ADVICE TO PRESENTERS

Keep your prepared oral remarks about your poster between three and five minutes. If the legislator is interested, he or she will ask more questions. Remove as much jargon as possible from your remarks. To practice this, find someone who has never taken a course in your subject, such as a parent or friend, and give your remarks to that person. If you lose your friendly listener, rework your presentation.

Be ready for questions! You may hear, "So what did you learn? / What did you get out of this?" DON'T say something like, "Well, I learned that [the name of some unpronounceable enzyme] will catalyze the decomposition of [some unpronounceable chemical] in the ground up livers of [some special strain of] rats." INSTEAD, discuss how valuable the project was to your personal growth as a scholar and as a future member of the work force

Perhaps it helped you choose a career or changed your thought process about your career path. Tell them that your undergraduate research experience occurred because your college explicitly permitted and/or encouraged the activity within the undergraduate curriculum. You might also consider talking about the value of getting to know your faculty research advisor through your work on the project.

For additional tips for a successful poster event, click here.