Chris Rowan is a geologist specialising in the dark arts of paleomagnetism, and getting people to pay him to travel to exotic destinations for fieldwork. Having drilled up New Zealand during his PhD, and South Africa in his first post-doc, he now works at the University of Edinburgh.
Anne Jefferson has a love of all things water-related and blends hydrology, geomorphology, geology, and climate change in her work. She has a Ph.D. from Oregon State University and is now an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.At the moment this post appears, I'll be standing in a poster booth desperately hoping that at least some petroleum geologists have (a) stuck it out to the bitter end of the conference, and (b) can feign an interest in Archean paleomagnetism. In the meantime, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the following question:
If you were given the choice, would you prefer your conference presentation to be a poster or a talk?
I'd be interested to hear the reasons for your answer, and what level of the academic ladder (post-grad, post-doc, junior/senior faculty) you're currently at.
Education & Careers
Comments
Talk for sure these days. Posters are more hassle to prepare (and I like them to look good), and more hassle to stand there feeling daft when ignored. A talk gets it over with. I'm a lecturer so feel far more comfortable talking to a room than I used to. I preferred posters as a grad student because I didn't have to confront the audience to give the talk, but now I don't care as much about that. I'd rather spend poster sessions talking to people than standing by my efforts.
Posted by: KH | October 29, 2008 11:34 AM
For me it kinda depends on maturity of the project ... I prefer posters for research that is in early stages and not quite complete, I get more feedback (sometimes useful).
I prefer giving talks about projects that are more complete (or even already published). When the 'story' is nice and polished and I've thought about interesting implications and such.
Although, it also depends on the data ... projects that generate maps and/or big cross sections, for example, can benefit from the poster format regardless of how complete they are.
Posted by: BrianR | October 29, 2008 11:34 AM
Take a tip from industrial shows: put out candy.
Posted by: Monado | October 29, 2008 11:43 AM
It also depends on the conference. At general meetings where they make posters an integral part of the meeting, such as AGU, having a poster is not so bad (being where the beer is helps). At topical meetings, or at any meeting where the poster session is an afterthought, I definitely want to have a talk. I second Brian's comment that preliminary results work better in posters and published (or about-to-be-submitted) work is better suited for talks, but if the conference is so arranged that people aren't forced to look at posters, even your work-in-progress will get more feedback as a talk.
Posted by: Eric Lund | October 29, 2008 11:46 AM
I'd prefer to give a talk because of the ease of doing so, but I agree with Brian that early research results and those where you really want to show the maps, etc, are better in posters. Also, I usually find talks more interesting for some reason. If the presentation is by poster, I'm a lot more likely to just skim or pass by unless I'm very interested.
Posted by: Silver Fox | October 29, 2008 11:59 AM
Always a talk. Both have real disadvantages. Doing a poster is boring. You're standing there for two-three hours, hoping that someone will talk to you about it, not knowing if you should volunteer some information or just let them browse until they're ready. It's usually far too hot in the poster hall, and my own experience is that if/when the departments have their post-conference "Aren't we wonderful, look who gave presentations" back-slapping e-mail, the posters are never considered.
Doing a talk is damn scary and frankly an assault on my digestive system. Unlike a poster, which pretty much has to be printed off before you leave for the conference, there is always the temptation to fiddle with the talk until the last minute. You can't truly relax at a conference until you've given your talk, which is really sucky if you're up on the last day of the conference (as about 50% of all dinosaur researchers are at SVP).
But, you get to say what you want to say once and only once. You can avoid nasty questions by cleverly timing your talk to run to 14 minutes and 45 seconds. At SVP at least, you probably have over 100 people in your talk, whereas if you give a poster you may only speak to a dozen people.
And maybe I'm being a bit egotistical here, but I'm afraid I get a real kick out of the round of applause at the end of a talk. No one applauds a poster.
Posted by: Julia | October 29, 2008 12:12 PM
As Brian said, posters are good for work-in-progress. It's possible to get some great ideas and feedback during conversations at a poster. (I've learned about related work-in-progress that has totally changed my working models for research projects.) Talks are better for self-promotion - people may hear your talk when they're waiting to hear Really Famous Person talk after you. (And as an audience member, I tend to be impressed by a really good, clear talk. And when I'm on a hiring committee, I will go to candidates talks to get an idea of how they might teach.)
For education stuff, I've gotten more out of poster sessions than talks. But then pedagogy is always a work in progress. (On the other hand, I'm giving a geoscience ed talk at AGU this year. Talks are definitely easier to prepare, especially now that they're done on computers and I don't have to battle film exposures while trying to make nice slides.)
Posted by: Kim | October 29, 2008 12:18 PM
Having given one (1) of each at AGU... I found that my poster generated more interesting conversations, with far less work and stress, than my talk - but they were also very different projects in different stages of work, so it's hard to generalize.
Posted by: Maria | October 29, 2008 12:49 PM
I'm up the ladder and have given dozens and dozens of conference talks. I really don't do it any more. I only do keynote addresses and shit now.
I vote for talk. Talk is no work poster is lots of work.
But if I do have to do a poster, it must be a keynote poster.
Posted by: greg laden | October 29, 2008 1:05 PM
Greg Laden says: "I only do keynote addresses and shit now ... But if I do have to do a poster, it must be a keynote poster."
You are obviously an exception, the vast majority of scientists/students aren't in a position to demand such prominence and visibility.
Posted by: BrianR | October 29, 2008 1:34 PM
If given the opportunity, give the talk. The exposure is better. Your audience may not have come for your talk, but rather the one before or after. Either way they are there and will listen and you have the opportunity to impress them. There have been tons of sessions that I have gone to for one talk and enjoyed the others talks more. At a poster session, you are at the mercy of the person finding your poster, not getting distracted along the way, and not having to fight the crowds. Always go with the talk if you have the opportunity.
Posted by: John | October 29, 2008 1:39 PM
I have to agree with many of the previous commenters that I prefer posters for research that is still really preliminary, or relatively low profile, and talks for high-profile research or stuff with pretty definitive conclusions, even if they're only part of a larger project (with which one can do presentations for years as more conclusions come in!). Having said that, I find both posters and presentations about equally easy to make these days -- I don't think posters are a bigger hassle. They are, however, a somewhat bigger hassle to print (costlier, too) and tote to and from a conference, but they're also nicer to line academic hallways with to show off research being done at one's institution, which isn't as easy to do with a presentation.
Posted by: Jerry D. Harris | October 29, 2008 1:57 PM
I agree with what was said by many of the previous commenters(and summarized by Jerry Harris above). I still find posters more of a hassle to make, because I want them to look professionally designed and pretty. That said, I think for students (at least beginning students) who are on their first presentation, the poster is definitely the way to go. Less issue of nerves, more iterations of talking about your research, better feedback...overall fewer interactions, but better ones. For someone on the job market or early tenure track, I think a talk is preferable simply for the larger visibility and presumed prestige.
Posted by: ScienceWoman | October 29, 2008 2:05 PM
You are obviously an exception, the vast majority of scientists/students aren't in a position to demand such prominence and visibility.
Yes indeed. In fact, that was a keynote comment. I only do keynote comments.
Posted by: Greg Laden | October 29, 2008 3:15 PM
"I only do keynote comments."
But keynote commenters rarely return to re-comment, especially about how keynote they and their comments are.
Posted by: BrianR | October 29, 2008 4:32 PM
My talks were always scheduled to be the last one in the conference, or the last one before the banquet, when all the sessions were late. I got the biggest applause for cutting it short! I only do keynote blog postings now.
Posted by: Harold Asmis | October 30, 2008 8:47 AM
A lot of keynoting going on above! Brain, maybe you should only do keynote comments on keynote comments... ;)
Posted by: Silver Fox | October 31, 2008 8:04 AM
Man, that was a fumble! Tried to stop it... my fingers get mixed up on the keyboard sometimes.
Of course I meant Brian.
Posted by: Silver Fox | October 31, 2008 8:06 AM
I was always under the impression that 'keynote' basically translated as 'it's the only way we could get Mr. Planet-Sized Ego to deign to grace us with his presence'.
More seriously, thanks for all the comments. This has been an illuminating discussion.
Posted by: Chris Rowan | October 31, 2008 10:56 AM
Chris ... all silliness aside, I thought this was a good thread too.
Posted by: BrianR | October 31, 2008 1:24 PM