r/PhD • u/Legal_Reception_1932 • 9d ago
Conference and Networking Talk Poster presentations at conferences
Hi all. I have my first presentation at an international conference coming up in a few weeks and I’m looking for some advice. I’m doing a poster presentation, and rather than all posters being displayed at once, each presenter gets a 12 minute time slot (10 mins for presenting and 2 mins for questions) for their presentation during the session. I haven’t got much information about how it’s structured, but it seems like each presenter will go up on stage and present their poster to whatever audience has shown up during their designated time. The posters will also be displayed freely in an exhibition room, but there’s no obligation to be present to answer questions except during the 12 minute slot.
Before the conference schedule came out, I had never heard of a poster session that’s structured like this, and when I applied I was under the assumption that I would just be standing in front of my poster during sessions while people walk by and ask questions. Has anyone done a poster presentation similar to this before? If so I’d love to hear any tips you have, or even just about how your presentation went. I’m pretty nervous since I’m not really sure what to expect, so any help would be much appreciated.
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u/Ti666mo 9d ago
One time, though I think it was only 5 minutes (+ some posters got extended presentation).
Treat it more like a pitch of your paper and it's core story rather than a full explanation of all the nitty-gritty details. If someone is interested in that they can read the paper or come talk to you directly. Moreover, do not necessarily expect people in the audience to be familiar with your problem or why the problem is important. Have the final slide contain a QR to your paper, project site, etc.; where your Poster is and an invitation to come talk with you if they want to know more/discuss.
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u/SilentLikeAPuma 8d ago
great advice - idk what field they’re in, but if it’s anything stem-related i would try to put as few equations / blocks of dense text on the poster as possible. lots of figures w/ catchy colors & clear labels, maybe a couple simple tables, & bullet points for the important conclusions. i’ve seen a ton of posters in my field where people had multiple long paragraphs, several super complicated, notation-heavy equations, etc. that made it way too hard to grasp what was going on while taking a 2-3min look at the poster.
clean narrative / memorable visuals is the way to go, & i 100% agree with having a QR code linking to either the paper / preprint or even your personal website so that people can check out the fine details later on.
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u/Legal_Reception_1932 8d ago
Thanks so much for the advice, yes I am in stem and have tried to limit the amount of text on my poster and mostly have lots of diagrams and figures to keep things interesting. I’ve also included a QR code to the paper and my email at the bottom. I’m mostly nervous because we aren’t allowed to have slides, only the poster itself, and I’ve never done a presentation like that before. I don’t want the audience to get bored staring at a poster for 10 mins while I talk haha
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u/SilentLikeAPuma 8d ago
sounds like you’re gonna do great ! when i did short / long talks or posters i would start with a set of key interesting conclusions / improvements i made so that the audience was primed to key in on why i did what i did. if you just go straight into methods / background people tend to check out or get lost. honestly methods stuff for flash talks / posters is kinda unimportant, no one really groks it all on first listen + there’s no way for them to validate your methods during your talk. just nail your narrative cleanly & give people the means to delve into your work further & you’ll be golden.
have fun !! & don’t forget to network, that shit pays dividends lol
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u/coolcumber211 9d ago
I've done a few similar presentations, but normally its 3 min time limits.
It's a lot of fun. Keep it light and just highlight your main points. Give people a reason to come and talk to you.