Last week, in preparation for the poster sessions at our 2015 annual meeting in New York, the AHA hosted a Google Hangout to discuss strategies for creating an effective conference poster. Participants included AHA director of scholarly communication and digital initiatives, Seth Denbo; poster guru Colin Purrington; and Kelly Spring, winner of last year’s AHA Annual Meeting Poster Contest. If you’re planning a conference poster, here are some top tips from our experts for making your poster stand out from the crowd:
- In your poster introduction, describe a particular question your research attempts to answer and why it is important.
- Employ graphics such as photographs, charts, maps, tables, and arrows to visually engage your readers and direct their attention to various parts of the poster.
- Have one or two speaking points prepared ahead of time that summarize your research so you’re ready when someone wants a quick description.
- Be flexible. Some people will want to hear only your elevator speech, some will ask questions requiring elaboration, and others will simply look at the poster.
- Don’t make your poster too long. The joy of a poster is that it is a graphically appealing, exciting synopsis of your research, so a good rule of thumb is to limit your text to 800 words.
For additional inspiration, Colin Purrington’s “Designing Conference Posters” is a great place to start; Stephanie Krom’s “Poster Tips for Humanities Conference Posters” gives ideas specifically geared towards humanists; and more guidelines can be found on the AHA website.
Watch the full Google Hangout here:
Poster Session #1
AHA Session 213
Time:Sunday, January 4, 2015: 11:30 a.m.–2:00 p.m.
Location:2nd Floor Promenade (New York Hilton, Second Floor)
Poster Session #2
AHA Session 242
Time:Sunday, January 4, 2015: 2:30 p.m.–5:00 p.m.
Location:2nd Floor Promenade (New York Hilton, Second Floor)
This post first appeared on AHA Today.
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