Posters

1. Posters • Posters are an neglected species • In programme committees: The poster section is the waste bucket for submission that did not make it to oral presentations • Before conferences: Because they require more work than an oral presentation • At conferences: Because there are so many, and so many of them are not user-friendly • After conferences: Because they are not transport-friendly and have a tendency to be forgotten • But: they can be a great chance • This is how Ph.D. students do their first steps into the scientific community and begin their networks Biofilm Centre

2. How to make a really bad poster that no one will visit and people rush past • Choose a long and complicated title and include some strange acronyms • Use as much text as you can, possibly in a small font, with continuous text and along the entire poster front • Don´t explain why the study has been carried out • Present many little figures with many bars and points and complicated captions • Add some really long tables and load them with numbers • Don´t make clear hat the actual result was, what it means and why it is relevant – or if so, write it in small font at the bottom of your poster, down at knee cap level, not easy to read • Stay away from your poster and avoid discussions • Then, you are safe, but you wasted a lot of time, work and the chance to network – no one will take notice of you • To achieve that, you don´t need to make a poster Biofilm Centre

3. How to make a dammned good poster • What was it about? Make a short and precise title • Why was the work done? This can be written shortly in “Motivation”. It is recommended to employ a headline style rather than long sentences. • What was the result? This should be shown in graphs which are preferably self-explaining – you are not always there and explain them. • Which methods were applied? This will be documented in “Materials & Methods” (but don´t get lost in methods description) – this is the section for those who work in your field, but others may be less interested in that. • Why are the results relevant and what is their consequence? Extracting the essence of your work is also a scientific achievement! • Provide a handout with your e-mail address, title and year of the conference – for further people who save the handout Biofilm Centre