Poster guidelines
Requirements, Guidelines and Suggestions for Poster Preparation
for the 29th Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation
| REQUIREMENTS: | |
| Size: | The maximum area available for each poster will be 3.6' x 3.6' (110cm x 110cm). There will not be space available to "relocate" an oversized poster. Therefore, posters that are larger than 4 feet wide will be altered (folded or cut) to fit within the allotted area! |
| Language: | English is the official language of the Sea Turtle Symposium. Whenever possible, authors should produce their posters in well-written English. However, if a poster must be prepared in a language other than English, it must include an English abstract. It is permissible to attach the abstract below the poster if necessary. Additionally, an English explanation/description must be included for each figure. |
| Student awards: | A student who has entered a poster in the awards competition must be the first author on the poster. |
| GUIDELINES AND SUGGESTIONS: | |
| Title: | The title of the poster should be short but descriptive. Font size should be sufficient that it can be read from 10 feet (3m). 72 point is suggested. |
| Text size: | The main text of the poster should be in a font large enough to be read from 3 feet (1m). A font size between 18 and 24 point (6-8mm) is recommended; secondary text (such as acknowledgements and literature cited) may be slightly smaller but no text should ever be smaller than 14 point (5mm). |
| Figures: | Posters should include figures that illustrate key methods, findings or examples from the study. All text within figures, graphs, charts and tables should be large enough to be read from 3 feet (1m). Use graphs or charts instead of tables whenever possible to make your data easier to "get" at a glance. Remember to use standard deviation/error bars in your graphs and scale bars in your photographs/micrographs. Use arrows to draw attention to specific details in images. |
| More is less: | Posters that contain a small amount of text and many figures are more likely to be read than posters that have more text and fewer figures. As with a 10 minute oral presentation, a poster is not meant to report an entire study but to convey the findings and conclusions of a study and just enough information for the reader to understand the reason for the study and the methods used. |
| Topic: | Stick to only one idea/topic in your poster. Including too much information not directly related to your central idea often confuses and frustrates readers. |
| Target audience: |
Write your poster for a general audience. Remember that people from many different backgrounds attend the Sea Turtle Symposium. Your goal is to create a presentation that anyone can "get" in less than 5 minutes and one that someone with a basic background in your subject matter can fully understand in less than 10 minutes. |
| Organization: | Organize your poster into sections and arrange those sections so that it is easy to follow the "flow" of your presentation. If you refer to figures, make it easy to find those figures and return to the starting point in the text quickly. |
| Example: | This link will take you to a page with an example of a student award winning poster (and the same poster done "wrong"). |