references or links to direct the reader to additional information that you cannot include on the poster.
Academic posters give you control over how your audience experiences your work. Consider where you want the audience’s focus to start and end, and the order you want them to move through different sections.
Ask yourself:
Structuring your poster effectively not only enhances its visual appeal but also reinforces your message and improves audience comprehension. For instance, if you're illustrating the development of a theory or methodology, consider a 'building' approach where viewers start at the bottom and progress through layers. Conversely, for a non-linear journey, draw attention to the middle and allow exploration of various sections freely.
However, ensure your chosen structure aligns with your message. A poster demonstrating a specific methodology may require a linear structure to avoid confusion. When deciding on your poster’s structure, consider if it complements or conflicts with your intended message
The style of your poster should align with its purpose and topic. However, there are essential guidelines to ensure clarity and accessibility for all readers
Poster styles can vary and it can be hard to know what choices to make.
Ask yourself should the style be:
To answer these questions you might want to refer back to the ‘audience profile’ and think about ways of navigating what they want/need to get from the poster and what you want/need to get from the poster.
For example, if you have an expert audience who you anticipate would know a lot about your field it may be more appropriate to use some complex, subject-specific terminology.
Or maybe your goal is to simplify a complicated phenomenon, in which case you might choose to create a more informal poster that uses lots of images and simple text.
There’s no right answer to these questions and sometimes your wants and needs might clash with those of the audience. In these cases, the task is to try and find a way to negotiate between your own goals and those of the audience.
Top Tips for Academic Posters:
You can access information and develop your digital skills by accessing our Digital Literacy guide.