PowerPoint slides from a staff development session delivered to Nottingham Law School staff in 2013.

1. Creating academic posters for
teaching and research.
Louise Taylor
19th Sept 2013

2. What is an academic poster?
• A visual means of presenting research and
promoting discussion.
• More traditionally used in the science disciplines
but increasingly being used in Law.
• For some examples (good and bad) click here.
• What its not – a journal article printed on A1
paper and stuck on a wall!

3. Benefits for teaching and research
Teaching:
• Visual means of
explaining research
simply.
• Opens up discussion
around a research area.
• Can be used as formative
or summative
assessment.
• Helps bridge the teaching
/ research nexus.
Research:
• Visual means of
explaining research
simply.
• Opens up discussion
around a research area.
• Can evidence research
activity at an intermediary
stage.
• Allows for conference
attendance without
pressure of presenting.

4. What are the basics?
• Usually A1 size (portrait or landscape) printed
and laminated.
• Includes:
– Introduction
– Methodology
– Findings / Results
- Conclusions
- References
- Acknowledgements
• Ideally includes less than 500 words and
incorporates images / graphs.

5. How to create a poster
• Get the content right – research your
subject area.
• Think less is more where word count is
concerned.
• Be consistent in your use of type size /
font / colour for headings and text boxes.
• Spend time designing your layout on
paper before working on PC.

6. Useful tools in PowerPoint.
• Grids and guides – On the ‘view’ tab go
to ‘gridlines and guides’ and click on the
small arrow in the bottom right hand side
of the box. Make sure the following are
checked:
– ‘snap objects to grid’
– ‘display grid on screen’
– ‘display drawing guides on screen’

7. Useful tools in PowerPoint.
• Ordering of images/text – Right click on the
textbox/image and choose ‘send to back’ or
‘bring to front’ in order to layer items.
• Resizing images – Be caution when doing this
or you may distort your image. Click on your
image and in the ‘format’ tab go to ‘size’ and
click on small arrow in right hand bottom corner.
Make sure ‘lock aspect ratio’ and ‘relative to
original picture size’ boxes are checked.

8. Useful tools in PowerPoint.
• Background images and watermarks –
select an image, place in your slide and
resize as desired.
– To have the image as a background re-order
image as per previous slide.
– To have the image as a watermark click on
image and go to ‘format picture’ then ‘colour’.
This provides a range of effects.

9. Other advice
• Save file as a pdf and ‘embed fonts’ in order that
your fonts and colours are not corrupted when
you send your poster to print.
• Print out poster in colour in A3 size (colour
printer in Psychology dept) before having it
professionally printed in order to check for
mistakes.
• Speak to Printshop about timings – at quiet
times your poster can usually be printed while
you wait (£10 for A1 colour poster + additional
time and cost for lamination).

10. Some useful websites:
• www.colinpurrington.com/tips/academicposterde
sign
– Blog with a useful section on academic posters and
some templates.
• www.connect.le.ac.uk/posters
– Really good online tutorial from the University of
Leicester on things to think about when creating
posters.
• www.flickr.com
– Online photo sharing website where you can find
useful images.