Introduction to poster presentations

PSYC 11: Laboratory in Psychological Science

Jeremy R. Manning
Dartmouth College
Spring 2026

What is a poster presentation?

  • A visual summary of your research, designed to be read in 3--5 minutes
  • You stand next to it and talk people through your work
  • It is a visual aid, not a self-contained document -- you are the presentation

Anatomy of a poster

  • Title bar: one-line summary + who did the work + where
  • Motivation: why is this interesting? what is your question?
  • Approach: what did you do? (experiment + analyses)
  • Results: what did you find? (figures + key stats)
  • Discussion: what does it mean? what is next?

What makes a good poster?

  • Less text is more -- show, don't tell
  • Keep it visually clean: consistent fonts, aligned elements, efficient use of space
  • Figures should be large enough to read from 4 feet away
  • Think about the audience's traffic flow -- where do eyes go first?

Discussion: show me a poster

  • I will show several example posters
  • For each one, discuss with a partner:
    • What works well? What draws your eye?
    • What does not work? What is confusing or cluttered?
    • How would you improve it?
  • We will share observations as a class after each example

Example posters

  • Is the main finding obvious within 30 seconds?
  • Can you follow the story without reading every word?
  • Are the figures clear and well-labeled?
  • Does the layout guide your eye logically?

How do you make a poster?

  • Slide software: PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides (set slide size to 36" x 50")
  • Vector graphics: Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, Figma
  • Text processing: LaTeX Beamer, RMarkdown
  • Use high-resolution figures (vectors or 300+ DPI)

Presenting and submitting

  • Practice your talk: aim for 3--5 minutes
  • You will be interrupted -- that is normal and good!
  • If you do not know something, just say "I don't know"
  • Submission: PDF of poster + link to a YouTube video of your presentation (one per group)