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Toni Anaya
Putting the Pieces together: Writing the Abstract, Identifying Key Points and Conclusions
We understand that you have several years of experience writing research papers so we are going to focus on what you will need to be thinking about when you are preparing a poster presentation for your senior capstone. The content is all based on your research but needs to be modified to help readers understand your research findings.
After this session, you will be able to:
- Recognize the difference between an introductory paragraph and an abstract
- Understand components of an abstract to summarize your research
- Design key points which will assist with public presentations/poster creation
- Compose a conclusion/discussion paragraph on your findings
- Identify future related research topics
Definition of a Poster Session
A poster session is a small overview of your research. It can be a combination of text, graphics and images that make up a visually pleasing presentation. Poster sessions usually happen at research fairs or professional conferences and involve showing a summary of your work to groups of people. Historically, the NCPA Senior Showcases were held in a large room with all of the posters placed on easels around the room. As people enter the room, they move from poster to poster, quickly reading your poster and learning about your research. This format has a slower pace than verbal presentations which allows readers to read your information and discuss it with you one on one.
What content to include on your poster
Since this is a brief summary of your research, you can’t just slap your whole research paper on this poster slide and expect people to be able to read the whole thing! Instead, you will have to be very deliberate and focus on content that people who have not done similar research can read and understand in 5 minutes OR LESS. If you do a good job on choosing and writing your content, it will serve as notes for you to then expand on and explain the highlights of your research. Whenever you are working on a poster, keep asking yourself if you are including the most important information you want readers to know. You can’t share everything so focus on the most interesting and significant!
Key Takeaways
Required content on your presentation slide:
- Abstract
- 2-4 key points
- Discussion and future research topics
- Citations in MLA format
The Difference Between an Abstract and an Introduction
Key Points: Quality over Quantity
When chosen well, key points serve two purposes: they share interesting information about your research and can serve as notes for you! In a research paper, main or key points are usually shared as evidence in your research papers and support your argument. On a poster, key points should not be blocks of text but instead short sentences that convey the 3-4 key points you found in your research.
Images of graphs and charts also serve as a way to present a lot of information that is easy to review and un