Research Poster: Content

This CommKit article is inspired by and an update to the original Poster CommKit by Diana Chien and Scott Olesen. You can find more annotated examples and poster templates at the end of the original CommKit.

What is a poster session?

Poster sessions are a common feature of conferences, symposiums, and workshops. At a typical poster session, presenters stand next to their posters while the audience walks around. If someone is interested in your poster, they will walk up to you and start a conversation. This conversation can range from a simple overview to an in-depth discussion of your work.

Poster sessions often rotate presenters, so you will also have an opportunity to be an audience member. During this time, people may walk up to your poster when you are not there. If they’re interested, they can come back to chat later or reach out via email. A great poster will be interesting, understandable, and engaging with and without you there to present it.

What is a poster? 

A poster is a static accompaniment to the scientific discussions at poster sessions. There is limited space and time for discussion, so posters are less detailed than a typical manuscript or presentation. Instead, a poster should focus on your main takeaway using figures and supporting text. A good poster draws your audience in and guides them through the information you want to communicate. 

Criteria for Success

For a successful research poster…

1. Identify your main message.
2. Create a title that attracts your audience.
3. Present your key progress and/or results.
4. Use clear figures and supporting text to communicate the main message.
5. Practice your 60-second pitch.
6. Prepare for dynamic interactions at a poster session.

We are tackling the different aspects of research posters in three separate CommKit articles. Click on the one you’d like to learn about…

Structure Diagram

While posters can have many different layouts, they typically include the following sections:

• Title
• Background/Introduction
• Methods (optional, can vary in detailedness)
• Results
• Conclusion
• References
• Acknowledgements, authorship, funding sources, etc.

Before designing your poster, consider what content you plan to include in your poster and approximately how much space you will need for each section. Curating the content of your poster is the main focus of this CommKit article. 

Identify Your Purpose

At its core, a poster session is an opportunity to present your science. On top of that, you may have more specific communication goals. For example, maybe you want to get insight on an unexpected result or seek out future collaborators. 

Here are some examples of desired outcomes and how to tailor your poster design accordingly:

• Hear feedback on planned manuscript: outline your overarching research story and then focus on the results and conclusions that will feature in your manuscript 
• Present preliminary results: detail overarching project goals, outline your initial results, and dedicate extra space to potential future directions
• Get feedback on unexpected results: outline the expected versus obtained results and focus your discussion on possible interpretations/implications 
• Advertise a new method to potential users: compare your method to existing method(s) and discuss how people can get started with your method (for example: a QR code linking your protocol or manuscript)
• Find future collaborators: include key ideas and results, but focus on how these results link to future directions with an emphasis on possible collaborations
• Networking: highlight the specific skills and experiments you have gained during your research experience(s) and focus future directions on your personal goals
• Present your cool science: oftentimes your first poster session will be a learning experience where you present your science and interact with your peers – have fun!

Analyze Your Audience

Who is at a poster session?

Conferences draw many different types of attendees, ranging from academia (undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, research scientists, professors) to industry (sales representatives, industry scientists). These audience members may yield different poster interactions:

Engage with your audience without overwhelming them

People at poster sessions are often bored and overwhelmed; there are so many posters, so little time and mental bandwidth. Instead of trying to present every interesting detail and nuance of your science, a good poster communicates key information clearly and quickly. This allows your audience to quickly assess whether they want to engage with your poster or move on to another one. 

Skills

Content: compose a strong title that speaks to your audience

A poster title summarizes the main idea you want to get across. It should be easily understood, concise, and exciting. An overly-specific or detailed title is intimidating and not inviting. 

To write a strong title: (1) pick out the key concepts/results of your poster; (2) phrase them at a level appropriate to your audience; and (3) link the ideas together with as few words as possible. 

For example:

• A complicated title: Engineering Esescheria coli to inhibit biofilm formation using a dual AI-2 quorum quenching and AI-2 responsive biofilm destruction genetic circuit 
• Key concepts: biofilm inhibition, genetic circuit, AI-2 responsive
• Simplify and shorten: Inhibition of biofilm formation using an AI-2 responsive genetic circuit

Example recreated/adapted from poster by Sarah Nemsick.

Strong tiles are also specific to the audience. Audiences at more focused, field-specific conferences (e.g. Gordon conferences) will have higher levels of expertise, requiring less background and context, while audiences at general conferences (e.g. BMES, AIChE etc.) will range in levels of expertise, potentially requiring more background and context. 

Here is an example of tailoring a title for different audiences:

• Expert audience (neurogenomics conference): Dopamine drives persistent epigenetic and transcription remodeling of the post-partum mouse brain 
• Familiar audience (biology conference): Dopamine drives persistent remodelling of the maternal brain
• General audience (general “STEM” conference): Becoming a mother leaves long-lasting molecular memories

Paper titles retrieved/adapted from: 

• O’Chan, J.C., Di Salvo, G., Cunningham, A.M. et al. Dopamine drives persistent remodelling of the maternal brain. Nature 654, 465–475 (2026). 
• Frances A. Champagne. Becoming a mother leaves long-lasting molecular memories. Nature 654, 327-328 (2026)

Content: provide necessary context & motivation

The background, introduction, etc. section of a poster gives your audience the context necessary to engage with your research. Even at a specialized conference, your audience may not be as familiar with your area as you are. If you start discussing complicated results without giving sufficient background, your audience will be confused and disengaged. 

A good introduction (1) defines overarching terminology and concepts; and (2) motivates why your audience should care. 

When deciding what to define in your introduction and to what depth, assess the core concepts of your project and break them down into three categories:

Example recreated/adapted from poster by Sarah Nemsick (the 1st poster in the annotated examples at the end of this article).

When deciding how to motivate your project, consider what would excite your audience. An expert audience member may be excited about specific results and their implications for the field, while a general audience member may be interested in how your project relates to the bigger picture. For example, for the research shown in the Introduction example, the motivations are:

• Specific motivations: We can hijack the existing AI-2 quorum sensing pathways in bacteria to engineer quorum-quenching and biofilm-destroying E. coli
• Broader motivations: biofilms make bacterial infections more dangerous and difficult to treat; engineered bacteria may help prevent their formation and supplement current treatment regimens.
• General motivation: engineered bacteria can be a novel approach to treating biofilms in the real world.

It can be helpful to include motivations at different levels. Exactly which one(s) depends on your expected audience; however, be prepared to verbally motivate your project at all levels – you never know who might show up! 

Content: when to include methods

Whether to include a dedicated methods section is often a research-specific question. Research methods are often lightly discussed in the introduction and/or results section(s), so including a separate methods section can be redundant. Common reasons for including a methods section include if you developed a new method or applied an existing method in a notable way, or if the underlying method is core to understanding your research.

Content: prioritize key results

After you’ve set the stage with your title and introduction, most of the poster and your presentation of it will be spent discussing your results. What results you present can vary: an early stage project may focus on preliminary results and planned experiments, while a late stage project may present multiple results from an upcoming manuscript. However, unlike a manuscript with many figures and detailed captions, a poster has limited space. Therefore, you need to be selective on which results to include. A good results section prioritizes quality over quantity: focus on a few key, easily-interpretable, well-presented results.

When deciding which results to include on your poster, ask: “what are the minimum results necessary to communicate [your] main message and key takeaway(s)?” Then, distill those results into the simplest figures possible – clarity and interpretability are key! These figures may be plots, diagrams, tables, etc., and should be supplemented with sparse textual interpretation of said figures. This will be discussed further in the Poster Design article. 

If there are additional results that you don’t have space for but might be asked about, consider preparing “extra” materials for the poster session. For example, a QR code linking a website (preprint, manuscript, shareable powerpoint, etc.) or a virtual PDF and/or physical printout of additional materials. You can also encourage audience members to reach out via email for followup discussions. 

Content: consider the goals when writing the conclusion

The conclusion section of a poster summarizes the key results, puts those results into the larger context, and discusses future implications, directions, etc.. It is analogous to the discussion section of a paper. When preparing your conclusion section, consider your poster’s purpose and your project’s motivations, as outlined above. Then, tailor your conclusion around these. For example:

Purpose: advertise a new method to potential users

• Discuss what gap your new method/technology fills – what motivated its creation?
• Suggest future uses or questions that can be explored using this method – what is the impact of your new method?
• Additional info: list your email or provide a QR code linking to paper and/or protocol PDF for interested users

Purpose: get feedback on unexpected results

• Discuss your results and how they differ from expectations – why are these surprising?
• Describe how these results in the context of the motivations of your project – what is the impact of your results? 
• Suggest and/or request future experiments to explore this question further – what next?

The conclusion is the last section of your poster that the audience will interact with. Make sure the tone is positive and exciting – you want them to remember your poster!

Content: addressing authorship, citations, funding, etc.

Like a manuscript, a poster should acknowledge its authors/contributors, key citations, and funding sources. 

Authorship

Poster authorship is typically the same as the associated manuscript author list. This is often field-dependent. Determining authorship can be tricky, so when in doubt, check with your professor!

Here is an example author list:

Priya Protein1,2†, George Genome1,2†, Vivian Virus3, Andreas Amino3, Kieran Kinase3, Muhammad Mitosis1,2
† these authors contributed equally to this work
1 Department of Biological Engineering, MIT, 2 Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, 3 Department of Biology, Harvard

The poster presenter is commonly highlighted using bolding and/or underlining. Institutional information can be truncated for space on a poster (compared to spelled out in manuscripts), such as using abbreviations like MIT.

Citations 

Posters, like all scientific communication, should be properly sourced and cited, with an added consideration for limited space. When this becomes a challenge, prioritize including major sources. For example: citing (1) the source of a figure you used; (2) a review that describes the key concepts in your introduction; (3) the method you are using. 

Citations can be listed on posters in different ways; here are three common examples (one or two may be used on the same poster):

1. Citing source(s) directly within poster contents
2. List of citations at end of poster
3. QR code listing citations on separate virtually accessible document

Given space limitations, posters often use truncated citation formats:

• “Small Citation Style”: First author initial. Last name, Abbreviated Journal Title Year, volume, page range.

e.g.: J.C. O’Chan, Nature 2026, 654, 465–475.

• Listing Digital Object Identifier (DOI) numbers and/or links

e.g.: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10509-4

Funding sources 

Posters should acknowledge all funding sources for you and the project. This information can be obtained by asking your professor, lab administrator, or the person(s) responsible for lab finances.

Funding sources can be listed on posters in different ways; here are three common examples (again, one or two may be used on the same poster):

1. Include funding source logos on poster
2. Include funding sources acknowledgement at end of poster
3. QR code listing all funding sources on separate virtually accessible document

Other acknowledgements

Sometimes projects have collaborators, mentors, etc. that are not in the author list but still warrant giving acknowledgement. These individuals can be thanked in an acknowledgement section. 

Resources and Annotated Examples

Annotated Undergraduate Posters

Four annotated examples of undergraduate research posters 11 MB