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----Virtual Poster Session II----
General Introduction
The vast majority of the research which is presented at scientific meetings is presented in the poster format. The poster format permits many scientists to present the results of their work at national and international meetings in a setting which allows for maximum interaction with their colleagues. The poster presents the research in a fairly standard format with a brief introduction, a short description of the methods, a comprehensive but concise results section, and a brief discussion or conclusions section. At poster sessions scientists stand in front of their poster and meet with people who come to look at their research. Generally the people who go to the poster session to look at posters focus on those posters in their area of expertise. Thus, the experts engage in a dialog about a specific research problem and exchange their views and information with each other.
An Experiment:
The advent of electronic communication and the
ability to access data via the internet has widened the possibilities
for communicating science. Now, research reesults can be
presented in scientific papers that are available to anyone,
worldwide via "Online Publishing". Each group will put together
an electronic poster (see instructions below) and the posters will be
displayed at the course web site. This will give students and
faculty experience with communicating scientific results in an
entirely new format.
Specific Instructions
In this poster is you will be writing about your work to determine the correctness of your hypotheses about RUBISCO gene expression.
The sections (or pages) of the electronic poster will be organized
in a traditional format for presentation of scientific
research: Title and Introduction, Methods, Results,
Discussion/Conclusion.
This is the home page for the poster. It should include:
1. A title
2. Authors, with email addresses (direct links to eamil can be designed
into the web page)
3. Links to each of the sections of the poster
4. Abstract - 200 words or less - summerizing your poster- what problem was addressed?, how was the problem approached?, what were the major results?, what conclusions were drawn? - I recommend saving this to the end to write.
This page may be as fancy as you want and contain as many pictures
as you would like to have on it. However any picture you use
off another website should be cited!! Your other pages however
should be more subtle and contain a minium number of pictures and
designs. The should focus on the content of the page rather
than flashy designs.
An introduction to the project, include specifics about the Rubisco gene, facts that allowed you to draw your hypothesis, and other necessary information for someone coming into the class next semester to understand what you did and why you did it. A scientific introduction usually starts with a review of the literature pertaining to the work you are doing. You should incude at least three primiary literature articles in your sources. Cite these referenes in the reference page. Also, although it may seem redundant don't forget to specifically state your hypotheis for the project. What did you set out to accomplish? Most papers make this idea the last statement of the introduction and move from broad topics to more and more specific ideas.
Methods Page(s):
Outline all of the steps used in generating the data which are presented in the Results section. You can link to the protocols at the molecular web site (rather than write them all out again) but explain in a sentence or two about each step besides providing a link but make sure someone just starting this class could follow your work. Anything you did differently from the protocols given should be indicated in this section.
Results Page(s):
This is the heart and soul of the poster. What were your results ? The data should be clearly presented and should tell the story. Besides presenting your results in Figures and/or Tables, also describe your results in the text. Refer to all Figure and Tables in order in the text. Figures should be clearly labeled so that someone can fully evaluate the data without you having to explain it to them as they look at it. You do not have to put the results into this section in the same order that we did them in class.
Things to include:
Discussion Page:
Discuss the reasons for choosing the plants that you picked.
Interpret your PCR results, is the chloroplast found in all of your
plant species?
Interpret your Western Blot results, do they match they hypothesis
you came up with or lead you to a new conclusion?
Discuss the process you used and any problems you might have
encountered
What is the next step you could do to further this research?
Don't foget that you also may want to bring more primary literature into the picture to help explain your conclusions!
Again note that this section should read like a story - place this section as much as possible in the same order as you put your results.
Evaluation
This web poster will be worth 120 pts total. One hundred of those points will be awarded by the lab instructor. Twenty of the points will be based on a team member grade for your effort on the poster.
Evaluation criteria
Here is the guide that the grading scale is based on for evaluation of your e-posters:
To guide you in your evaluation, here are some things to think about.
Title Page:
Does it communicate accurately the subject of
the poster?
Are all the elements there and do the links
take you where they should?
Is abstract clearly written and include an overview of the poster?
Introduction:
Does it introduce the project well? Does
it give enough background to understand the goals of the
project? Does it communicate the goals of the project at
all? Is it well-written and free of grammatical and spelling
errors? Are appropriate papers cited?
Methods:
Can you easily follow what the authors did
during this project? Is there enough detail to let you follow
what they did without bogging down in unnecessary details?
Results:
Are the results clearly presented? Are
the figures well-done and clearly-labelled? Are the authors
making claims that their data does not support?
Discussion/Conclusion:
Are the results interpreted well? Are
ambiguous results discussed? Are the conclusions
valid? Do the authors indicate what they will do to continue this project?
Presentation:
Is the "poster" easy to navigate
through? Is the text readable on the computer
screen? Are the web pages neat and attractive? If you
asked questions, were they answered clearly?