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's a visual aid, not a self-contained document — you are the presentation

By the end of a poster session, your goal is for people to walk away knowing (a) what you did, (b) what you found, and (c) why it matters.

Anatomy of a poster

Information bar

  • Quickly orient your audience — a short, clear title, with an optional one-line takeaway message after a colon
  • Who did the work (author list) and where it was done (affiliations)
  • Sometimes: contact info or a QR code linking to the full paper

Motivation

  • Why is this interesting?
  • What is your specific question?
  • A graphical depiction of the question or setup — an image is worth more than a paragraph
  • Keep it tight: this section sets up everything else

Approach

  • How did you study the question?
  • Major experiment and analysis details — not every detail, just enough that someone can follow along
  • One or more figures: experimental paradigm, analysis pipeline, etc.

Results

  • What did you find?
  • Tell a story: order the figures so each one builds on the last
  • Focus on the most critical findings — you can leave secondary results out
  • Every figure needs a self-contained caption: a reader should understand it without reading any surrounding text

Discussion

  • What does it mean?
  • Situate your work within the broader literature
  • Suggest future directions
  • Be honest about limitations — what can't you conclude from this study?

Optional sections and alternative formats

  • Bibliography: key references (often in tiny font at the bottom)
  • Conclusions: explicit takeaways, separate from the discussion
  • Methods: separate "experimental methods" from "analytic methods" if both are nontrivial
  • Acknowledgments: funding sources, collaborators

A different layout: one huge takeaway message in the center, with supporting details in narrow side columns. Works well for posters with a single dramatic result. Best when you want passersby to grasp your finding in 5 seconds.

Guiding principles

  • Minimize cognitive load on your audience. You have thought about your project a lot; your audience hasn't. Make it clear what's important and spell out the logic, interpretations, and takeaways.
  • Show, don't tell. Your poster is a visual aid, not a paper on a wall
  • Visual hierarchy guides the reader's eye: titles big, body text smaller but still readable
  • Font sizes: title 72pt+, section headers 36pt+, body text 24pt+ (readable from 4 feet away)
  • White space matters — it makes your poster feel clean and approachable
  • Consistency and alignment — aligned elements feel deliberate, misaligned ones feel sloppy

Common mistakes

  • Too much text — if your poster looks like a paper, you have too much text
  • Tiny fonts — if you can't read it from 4 feet away, it's too small
  • No visual hierarchy — everything looks equally important
  • Unlabeled figures — no axes, no legends, no captions
  • Walls of numbers — tables of raw statistics without interpretation
  • Cluttered layout — no white space, sections crammed together
  • Vague title — "An investigation of X" tells the reader nothing

Examples: what do you notice?

How do you "make" a poster?

  • Slide software: PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides (set custom slide size to 36" × 50")
  • Vector graphics: Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, Figma
  • Text processing: LaTeX Beamer poster templates, RMarkdown / Quarto
  • Use vectors (preferred) or 300+ DPI images (if needed) so the printed poster looks crisp
  • You can ask Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc. to help with poster design — layouts, color schemes, fonts. Use it for style and structure, but write the actual content yourself and review for accuracy.
  • Claude Design is pretty good!
  • Dimensions: 36" × 50" (or smaller) for our session
  • Where to print: PBS poster printer (2nd floor, Moore Hall) or Kinkos/FedEx/Staples (~$100)

Presenting and submitting

  • Practice your talk: aim for 3–5 minutes
  • You will be interrupted — that's normal and good
  • If someone asks something you don't know, just say "I don't know" — politely. Don't get defensive
  • Try to anticipate likely questions and prepare brief answers
  • PDF of your poster
  • Link to a YouTube video of your group presenting the poster (can be unlisted, Zoom screencast or similar works great)
  • Final paper
  • Group contribution statements (this is submitted individually by each group member, not as a group!)

Today's goal: design your analyses

  • Data collection can happen any time outside of class
  • In class this week, focus on what's harder to do alone: designing the analyses that will go into your poster and paper
  • For each question your study addresses: what test? what figure? what would the result tell you?

We're here in class specifically to help you think through analysis design and interpretation— come find us and tell us what you're planning!

Questions? Want to chat more?

📧 Email me
💬 Join our Slack
💁 Come to office hours
  • Today/Wednesday: work with me and the TAs to talk through your analysis plans
  • Friday: some tips and tricks for writing your final paper
  • Next week: I'll be away — TAs available for help during class time
  • June 1: project wrap-up
  • June 3: public poster session + all final deliverables due (11:59pm)