Part 4: draft of research poster

Part IV: Initial Draft of Research Poster

Due: Sunday, end of Week 6 (30 points)

Submit this assignment to two places. First, submit to the Assignments tab under “Week 6 > Week 6 Activities.” Next, submit to the Discussion Topic labelled “Week 6 > Post Your Initial Draft of Research Poster Here.” 

Description: The purpose of this assignment is to have you complete a draft of your research poster.  How you organize your poster is up to you.  Remember, your poster must contain the following:

• Introduce and identify your research question
• Describe your population of interest
• Look at your chosen issue from an interdisciplinary perspective by identifying at least 10 empirical, peer reviewed articles that represent at least three social science disciplines that speak to your population of choice. These articles need to: 1) Give you a pulse of the main issues facing your population and what the current state of the research is, 2) Lead you to think through potential policy implications for your group and 3) Help you examine the implications of this issue for society more broadly. You will need to compare and contrast the findings from the different disciplines. How do the findings align?  How do they contrast?  What insight does each discipline give to the specific issues of your chosen topic?
• Identify and discuss the specific provisions within selected laws and policies (e.g. ACA, Violence Against Women Act, Social Security Act) that apply to your chosen topic.
• Provide viable policy solutions based on your research. How could the social problem you selected be improved based on what you have learned from multiple social science disciplines? 

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What does my poster need to include?

Your final poster will need to:

• Introduce and identify your research question
• Describe your population of interest
• Look at your chosen issue from an interdisciplinary perspective by identifying at least 10 empirical, peer reviewed articles that represent at least three social science disciplines that speak to your population of choice. These articles need to: 1) Give you a pulse of the main issues facing your population and what the current state of the research is, 2) Lead you to think through potential policy implications for your group and 3) Help you examine the implications of this issue for society more broadly. You will need to compare and contrast the findings from the different disciplines. How do the findings align?  How do they contrast?  What insight does each discipline give to the specific issues of your chosen topic?
• Identify and discuss the specific provisions within selected laws and policies (e.g. ACA, Violence Against Women Act, Social Security Act) that apply to your chosen topic.
• Provide viable policy solutions based on your research. How could the social issue you selected be improved based on what you have learned from multiple social science disciplines?

Why a poster presentation?

Poster presentations are commonly used at research conferences because they provide a way for many people to present their work at the same time. Such a format allows more interaction between the presenter and the audience than does a paper session (in which presenters essentially read their research papers). A poster may be viewed by fewer people than if the research was presented in a paper session but it is likely that those who view it are more interested in the research and there is often more interaction. Presenters stay with their poster during the poster session and answer questions about their work. Posters are very common at undergraduate research conferences.

What template should I use to make my research poster?

Currently most presentations at professional conferences use a single PPT slide. Creating such a poster is actually fairly easy. For information, go to:  http://www.makesigns.com/SciPosters_Templates.aspx

How do I decide what to put on my poster?

One question when planning a poster presentation is how much information to include on the poster. That answer is “it depends.” Do not try to detail everything about your research. The poster requires you to synthesize a large amount of information into a relatively small space, and your grade is based on your ability to do this successfully. Too much information on a poster discourages interaction as it is too hard to read.

Your poster should also have a large title along with your name and affiliation.

Remember that the purpose of a poster is to allow you to discuss your research this semester with the audience. Provide enough information to convey the essence of your study and fill in more detail during the discussions. Note, however, that this does not mean that you can use only bullets to convey your information.

Here is a link that will give you some information about research posters.

Here are some guidelines to keep in mind when putting your poster together:

1. It should be visually appealing but this is not a decorating contest. Pay attention to colors and font. The poster is still formal. We do not use graphics on a formal poster.
2. Layout is critical. It should be organized and logical. Arrange so it can be read in a column. It can be hard to move across and then back to the next row.
3. Bullets can (but don’t have to be) be used (as opposed to paragraphs) but there must be sufficient information included. Less is more but there must be information included.
4. If you include figures and tables, make sure they can be read at a distance. 

Imagine yourself as part of the audience. Stand back and look at what you have. Your poster will be online but it should be designed to be displayed in a “live” showing.

Here are some sites with more advice:

Please note that you will not be printing the poster out.  This can be quite expensive – up to $100 at copy shops.