Annotated Bibliography of Poster Presentation Articles - Oldest articles first
White, J. T. Technical poster fabrication. 1981. In Society for Technical
Communication (Ed.), Proceedings: 28th International Technical Communication
Conference, May 20-23, 1981, Pittsburgh , PA ; Pittsburgh, PA: Society
for Technical Writing. G64-G65.
Mr. White summarizes years of experience as a designer working at
the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is operated for the U.S. Department
of Energy by the Union Carbide Nuclear Division. This article covers
point by point design considerations such as poster size, materials
for individual panels, appropriate amount of textual information to
include, and major steps in preparing posters. He further includes
a suggested time schedule, and types of equipment that may be needed. "Careful
planning, close cooperation, and skillful graphics are all essential
to producing quality posters and it is with quality posters that effective
presentations start" (G-65).
Griffith, George W. Poster sessions: One-to-one technical communication.
1981. In Society for Technical Communication (Ed.), Proceedings: 28th
International Technical Communication Conference, May 20-23, 1981, Pittsburgh, PA ; Pittsburgh, PA: Society for Technical Writing. G26-G27.
A senior technical writer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
Dr. Griffith provides many specific suggestions for effective poster
presentations. "The
poster session, a relatively new and effective form of one-to one technical
communication, has its own requirements of organization and presentation
which must be met but which are usually unknown to potential users
of this medium. Professional communicators need to understand and master
this medium which combines technical information with technical art
and technical writing and editing" (G-26). Griffith suggests ways
of creating self-supporting posters, and emphasizes the importance
of an informal atmosphere and the need for short, pre-planned, and
summarized statements to be used in one on one conversation. He suggests
providing a handout to eliminate the need to take notes, and as a convenient
way of summarizing information, and providing the presenters name and
address. "Poster
design is governed by principles of organization and presentation.
Organization is the overall combination of components (layout) which
includes titles, texts, and graphics. A dynamic rather than a static
organization is achieved by grouping components, connecting them (often
by use of color or texture), and focusing the readers attention on
certain of them. Components are best pre-assembled in stick-on modules.
Overcrowding must be avoided. Presentation requires perfect work--no
mistakes, no sloppy hand lettering, no last minute make-do" (G-27).
Pieper, Gail W. The poster session: An alternative to the oral report.
1983. In Sparrow, W. Keats; Nell Ann Pickett (Eds.), Technical and business
communication in two-year programs; Urbana , IL : National Council of
Teachers of English. 165-168.
This annotation is forthcoming.
van Naerssen, Margaret.
Science conference poster presentations in an ESP program. 1984.
The ESP Journal 03.1. 47-52.
In this article in English for Specific Purposes, Ms.
van Naerssen describes how poster presentations have been adapted to
an an intensive English for Specific Purposes program in Beijing. Van
Naerssen suggests that poster presentations are ideal for research
work for which there is a relatively small audience “who
may find it easier to read about and discuss someone else's research
than to follow a highly technical lecture, and if the audience is further
interested they may discuss the research with the investigator on a
one-to-one basis. In this type of program the emphasis is on the oral
communication, not the graphics, in order to support English language
objectives as well as to provide practice in communication techniques
that are common in scientific conferences in many countries" (49).
The article is written from a strong pedagogical frame, and suggests
ways of helping students participate in their first poster presentation
and coordinate the poster presentation with texts in production. The
article also includes ideas for teacher evaluations of poster
presentations.
Dubois, Betty Lou. Poster sessions at biomedical meetings: Design and
presentation. 1985. The ESP Journal 04.1. 37-48.
Ms. Dubois' article is based on her observation of
a scientific poster session at the annual meeting of the Federation
for American Societies for Experimental Biology. Based on this observation
she claims, "It
is unwise to assume that all biomedical scientists can produce effective
posters" (38).
Describing in detail the importance of the features of
a traditional poster, such as title, author name(s), and institutional
affiliation she claims the heart of the poster is the research
itself, "it would be perfectly safe to model a poster
on the sections of a journal article" (40). Dubois includes graphical
representations of suggested poster layouts that emphasize a "reading
sequence cued by spacing, dividers, and heads" (41). The article
covers issues such as color, and white space, using dimension or depth,
as well as the appropriate size of effective posters. The article also
covers in detail the larger communicative demands put on poster presenters
who often are "manning a poster" for three hours. Using discourse
analysis methods Dubois demonstrates that "the poster presenter
needs to be skilled in verbal interaction on his scientific topic--and
more--usually in informal groups, and usually dyads; Dubois suggests
the most basic roles enacted, those of questioner and responde,r can
be reversed during any specific interaction. Her conclusion describes
the pedagogical benefits of poster presentations beyond the initial
presentation of research findings at scientific conferences, citing
her use of posters in English language arts classes in elementary schools.
Corbin, Nancy C. The well-dressed poster board. 1985. In Society for
Technical Communication (Ed.), A mission to communicate: Proceedings,
32nd International Technical Communication Conference, May 19-22, 1985, Houston, Texas; Washington, D. C.: Society for Technical Communication.
VC-26-29.
This article defines the most cost effective process
for designing posters that will captivate viewers. Corbin suggests
that using minimal amounts of text, and illustrations "employing
warm tones" that describe
the "developmental stages of a project" in a logically organized
manner is the best means of accomplishing the presenter's communicative
purpose. Covering issues of layout and design, specifically looking
at issues of size of the overall poster and the individual panels,
Corbin suggests a "psychological layout" that follows the
same basic outline as a technical paper. That is, beginning with an
introduction, "the
author should introduce the viewer to the technical work, and creatively
walk the viewer through the project, its significant results, and conclusion" (VC-27).
The paper provides examples of sizing and highlighting illustrations.
The paper also discusses various
organizational principles which may be used, such as chronological,
spatial, functional, and cause and effect, and provides illustration
techniques that can be used to reduce the amount of text in a poster.
Corbin's article includes product specifications regarding
fonts, proportional spacing, relation of letters to backgrounds, types
of paper stock, and includes a mathematical formula for letter height
(For every foot--distance viewed--the letter height should be 1/32).
The article concludes suggesting that "the
effective poster board requires the expertise of a designer to project
the message through illustrations with a minimum of text" (VC-29).
Shalom, Celia. Established and evolving spoken research process genres:
Plenary lecture and poster session discussions at academic conferences.
1993. English for Specific Purposes 12.1. 37-50
Shalom's
article enfolds poster presentation sessions within a larger framework
of research presentation genres at conferences. She provides a table
that describes in detail the "Taxonomy of Academic Conference
Research Process Genres" that includes poster presentations, posters
standing alone, poster abstracts, and poster session discussions. She
acknowledges that finished papers are seen as a "greater contribution," however,
poster presentations enable a "greater number of presentations
to be made at a conference, thus allowing increased information to
be distributed" (39).
She suggests that common poster formats follow the plan of scientific
journal articles using an Introduction, Method, Results, Analysis,
and Discussion, or (IMRAD) format. She suggests that a conclusion section "composed
of a few numbered ideas usually replaces a Discussion." References
are often included as a means of identifying the work within a particular
line of research, and are also used to gain the attention of an important
scientists who is “both cited and present at the conference" (39).
Shalom also uses discourse analysis, and speech act theory to describe
in detail the proceedings of a specific conference. She also identifies
specific categories where participants make contributions, such as
gaps in knowledge, new aims/further work, and aims and problems. This
article suggests a rationale for poster presentations and communicative
activities surrounding them as a means of sharing knowledge within
a discourse community that is in development.
Larkin, Greg. Storyboarding: A concrete way to generate effective visuals.
1996. The Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 26.3. 273-290.
Larkin's article suggests that storyboarding techniques "long associated
with script writing, advertising, and more recently with technical manuals,
can be successfully applied to an even broader variety of technical documents" (273).
Based on ten years of experience in working with defense contractors,
aerospace firms, and computer manufacturers, Larkin declares that all
of the firms he worked with used "a form of the storyboarding process
to generate proposals" (274). Larkin provides detailed checklists,
templates, and sample storyboards, along with an outline for using storyboarding
in university classes, which can be easily used to generate storyboards
for specific audiences. "In terms of final products [posters] storyboarding
technique forces writers to create documents that integrate self-contained
graphics, are highly visual, and are easy to skip and skim for main points" (287).
Weinstein-McShane, Ruth. Collegial sharing through poster sessions.
1997. TESOL Journal 07.1. 43-44.
This article extends the purposes of poster presentations
well beyond the scientific and research communities. Weinstein-McShane
suggests that posters can "display various activities as well
as the skills and intelligences used in acquisition of the target language,
cultural know-how, and the content in which language and culture are
embedded" (43).
She suggests that "poster sessions can be used for a variety of
collegial purposes including general staff and teacher development,
mentoring new colleagues, teacher instruction,
and summaries of classroom activities with photos of students, copies
of written work, and possibly illustrations" (43). She shares
a few tips from her own experience of presenting a poster at a TESOL
convention in which she used photographs, and a map with symbols to
guide the viewer, and a color coded organization schema.
Esposito, Mona; Kaye Marshall; Fredericka L. Stoller. Poster sessions
by experts. 1997. In Brinton, Donna M; Peter Master (Eds.), New ways in
content-based instruction; Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers
of Other Languages. 115-118
This annotation is forthcoming.
I welcome your feedback.
2004 Paul Rogers
Gevirtz Graduate School of Education
University of California, Santa Barbara
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