I’m in Bangkok to attend the 15th International Congress on Infectious Diseases (ICID) which concluded today. The ICID is arguably one of the better meetings on infectious diseases in the Asia Pacific Region and it is held once every 2 years. This year, we were given the opportunity to present our research in a poster. The instructions given were clear – the time and date when the poster should be mounted and dismounted, the size and dimensions of the poster was to be no bigger than 90 x 130 cm and the poster should be in portrait and not landscape in orientation.
During the poster viewing time, I took some time to view posters mounted by other researchers. Here are SEVEN things you should not do when presenting a poster:
1. Do not print your poster on A4 size paper and mount the pieces in a jigsaw fashion. No one will be interested to read it. it also shows your lack of either funding to print the poster (which is unlikely) or your apathetic attitude.
2. Do not print the poster too small – people will have a hard time reading it.
3. Do not print your poster in landscape orientation when the instruction is to print in portrait mode Not only does it show you are unable to comprehend simple instructions, your mounted poster will look unsightly and takes up spaces of the adjacent display panels.
4. Mount your poster at a level where the audience can read it comfortably. No one wants to bend to read what is on the poster.
5. Take great care to keep the condition of your poster pristine. No one wants to read a poster which looks like a herd of bulls has trampled on it. After the conference you are free to trample on it if you wish but not before.
6. Always proofread your poster over and over again to avoid glaring mistakes.
7. Trim the sides of your poster if it is too big.
Here’s to better posters in the future! 
just have ipads (chained) next time!
That’s a real cool idea!
OMG Jimbo I saw the same level of shoddiness at the last (international) meeting I attended. It’s so bad it’s actually hilarious!
A4-jigsaw posters in this age & time? really?
is it possible that laser printing hasn’t reached some countries in indo-china, rather than the presenters being lackadaisical?
in this circumstance, perhaps allowance should be given for the shortfall & the poster judged on it’s content instead.
What you said is plausible although unlikely as others from the same subcontinent as the author of the A4-jigsaw poster mounted proper posters. The other plausible reason could be that the author had left the poster behind and in haste, had to print out the poster in A4 papers. That said, I must say, this was not the first time I had encountered A4-jigsaw posters being mounted in international conferences.