literature review poster examples

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Honors291g-cdg’s blog, literature review/poster presentation guide.

Literature Review & Poster/Visual Presentation Guide GIVING & GETTING EFFECTIVE PRESENTATIONS PRESENTATIONS In many disciplines presentations are given at academic conferences, symposia, and other places where scholars share their work with one another (including the Massachusetts Undergraduate Research Conference).  It can be very challenging to display and communicate all of one’s research findings in a synthesized manner and short timeframe.  Following are some thoughts about both preparing your presentation and also how to maximize your experience as an audience member. I. PRESENTER’S ROLE: The overall purpose of your presentation is to share your research process and findings with the class. In all cases, whatever topic you choose for your research, the objective is to stimulate in your listeners an understanding of that topic and how you went about developing that understanding for yourself as a researcher. The purpose of your talk is to present your research. Keep that goal in mind as you consider what to include and how to organize it.. In the visual portion of your presentation, be sure to include the following:

1)    Title 2)    Your research question 3)    Examples of what you found (results) including a.    Visual and quantitative information b.    Important quotes 4)    Your conclusion

Remember to keep your presentation (and your visual material) concise. It is very easy to overwhelm an audience with too much text.  Also, be sure to use a font size that is large enough to read from several feet away. Presentation considerations. Five minutes go fast! Therefore, stick with the most important points (details can come in the Q&A session), and be sure to organize your presentation logically. Be sure to practice. Nothing will prepare you better than giving your presentation several times to an audience. Speak slowly, clearly, expressively. Make eye contact. Also make sure your visual really does support your oral presentation and aid your audience! Concluding your presentation. End your presentation with a quick summary or suggestion of what’s been gained by your research.  Then be prepared for questions. Be ready with a question of your own in case the audience needs prompting. A crucial part of your presentation is thinking about how to engage the audience. Listen closely, be sure you understand each questioner’s intent, and then answer as directly as possible. II. AUDIENCE’S ROLE: Even when not presenting, you play a crucial role in the presentation and determining its quality.  As a listener, demonstrate your interest: make eye contact with the presenter as you listen closely, and take notes so you can ask informed, pertinent, and helpful questions during the Q&A period. Putting a presenter at ease can go a long way to ensuring an effective presentation.

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Methodology

• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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How to Create a Research Poster

• Poster Basics
• Design Tips
• Logos & Images

What is a Research Poster?

Posters are widely used in the academic community, and most conferences include poster presentations in their program.  Research posters summarize information or research concisely and attractively to help publicize it and generate discussion. 

The poster is usually a mixture of a brief text mixed with tables, graphs, pictures, and other presentation formats. At a conference, the researcher stands by the poster display while other participants can come and view the presentation and interact with the author.

What Makes a Good Poster?

• Important information should be readable from about 10 feet away
• Title is short and draws interest
• Word count of about 300 to 800 words
• Text is clear and to the point
• Use of bullets, numbering, and headlines make it easy to read
• Effective use of graphics, color and fonts
• Consistent and clean layout
• Includes acknowledgments, your name and institutional affiliation

A Sample of a Well Designed Poster

View this poster example in a web browser .  

Image credit: Poster Session Tips by [email protected], via Penn State

Where do I begin?

Answer these three questions:.

• What is the most important/interesting/astounding finding from my research project?
• How can I visually share my research with conference attendees? Should I use charts, graphs, photos, images?
• What kind of information can I convey during my talk that will complement my poster?

What software can I use to make a poster?

A popular, easy-to-use option. It is part of Microsoft Office package and is available on the library computers in rooms LC337 and LC336. ( Advice for creating a poster with PowerPoint ).

Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign

Feature-rich professional software that is good for posters including lots of high-resolution images, but they are more complex and expensive.  NYU Faculty, Staff, and Students can access and download the Adobe Creative Suite .

Open Source Alternatives 

• OpenOffice is the free alternative to MS Office (Impress is its PowerPoint alternative).
• Inkscape and Gimp are alternatives to Adobe products.
• For charts and diagrams try Gliffy or Lovely Charts .
• A complete list of free graphics software .

A Sample of a Poorly Designed Poster

View this bad poster example in a browser.

Image Credit: Critique by Better Posters

• Next: Design Tips >>
• Last Updated: Jul 11, 2023 5:09 PM
• URL: https://guides.nyu.edu/posters

Table of Contents

Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, scientific posters.

• CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 by Candice Welhausen

Scientific posters are a common type of genre created by researchers in science and engineering-related fields to communicate information about a study usually to other experts.

As a student, you may be assigned a scientific poster in a technical communication or science writing course or in a class that focuses on writing in your discipline.

Scientific posters give readers a ‘visual overview’ of a particular project. In contrast to primarily text-based documents like research or lab reports, posters are visual-dominant. That is, they rely primarily on visuals—illustrations and drawings, graphics such as charts and bar graphs, photographs, and design features like use of color and typography—to convey information.

Posters may differ in terms of content, design, and organizational structure depending upon the discipline. Before creating your poster, look at examples from researchers in your area of study to ensure that you follow the appropriate conventions for your field. This article gives an overview of this genre, offers guidelines for creating effective scientific posters, and includes two example posters.

Display Venues for Scientific Posters

Scientific posters are usually displayed during professional conferences, formal events in which researchers in a particular discipline gather to share and discuss their work with each other as well as network and socialize. Posters are often shown in a prominent area such as an exhibition hall. ‘Poster sessions’ held during the conference allow poster creators to interact with their readers and engage in one-on-one and/or small group discussions about the poster’s content and answer questions. In addition to the more formal events routinely held during a conference, these sessions offer another venue for attendees to learn about the work of their peers, meet colleagues with similar interests, and forge new collaborations.

While many posters are created for professional conferences, researchers on college campuses might also create a poster to showcase a particular project. For instance, a biology professor may want to publicize the work they and their graduate students are conducting in their lab. In this case, the professor and their students might display the poster in the hallway outside of the lab or in another public forum in the department or on campus. Unlike at a professional conference, in this scenario the professor and their students will want to assume that many of their readers will not be as knowledgeable as readers attending a conference about the subject matter. Some readers may be the professor’s colleagues who specialize in another area, others may be faculty in other disciplines, still others may be students. The professor and their students will want to carefully consider their audience in adapting their information so that readers who are not subject matter experts will understand the project and find it interesting (see Audience).

Keep in mind that if you display your poster at a professional conference, you will have the opportunity to interact with many of your readers—but you will not be able to interact with all of them. Consequently, your poster needs to be able to ‘stand-alone.’ That is, the information in your poster must be immediately understandable to your intended readers without any additional information.

Organizing Your Poster

This section provides guidelines for organizing the main sections of a scientific poster. Much like research reports, scientific posters often follow what is known as the IMRaD format (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion) as explained below.

Title: describe the research project briefly and concisely using a short phrase that forecasts what the research study is about. In some disciplines, the title might highlight one or two major research findings of the study. The title should be no more than two lines.

Author Name(s) and Affiliation (s): Include the name of each author on the line underneath the title. Include each author’s institutional or organizational affiliation on the next line. If more than one author has the same affiliation, you only need to list the institution or organization once. Use superscript numbers at the end of each author’s name to indicate the same affiliation (see University Apiary).

Introduction: introduce the specific research question, explain why the question is important, conduct a very short literature review , and state the purpose of the study.

Note: Include your list of references in a separate section (see References). In some disciplines it is conventional to include in-text citations in the Introduction (and the Discussion), while in other disciplines only the list of references is included. It may also be conventional in some disciplines to include a separate section before or after the Introduction entitled ‘Study Objective’ or ‘Study Design,’ a one to two line phrase or sentence that states the overall purpose of the project. You might also use a bulleted list to include multiple study objectives.

The literature review is a fundamental component of most scientific research reports. The purpose is two-fold:

• Explain how the current research project fits in with what is currently known in the field by summarizing and citing the most relevant research conducted to date, and
• Outline the gap in scientific knowledge that the current project addresses.

In the literature review of a research report you should discuss the published, peer-reviewed studies that other researchers have already conducted related to your research question or topic. Then explain how your project addresses what is still not known about the research question or topic.

As you’ve probably guessed, posters have a very limited amount of space. Thus, you will not be able to include a full literature review. This means you will need to carefully select and discuss the most relevant sources to frame your project. Look at a few sample posters in your field to determine how the literature review is conducted as well as how many sources tend to be included.

Materials and Methods: explain the methodology used to conduct the research as well as the materials used. This section should explain:

• What you did to conduct your research project, and
• How you did

For example, let’s say you interviewed 100 college students about their exercise habits. The previous statement explains what you did—you interviewed 100 college students about their exercise habits. But you also need to explain how you did this:

• What questions did you ask during the interview?
• How did you conduct the interviews? Did you use an online survey or did you talk to the students in person? (Were the interviews one-on-one, or did you conduct small focus groups?)
• How did you recruit the students to participate?
• Did you interview students from all years in school or just freshmen or just sophomores, for instance? How did you decide which groups of students to interview?

In a research report, you would be to be very specific about your materials and methodology. Researchers in your field want to know detailed information about your materials and methods to ensure that your research approach is sound. In a research report, you would need to provide enough detail that your readers could repeat the study. In your poster, however, you won’t have the space to provide this level of detail. Much like in the Introduction, you’ll need to decide what your audience most needs to know about your methods (see Audience), and then streamline that information. Use visuals, if possible, to show key features of your methodology.

Note: In some disciplines this section may be referred to as ‘Methods’ or ‘Study Design.’

Results: report the results/major findings of your research project. Show the results using visuals—charts, graphs, maps, drawings, photographs. Use captions to briefly explain your visuals and to tell your readers what information is important in each of your visuals. The Results is usually the longest section of a scientific poster.

Discussion: explain and interpret the results/major findings. As the title of this section suggests, discuss how the findings support and/or refute similar and/or related studies in the field. Forecast the next steps for research in the field. What should future research on this topic focus on?

Acknowledgements: many science and engineering research projects receive grant funding. List any organizations that provided funding for the project and include the grant number. This section can also be used to acknowledge other project contributors and/or advisors. Students often use this section to acknowledge their faculty advisor here.

References: include full citation information for all of your sources. Cite references in the citation style used in your field. APA (American Psychological Association) is commonly used in the social sciences, and CSE (Council of Science Editors) is commonly used in scientific disciplines. Check with your professor, advisor, or another professional working in your field to determine the correct style.

Writing and Designing Your Poster

As previously mentioned, space on a poster is limited—very limited. Thus you will need to make strategic decisions about what information (text and images) to include and how to organize this information in each section.

Posters should aim to show, not tell. Regardless of where your poster is displayed—the exhibit hall of a conference or in the hallway by your lab—your readers will look over your poster very quickly . In fact, they’ll probably just skim over it, looking for information that interests them. Review the guidelines in this section to make strong writing decisions that engage your audience, engender interest in your project, and guide your readers through your main points.

Before creating your poster, carefully analyze your audience by considering the following questions:

• What do your readers already know about the topic or research question?
• (equally important) What do they not know?
• What information do they care about, and what details will you need to provide?

Writing for Expert Readers

As mentioned earlier, scientific posters are often created for expert readers—that is, colleagues and peers in your field. When communicating with other people in your discipline, you can generally assume that they will have a high level of knowledge and interest in the topic. You’ll be able to use technical terms specific to your field in your poster without defining these terms or explaining why they’re important. You also don’t need to provide as much ‘background’ or contextual information about the topic as you would for non-expert readers because expert readers are probably already familiar with this information.

Expert readers have very different informational needs than non-expert readers. Researchers in your field will generally be most interested in the Results and Discussion sections of your poster. They’ll want to know what you found, how these findings contribute to what is already known and accepted in the field, and where future research in the field may be headed.

Writing for Non-expert Readers

On the other hand, when you’re creating a poster for readers who are non-experts in your field or the specific research question, you’ll need to consider 1) why people who are not in your field or familiar with the research question might find your project interesting and 2) what aspects of your project they might want to know about.

Generally speaking, non-experts are not interested in technical details. They don’t need to know as much about your methodology because unlike expert readers, they probably won’t be critiquing your research approach to ensure that your approach was scientifically valid. They care less about references and the specific details of studies that other researchers are conducting in your field. They also don’t care or need to know about specific details related to your findings. They do, however and unlike expert readers, need more background and contextual information about the topic. They may not have much knowledge about the topic or know why it’s important—the kind of stuff that expert readers would already know. Non-experts are generally more interested in scientific research projects from a ‘big picture’ perspective—that is, how the topic might affect them either personally or on a broader, societal level.

To illustrate, let’s use our previous example of the biology professor and their students. Before creating their poster, the professor and their students will need to carefully assess the reasons that faculty and students in other disciplines might find their work interesting, and what these readers might want to know about it. Let’s say the group is studying algae blooms, and let’s say certain types of algae blooms are increasing as global temperature levels rise. Expert readers, other researchers in the biology professor’s field, are interested in the specific details of their study—details about how the study was conducted, the particular strain of algae used, how the strain reacted to precise temperature fluctuations in differing water conditions in different geographic region, for instance.

Non-expert readers probably don’t need to know the properties of the strain of algae investigated or the detailed measurements that were collected at the study sites or the range in temperature fluctuations that were observed. But, let’s say the geographic regions under study are nearby and increasing algae growth of this particular strain might adversely affect local water quality. Non-experts living in the area might want to know about this. Thus the professor and their students might frame the information in their poster from this perspective. Another option might be to relate the project to the larger societal issue of global warming. Either way, the group will need to broaden their focus as well as make assumptions about what their non-expert readers might be interested in learning about in terms of how it affects them.

The professor and their students will also need to simplify the information they provide including any field-specific terminology. They’ll need to decide if their readers need to know any technical terms or if they can just use everyday words and phrases. Let’s say the professor and their students are studying a strain of algae that is particularly invasive and is posing serious local water quality problems. In this case, the group may decide to use the technical term because the entire poster is about this algae strain and/or readers are likely to encounter more information about the strain in the future. At the same time, they may choose to not give details about other strains that they mention but which are not the main focus of the study.

In deciding whether to use technical terms and concepts when communicating with non-experts, determine if non-experts readers need to know the term or concept in order to achieve your purpose (see Purpose) as you may be able to simplify this information. If you provide too much technical detail, you run the risk of loosing the attention of your non-expert audience. If you decide you must use the technical term, define it using everyday words and phrases. You might also provide an example that compares the term or concept to something that the audience is already familiar with.

A Few Additional Points about Audience…

Expert and non-expert readers differ primarily in terms of their level of knowledge about a particular topic. Someone who is an expert in one communicative context will not be an expert in a different communicative context. For example, the biology professor is an expert reader when reviewing information in their field of study—specifically, algae blooms and water quality. They are a non-expert reader when reviewing information in other areas of biology that they are less knowledgeable about as well as other scientific fields such as zoology or geology. They will need more background info about research projects in areas they are unfamiliar with and field-specific terms will need to be defined for them.

Non-expert readers are a very broad audience and can encompass a wide range of knowledge levels about the particular topic at hand. Some non-expert audiences will be more knowledgeable than others about a particular topic. Thus, you will always still need to assess your readers as a group and make assumptions about what you think they already know, what they don’t know, and what information they care about.

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Poster Presentations

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Literature Reviews

• Rod Library Databases by Subject

All high-quality research projects start with a thorough literature review; researchers search scholarly journals to find out what has been done on the topic previously, then they build on that prior research.

• Research Guides Librarian-created research guides with tips and suggested databases relevant to your major, topic, or course.
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• Ask Us Librarians and library assistants are here to assist with your research. You can contact us in person, via email, chat, etc.

Citing Sources

Be sure to cite your sources, both in-text and in a bibliography box on your poster. You also need to cite any images/charts you reproduced. If you created images/charts using data from a source, cite that source. Need help? Ask a librarian !

• Cite Your Sources by Claire Bowling Last Updated Nov 10, 2023 234 views this year
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Pharmacy Student Scholarly Project: Literature Review as a whole project type

• Develop a Question
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What is a Literature Review project type?

Every PSP needs to include a short literature review of a few paragraphs. You can also choose to do a  literature review including critical and structured methods as your entire PSP project. This page provides help for those who are considering or conducting a literature review as their PSP project. The Review Articles research guide will also include additional useful information for those conducting this project type.

Format and scope

Every PSP is presented as a poster. Each poster will include about 500 words of text and 3-5 images (figures, tables, diagrams, etc.). For a literature review poster, you need to provide full references for all materials cited in your poster. If there is space, you may include the references on the poster, or you can create a separate document.

Within this relatively limited word count, you need to explain why the topic you chose is important to explore, explain your search process, explain the selection process, identify trends in the literature, and provide critical analysis and insight into your topic. Many poster authors choose to display the search process, display of trends, and critical analysis/insight in figures and reserve the text for the other portions.

Starting a Literature Review PSP

How do I develop a topic? Literature reviews are most useful when they respond to a theme in the literature. You cannot select a topic for a literature review without  first looking at the literature. There needs to be a significant volume of papers that you can read that have some rationale or reason to be examined as a group.           First, identify a broad question or topic. Search for encyclopedia articles, textbook chapters, and literature reviews about this topic. Read a few sources and look for aspects or factors that interest you inside this broad topic. If your broad topic was "Counseling on new prescriptions," some aspects you might identify are: Some patients refuse counseling when offered. Some patients are not satisfied with counseling received. There are several competing methods for counseling. There are many locations in which counseling takes place-- via phone, via videochat, in a private office, at a counter in a retail store.           These smaller aspects or factors would be good candidate topics to consider for a literature review project. "What factors in the retail store, location available for counseling, and pharmacist demeanor can influence a patient to accept or refuse counseling?," "What methods are used to assess patient satisfaction with counseling and which is most reliable?," "Is counseling using active listening techniques more effective in producing patient satisfaction, when compared to traditional counseling?," or "What factors lead to patient satisfaction or dissatisfaction with counseling services provided at community pharmacies?" seem like they might be well-scoped for this length/depth of project.

These are examples of questions that might guide the process of searching, selecting, and identifying relevant studies for inclusion in a literature review project.

- There are many individual studies describing a specific disease/condition, specific treatment, specific process, or specific idea.

• Can you learn something new by combining data from individual original studies?
• What gaps remain in the research focused on this specific topic? Why is this gap important or necessary to be filled?

-  Each study uses a specific methodology to investigate a specific question.

• What methods have been used to investigate a specific disease, drug, condition, process, or idea?
• What has been learned as a sum of these investigations?
• Are there different research methods that would help improve studies on this disease, drug, condition, process, or idea? Which methods and why? 

Examples of critical literature review posters

These samples are from teams outside of USC. The poster examples are provided for content only; they do not follow the USC PSP guidelines for formatting posters.

• Hussain JSA, Bedran-Russo A, Seprum-Clavier A. Pulp Capping Agents: a Literature Review. Poster presented at Academy of General Dentistry 2015 Annual Meeting, June 18-21, 2015, San Francisco, CA. Available online at https://www.epostersonline.com/agd2015/node/104
• Dalal, M. Chamomile Cures: a literature review. Poster prepared during 2nd year medical school coursework at the University of Texas Medical Branch, 2016.
• Nomali M, Alipasandi K, Hoseinjani E et al. Prediction tools for hospital readmission among patients with heart failure: a literature review [version 1; not peer reviewed]. F1000Research 2017, 6:1721 (poster) (https://doi.org/10.7490/f1000research.1114897.1)
• Edgecombe, K. Non-pharmacological Preoperative Anxiety Treatments In Pediatric Anesthesia Presented at the American Academy of Anesthesiologist Assistants conference 2018.
• Khalil S, Mhaskar R. A Review of Patient Safety Curricula in U.S. Medical Schools. Presented at University of South Florida (USF) Research Day 2018.
• Varela VC, Radu SC, Kirby RS. A Review of Biliary Atresia. Presented at University of South Florida (USF) Research Day 2017.

Common questions

How many papers do I need to find? How many papers do I need to cite? Expect to find and read about twice as many materials as you cite in your final project. Most PSP Literature Review projects cite 5-20 references.

I picked my topic, but can't find more than a few relevant articles. Not every topic is appropriate for a literature review. There needs to be a significant amount of published information that has some commonalities. Before you talk to your mentor about changing your topic, consider:

• Did you do a thorough search, using multiple databases, and searching using subject headings and/or keywords? You can contact the library for help with searching.
•  It takes several years to plan, conduct, write, and publish a study. If your topic is less than 5 years old, there may not have been time for these processes to occur.  However, conference proceedings, position statements, policy documents, and opinion papers often discuss new ideas before research is conducted. Is it possible to incorporate these non-peer reviewed, semi-scholarly sources into your discussion of this topic?
• Conducting a thorough search and determining that there is a lack of published research evidence is, itself, a novel finding. Unfortunately, a poster describing this would be very boring to read. Consider expanding your original idea, and try to critically engage with the topic. You might try explain why there may be a lack of publications, offer suggestions for how to improve research in this field, or describe barriers in the funding and research processes.

I picked a really narrow topic, but I still get too many articles. How do I get fewer articles? The goal of a literature review is to select articles that have some reason to be examined together. If you have an overwhelmingly large number of articles, it is a clue that your topic is too broad, and you need to narrow it down further. Using these ideas to narrow your topic might mean changing your search, by adding/removing keywords or filters; or, you might read abstracts to find studies that meet some criteria.

• Factors relating to the studies: Can you find studies that have some comparable data-- use the same methodology; use the same measurement tool; measure the same outcomes; follow patients for the same amount of time; etc.?
• Factors relating to the participants in the studies: Do they use the same drugs; include or exclude patients with a single condition or co-existing conditions; focus on a specific group (age, gender, socioeconomic status, language, geographic region, stage of illness, etc.)?
• Factors relating to the other literature on this topic: If another review included papers from 1995-2005, perhaps your review could start at the year 2006. If another review covered adult women with a condition, perhaps your review could cover adult men with the same condition.
• Factors relating your topic to other systems and processes: If you are thinking about counseling, are there any laws that broadened the scope of practice for pharmacist counseling? Perhaps comparing patient satisfaction with counseling from before and after this law was passed would be interesting. If you are thinking about counseling via telecommunications devices, there may be technological milestones you might use to limit your search to specific timeframes, such as the introduction of smartphones around 2007; or mass adoption of smartphones around 2011.
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Library services for undergraduate research.

• Creating an Abstract
• What is a Literature Review?
• Creating a Poster
• Presenting Your Research
• Share Your Undergraduate Research
• Contact a Subject Librarian This link opens in a new window
• Conducting Research
• College Writing: Citizen Scientist

Research Poster

A research poster session is a visual, interactive forum. The research is conveyed graphically in an informal setting. The researcher stands next to her/his poster and is prepared to answer questions to clarify information. The poster itself IS NOT the enlarged research paper. The poster should " entice the viewer with clarity, simplicity, and pictures ".

Impactful Scientific Posters

This site is developed to help students who are creating research posters for presentation at the Undergraduate Research Symposium. At this site you will find information about:

• What to include in a research poster
• How to design and organize a research poster
• What software programs to use to create a research poster

Research poster sessions, historically have been widely used by the scientific community in presenting original research. However there has been an increase in the use of poster sessions for undergraduate research in the social sciences and humanities.

View Sample Posters

Poster Sessions  - flick r 

A group on flickr for sharing posters and getting feedback

Poster Sessions - flick r

A group on flickr where people share photos of their posters

Online Design Resources

• Effective Poster Design   "An effective poster is a visual communications tool"
• Design Effective Posters   Contains examples of original and improved posters
• Creating Anthropology Conferences Posters: A Guide for Beginners

Considering Content

When developing an outline of a research poster, you want to consider including some of the following sections:

• Introduction or Background
• Literature Review
• Methods or Results
• Purpose or Objectives
• Acknowledges
• Works Cited

Content should be:

• clear and concise
• relevant and significant

Considering Design, Organization & Layout

The " Rule of Thirds " is a design tool used by photographers and graphic artists. The rule states that visual images (the poster) can be divided into nine equal segments (three sections high and three sestions wide. The audience's eye should travel from the top to the bottom in a Z pattern. The most important parts of the poster should be located on this "Z" shape.

Layout and design  should consider:

• balance and spacing
• consistency
• headings and fonts

Graphics should be:

• clearly relevant to project
• easily seen from a few feet away
• simply, easy to understand
• aesthetically pleasing, eye catching, but not garish
• clearly labeled

Sample layouts - at a glance

• Suggested layout arrangements
• Tips for a readable poster (PDf)
• Sample poster template (PowerPoint format)

Finding Stock Images

• U.S. Government Photos
• Library of Congress Images,   flick r  
• B ing Image Feed
• Creative Commons Images
• ArtStor Guide, fine arts images

Books from the Catalog

Journal Articles on Poster Design

Title: Visual Design Tips to Develop an Inviting Poster for Poster Presentations .

Authors: Tomita, Kei 1 , [email protected]

Source: TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning; Jul2017, Vol. 61 Issue 4, p313-315, 3p

Abstract: The article offers suggestions for making a poster presentation at an academic conference as it is different from other presentation formats. Topics discussed include integrating the results, discussion, and conclusion sections or introduction and literature review sections in order to reduce the amount of text; name and affiliation bigger than the main text but smaller than the tittle and addition of figures and tables for creating visual variety and making poster more inviting.

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Title: Effective visual design and communication practices for research posters: Exemplars based on the theory and practice of multimedia learning and rhetoric.

Authors: Pedwell, Rhianna K.; Hardy, James A.; Rowland, Susan L.

Source: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Education ; May2017, Vol. 45 Issue 3, p249-261, 13p

Abstract: Evidence shows that science graduates often do not have the communication skills they need to meet workplace standards and expectations. One common mode of science communication is the poster. In a review of the literature we show that poster design is historically problematic, and that the guidance provided to students as they create posters for assessment is frequently inconsistent. To address this inconsistency we provide some guiding design principles for posters that are grounded in communication theory and the fundamentals of rhetoric. We also present three nondiscipline-specific example posters with accompanying notes that explain why the posters are examples of poor, average, and excellent poster design. The subject matter for the posters is a fabricated set of experiments on a topic that could not actually be the subject of research. Instructors may use these resources with their students, secure in the knowledge that they do not and will never represent an answer set to an extant assessment item. © 2016 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 45(3):249-261, 2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Title: The Research Poster and How it Consolidates and Communicates Key Concepts of a Research Inquiry.

Authors: McAuley, Mike ; Hodgkinson, Gray

Source: Design Principles & Practices: An International Journal: Annual Review ; 2017, Vol. 11 Issue 1, p1-14, 14p, 2 Color Photographs, 3 Diagrams, 2 Charts

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Title: A practical guide to designing a poster for presentation.

Authors: Briggs, David J.  [email protected]

Source: Nursing Standard . 4/29/2009, Vol. 23 Issue 34, p35-39. 5p. 2 Diagrams, 1 Chart.

Abstract: Poster presentations are frequently used to disseminate research findings and clinical initiatives at conferences, and present module material for educational courses. However, many nurses lack confidence when it comes to designing posters. This article considers the skills required to design a poster. Aspects of good poster design are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Title: Poster design—six points to ponder .

Authors: Brown, Bernard S.

Source: Biochemical Education ; July 1997, Vol. 25, p136-137, 2p

Abstract: Students should ponder six points when designing and producing posters. They should prepare by thinking about how their findings might be presented as a poster even while they are carrying out the research, looking for possible illustrations and layouts, and taking note of how professional advertisers stick with one main message that is written in a few words and accompanied by eye-catching visuals. They should organize information on the poster so that there is balance between the three elements of text, illustrations, and space. Students' posters should have a clear pathway that follows the normal reading direction for the language used in the poster. To enhance legibility, they should use upper- and lowercase letters and ensure that type size and column width look right. A short but catchy title, bold headings, not too much text, and simple pictures will help explain their work. Students should also ensure that posters are readable at two meters in two minutes to catch potential readers' attention .

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Presenting Your Research Visually: Academic Posters and Slides

Barry Mauer; John Venecek; and Erika Heredia

Literary researchers can present their work in essay form, but many also present their work in visual media. Two of the most conventional forms of scholarly visual media are posters and slides. In general, both posters and slides preserve the classic structure of information organization found in essays, and include elements such as title, introduction, literature review, methodology, findings, discussion and conclusion. Posters and slides can play a supporting or collaborative role in a verbal presentation, during which the speaker refers to graphs and charts, featured images, and bullet points. Other times, posters and slides stand on their own without a speaker there to present them.

An academic poster summarizes your research in a way that is visually compelling. Made up of the harmonious arrangement of graphics, images and text, the poster can be an opportunity to engage in public speaking, share ideas, and demonstrate your expertise while networking at conferences, symposia, showcases and other scholarly events.

Successful posters have information arranged strategically and are easily readable. Some good practices include:

• Use a short and interesting title
• Make your main text readable from 10 feet away
• Only include the main ideas about your research
• Make the layout clean
• Use a text body of 300 to 800 words in a readable font
• Use bullets points, numbering and headlines to create a visual hierarchy for the content
• Use a compatible set of colors and a balanced visual structure
• Include your name, acknowledgments and institutional affiliation. (NYU Libraries, 2021)

What information to include in a poster?

Traditionally, a poster is divided into sections which organize information clearly and concisely.

• Title: brief and succinct presentation of the research. Include your name and institutional affiliation in a subheading.
• Introduction: This section is dedicated to establishing, in no more than 200 words, a context of the investigated topic. It is useful for target people outside of your field.
• Summarized literature review including the most representative authors to demonstrate the connection with the academic discussion in the field.
• Research question (see chapter XY) and the methodology proposed for addressing the research question (see chapter MN).
• Discussion including the analysis of the most important findings. You can incorporate charts, graphs and images.
• Conclusion establishing the relevance of your research, connecting once again the research question and your proposal to address it. Point out limitations, if any, and future research.

Figure 1 Landscape Academic Poster Example

Figure 2 Portrait Academic Poster Example

Applying design principles to posters

A poster designed respecting design fundamentals must strike a balance between negative space (white space) and positive space (where the text is positioned). An overcrowded poster will discourage reading. Think about your target audience and in turn make your task easier when presenting your research.

• Consider cultural factors. In the West we are used to reading information from left to right; therefore follow this visual guide to organize your information and make it easier to the reader.
• Remember that your poster will be spotted several meters away, so consider organizing the information in blocks to make it more attractive and readable.
• The use of cold colors is recommended, in the range of blues and greens, and neutrals to establish softer transitions in sight.
• Use warm colors (yellow, red and orange) if you want to highlight certain specific phrases.

Colors and accessibility

The use of light backgrounds in contrast to dark font colors is called luminance contrast ratio and is recommended for a smooth and intuitive reading. Moreover, its use helps people with visual impairments to not miss substantial information. The highest luminance contrast ratio is the combination of white background and black font but that does not mean that you cannot combine other alternative equal accessibility friendly. Here there is a tool for helping you with picking colors for your poster https://color.adobe.com/create/color-contrast-analyzer

As a rule, if possible, use no more than 4 colors in your design and no more than 2 fonts, one for the title and one for the body. Subheadings can be bold or in a different color than the body text to bring dynamism to the overall composition.

In general, slides accompany an oral presentation. To do a slide presentation, consider your message and your audience’s knowledge, beliefs, and feelings about your topic. In this way, the slides will highlight the main points and present the evidence that supports our argument.

General recommendations

• Length: The rule of thumb is “one slide per minute,” though 1 slide every 2 minutes may work better, depending on the density and complexity of the information. The typical conference presentation is 20 minutes, which may stop at the 15 minute mark to allow 5 minutes for questions.
• Text: Avoid overcrowding the slides, and include only principal ideas. Break your text in bullet points (no need for complete sentences), use a headline per each slide, and avoid spelling and grammar mistakes.
• Fonts: use font size: 30 – 48 point for headlines, 24 – 28 for body text. Use conventional fonts like Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman or Calibri to avoid unexpected problems with the layout.
• Images: Include images and figures that are relevant for supporting your argument. Use labels for images (titles, credits, etc.).

Applying design principles to slides

Good design involves a clean and consistent layout. Many products, such as PowerPoint, provide vertical and horizontal guide markers to align elements. Your audience will group items by proximity, so put things together that go together.

To maintain uniformity and avoid confusion, limit the use of elements such as colors, fonts, styles as well as animations and transitions. Leave some space on each slide and use contrast to enhance legibility.

At the end, practice your oral presentation while reviewing the entire slide deck to confirm it has a logical organization, that the design is consistent, the text is accurate, and the images are relevant.

There is specific software for designing poster layout. The most standard and popular are Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign, all of them included in Adobe Suite. Currently, Adobe Suite offers discounts for college students that can be checked in the company website. Nevertheless, there are alternatives to Adobe Software that can deal with poster layout like Gimp, CorelDraw, Affinity Designer and MS Word.

For designing slides, the most popular are MS Power Point, Google slides, Prezi, Slide Share, Apple Keynote, Slidebean, among many others.

In recent years, there were developed online software that works with intuitive interfaces for those who are not familiar with design skills, many of them could be accessed creating a user or login through Google mail or Facebook account. Examples of them are Genially, Visme, Canva, PickToChart, DesignCap, Desygner, among others. Almost all of them allow creating posters and slide presentations that can be accessed by a computer, laptop or smartphone.

Presenting Your Research Visually: Academic Posters and Slides Copyright © 2021 by Barry Mauer; John Venecek; and Erika Heredia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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• What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

Published on 22 February 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 7 June 2022.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research.

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarise sources – it analyses, synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

Why write a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1: search for relevant literature, step 2: evaluate and select sources, step 3: identify themes, debates and gaps, step 4: outline your literature review’s structure, step 5: write your literature review, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a dissertation or thesis, you will have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research objectives and questions .

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list if you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:

Read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models and methods? Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What are its key insights and arguments?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible, and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using!

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It’s important to keep track of your sources with references to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full reference information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations.

To begin organising your literature review’s argument and structure, you need to understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly-visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat – this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarising sources in order.

Try to analyse patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organise your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text, your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasise the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”).

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, make sure to follow these tips:

• Summarise and synthesise: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole.
• Analyse and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole.
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources.
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transitions and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts.

In the conclusion, you should summarise the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasise their significance.

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section.

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarise yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your  dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

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Research Posters in the Social Sciences: Poster Guidelines

• Poster Guidelines
• Additional Resources & Examples

Introduction

A research poster is a visual representation of your research paper . Posters are usually presented at poster sessions, often as part of a conference or research symposium.  As presenter, you give a short 1-2 minute talk to others as they stop by your poster, allow them to study it, and answer questions they have about your research.

An effective poster is:

• A concise summary of your research.
• Organized and self-explanatory.
• Visually pleasing, including images or figures and text that is easy to read.

Content Guidelines

The typical sections and organization of a research poster mirror the sections of the research paper, but may be somewhat merged.  For example, the most important takeaways from your literature review can be included in your poster's introduction .

Sections of the Research Poster

• Introduction/Background
• Research Question
• Discussion/Conclusion

The title of your poster should be prominent and interesting , drawing attention and making it easy to tell what your research is about.

Beneath the title, include your name  and department.

Posters presented at conferences should also include your contact info (email), advisor's name, and your institution.

The introduction provides the context for your research. What basic background information might your audience need? How does your research fit into the scholarly conversation ( literature review )?

What is the question that guided your research and that you answered?  This section might also be framed as your research objectives .

Outline the methods you used to conduct your research.  Depending on your research methodology (survey, field research, experiment, content analysis, secondary data analysis, etc.), include: sampling method and size; instrument; experimental design; materials; data analysis, etc.  The viewer should have a clear (and concise) idea of how you collected and analyzed your data .

Outline your findings.  Save discussion of their significance/implications for the conclusion.

The conclusion is your key message and should stand out.  What is the answer to your research question ?  What is the significance of that answer?

Include all the references from your paper.

For any images you included on your poster, put credits under each image rather than with your other references.

Design and Visual Guidelines

• Use a columnar format , read left to right.
• Effectively use white space (empty space around the edges, between columns) to prevent visual overload, and avoid using too much text .
• The title and section headings should be larger than the body text.
• For your reference list, you can go down to 18-pt. if necessary.
• Using different font styles can help distinguish between headings and body text.  Do not use more than 2-3 different font styles--and do use fonts that are easy to read.
• For emphasis, use bold rather than italics.
• Use color, but keep it simple. Try not to use more than 2-3 colors .  It should add interest and visual appeal, but not be distracting.
• If color is important for interpreting parts of your poster (i.e. color-coding in a chart), avoid combinations that could be difficult for color blind readers (e.g. red and green).
• Use images to reinforce your message and add interest.
• Cite your image sources.
• See box in upper right for more guidelines on using images.

Constructing Your Poster

PowerPoint  is often used to design posters.  Customize slide size to the dimensions of your poster (if printing on a large-format printer), or to the size of paper you will put on a separate poster board.

Tri-fold poster boards work well when you don't have a separate poster stand to set up your poster on.

Geisel Library has a color printer that can print on letter- and legal-sized paper.

The campus print shop can print on paper 12x26" for $2 each.

Using Images

Including visuals such as charts and images helps to convey your message in a concise way, as well as to add visual interest.

Visuals should be carefully designed/selected to support your message and be related to the text they appear next to.

Remember, you must credit images you got from elsewhere.  Image citations go immediately beneath the image, not in your bibliography with your other sources.

For more info, see our Finding and Using Images Geisel Guide .

Citing Sources in ASA Style

For help with citing sources in ASA style:

• Citing Sources in ASA Style Tab on Sociology Geisel Guide.
• ASA Style Guide - A. Electronic Image From Thompson Rivers University Libraries.

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Presentations: Poster Content

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Poster Presentation Content

Posters are a visual representation of your research, scholarly, or creative work. Posters should be able to stand alone giving a clear concise representation of your work, without any explanation from you. Below you will find information on what content to include in your poster.  

Keep in mind - You do not have to put everything on your poster, just key points that are essential to the explanation of your project.  Handouts are good way to supply attendees with additional information that you could not include in your poster presentation. 

Tips and Tricks

Throughout a poster you act as a historian , reporter , and lawyer .

Introduction 15% - You are a Historian

Methods/Results 60% - You are a Reporter

Discussion 25% - You are a Lawyer

Title/ Heading

One of the key features of a research poster is a prominent title.  The title may be the only thing a viewer sees before they reach your poster.  Bearing that in mind, it is important that your title is short and compelling in order to capture the attention of the viewer.   

Even though this section appears first, it is often the last to be written. This section should provide viewers with a brief synopsis of the entire poster. 

Usually consists of a summarized combination of the introduction, results, and discussion sections. 

Introduction/ Background

During this section you should act as a historian, providing viewers needed information about your research topic. This section should make up about 15% of your poster and is comprised of three main parts. 

Part 1: Existing facts

In order to give viewers the "full picture", you first need to provide them with information about past research.  What facts already exist? What is already known about your research area?

Part 2: Shortcomings

Once you have highlighted past research and existing facts. You now need to address what is left to be known, or what shortcomings exist within the current information.  This should set the groundwork for your experiment.  Keep in mind, how does your research fill these gaps or help address these questions? 

Part 3: Purpose or Hypothesis

After you have addressed past/current research and have identified shortcomings/gaps, it is now time to address your research.  During this portion of the introduction you need to tell viewers why you are conducting your research experiement/study, and what you hope to accomplish by doing so. 

Materials/ Methods

In the methods and results sections of your poster you should act as a reporter.  These sections report facts about what you did and the information you gathered. 

The methods section is comprised of four parts: 

Part 1: Participants

Who or what was in the study? 

Part 2: Materials/measures:

What did you measure?

Part 3:  Procedures

How did you conduct the study?

Part 4: Data-analysis

What analysis were conducted?

This section contains FACTS - with no opinion, commentary, or interpretation. This section can be portrayed with figures and tables to cut down text from your poster.

Keep in mind when making figures: 

• Strive for simplicity - Graphics should be simple and clean in order to communicate information quickly.
• Strong titles are essential. Titles should tell a viewer what is important about the graph or what the graph shows. Keep in mind, viewers only see what you tell them to see, therefore make titles clear and concise . 
• Make sure axis and data sets are clearly labeled.
• Be sure to include captions for your graphics. Captions help explain how to read the figure and provides the viewer with additional information.

Example Graphs

Both graphs depict the same information. However, the graph on the bottom presents a more clear and concise message. 

You will notice the title of the bottom graph tells the viewer exactly what they should notice, "More than 1 in 4 Boulder Bay Public Library computer users are Hispanic or Latino".  The graph on the bottom also uses a darker color to represent Hispanic or Latino populations which draws the viewers eye to that part of the figure. 

Conclusion/ Discussion

Interpretation and commentary takes place in this section. During the conclusion/discussion section you should act as a lawyer, reminding people of why your research experiment/study is important and what significance it has to the field.  This section should make up 25% of your poster. 

In this section you should:

• Reiterate the research question/problem
• Highlight the novel or important findings. Explain the meaning of the findings and why they are significant. 
• Discuss how/if your research question was answered. Explain any new understanding or insight you have gained after you have taken the findings into consideration. 
• Highlight the importance of your research and how it may be able to contribute to and/or help fill gaps in existing research. 
• Address study limitations. 
• Make suggestions for further research

Just like when you are writing a paper a poster should include citations to any material you consulted and obtained information from while conducting your experiment/study. 

Citations are important because:

• It allows viewers to locate the material that you used, and can help viewers expand their knowledge of your research topic.  
• Indicates that you have conducted a thorough review of the literature and conducted your research from an informed perspective.
•  Guards you against intellectual theft.  Ideas are considered intellectual property failure to cite someone's ideas can have serious consequences. 

Acknowledgements

• list your funding sources (if, you have them).
• Acknowledge those who assisted you or contributed to your research. 

Best Practices for Handouts

• Your handout should be double-sided
• the first side of the paper should include a picture of your poster (this can be in black and white or color)
• The second side of the handout should include further information about your topic and your contact information.  You could include your literature review and cited references on this side. 
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PSY 224 (Campus) Research II: Scientific Investigation

Research poster project assignment.

Instead of a final exam, this course will end with a class poster session during the last class time, Monday, December 12, 2022 from 12:30-1:45 on the 2nd floor of the Shapiro Library in the Mezzanine area above the Zachos Cafe. You can either work by yourself or with one other student on your own research project, leading to a poster presentation that will address a research question of your choosing. Your poster should be in American Psychological Association (APA) format. This is an empirical research project where you will collect data. You are encouraged to conduct a survey, correlation, quasi-experiment or experiment depending on the type of question you are seeking to address. For those of you conducting survey research, you will have free access to software called Qualtrics which you can share with others with a link you can share through social media or with others in class.

Qualtrics: Description & Help links

• SNHU Qualtrics page (Instructional Support) This link opens in a new window
• Qualtrics Support: Creating a Project This link opens in a new window

Potential research questions

Below are potential research questions, general methodological approaches, free and open access test materials, and example articles for your research project, though feel free to come up with your own (but please check it with the instructor ahead of time). You will be expected to find other articles on your own using library databases. Below are  four research projects that you can choose from. The advantage of using one of the preset research questions and methodologies is that those projects are already approved by SNHU’s Institutional Research Review Board (IRB) ahead of time. The IRB is an independent ethics board that reviews research to ensure it complies with government and professional ethical guidelines. IRB-approved projects are automatically eligible to be presented at SNHU’s Undergraduate Research Day and Psychology conferences. If you choose your own research question, you have the advantage of pursuing a research question more specific to your interests, but you would need to apply for IRB approval if you want to present your research outside of class.

Research Question #1

Are cognitive biases related to how susceptible some people are to belief in conspiracy theories? This study is designed to explore how various cognitive biases, including jumping to conclusions, intentionalizing (ascribing intentionality to situations that are random or unintended), catastrophizing, emotional reasoning, and dichotomous thinking (seeing problems as extremes, without grey areas), might relate to the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. Though some studies have focused on how cognitive ability relates to conspiracy theory beliefs (van Prooijen, 2017) and other studies have focused on specific cognitive biases (van Prooijen, et al., 2018), no study has focused on multiple relevant cognitive biases together in a single empirical study.

General Ideas for Methodology

Participants will be assessed for cognitive biases using the Cognitive Bias Questionnaire for Psychosis (CBQp). Though conspiracy beliefs do not constitute a clinical psychosis, it is conceivable that both could involve similar underlying cognitive biases towards illogical and/or non-evidence-based beliefs. The results of the CBQp questionnaire will be correlated with the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories as measured by The Generic Conspiracy Beliefs Scale (GCBS).

• The Cognitive Biases Questionnaire for Psychosis (Peters et al., 2013) – This is an open-access educational resource. You can find the questionnaire in Appendix 1, pages 308-310 of this link.
• To use the interactive GCB scale test, add this text below to your Qualtrix survey:
• For this set of questions about beliefs in conspiracies, open this link in a new window or copy and paste it into a new browser tab. For each statement, select a response from disagree to agree (with neutral in the middle) that best characterizes your response in most situations. Click "Continue" when you are done. You will be asked if you are willing to answer a few more questions after clicking "Continue" but feel free to select no in response to that question. Merely click "Get results." Please take a screenshot of your results and submit it here. Please ensure your overall scores shows as well as the "5 components". Once you submit the screenshot, you have completed this survey. Thank you!

Example Articles

Here is a secondary source (article) about the psychology of conspiracy theories. Under “existential motives,” it covers how some people are drawn to conspiracy theories to feel safe and exert control over others. This article can also lead you to primary research sources.

An article showing an example of a cognitive bias, called agency detection (otherwise known as intentionality), that is associated with belief in conspiracy theories:

Douglas, K. M., Sutton, R. M., Callan, M. J., Dawtry, R. J., & Harvey, A. J. (2016). Someone is pulling the strings: Hypersensitive agency detection and belief in conspiracy theories . Thinking & Reasoning, 22 (1), 57–77. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2015.1051586

       Here is where you can find the cognitive bias questionnaire:

Peters E., Moritz S., Schwannauer M., Wiseman Z., Greenwood K.E., Scott J., et al. (2014). Cognitive biases questionnaire for psychosis . Schizophrenia Bulletin 40, 300–313. https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbs199

This article shows evidence that the conspiracy beliefs scale is valid and reliable:

Brotherton, R., French, C.C., & Pickering, A.D. (2013). Measuring the belief in conspiracy theories: The generic conspiracist beliefs scale.   Frontiers in Psychology, 4 : 279. https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00279

Research Question #2

Past research has shown that excessive use of Instagram is associated with negative mental health outcomes and poor appearance-related self-perception. Is excessive use of Instagram associated with negative mood and negative self-perception in a non-clinical population? Please note that you cannot assess clinical mental health disorders due to ethical restrictions in conducting research for an undergraduate course, but assessing mood carries less risk and would add a new angle to existing research literature.

Ask participants to estimate their average daily Instagram use in hours and minutes. Administer tests that examine mood and appearance-related self-perception. Correlate daily Instagram use with survey results related to mood and appearance-related self-perception.

• Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS)  - This is an open-access educational resource, but you are required to acknowledge that the test is from Watson, D. & Clark, L.A. (1994). Also, indicate any modifications applied.
• Selfie Behavior and Body Image on Social Networking Sites Scales - This is an open-access educational resource, but you are required to acknowledge that the test is from Veldhuis, J., Alleva, J., Bij de Vaate, A.J.D., Keijer, M. &, Konijn, E.A. (2018). Also, indicate any modifications applied.

Sample Article

Sherlock, M., & Wagstaff, D.L. (2018). Exploring the Relationship Between Frequency of Instagram Use, Exposure to Idealized Images,

and Psychological Well-Being in Women . Psychology of Popular Media Culture. 8 (4), 482-490.

Research Question #3

How do the Big 5 personality traits relate to preference for different genres of music? This would be a correlation study that would add something new by not only using the Big 5 Traits some subcomponents of those traits called facets and a new and updated test called the Big Five Inventory – 2.

Administer a test or survey that measures the Big 5 personality traits. You could measure music preference. Then see if total score for each of the Big 5 traits correlate with measures of the extent of music preference.

• Big Five Inventory – 2 (BFI-2)  - This is an open-access educational resource, but you are required to acknowledge that the test is from Soto, C.J., & Oliver, J. (2017). Also, indicate any modifications applied.
• Short Test of Music Preferences (STOMP) -  The STOMP is a 14-item scale assessing preferences for four music genres. This is an open-access educational resource, but you are required to acknowledge that the test is from Rentfrow, Goldberg, & Levitin (updated 2013). Also, indicate any modifications applied.

Nave, G., Minxha, J., Greenberg, D.M., Kosinski, M., Stillwell, D. & Rentfrow, J. (2018). Musical Preferences Predict Personality: Evidence

from Active Listening and Facebook Likes . Psychological Science, 29 (7), 1145-1158 .

Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2003). The do re mi’s of everyday life: The structure and personality correlates of music preferences .

Journal of  Personality and Social Psychology, 84 , 1236-1256.

Research Question #4

How does the emotional context of an eyewitness episode affect memory and false memory? Specifically, memory tends to be biased towards negative emotional autobiographical events, but does that translate into increased false memory as well as memory?

Run an experiment as follows: Have participants watch a YouTube video of a crime scene. Tell participants in the negative emotional context group that the video depicts an actual robbery (treatment condition). Tell participants in the neutral emotional context group that the video shows actors in a robbery scene (neutral condition). Then compare the rates of recall and false memory rates associated with each condition.

• On a scale from 1 to 5, how sure are you that your answer to this question is accurate?
• Not at all confident <1     2    3    4    5>  Absolutely confident

Show this video of an altercation from surveillance submitted to the Broward Sheriff’s Office depicting an altercation in which an armed robbery occurs against three young people on spring break (though the teenagers foil the robbery).

Have participants read an eyewitness account that suggests that the person in the red and black flannel shirt was the first to start punching the perpetrator and how one of the perpetrators briefly revealed a knife—two pieces of misinformation to setup potential false memories. Including true details before, in-between, and after the misinformation items.

Include these questions:

Control Questions

• Do the tail lights of the perpetrator’s car go on after one of the perpetrators leaves the car?
• Did the person in the blue shirt punch the perpetrator?
• At the beginning of the video, did the young person in the red and black shirt lean against the car?
• A fourth person gets out of the car to help his friends against the perpetrator.

False Memory Questions

• The person in the red and black flannel shirt was the first to start punching the perpetrator.
• One of the perpetrators briefly revealed a knife.

​​​​​​​ Remember to add the confidence rating question with each question above. See if the average confidence rating for control questions is different than that for false memory questions.

Sample article

Porter, S., Spencer, L., & Birt, A.R. (2003). Blinded by emotion? Effect of the emotionality of a scene on susceptibility to false memories.

Canadian Journal of Behavioral Science, 35 (2), 165- 175.

Other potential questions that you would need to seek IRB approval on your own should you want to present at a conference:

• Do attachment styles experienced from a person’s parents affect later relationships with peers during young adulthood? Some studies show this to be the case with adolescent participants, but few if any have examined this correlation in young adults.
• What leads to greater happiness: experiences or materials gains?
• Does color affect the taste of food?

Where to look for other research question ideas:

• Browse Addictions News for Topic Ideas This link opens in a new window
• Applied Psychology Topics: Education This link opens in a new window
• Applied Psychology Topics: Environment This link opens in a new window
• Applied Psychology Topics: Human Rights This link opens in a new window
• Applied Psychology Topics: Sports and Exercise This link opens in a new window
• APA Psychology Topics: Children
• Forensic Psychology Research Topics This link opens in a new window List of forensic psychology topics with links to overviews for each. Includes criminal competencies, criminal responsibility, death penalty, eyewitness memory, forensic assessment, juvenile offenders, etc.
• Potential Topics: APA Spotlight Articles I/O Psychology This link opens in a new window
• Mental Health topics on the National Institute of Mental Health's website This link opens in a new window
• Social Psychology search results on the American Psychological Association's website This link opens in a new window

Research Poster requirements:

Your research poster should include the following sections as shown in the examples below:

• A title box towards the top of the poster, including the names of the authors and university affiliation.
• An introduction section highlighting the problem addressed, brief literature review with citations and your hypothesis or hypotheses.
• A method section describing your participants, any materials used and what you did during the experiment (procedures).
• A results section and, if applicable, associated tables or graphs.  These panels provide your statistics relevant to the hypothesis examined.  At minimum, provide descriptive statistics.  Inferential statistics are not required but your conclusions would benefit.
• A discussion where you relate your findings to that of other studies and draw your conclusions in light of your hypothesis.
• A references list. Make sure your references include at least four references with three primary research articles. Primary articles describe studies in which the authors collected the data themselves.  References must be in APA format.  If you cannot fit four or more references into your poster, you should provide the references separately in a Word or pdf document.

Here is an example of a poster created by a student in PSY 224 last school year:

Poster templates

• Poster Template for a Survey This link opens in a new window
• Poster Template for a Correlation, Experiment, or Quasi-Experiment This link opens in a new window
• SNHU Poster Design Guide This poster design guide includes information about image size required for posters, templates for posters, SNHU logos, etc. to create high quality research posters.
• Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) APA Classroom Poster This link opens in a new window Images of sample classroom research posters in APA format available on this page.

Sample Posters

Here is an example of a poster that some students presented at the New England Psychological conference:

Here is an example of a poster based on survey research:

Poster Session details

The Poster Session will be held Monday, December 12th, 2022 during class from 12:30-1:45pm in the Wolak Library Learning Center (Shapiro Library) 2nd floor mezzanine. You will be expected to answer questions other students/visitors have about your poster. Grades will be based on the poster and participation in the poster session.

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• Next: Conducting Psychological Research >>

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Writing Abstracts and Developing Posters for National Meetings

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1 Department of Medicine, Section of Palliative Care and Medical Ethics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

R. Sean Morrison

2 Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, and the James J. Peters VA, Bronx, New York.

Presenting posters at national meetings can help fellows and junior faculty members develop a national reputation. They often lead to interesting and fruitful networking and collaboration opportunities. They also help with promotion in academic medicine and can reveal new job opportunities. Practically, presenting posters can help justify funding to attend a meeting. Finally, this process can be invaluable in assisting with manuscript preparation. This article provides suggestions and words of wisdom for palliative care fellows and junior faculty members wanting to present a poster at a national meeting describing a case study or original research. It outlines how to pick a topic, decide on collaborators, and choose a meeting for the submission. It also describes how to write the abstract using examples that present a general format as well as writing tips for each section. It then describes how to prepare the poster and do the presentation. Sample poster formats are provided as are talking points to help the reader productively interact with those that visit the poster. Finally, tips are given regarding what to do after the meeting. The article seeks to not only describe the basic steps of this entire process, but also to highlight the hidden curriculum behind the successful abstracts and posters. These tricks of the trade can help the submission stand out and will make sure the reader gets the most out of the hard work that goes into a poster presentation at a national meeting.

Introduction

A track record of successful presentations at national meetings is important for the junior academic palliative medicine clinician. Unfortunately, palliative care fellows report minimal training in how to even start the process by writing the abstract. 1 What follows is a practical, step-by-step guide aimed at the palliative care fellow or junior palliative care faculty member who is hoping to present original research or a case study at a national meeting. We will discuss the rationale for presenting at national meetings, development of the abstract, creation and conduct of the presentation, as well as what to do after the meeting. We will draw on the literature where available 2 – 7 and on our experience where data are lacking. We will focus on the development of posters rather than oral presentations or workshops as these are typically the first and more common experiences for junior faculty and fellows. Finally, in addition to discussing the nuts and bolts of the process, we will also focus on the “hidden curriculum” behind the successful submissions and poster presentations (see Table 1 ).

The Hidden Curriculum: Tips To Get the Most Out of Your Submission

Why Present at National Meetings?

Given that it takes a fair amount of work to put together an abstract and presentation, it is fair to ask what is to be gained from the effort. The standard answer is that presentations at national meetings aid in the dissemination of your findings and help further the field. Although this is certainly true, there are also several practical and personal reasons that should hold at least equal importance to fellows or junior faculty members (see Table 2 ). Perhaps most importantly, presenting at a national meeting helps develop your national reputation. People will begin to know your name and associate it with the topic you are presenting. Additionally, it provides an opportunity to network and collaborate, which can then lead to other projects. Many of us have begun life-long collaborative relationships after connecting with someone at a national meeting. Even if you don't make a personal connection at the meeting, if people begin to associate your name with a topic, they will often reach out to you when they need an expert to sit on a committee, write a paper, or collaborate on a project.

Personal Reasons To Present Abstracts/Posters

Development of a national reputation is important not only in garnering interesting opportunities, but it is also key to career advancement. For fellows, presenting at national meetings can forge connections with future employers and lead to that all-important “first job.” For junior faculty, demonstration of a national reputation is often the main criterion for promotion and presentations at national meetings help establish this reputation. 8 Junior faculty may also make connections that lead to potential job opportunities of which they might not otherwise have been aware.

There are three additional practical reasons to present at a national meeting. First, having something accepted for presentation is often the only way your department will reimburse your trip to the meeting. Second, going through the work of abstract submission and presentation helps tremendously in manuscript preparation. It provides a deadline and forces you to organize your thoughts, analyze your data, and place them in an understandable format. This makes the eventual job of writing the manuscript much less daunting. Third, presenting also allows you to get immediate feedback, which can then make the manuscript stronger before it is submitted. Such feedback often gives the presenter additional ideas for analyses, alternate explanations for findings, and ideas regarding future directions.

Although these personal and practical reasons for presenting are derived from our own experiences, they are concordant with the survey results of 219 presenters at the Society of General Internal Medicine Annual Meeting. 9 This survey also highlighted how posters and oral presentations can meet these needs differently. For example, for these presenters, posters were preferred for getting feedback and criticism and for networking and collaborating. Oral presentations, on the other hand, were preferred for developing a national reputation and sharing important findings most effectively. For all of these reasons, many academic centers have developed highly effective programs for trainees and junior faculty to help encourage submissions 10 , 11 so it is wise to seek out such programs if they exist in your home institution.

Getting Started

Realizing the importance of presenting at national meetings may be the easy part. Actually getting started and putting together a submission is where most fall short. The critical first step is to pick something that interests you. For original research, hopefully your level of interest was a consideration at the beginning of the project, although how anxious you are to work on the submission may be a good barometer for your true investment in the project.

For case studies, make sure the topic, and ideally the case, fuel a passion. Unlike original research, in which mentors and advisors are usually established at study conception, case studies often require you to seek appropriate collaborators when contemplating submission. It is the rare submission that comes from a single author. In choosing collaborators, look for a senior mentor with experience submitting posters and an investment in both you and the topic. There is nothing more disheartening for the junior clinician than having to harass a mentor whose heart is not in the project.

Another critical step is to choose the right meeting for the submission. Although many submissions may be to palliative care meetings (e.g., American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine), there is great benefit to both the field and your career in presenting at other specialty meetings. Presentations at well-recognized nonpalliative care meetings further legitimize the field, increase your national visibility, and lead to interesting and fruitful collaborations. Additionally, these types of presentations may be looked on with more favor by people reviewing your CV who are not intimately familiar with the world of palliative care. Table 1 presents some questions you should discuss with your mentor and ask yourself when choosing a meeting. Some of these questions may have conflicting answers, and you should be thoughtful in weighing what is most important.

Once you have chosen your meeting, go to the meeting's website and review all of the instructions. Check requirements regarding what material can be presented. For example, many meetings will allow you to present data that were already presented at a regional meeting but not data that were previously presented at another national meeting. Most meetings also do not allow you to present data that are already published, although it is generally acceptable to submit your abstract at the same time you submit your paper for publication. If the paper is published before the meeting, make sure to inform the committee—most often you will still be able to present but will be asked to note the publication in your presentation. Regarding the submission, most conferences have very specific instructions and the rules are strict. The applications are generally online with preset fields and word limits. It is helpful to examine review criteria and deadlines for submission, paying particular attention to time zones. Finally, it can be invaluable to read published abstracts from the last meeting and to talk with prior presenters to get a sense of the types of abstracts that are accepted.

The next step is to start writing. The key to success is to leave enough time as there are often unavoidable and unplanned technical issues with the online submission that you will confront. Additionally, you will want to leave time to get input from all of the authors and from people who have not been primarily involved in the project—to make sure that a “naïve” audience understands the message of the abstract. Finally, remember that an abstract/poster does not have to represent all of the data for a study and can just present an interesting piece of the story.

Most submissions require several rewrites. These can become frustrating, but it is important to realize that there is a very specific language for these types of submissions that your mentor should know and that you will learn over time. The most common issue is the need to shorten the abstract to fit the word limit. Strategies to ensure brevity include using the active voice, employing generic rather than trade names for drugs and devices, and avoiding jargon and local lingo. Use no more than two or three abbreviations and always define the abbreviations on first use. Do a spelling/grammar check and also have someone proofread the document before submitting. References are generally not included on abstracts. Most importantly, be concise, write lean, and avoid empty phrases such as “studies show.” A review of 45 abstracts submitted to a national surgical meeting found that concise abstracts were more likely to be accepted, 12 and this small study certainly reflects our experiences as submitters and reviewers.

The Abstract for an Original Research Study

The styles of abstracts for original studies vary. Guidelines exist for manuscript abstracts reporting various types of original research (CONSORT, 13 – 15 IDCRD, 16 PRISMA, 17 QUOROM, and STROBE 18 ) and review of these guidelines can be helpful to provide a format. There are also guidelines that exist for evaluating conference abstracts that may be informative, such as the CORE-14 guidelines for observational studies. 19 In general, a structured abstract style is favored. 20 – 21 In this paper, we will present general styles for each type of abstract that will need to be adapted to the type of study and the rules of the conference. Table 3 outlines the general format for an abstract for original research. Each section contains tips for how to write the section, rather than example text from a study. Therefore, you may find it most helpful to review the figures alongside examples of previously accepted abstracts.

Abstract for an Original Research Study

In any abstract, it is particularly important to focus on the title as it is often the only item people will look at while scanning the meeting program or wandering through the poster session. It should be no more than 10–12 words 2 and should describe what was investigated and how, instead of what was found. It should be engaging, but be cautious with too much use of humor as this can become tiresome and distracting. Below the title, list authors and their affiliations. The remaining sections of the abstract are discussed in the figure.

The Abstract for a Case Study

The abstract for a case study contains many of the same elements as the abstract for original research with a few important differences. Most importantly, you need to use the abstract to highlight the importance of the issue the case raises and convince the reader that both the case and the issue are interesting, novel, and relevant. A general format is provided in Table 4 .

Abstract for a Case Study

Preparing Posters

Once the abstract is prepared, submitted, and, hopefully, accepted, your next job is to prepare the presentation. Whereas a few select abstracts are typically selected for oral presentation (usually 8–10 minutes followed by a short question-and-answer period), the majority of submitted abstracts will be assigned to poster sessions. (Readers interested in advice for oral presentations are referred to reference 22 ). Posters are large (generally approximately 3 × 6 ft) visual representations of your work. Most posters are now one-piece glossy prints from graphics departments or commercial stores, although increasingly academic departments have access to printing facilities that may be less expensive than commercial stores. Additionally, many meetings now partner with on-site printing services, which are convenient and reasonably priced. Generally, the material is prepared on a PowerPoint (or equivalent) slide and this is given to the production facility. The easiest way to prepare your first poster is to ask your institution if it has a preferred or required template. If such a template does not exist, ask for a trusted colleague's slide from an accepted poster. This gives you the format and institutional logos, and you simply need to modify the content. In preparing your poster for printing, review the meeting instructions and try to make your poster as close to the maximum dimensions as possible. Try to complete the poster early to allow for production delays. Consider shipping your poster to the conference or carry it in a protective case and check with the airline regarding luggage requirements. On-site printing eliminates travel hassles but does not allow much time for any problems that may arise.

What goes on the poster?

Both the content and the visual appeal of the poster are important. In fact, one study found that visual appeal was more important than content for knowledge transfer. 23 Although the poster expands the content of your abstract, resist the urge to include too much information. It is helpful to remember the rule of 10s: the average person scans your poster for 10 seconds from 10 feet away. When someone stops, you should be able to introduce your poster in 10 seconds and they should be able to assimilate all of the information and discuss it with you in 10 minutes. 3 Figures 1 and ​ and2 2 show the layouts of posters for a case and for an original study. The general rule is to keep each section as short and simple as possible, which allows for a font large enough (nothing smaller than 24 point 4 ) for easy reading of the title from 10 feet away and the text from 3–5 feet away. Leave blank space and use colors judiciously. Easily read and interpretable figures and simple tables are more visually appealing than text, and they are typically more effective in getting one's message across. It is helpful to get feedback on one's poster before finalizing and printing—ideally from people not familiar with the work to get a true objective view.

Poster for original research.

Poster for case study.

Although it may seem simple enough to prepare a good poster, many fall short. One author reviewed 142 posters at a national meeting and found that 33% were cluttered or sloppy, 22% had fonts that were too small to be easily read, and 38% had research objectives that could not be located in a 1-minute review. 5 Another study of an evaluation tool for case report posters found that the areas most needing improvement were statements of learning objectives, linkages of conclusions to learning objectives, and appropriate amount of words. 24

The Poster Presentation

Posters are presented at “Poster Sessions,” which are designated periods during the meeting when presenters stand by their posters while conference attendees circulate through the room. Refreshments are often served during these sessions and the atmosphere is generally more relaxed and less stressful than during oral presentations. Additionally, the one-on-one contact allows greater opportunity for discussion, feedback, and networking. Awards are often presented to the best posters and ribbons may designate these posters during the session.

The first step to a successful poster presentation is to simply show up. Surveys of conference attendees clearly indicate that it is necessary for the presenter to be with his/her poster for effective communication of the results. 23 This is also your time to grow your reputation, network, and get feedback, so do not miss the opportunity to reap the rewards of your hard work. In preparation, read any specific conference instructions and bring business cards and handouts of the poster or related materials. While standing at your poster, make eye contact with people who approach but allow them to finish reading before beginning a discussion. 4 As noted above, you should be prepared to introduce your poster in 10 seconds then answer questions and discuss as needed. Practicing your introduction and answers to common questions with colleagues before the meeting can be invaluable. Before your presentation, your mentor should also contact important people in the field related to your topic and ask them to come by your poster. You should have a list of these people and know who they are and when they are coming. Standard questions you may ask are included in Table 1 . You should also have prepared questions targeted specifically for each of the people your mentor has contacted. You should then suggest these people as reviewers when you submit your manuscript.

After the Presentation

After the presentation, key steps remain to get the most out of the process. First, ask for feedback so you can make adjustments for the next presentation. Also, think about what parts of the poster you can use for other reasons. It is often helpful to export a graph or figure to use in future presentations. The key is to “double-dip” and use everything to its fullest extent. In addition, to make the maximal use of the networking opportunities you should follow up with anyone who asked for more information or inquired about collaborations. In the excitement of the meeting anything seems possible, but it is easy to lose that momentum when you get home. In one study, only 29% of presenters replied to requests for additional information, and they generally took over 30 days to respond. 25

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it is critical to write up your work for publication. Although posters are important, publications are the true currency of academia. Unfortunately, the percentage of abstracts that are eventually published is low. 26 When asked why they had yet to publish, respondents in one study 27 cited: lacked time (46%), study still in progress (31%), responsibility for publication belonged to someone else (20%), difficulty with co-authors (17%), and low priority (13%). Factors that have been shown to increase the likelihood of abstract publication include: oral presentation (as opposed to a poster), statistical analysis, number of authors, and university affiliation. 28 – 31 Time to publication is generally about 20 months. 29

Conclusions

Writing abstracts and developing posters for national meetings benefit the field in general and the junior clinician in particular. This process develops critical skills and generates innumerable opportunities. We have presented a stepwise approach based on the literature and our personal experiences. We have also highlighted the hidden curriculum that separates the successful submissions from the rest of the pack. Hopefully, these tools will help palliative care fellows and junior faculty more easily navigate the process and benefit the most from the work they put into their projects.

Acknowledgments

Dr. Morrison is supported by a Mid-Career Investigator Award in Patient Oriented Research from the National Institute on Aging (K24 AG022345). A portion of this work was funded by the National Palliative Care Research Center.

Author Disclosure Statement

No competing financial interests exist.

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