Poster Appraisal

What are your personal experiences of poster presentations?

Deirdre Cabooter: They are a great way to interact and share your research with like-minded people. I was very nervous for my first poster presentation, but because I had a number of viewers at my session, my tension eased – it was great practice! Since then, I’ve always enjoyed discussing my research during poster sessions; you have more time to elaborate on the work and get some valuable feedback.

Greg Klunder: For me, a good poster needs to be easy to scan and read, yet convey all of the important points in a limited space – and putting all this together is more challenging than preparing a talk. It’s not as simple as taking your viewgraphs and laying them down in the space (although, I have done so in the past!) Once the poster is printed, the hard work is over; then it’s just talking about the work with the viewers. Fortunately, I’ve had some good experiences. Everyone who has stopped to talk to me about the work has been truly interested and we have had great discussions. One challenge is offering to explain to a passer-by – trying to hook them with an ‘elevator speech’!

Hamed Eghbali: I have fond memories of my early sessions. I have to admit that I was never nervous, as I’d put most of the effort in before the conference. My first poster presentation (miniaturized separation columns) was at SCM (2007) in Amsterdam where the focus was on polymer separations. At the end of the conference, my poster was among the 10 best posters, which was great motivation. Since then, I have been very fortunate with my posters scoring among the top 10 posters at each event, and winning several prizes over the years. As a result, at HPLC 2011, the organizing committee asked me to join the poster jury. This was a great honor. In 2013, I joined Dow Chemical and I was able to attend HPLC 2015, where I presented a poster and was asked to join the poster jury in the final round. It was a nice experience.

Cory Stiner: The first time I presented a poster, I was nervous. I struggled with my delivery, because I was unsure of the best way to present my research. As the poster session continued, I began to become more comfortable, and I figured out what worked best for me. I had many viewers stop by to ask questions about my research, and I was able to answer most of the questions. For the most part, I received a lot of positive feedback and even some suggestions on experiments that I could try, so overall, I would have to say that my first poster session was a success. In fact, I could say that every poster presentation has been a success, because I have had great feedback that I would not have received otherwise.

What about the value of posters at scientific meetings?

DC: Posters are definitely useful. You get to interact and discuss experimental results (there is often no time to do this after an oral presentation) and you can get valuable feedback from people who are not within your circle of trust. Sometimes people will not be supportive, but this is also a great opportunity to learn to defend your views and work!

Given the limited number of slots for oral presentations, posters are critical for attendees to present their work. There is a constant challenge, however, in making poster sessions attractive to attendees and presenters, so that they encourage interaction and don’t just provide a social gathering.

HE: I think posters play a key role, as presenters get the opportunity to develop their presentation skills and network with people from all over the globe. I am convinced that poster sessions help with establishing cooperation between different groups. In addition, the presenters get the opportunity to hear the opinion of the viewers. Sometimes, people who are not so familiar with the research topic can offer the presenter new perspectives or ideas for future consideration.

Posters are also important because viewers get to see the most recent results in the field. When you are listening to a talk, it is not always easy to focus your attention constantly throughout and you can miss important information. However, when you go to a poster session, you have the chance to view each one at your own pace, which allows you to extract important information more easily. Also, you may see a poster that could be of interest to your colleagues and you can tell them to go to see it. Talks aren’t shared so easily.

CS: I think they are very important. I believe that poster sessions are a win-win situation for both the presenter and the viewer, because there is an exchange of ideas between the two people that can lead to new possibilities such as collaborations, advances in research projects, and new research projects. For presenters, posters are a quick way to present your research to many people, so it allows a person to determine whether your research is interesting. The presenter of the poster gains so much knowledge and advice from the questions they receive. The viewers will gain exposure to different types of current research in the field that may spark new ideas to implement in their own research or for starting a new research project. Finally, if people aren’t interested, they can move on to the next poster; in an oral presentation, they’d most likely have to sit through the whole presentation...

Do you expect your students or employees to participate in poster sessions?

DC: Yes! All our students get to go to conferences to present posters. They deserve the exposure for their own work.

GK: Most definitely. Presenting a poster is an excellent way to display hard work and it helps to justify their attendance at the conference. Attending meetings, seeing other work, and interacting with colleagues is as important, if not more so, than presenting their own work. Of course, we all want our work to be interesting to others and have a chance to showcase it – and sometimes a poster is the only opportunity.

HE: Certainly, as posters are good for both the visibility of the institution and the presenter. It allows them to meet new people and start new collaborations. In addition, I would also encourage those who are less interested to consider presenting because it can be a very positive learning experience. Institutions should select the best topics/results and make sure that they give a good representation of the institution, which is far better than presenting a large number of posters just for the sake of it.

How important is poster content – should it always focus on something new?

DC: It is all about the content – and visual presentation is important too. I think many interesting new developments are discussed on posters (often to get a feel of the general opinion on new topics) before they are launched...

GK: Compiling your work into a presentable format is, in many cases, the first step toward getting the work ready for publication.

HE: The content represents the reputation of the presenter and the institution so it’s highly important. The novelty of the content varies from poster to poster. Some only give a description of the activities within a research team. In contrast, other posters represent new scientific findings, which are often the preliminary work for a future scientific publication, so the content has major value. The majority of posters you see at a conference are of the second type.

CS: A poster shares the story of your research and so the content encourages the viewers to ask questions. If the presenter does not give an introduction, research goals, experiments, results, conclusion, and future work, how can the person viewing the poster understand the importance of the research? Doing this brings attention to the presenter and their organization for future collaborations and endeavors with other people.

Is the importance of poster content sufficiently appreciated?

GK: Unfortunately, to some attendees, posters have the stigma of being ‘work that wasn’t good enough for an oral presentation’. Since there is limited availability for oral presentations, the conference organizers work hard to find balance in the talks and, sometimes, top quality work gets presented as a poster. For example, once the preliminary program has been set, SciX keeps abstract submissions open for late breaking research developments that can only be accommodated as poster submissions.

HE: Most often, I think people who view posters are hoping to benefit their own work. A typical example is that people working on a similar subject or for a competitor visit the sessions to look at what the other side is doing.

Is it a good idea to provide awards for the best posters?

DC: It’s a great idea and, in fact, we had an award for the three most innovative poster contributions at HTC-14. Students deserve to get exposure for the work they have done, and giving them a few minutes to talk about it is an excellent way of doing that.

GK: Poster sessions are a constant work in progress and anything that can be done to improve the experience for the attendee and presenter should be considered. Providing a venue to display recorded short elevator speeches, incorporating more poster content into the online program or mobile app, awards for top presenters, invited poster presentations, are some ideas that I have heard being considered. It’s important to keep similar content together so that the session has a consistent theme. Awarding presenters with the ability to give an oral presentation only works well if they can be placed in a session with similar topics.

HE: The prize is not a bad idea. It motivates the presenters to do their best and it also increases excitement towards the end of the congress when the award winners are announced. I think that poster sessions are quite well organized, but this does not mean that there is no room for further improvement. More specifically, the special (presentation) session at HPLC 2015 was a nice experiment, which was a great success from my point of view. The participants are also required to show another set of skills, namely their oral presentation skills, which provides another dimension to the whole event. The presentation session can be tense for the participants but at the same time, it makes it exciting.

CS: I believe that awards should be provided for the best posters. People deserve to be recognized for their hard work and contributions to the field.

What are your views on poster sessions – do they need to be dragged into the 21st century? Do you have a funny anecdote to share? Let us know online in the comments or email [email protected]