Senior Thesis Poster Session

# Senior Thesis Poster Session
## Dept. Politics × Class of 2021
### Ben Crisman
### bcrisman [at] princeton.edu

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# Plan for today

### .pink[&#10148;] Details and requirements

### .pink[&#10148;] Tips for the Session

### .pink[&#10148;] Q&A

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If you have questions during the course of this talk, throw them in the chat and I'll try to respond to them on the fly or during the Q&A session.

Anything we don't get to I'll try to send out clarifications over email.

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# What is the poster session?

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# What

### .pink[Opportunity] in lieu of comprehensive exam.

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The poster session is an opportunity to get better at a set of skills that will serve you well regardless of what you go on to do after your time at Princeton.

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## When

- Monday, **April 12 at 4:00 pm EDT** - Senior Thesis Due.
- Friday, **April 23 at 12:00 pm EDT** - Deadline to Submit Poster. .pink[*]
- Wednesday, **April 28, 1:30-3:30 pm EDT** - .pink[Virtual] Poster Session.

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The session will be held virtually this year.

Instead of a traditional poster session, where you would observers would come and mingle to view your poster, you'll have a brief opportunity to present to a small group of your peers and a grader followed by Q&A.

\* *Note:* Steep grade penalties for late submissions: 2/3 of letter grade if late and -1/3 every day thereafter.

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## Friday, **April 23 at 12:00 pm EDT**
Deadline to Submit Poster.

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# Why: transferable skills.

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<br>

- **Distill:** How do you make detailed, rich, and complex ideas easily
digestible to both expert and non-expert audiences?

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Why? Well instead of an information dump through a comprehensive exam, you're going to be continuing to build a set of super useful transferable skills.

The first is distillation of key ideas.

To make your poster, you're going to need to boil your massive, 50 plus page thesis into 1 (big) page.

Can you make these ideas clear and easy to understand for a wide variety of audiences? That's your main goal.

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- **Visualize:** How can you transform concepts, theories, and findings into visually appealing and intuitive figures, maps, and diagrams?

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You're also going to have to figure out how to

Think infographics or figures. They communicate information much more efficiently than a block of prose.

So once you've distilled your idea, can you use maps, dataviz, and  other diagrams to explain that idea.

This works for qualitative and quantitative research designs.
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<br>

- **Present:** How do you effectively and confidently explain your project to
people unfamiliar with it?

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Finally, no matter what you want to do after Princeton, you at some point will be tasked with developing a presentation to sell yourself, your ideas, your organization, etc.

This is something that is always good to practice and here's your opportunity.

Remember that you are the foremost expert in the world on the tiny slice of knowledge your thesis uncovers. So communicate it with us, effectively, and confidently.

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<img src="images/build.png" width="33%" height="66%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

## Building your poster

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Now, we'll get onto some of the brass tacks of actually putting the poster together.

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# Basic components

### .pink[&#10148;] **Title/Author/Affiliation**

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Featured in an easy to find location.

### .pink[&#10148;] **Abstract **

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In 150 words, summarize your research. (What problem did you study and why is it important? What methods did you employ? What did you find and what does that mean for the study of politics?)

### .pink[&#10148;] **Body **

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This is largely at your discretion. What questions did your research ask? What is most important to communicate to your audience?  What background does the audience need?

### .pink[&#10148;] **Data/Empirics**

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These might include figures, tables, or other visual aids to communicate your results.

### .pink[&#10148;] **Conclusion(s)**

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 What should a visitor to your poster take away? **Be specific.**

** + References** 
 
 
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Include basic references that are cited in the poster itself. This should not really be more than four or five.

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# Poster Tip No. 1

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## _Organization is key_

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If we look at this example poster, it's a mess. I don't anticipate seeing anything as bad as this, but it's a good guide for what not to do.

When I look at this poster, I'm not really sure where to look first.

It can be helpful to think of your poster as a guided experience for your audience.

You're trying to walk them through your research in a concise and coherent manner.

There are a number of ways to accomplish this.

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<img src="images/slide-linear.png" width="100%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

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The traditional scientific poster follows a kind of linear layout. Like you see here.

As english speakers, we often read left to right, top to bottom, so this three column layout is clear and straightforward.

This is what people usually end up doing.
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<img src="images/slide-linear-hierarchical.png" width="100%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

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Increasingly, people are also using a hierarchical layout like you see here.

Naturally, your eyes are drawn to the biggest object (the middle column) which gives a title which summarises your findings and a clear, graphical abstract.

Then, on the left you have the details that an interested party can read through.

Finally, on the right, you have an "ammo bar" filled with back up stuff like additional figures or tables to which you can refer.

Both of these are great options and much better than just randomly throwing the contents together like a bad Prezi presentation.

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# Poster Tip No. 2

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## _Less is more_

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This poster is... fine.

But nobody is going to be able to read all of this in the time you're going to have to give your pitch.

If they wanted to read, they would read your thesis!
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<img src="images/slide-linear-less.png" width="100%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

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Instead, simplify your presentation by removing text.

If you need that information try presenting it in the form of a figure, a diagram, a table, etc that can convey as much or more information faster.

Here, for example, the results are summarized in a single figure that shows a linear relationship between x and y.

Sometimes, a single figure can explain your methodology and your findings in a single glance.

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# Poster Tip No. 3

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## _Use color strategically_

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<img src="images/slide-linear-less.png" width="100%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

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So we have our poster, but we want to make it more visually interesting. It's black and white and we want something more so it stands out from the crowd.

Now, here's an example of using color badly.
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<img src="images/slide-linear-color-worse.png" width="100%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

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It definitely would get attention, but not in a good way.

Here, we're just using color for the sake of using color. It doesn't add anything.

In fact, it actually detracts.

Not only are these colors a bit... questionable, but they remove contrast between the background and the text, making it harder to read and harder to interpret the figures.
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<img src="images/slide-linear-less.png" width="100%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

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Instead, we want to use colors to emphasize or highlight certain parts of your poster.

Colors should be

Few: too many colors is confusing

Relevant: build off existing associations e.g. blue for democrats, red for republicans.

Accessible: We all know someone with colorblindness. Try to keep the colors you choose accesible to them

(you can google, color blind friendly color palettes)

and ensure there is high contrast between background colors and text.

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<img src="images/slide-linear-color-better.png" width="100%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

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This would be a good use of color if you wanted to draw attention to the abstract and the particular implication or conclusion over here under subheading 1.

It also makes the diagram and data more visually interesting and draws your eye to them.

If you're not trying to do all of these things, this wouldn't be a good use of color.

From my perspective actually, there might be a bit too much color here because everything is the same size and kind of competing for visual attention.

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# Poster Tip No. 4

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## _Don't reinvent the wheel_

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<br>

## Google is your friend.

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When in doubt, google.

If you're looking for inspiration, you can find many good examples online.

I recommend going to youtube and searching for "better scientific posters."

- Search: "scientific poster template .pink[`software`]"
- .pink[`software`] = {Powerpoint, LaTeX, rmarkdown, etc.}

## The .pink[handout] is also your friend.

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However, a starting point is to look at the handout that we're going to be sending out over email in the next few days.

It includes loads of useful information and should be your first point of departure for any questions you may have.

- Key dates and requirements.

- Links to resources.

- Pre-submission checklist.

- Guide to social-scientific communication.

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This guide includes questions you should ask yourself when designing your poster to help make it and your presentation as engaging, accessible, and useful as possible.

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# Poster Tip No. 5

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## _Follow the rules_

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You will receive a grade for your poster, getting all the points means at the very least you need to adhere to a few ground rules.

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# The rules

###	**Submitted by .pink[12:00 pm on April 23]** via the online submission system accessed at:

https://polthesisposters.princeton.edu/student_login.php

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Remember that 12:00pm is NOON

###	Submitted in **.pink[PDF format].**

###	All posters must be in landscape orientation, with the **exact dimensions of .pink[24 &times; 36 inches].**

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<img src="images/present.png" width="33%" height="66%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

## Session tips

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As I mentioned at the front of the talk, things are a little bit different this year. Rather than a traditional poster session, you'll have an opportunity to give a short presentation or pitch.

Probably 3-5 minutes, but we're still coordinating this and figuring out the best format so expect an email later in the semester on the exact format.

But here are some quick tips to keep in mind.

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# Session Tip No. 1

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## _Place the main idea front and center_

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Your audience has a limited attention span.

Most of you have already checked out -- I see those black boxes -- So I started this presentation with the need to know information.

You should do the same.

Summarise the main idea of your paper in one sentence. Then go back in and fill in the details on context, methods, etc.

If you do this initial statement well, it provides a good frame of reference for the rest of your talk.

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# Session Tip No. 2

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## _Show, don't just tell_

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### <span style="font-size:70px">&#128047; </span> > "Tiger"

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Multi-day retention of information is much higher using pictures rather than just words. Psychologists call this the picture superiority effect.

e.g. caution signs that include a picture versus just text have 65% versus 10% 3 day retention.

The same goes for you.

If you can summarize your research in a single graph and place it front and center, people will remember your findings better.

(it also gives you something to refer back to more easily).

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# Session Tip No. 3

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## _Draw connections to familiar ideas_

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### "It's like .pink[Uber] for .pink[cats]"

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Regardless of what you think about this idea, the audience immediately has an understanding of what the idea is.

You can do the same thing with your research.

- Is this similar to a famous paper or book in your research area?

- Is it related to something we've seen in the news recently?

Making these connections for the audience can also improve retention and get people interested in your research.

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# Session Tip No. 4

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## _Encourage active participation_

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# Encourage active participation

### .pink[&#10148;] Use explicit calls to action.

E.g. ask a question or ask the audience to visualize their expectations.

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Call your audience out to get them engaged. Ask them to do something now matter how small.

Raise your hand if you watched the impeachment proceedings.

### .pink[&#10148;] Solicit feedback.

Be clear about what questions you want to know the answer to. E.g. Should I be thinking about additional robustness checks? How should we think about applying this to policy? etc.

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Also, don't forget that now is a great time to get another pair of eyes on your research.

I know by the time you're putting the poster together, you will want might be happy to see the end of your poster.

But if you're applying to graduate school or want to publish your research, requesting feedback is a good way to keep the audience engaged and learn more about how you can improve or build on your paper.
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# TL;DR

###	**Submit by .pink[12:00 pm on April 23]** via the online submission system accessed at:

https://polthesisposters.princeton.edu/student_login.php

###	Submit in **.pink[PDF format].**

###	All posters must be landscape in orientation, with the **exact dimensions of .pink[24 &times; 36 inches].**

### Use the resources available to you.

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### bcrisman [at] princeton.edu

### Office Hours: WASE or by appt.

Fridays 9:30am - 1:30pm