While this blog is mainly about poster sessions, poster sessions happen in the larger context of academic conferences. I love conferences, and part of the reason I write this blog is so that people can have good experiences at those conference sessions. Those good experiences do not include harassment. That�s why
this blog post by Timoth�e Poisot is this month�s must read:
Across all ecologists we surveyed, 37% witnessed harassment, and 24% experienced it, at least once, only taking into account what happens during scientific meetings. This� wow, this is a lot. ...
1 out of 3 people is not an epi-phenomenon.
The post also shows strong support for organizers to be much more active in dealing with harassment. If you�re involved in organizing a conference, there are steps you can take to make them better and more welcoming.
Take them.
I�ve often lamented that most posters are designed by amateurs. I have rarely seen a case for using professionals as compelling as this ad, which was a full page in several American newspapers:
It�s an attractive and well designed ad. Except for one thing.
The brain is backwards.Not being able to get a brain the right way round is
not the signal you want to send when you are trying to announce a �new era of discovery in brain research.� There are
professionals who do medical illustration stuff for a living. Hire one. (Hat tip to
Mo Costandi.)
The bar graph is a standard way of presenting data. A
new PLOS Biology paper argues that it�s a bad way regardless of its ubiquity. Hat tip to
Gaetan Burgio and Michael Hendricks.
Nevertheless, the humble bar chart is likely to remain a major workhorse for data presentation for a long time. Here is a
short list of good tips. Hat tip to
Garr Reynolds.
I Want Hue bills itself as a tool for �data scientists.� Its claims:
Distributing colors evenly, in a perceptively coherent space, constrained by user-friendly settings, to generate high quality custom palettes.
Looks interesting. Not sure why the colours jiggle when you make palettes, though. Hat tip to
Dean Malmgren and Justin Kiggins.
I�ve always been skeptical when I�ve heard mathematicians and others wax rhapsodic about the �golden ratio.�
This article calls it �design�s biggest myth,� and I��m inclined to agree. But maybe that�s just my confirmation bias. Hat tip to
Tommy Leung.
Peter Newbury
asked:
Conf poster style question: do you use present tense, as in �results are calculated by...� instead of �results were calculated by�?
This isn�t just a conference poster question, but a general scientific writing question. In general, any methods are in past tense, because you�re describing something that already happened. Results are often in present tense, because the effect you�re describing should be generalizable to past, present, and future situations. To put it another way, we write �E
is equal to mc squared,� because it�s always true. You might write �E was equal to mc squared� if it was only true once.
Graphic designer
Ellen Lupton has a book
coming out in June that was an instant pre-order for me:
How Posters Work.
Expect a review as soon as it arrives and I devour it, as I surely will. There is an
art exhibit to check out if you�re in the New York area.
Haas Unica is an
old typeface that has been made new again. It�s the sort of sans serif workhorse that works well in posters. Hat tip to
Timoth�e Poisot and Genegeek.
Jarrett Fuller ruminates on his
love of all sorts of posters, not just academic ones.
Throughout history, you could group posters into three purposes: to inform, to persuade or encourage, and to commemorate. Sometimes it straddles the lines between each of these, but the poster�s purpose must always involve one of them.
Alex Holcombe
wants you to know this.
Each word you put on your poster reduces conference-attendee approaches by 0.2%. People need to know my invented statistic.
Now they know, Alex.
Now they know.
