Tutorial 1 TA: Allison McManus mcma9840@mylaurier.ca Office: BA303 Office Hours: Tuesdays 2-3 IA: Tony Mac macx0010@mylaurier.

r.ca Writing Assignment What do you think are the 4 most important tips given by the TA? Limit words Use as many visuals if possible Use cartoons? Be tasteful with your colors make text readable Place information at eyelevel if it needs to be read (place the most important information here) Have a single well told story, have clear flow on your poster, include intriguing images, white spaces and clean lines Make it clear what your poster is about! Large title is great. First impression is crucial come up with a 10 second speech to bring people in Have a short, catchy title that is inviting to the readers o It should be readable from 15-20 feet away (bold and big) o Accompanied by the names of authors, addresses and country o Framed by logos of university and funding agencies university symbols and the biology department (keep them small, let people acknowledge them but dont make them a focal point) Hook picture on left hand side to attract who are unfamiliar with work Guinell really looks for this!*** You should be able to look at this picture and know what the poster is about Format 48 x 36 Know your audience grad students, undergrad students and professors o Have enough information to make it interesting to those in the field, but understandable to those who are not o Have 2 different speeches What do you want the passerby to do? Engage in discussion Learn enough to go off and read about the subject Want people to want to collaborate with you on further research

How to Make Powerpoint Chose photos, figures, graphs etc. first 300dpi (right click on image on google) if not this high they will appear pixely Use a single background throughout for unification Avoid setting a picture as the background Choose a colour that provides good contrast o Single colour if possible with different shades as needed o No black background Design Plan it with your audience in mind Make it accessible to a broad audience Decide on the main elements and their relationship with each other Make a draft Important info in the center Follow the rule of thirds The eye is always drawn to photography rule Good idea to have 3 columns, 3 sections per column. Take a look at the example poster. Central focus in the middle Leave white spaces between your different sections

What to do Dont use less than size 24 sized font Make sure main points can be read at eye level Use a separate textbox for each element Use headings and subheadings o For different emphasis use different fonts or sizes. Bold or use red USE TEXT SPARINGLY too intimidating. Use short sentences and use clear and precise words. o Aim for no more than 50 words per box Make sure relationships between boxes are logical from beginning to end Use arrows, lines, numbers etc. to get readers to move from one section to the next Make effective use of the spaces between the blocks of text Keep references within the text to a minimum Only present the most important results Each figure should be self-sufficient and self explanatory o Have a figure legend at the bottom Make it easy for the reader to see what was done and what was discovered, and difficult for people to miss the point you are making

Think of an exit o Should be the strongest part of your poster Can be a hypothesis Can be a model explaining results Your position o Have clear conclusions (and obvious) o Dont forget references Align the boxes and arrows (bothers TA) Minimize text limit to 1000 words Take care with you abstracts most important! People read this to see if they want to go to your poster at real poster conference o Times new roman for normal text o Totles and headings should be in sans-serif font such as helvetica Make graphs and statistics bigger than simple pictures. They need to be big enough to allow people to read what they are about

4 Tips: 1-2 sentence explanation Minimize Text After looking at example posters, it was clear that those with less text were much more appealing, and less daunting to approach. It was much easier to infer what the poster was about at first glance, and made it much easier to follow the posters logic and be drawn in. This advice was very important to me as my assignments always tend to maximize the amount of text I can use, and I now know to keep this in mind and limit myself. Minimal Background When viewing example posters, detailed backgrounds seemed distracting, and made the poster appear disorganized, even with aligned boxes and good flow. It may have been hard to realize this when creating a poster as the flow and organization is always obvious to the creator, and I may have been tempted to use an interesting background in the thoughts that it would make my poster more appealing and eye catching. I now know that it would have had the opposite affect. Photo and Graph Size Photo size and quality need to be adequate for simple attraction of viewers to the poster, but advice to ensure statistical text and details are visible was very important. Making graphs and diagrams containing readable information larger than simple photos seemed great advice, as although you may be able to explain the graph without being able to see the numbers, a viewer will not be able to understand, and if you are busy discussing with another viewer, they may get confused and find your poster unappealing. Have the Central Focus in the Middle

I found myself always looking to the middle of the posters first, so having the central focus there was great advice. This advice, combined with the encouragement to have less text, more photos and a hook picture could make for a very appealing poster