Presenting Your Research

Research and Economic Development Division

 

Share your research with a wider audience

Once you feel prepared, presenting your research through a poster or oral presentation at an event or conference is a great way to inform others about the work that inspires you. Below you will find tips and resources for preparing materials for presentations.

You will likely need to prepare an abstract to accompany your registration or proposal for a conference.

 

What is an abstract and how do you write it?

Whether you’re planning to present a poster or a talk, you’ll need to write an abstract that describes your work in a concise and interesting way. This is a tool for advertising your work to a large audience. Once you have a working draft, compare it to this rubric to ensure you’ve appropriately addressed important content. Take a look at the abstract scoring rubric for guidance on how your work will be reviewed and received by an outside audience.

The abstract is a quick overview or summary of the paper and contains the following:

• Purpose or rationale of the study – why researcher(s) asked this question

• Methodology – briefly, how they did it

• Key results

• Conclusion – what it means

 **Be sure to have your abstract ready to upload when registering for URID. Please follow the abstract guidelines when developing and uploading your abstract.**

 

How to prepare for an oral talk

Many conferences and venues for sharing research offer participants the chance to give a talk. In general, these are called oral or concurrent sessions. They are concurrent because there are multiple sessions and venues where talks occur at the same time.

The conference organizers can tell you how much time you have to speak, often talks run about 15 minutes, which include a 10-minute talk + a question and answer session. Sessions are moderated by someone keeping time and facilitating the questions.

You may not have audience questions, that’s fine! Just be prepared to discuss your research with curious audience members.

 

How to prepare a scientific poster

Posters are a popular way to convey scientific research. When planning to create a poster, students should prepare a brief talk that provides a high-level overview of their poster and research and prepare answer questions from an audience who will walk through the poster session. Review the rubric for poster presentations to determine whether your poster is ready for prime time!

• Presenters must be available to discuss their posters during the session.

• Posters must be readable from at least three feet away.

• Our stands are 48", therefore your maximum poster height is 45".