When you create a poster for this event, remember to use both words and images to tell people about the work you did, why it was important, and what you learned while doing it. See below for tips taken from actual judge feedback.
Preparing your poster
Set up the problem:
- Understand and clearly communicate the problem that you are trying to solve.
- Focus on WHY it is important vs. WHAT it is.
Explain your solution:
- Communicate the practical real-world application and how it would be used in real life.
- Who or what is impacted? How?
- Always ask yourself “so what?” and lead with that mindset.
- Include results (not just future work).
- Make sure the conclusions are clear.
- Make sure what you are trying to convey is clear and easily understood.
- Can a reader generally understand your poster, without you having to explain it?
- Include introduction, objective, methodology and results.
- Organize your poster so content flow is clear.
- Can someone outside your field of study understand your work? This is important: minimize technical jargon.
- Include two or three key findings with complex statistical results translated into simplified charts, tables and bulleted text to convey your findings as part of a focused and understandable story.
- Make sure each picture and chart contributes to your story. If not, delete them.
- Include space between charts, images and copy on poster: crowded is not good.
- All images and charts should be large enough for people to read/understand. Small charts are not impactful.
- Keep your design simple–so someone six feet away can read and understand it.
- Figures should be able to stand on their own (make them clear).
- You are creating a poster; don’t make it read like a paper.
- Include these items on the top of your poster:
- Your name and department or major
- Your faculty advisor
- Poster title
- College of Engineering & Applied Science logo
- Include introduction, objective, methodology and results.
- Clearly communicate initial problem and conclusions.
- Acknowledge sources and the people that helped you.
- VERY IMPORTANT: Check for typos and errors in punctuation. Ask a friend to read it over or read it out loud.
All posters should measure 44″ wide x 36″ high.
We recommend using one of the following templates. Download a copy and “Save as” your own poster on your device:
Name your poster file with your name and category (not the title of your poster). To make file names more legible, capitalize only the first letter of each word in the file name. For example, FirstnameLastnameUGResearch.pdf.
As a reminder, these are the categories to choose from:
- CoopIntern
- GRAD Research
- UG Research
- Senior Design
- Study Abroad
- Student Org
Do not use spaces, dashes, underscores, etc. in the name of the file.
- Make sure your file is the correct size (44″ wide x 36″ high).
- You will need to upload a PDF file of your poster to register for the competition.
- PowerPoint has a native PPTX-to-PDF converter – just select “Save As,” then choose “PDF” as output format.
Intellectual property (IP), in general terms, is anything useful and tangible that results from a person’s creative efforts, including artistic ingeniousness or inventiveness. Patents and copyrights are legal mechanisms to protect IP. If you have developed something new it may have value and be useful to others.
In general, you should not communicate details of your inventive work that would enable someone to copy it. Oral and/or written communication to anyone outside your lab is considered public disclosure. This hinders your opportunities to protect your idea. You should discuss potential IP with your research advisor before presenting your poster.
If you think that you have developed intellectual property that could be patented or copyrighted, you are encouraged to file an invention or copyright disclosure in our Inventor’s Portal through UW-Milwaukee Research Foundation (UWMRF). We can help guide and evaluate your invention. Please contact us at team@uwmrf.org if you have questions.
Presenting your poster
- Introduce yourself when you begin speaking to the judge.
- Make eye contact.
- Demonstrate your expertise, understanding of, and passion for, the topic (many, many judges appreciated that students conveyed these characteristics when presenting, and complimented students on this).
- Show confidence during your presentation (or pretend to!).
- Consider asking about your audience’s knowledge on the subject first (to gauge their understanding of your topic).
- Modify explanations to the background of your audience.
- Don’t use jargon.
- Define acronyms.
- Don’t block the view of your poster.
- As with your poster, establish the problem and why the problem is important, before going straight to results.
- Practice telling your presentation to someone else. Don’t forget to use your poster as a visual aid.
- Practice talking to people outside of your field of study to ensure you can communicate your work using terminology that is not industry or field-specific.
Conference poster workshops
If you are new to poster design, or would like some tips and recommendations, the Support for Undergraduate Research Fellows office holds complimentary conference poster workshops for any interested UWM student on these dates:
Check the SURF calendar for details. Contact Tamara McKinney with questions or to set up an individual meeting.
Poster examples
