Poster and Demo Presentations
These presentation instructions are applicable for posters in the ACL Main Conference Long and Short Paper Poster sessions, Software Demonstrations, Student Research Workshop, Workshops, and CoNLL Posters.
Equipment
For posters, we will provide display easels measuring 100cm in width and 140cm in height, with a usable board area of 95cm x 135cm. This size is good for a standard A0 poster in the portrait orientation. The poster easels are double-sided with one poster on each side. Pins for mounting will be provided. However, no tables will be available except for Software Demonstrations.
For software demonstrations, we will provide a table with a chair, an electric outlet (220/230 V), a poster easel (usable board area 95cm x 135cm), and a 10 Mbit/s Ethernet connection (via a standard 8P8C/RJ45 outlet).
Presentation
A paper presented as a poster offers a unique opportunity to present research work in a way customized to individuals or a small group of people.
It is more interactive than an oral presentation. Therefore, the work can be presented, in certain respects, more effectively to a small but well-targeted audience. Remember people attracted by a poster are so interested in the work that they are willing to invest anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes of their time. That is a big chunk out of their time at a poster session!
To attract the audience who would be interested in your work, the poster should have a title in large font which is clearly visible to even passers-by. Its contents should also be in fonts large enough to be readable from 1 to 2 meters away. Instead of constructing your
poster as an enlarged summary of an oral presentation, you should take advantage of the flexibility that a poster offers with respect to organization. For example, you might want to place a system diagram in the center, surrounded by descriptions and performance
tables of its individual components. Or you might want to place an example in the center, with arrows to the problems it illustrates and the methodologies used to address these problems. The best posters will take advantage of this flexibility.
"A picture is worth a thousand words''. Try to choose visual aids like figures, diagrams, cartoons, colors, even lines over texts on your poster to show the research idea and the logical flow of the contents. Thus after attracting attendees with an enticing title, the poster can be self-explaining so that people can understand it and quickly find out whether they have more questions to ask. If they do, they can have a short discussion with you to get the most out of your poster presentation. In addition, some people are more verbal than visual. They prefer to listen instead of read, even when the visualization is great. So, prepare "mini-talks'' as short as 30 seconds, and some as long as 5 minutes.
Kindly ask people (who might appear to be reading the poster slowly) whether they would like a brief introduction from you. You will need to adapt to your audience. Senior researchers in your area of expertise probably need only a few key points explained, while more general information would help those not so familiar with your task.
Please try to interact with everyone who seems interested in your work, rather than have long intricate conversations with a few.
If someone wants to discuss your work in extensive detail, this is a great opportunity to arrange an individual meeting later in the conference.
Occasionally, people prepare printouts to complement their posters. If you expect such printouts to be helpful, please prepare them.
Please avoid leaving your poster without a presenter, since then it will attract less attention than it deserves.