Writing better Conference Abstracts and crafting better Posters

We originally planned to write this post for grad students, but really, couldn't we all benefit fit from learning a bit more about how to write a great conference abstract or an eye-catching poster?

Here are a couple of interesting resources for helping you do just that.

From the LSE Impact Blog, you might like to read Your essential ‘how-to’ guide to writing good abstracts and their follow-up post How to write a killer conference abstract: The first step towards an engaging presentation. These posts contain some useful tips for grad students applying to a conference for the first time. Veteran conference-goers may also benefit from reviewing these suggestions, and considering how conference abstracts are different from article abstracts.

Conference posters are often less common among social anthropologists than paper presentations. As a visual medium, posters present unique challenges for researchers whose work is based in narrative. However, we're not the only discipline who struggles with how best to represent our findings in this format. Luckily, there are many resources available to help you craft an informative and eye-catching poster:

• 4 Design Tips, For Awesome Research Posters (22 October 2012, AAA Blog)
• Better Posters: A resource for improving poster presentations
• How to Create a Research Poster: Poster Basics (NYU Libraries)
• Creating Anthropology Conference Posters: A Guide for Beginners (Jason E. Miller and John K. Trainor)

We've also taken the opportunity to update our page on Advice for Grad Students | Writing Tips with this information on conferencing. If you're getting ready to head to a conference, you might also want to check out our collected tips on networking on our Advice for Grad Students | Professional Development Strategies page.