Are you a student who participated in research, an internship, or a creative opportunity funded by Reed or an external organization during the summer of 2019? If so, we invite you to showcase the results of your summer project as part of President Audrey Bilger’s inauguration festivities.
Students who register to participate will have the opportunity to discuss their work with small groups of Reed community members, prominent alumni, trustees, and other guests. Presentations can be in poster format or another visual format (e.g., PowerPoint presented on a laptop, artifacts, photo book).
Deadline for registration: September 14, 2019
Registration: All students who wish to participate must complete the registration form by September 14, 2019.
Presentation setup: All registered students must set up their poster or display in Kaul Auditorium on Friday, October 4, 2019, between noon and 2:30 p.m. The auditorium will have security to ensure all posters and displays are protected. If you are presenting your work in poster format, you will be provided with an easel, a 30" x 40" foam board, tape, and/or push pins to mount your poster. If you have another medium to display, you will be directed to a table where you should set up.
Showcase: The showcase will take place in Kaul Auditorium on Friday, October 4, 2019, between 3:00 pm and 4:30 pm, prior to the inauguration ceremony. All presenting students must be at their displays by 2:45 p.m.
Presentation takedown: All registered students must remove their poster or display on Friday, October 4, between 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.
What Reed provides: Reed will provide an easel for your poster or a table for your display. The college will reimburse up to $50 for any printing or materials costs, unless the student has previously received reimbursement from the college to display the same project at a poster session.
What students provide:
- A poster, display, presentation, or representation of work created during the summer of 2019. If the presentation requires a laptop, the student must provide the laptop and power cord for the presentation (though we recommend you bring your laptop fully charged). There are no projection capabilities.
- A commitment. Registering for this showcase is a commitment and an honor. If for any reason you cannot present, you must immediately notify inauguration@reed.edu.
Requirements:
- Create a poster or display summarizing your research, internship, or a creative opportunity funded by Reed or an external organization during the summer of 2019.
- Set up a poster or display in Kaul Auditorium on Friday, October 4, 2019, between noon and 2:30 p.m.
- Present your poster or display during the showcase on Friday, October 4, 2019, from 3 to 4:30 p.m.
- Take down your poster or display on Friday, October 4, 2019, between 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Poster Guidelines and Display (Non-Poster) Guidelines
Poster Guidelines
Purpose: To showcase the key features of your work so that observers can see what you did and why you did it. You will be standing at your poster presenting the work to small groups. The poster should serve as a good visual aid, but it need not include all of the details that would be necessary in a written document. It should have easy-to-follow graphics and/or images (see below for more details).
Format: Reed will provide 30" x 40" boards for mounting, which will stand on a tripod. The college will cover the cost of printing a large format 24" x 36" poster. Larger posters should be avoided since they are difficult to display on the provided mounting boards.
Template: A template for an example of a 24" x 36" poster is available here.
Preparing Your Poster: (Adapted from guidelines for posters in biology. Other disciplines’ guidelines may vary.)
Main Components:
- Title: Short, informative title plus a list of authors, labs, departments, or institutions.
- Abstract: The scientific context or controlled aspect of your experiment or project, what you did, how you did it, what you found, your conclusions, and the implications of your findings. One paragraph. (Abstracts are optional.)
- Introduction/goals of the project/background: Often listed with bullet points.
- Methods/experimental design: Use graphics or flow charts. This is not like the materials and methods section of a paper; rather, it should highlight the basic steps you took.
- Results: Can include bullet points or bold headings, but the bulk of the results will be presented as figures, tables, graphs, or photos/drawings. Each figure should have an informative title and a legend that clearly explains what is going on in the figure. All graphs should have their axes clearly labeled.
- Conclusion(s): Brief summary of the conclusions you can draw from your results.
- Acknowledgments: Explain any support or contributions from other researchers and acknowledge funding sources.
- List essential references, if any.
Save your poster as a .pdf file at the desired dimensions (e.g., 24" x 36"). Check the file for accuracy before printing. See “Printing” below for printing process.
Principles and practical points:
Imagine your audience is not familiar with the field you are covering. You want to tell them about your work, convince them of the soundness of your results, and share the interesting aspects of the experiment or project.
Make it easy to extract information, and keep it simple. Use active text that communicates a conclusion. For example:
Graphics/tables should dominate; use text only to supplement. Text relevant to a figure should go with the figure. Remove non-essential information. We recommend using bullet points; this is not a manuscript.
What text there is must be large enough to be read at several feet away, minimum 5 mm (24 pt). Headings should be larger to draw the reader in. The material should be presented in an orderly flow.
Other resources
The following websites contain good advice on basic poster design.
- https://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/posterpres.html
- https://www.kumc.edu/SAH/OTEd/jradel/Poster_Presentations/110.html
- https://colinpurrington.com/tips/poster-design
Display (Non-Poster) Guidelines
While posters are widely used in the academic community, especially in the sciences, the college recognizes that posters are not always the ideal presentation medium for all fields.
For this showcase, the college is allowing alternative mediums for display. For example, instead of a poster, you may select to present your work from a laptop in PowerPoint. You could also create a scrapbook or display artifacts on a table.
The goal is to create a display that enables you to visually share the most important, interesting, or astounding findings from your project with showcase attendees. The display should complement what you plan to verbally share with attendees.
Keep in mind that the auditorium will be loud, so if your display requires sound from a laptop, you will want to provide headphones. Your laptop must be fully charged; there are limited outlets in the auditorium.
Printing
The college does not have a large format printer for general use. If you decide to create a poster larger than 13" x 19" with a ¼" margin, you will need to work with a local print center to print your poster. Below are two options.
The UPS Store Woodstock
4207 SE Woodstock Blvd (.3 miles from Reed)
A standard 24" x 36" color poster should cost approximately $35
FedEx Office Print & Ship Center
1528 SE Bybee Blvd (1.2 miles from Reed)
A standard 24" x 36" color poster should cost approximately $45
If you choose to print a poster that is 13" x 19" or smaller, you can work with Craig Lauder in printing services (Eliot 132) to print your poster.
IMPORTANT: Plan your printing ahead! Finalize your poster before September 27 to ensure that printing services has adequate time to print your poster.
Reimbursement for Printing and/or Materials Costs for Your Display
The college will reimburse up to $50 for any printing or materials costs unless the student has previously received reimbursement from the college to display the same project at a poster session.
To receive reimbursement for off-campus printing and/or other materials costs, complete a disbursement request form with the receipt stapled to the back of the form. If the college covered the costs of your poster/display for a previous poster session, you are not eligible for reimbursement. The receipt should include all printing details, the date, and the amount. Submit the form and receipt to Brittney Corrigan-McElroy ’94, Event Manager, Conference & Events Planning. You must submit your reimbursement request by October 11, 2019. Approved reimbursements will be made no later than November 11, 2019. Note that if you are set up for direct deposit, please check the ACH box on the disbursement request form.
To be reimbursed for on-campus printing, inform Craig Lauder in printing services that you are printing for the pre-Inauguration showcase; he will bill up to $50 of your printing costs to a college budget code.
Guidance
If you have never participated in a poster session before, we recommend you attend the poster sessions scheduled for one of the following dates.
- Friday, September 6, 4–5 p.m., International Plaza: STEM department student research poster session (organized by the biology department).
- Saturday, September 14, 1:45–3:15 p.m., location TBA: open house for students to share their summer opportunities, including Internship Awards, President’s Summer Fellowships, Social Justice Awards, McGill Lawrence Internship Awards, and more (organized by CLBR and alumni programs).
Students are also invited to attend a poster making training session led by Professor Suzy C.P. Renn at 3 p.m. on Friday, September 6, in B19.
You can also see examples of successful posters by wandering the halls of the science buildings. Feel free to consult with the faculty and students who made these posters to learn more about style components, font sizes, etc. In some cases, faculty and students may have PowerPoint, Illustrator, or Photoshop files available to use as templates.
Talking Points at the Showcase
- Picture yourself in front of your poster or materials. Someone walks up and says, “So, tell me about your project.” What do you say?
- Practice your “elevator pitch,” a concise, focused, one-minute summary of your work and why it’s important. If you want help with your elevator pitch, CLBR advisors are available to help you practice your pitch and to support you if you need professional clothing.
- Also practice an expanded (five-minute) response that includes: the “big question,” the data you sought, the results you found, and the conclusions you drew. If you completed an internship, creative project, travel, or non-research, consider sharing information about the country or institution where you spent the summer.
Questions
- Contact Kristy Marie Gonyer ’10, Faculty Administrative Coordinator, for questions regarding research posters.
- Contact CLBR with questions about non-research displays.
- Contact CLBR to practice your talking points for the showcase.
- Contact Brittney Corrigan-McElroy ’94, Event Manager, with any other questions related to the showcase.