Poster Revision Assignment 1.1 2008/03/25 09:23:52.995 GMT-5 2008/03/28 13:27:43.542 GMT-5 Cain Project cainproject@mailman.rice.edu Cain Project cainproject@mailman.rice.edu Communication Poster Writing In this assignment from a writing course for upper-level bioscience majors at Rice University, students revise an existing scientific poster. The content of the poster is only appropriate for an upper-level bioscience student, but the assignment serves as an example of what can be done with an existing poster in any course or discipline. This document contains a link to the poster (in pdf format) that students are asked to revise. (In the real assignment, students were provided the PowerPoint file of the poster.)

Overview For this assignment you will revise the accompanying scientific poster. Your revision should improve the document’s organization, layout, use of visuals and color, and the conciseness of the text.

Purpose Researchers use posters to present current research to their colleagues at conferences. By revising a scientific poster, you will practice using PowerPoint as a poster design tool, learn ways to balance and incorporate both visual and verbal information, and develop strategies for designing a clear, accurate, and aesthetically pleasing poster.

Tasks We will provide you with a poster adapted from a “real” poster designed by a graduate student in a molecular biology laboratory. Because we have made some changes to the author’s poster to provide ample opportunities for revision, we have removed his name from the document. We will provide the poster in paper form and electronically as a PowerPoint file. In addition, we will provide the author’s raw data in paper form and electronically as an Excel file so that you may re-create any figures you wish. Use the strategies we discuss in class to revise the poster. Be sure to correct the following errors: Organization and Layout. The overall organization and layout of the poster are ineffective. While no significant information is missing, you will need to reorganize the poster to better enable readers to understand the poster’s message and to create a poster that is more aesthetically pleasing. Use of Visuals. The visuals are not reader-friendly. Use strategies we have discussed in class to revise the visuals and/or their captions. Use of Color. The use of color throughout the poster hinders the comprehension of its message. Revise the use of color throughout the poster to make the poster easier to read. Conciseness. While the information in the poster is accurate, the poster is too wordy and too text-heavy. Revise the poster for conciseness. To do so, you may reword sentences, use bulleted lists, or eliminate text that you feel is unnecessary.

Submission Provide an 8 1/2” x 11” color printout of your revised poster in class and submit your PowerPoint file to Owl-space no later than 5 p.m. on the due date.

Evaluation We will evaluate your poster revision according to the following criteria: Organization of the poster is logical; layout of the information helps viewers understand the poster’s message Visuals are properly referenced and captioned, and all visuals effectively communicate their data Color is used properly to make the poster easier to read Conciseness is improved