“I think the
first duty of all art, …, is to entertain. That is to say, to hold interest. No
matter how worthy the message of something, if it's dull, you're just not
communicating. “ (Poul Anderson)
Poster
presentation may sometimes bear an “inferior” look compared with oral
presentation. Yes, you don’t get that collective attention from dozens or
hundreds of people in a quiet room. You can’t play sound or videos to wow your
audience, and whoever comes to your poster has the freedom of walking away in
any minute. But posters do give you the advance of tailoring your presentation
to individual listeners, soliciting candid feedbacks (many people hate asking
questions in public), and securing the listeners’ attention since they can’t
type on a laptop as they might do during a symposium.
The potentials
are there. Though, you may have to work hard to foster them.
1. Familiarity
is our enemy.
When people give me a tour of their posters, I almost always ask them
to back up. They tend to start like this, “Our goal is to develop a model to
explain behavioral data. The first type of model we have tried is …” That’s
when I have to step in. “Wait! What kind of behavioral data, in an animal or humans?
What part of the brain are you trying to model? What are your input stimuli?” To
you, the basic facts are mundane and time-wasting. You try to get to the fun
part (your genius experimental design and breakthrough result) before your
audience walk away. But without a good understanding of the basics, your
audience (God knows what kind of background they may have) will be utterly lost.
This does
not mean we should begin a poster with experimental details, though. At the
beginning, always give a layman’s description in one or two sentences about the
problem you aim to solve. For example, “We are testing a new speech-processing
strategy for cochlear-implants to improve spatial hearing.” It’s necessary to draw
a big picture first, because the last poster they went to could’ve been a
genetic study on Parkinson’s disease. Note that this example differs from “Our
goal is to develop a model to explain behavioral data.” The latter opens up too
many possibilities that will just bemuse your listeners.
In fact, a
guidance sentence should precede the description of each figure. You think the
shape of the plot matters, but your audience might be studying the maximum
amplitudes. Tell them what to look for at the beginning. Every figure should
serve a clear purpose and contribute to the final conclusions. If you can’t come
up with a definite purpose, or you find yourself constantly omitting the figure during
presentation, it probably shouldn’t be there.
Similar to
the layman’s description, try to avoid terminologies and abbreviations that are
only meaningful to people in your field, even though you’ve defined them on the
poster. Even when you are talking to an expert, one who might have invented
that term, being explicit will not be taken as an insult. I frequently find
myself missing the presenter’s points when my eyes are searching on the poster
for the definition of an abbreviation, such as “CS” (mind you, it doesn’t mean computer
science.)
2. More
words, fewer words.
There are
debates on the appropriate amount of text that should appear on a poster. Some
argue there is no need to put more than minimal descriptions on a poster when you
can explain everything to your audience. Nobody will read it. But others point
out that, if you have to walk away from your poster, sufficient information can
guide your visitors to navigate through the study on their own. My experience is, you
don’t have to write a lot of words to tell a story once you’ve learned how to
write efficiently. When people write in paragraphs, rather than in bulletins,
they tend to narrate in the same way they do with papers. Say, first you describe
previous studies and bring out a hypothesis. Then you begin the second
paragraph with “To test whether or not our hypothesis can explain previous
findings …” Think about it, isn’t this obvious? It’s perfectly fine in formal
writing, but for a poster, anything that exists solely for a literary purpose
and doesn’t add information should be left out. Another trick is to use narrow
fonts, such as Arial Narrow. When you write in columns, sometimes there are
only a few words spreading each line. Using a narrow font not only squeezes more
words in the same space without decreasing the readability, but also eases the
reading since your eyes don’t have to keep switching lines like an old-fashioned
typewriter.
Even if you
decide to err on conciseness, having a somewhat detailed conclusion is always a
good idea (and you’d be surprised at the number of posters that don’t actually have a summary
or conclusion section). In the absence of a presenter, I usually read
the conclusions first. For example, if the conclusion says A is better than B,
even though it may not make any sense yet, when I study the figures
subsequently, I’ll keep that piece of information in mind, and try to make my
own judgment. In short, I know what to look for. Otherwise, it’s hard to figure
out what a figure tries to convey without a long written description alongside,
unless the audience is very familiar with the topic.
Speaking of
conclusions, many presenters forget to verbally summarize the study at the end
of the tour. They may have explained the results clearly and do not feel the
need of repetition. Well, this goes back to the familiarity issue. Keep in mind
that your listener has a lot of information to absorb in a few minutes, including the results, but also your methods, your way of thinking, how your results may link to their own research, and even the meaning of your colors (for God’s sake
please mark clearly on the figures what each line or color or panel stands for;
in a noisy ballroom not every listener will hear you description). Their brains
have been kept so busy that, by the time you’ve finished the last figure, they
might have forgotten what the previous results were, or even why you needed to
do the study in the first place. Give a summary. Articulate your conclusions.
Nobody will complain about hearing the main points one more time however you feel
they are obvious or redundant.
3. Don’t sell
easily.
Some
meetings have traditional oral presentations, poster sessions, as well as
multiple brief oral presentations called Poster Teasers. It’s not a widely
adopted form yet, but I’m observing a trend. Some presenters will come to the
front of the room and say, we are studying a tough topic, and guess what? Bang!
Here is our finding. Impressed? Yes, but then we don’t need to come to your
poster anymore. The best one I’ve heard did this, “Here are two types of
stimuli. They look similar, right? But our data shows they can cause very
different responses. Want to know what the difference is? Come to Poster Number
X.”
In novel
writing, this is called suspense. Whenever you feel you can’t put a book down
(or walk away from a poster), I can tell you that suspense is working. Whether
you are giving a public speech, a poster, or writing a paper, it never hurts to
introduce a little bit of suspense at the beginning. It doesn’t need to be a
long-lived myth. For example, in one of the examples above, I said if we know A
> B in advance, we can keep it in mind while studying the figures. There is
no suspense there. If you, the presenter, have the opportunity of talking
people through your poster, you should take the advantage. Tell them that some
evidence points at A>B, and other seems to support the opposite. The reality
is? (Don’t give it easily.) Let’s find out together. As you describe the
figures along, you might see your listeners nodding involuntarily as they approach the correct answer.
4. Speak
with confidence.
One advice
we sometimes receive is to know your audience briefly before you start, so that
you can decide how much background to be provided. Overall, it’s a sound
strategy, but don’t do it excessively. Some presenters would constantly pause
and ask, “How much do you know about this concept? Do I need to explain it? Are
you familiar with this? Am I too fast/slow/general/concrete?” Being overly interactive
breaks the flow of your story and is, frankly, quite annoying. It also gives a
false impression that you are, in general, not a resolute person. This is your
poster. You decide what or what not to be included. If people are confused,
they can ask.
Due to the
nature of posters, many studies are presented before they are ready to be peer-reviewed,
if not prematurely. This should be considered as an advantage, because
suggestions are most helpful during an early phase of a study. Yet we frequently
hear apologies among the presentation, “We believe our finding is real, but as
you can see (or we wouldn’t have mentioned it), so far we only have a small
sample size.” Then they would go on and on venting on the difficulty in training
their animals or recording from a particular cell type. Well, what do you
expect the audience to say? If you are uncomfortable with your sample size, simply
pointing it out is enough. We don't weigh a poster similarly as we do with a
published paper. If a year later you still
don’t have enough data to reach statistical significance, it’s your own
problem.
5. The
dreaded networking.
Scientists
tend to think they are horrible at networking. This is a misconception because networking
isn’t something that only occurs at cocktail parties. When you present science,
you are also presenting yourself. And for scientists, relationships originating
from common research interests are more pleasant and sustainable than other
forms of acquaintance. Just like in any type of social network, people cherish
their interactions with those who are superior to or simply more experienced than
themselves. Nothing wrong with that. However, when giving a poster to a group
of people, treating your customers equally should be considered as a golden
doctrine.
I’ve noticed
that some researchers, especially juniors, ironically, only enjoy presenting to
experts in their fields, and consider it a waste of time to explain basic facts
to “outsiders”, probably with the notion that the latter may never cite their
papers or review their grants. My experience is, sometimes you get the most
useful feedback from people who you think have no idea about your topic. If you
narrow your vision, you are going to narrow your path. Besides, think about
what happens ten or fifteen years later. Those big names are going to retire,
and that humble graduate student standing in front of you may well become your
peer. Friend or enemy, you are planting the seed. People usually have good
memories on those kinds of things.
When I took
my new job, my chair handed me a box of name cards. I thought I’d never use any
of them. I’m not a business woman. But it can be convenient when you ask the
presenter to send you an electronic copy. With the formality of a card, it also
assures people that you aren’t popping up from nowhere. Same thing with clothing.
We are scientists. Scientists are allowed to dress casually. That’s how Hollywood
pictures us as “science nerds”, right? But it never hurts to look nice. It’s a
sign that you value what you are doing and conveys a sense of self-respect. At
least be tidy. At least don’t “stand out” from an already casually-dressed
group. If you don’t think you deserve a $20 haircut, nor will anyone else.
Always thank
the presenter for spending the time, and praise the work unless you truly
dislike it. Don’t be afraid that doing so may briefly interrupt his
conversation with another audience. I’ve never seen a compliment being
resented. If the presenter likes your feedback and shows an interest in your
research, introduce yourself. Shake hands. If the presenter happens to be a
student in a lab you are familiar with, and if there aren’t other people
waiting to talk to the student, don’t just listen and go. Ask about the lab,
the PI, previous lab members. Ask the student how long he has been there. What the
near-future plan is. Show that you care. It takes only a minute, and don’t do
this only when the student is also a Chinese. Behave like a family, and before
long you’ll have a family.
At a
conference, there are also occasions away from formal presentations. What do
you say when people ask about your research? Our college recently organized a
Collaboration Forum, sort of like a “group dating”. They invited people from outside
the college and randomly assigned groups of five or six researchers, hoping to
create “chemistry”. I doubt it has resulted in any real relationship, but I enjoyed
observing people’s presentation skills. After one guy mentioned that he studies
Information, which could’ve been a boring topic, he immediately dived into lively
examples, such as how CEOs know they’ve collected enough trial feedback before releasing
a new product. I bet I’ll remember his research ten years from now.
Another guy
studies computer science. He deals with big data, has countless collaborators
and student projects, but other than that I know nothing. When it’s too
general, it’s meaningless. Consider how novelists create characters that long
live in the reader’s head. “Begin with an individual, and before you know it
you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find you have created -
nothing.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald) Yes, all of your projects are important. To you.
For others, they aren’t. Never as interesting as what they themselves do. So
pick one highlight when people ask about your research, and if you can imprint
it in their heads, call it a success.
All right,
enough rambling. At least enough for the moment. If you have just returned
from a wonderful presentation, keep the passion alive and finish the
experiment or write up the paper. They say, “Don’t let the grass grow under
your feet!”
“Or on your
head,” I added.
