Tips: Posters

A few words for those unfamiliar with posters...

Poster presentations are extremely effective ways of communicating ideas in a succinct form and we display some at each of our congresses.

There are no hard-and-fast rules about how to present a poster. The following is just commonsense advice which you may well decide to ignore if you have a clear idea about how your poster should be presented.

Try and divide your presentation into clear sections such as:
          Background to the study (literature review)
          Aims or hypotheses
          Methods (sample and procedure)
         Results
         Discussion
Make sure that you can print in a font that is easily visible at 1-2 metres. This means a 36 font is about the minimum.
Try to reduce each of the sections to a very small number of points - no more than 4 or 5 bullet points on a page.
Try to include diagrams where ever possible – not just graphs, but attempt to represent your conceptualisation also in diagrammatic form, for example by using boxes and arrows.
Spread the ideas across separate pages – so the presentation consists of 10 or 15 pages of simple material in large typeface.
Use colour if at all possible.
Put your contact details on the poster.
Most people print their posters on ordinary letter size/A4 paper and pin them sheet-by-sheet onto a board. This year, in Seattle, poster boards will be 2.4m high and 1.2m wide (or 8ft by 4ft). It is best not to overfill the space.
If you have a chance you may want to laminate your sheets, which protects them and stops them from curling.
You may wish to produce a title for your presentation that runs across several sheets and goes at the top of your poster. You should do this in an extra large font with only a couple of words on each sheet.

Let us know if you would like to see some examples of posters by emailing This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Abstracts of accepted posters are posted on our website for year.

To view poster abstracts for the Montreal Congress (2008) click here.

To view poster (and Research Day) abstracts for the Paris Congress (2009) click here.

To submit a poster for a congress, write to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Good luck!