Posters vs. lectures [student presentations]

Many professional societies have featured poster sessions successfully in meetings and conferences for many years. Frequently, student presentations, when featured at professional technical meetings, are in the form of posters. Some authors are reluctant to select poster sessions as their first choice of presentation method. They are unfamiliar with the format and have not been efficiently exposed to poster papers. So how do poster presentations compare to lecture presentations? Because of their temporal nature, lecture sessions run strictly according to the clock. In contrast, poster sessions are allocated a large overall time slot. This permits considerably more informal discussion, such as questions and answers, than a lecture session would allow. The major differences between the lectures and posters are discussed. The author then gives information and recommendations on preparing for a poster session. In particular advice is given on how to make sure that the poster is effective in terms of graphic impact. Poster-construction examples are also given