I read a paper over the weekend that suggested that posters were primarily used in the sciences but that Arts and Humanities didn't see them as a popular means of communications, instead preferring the more rigorous publication of peer reviewed journals.

As a scientist I don't know if this is true or not, but it does seems a bit foolish. Posters are like a hook, to get people interested. Just because they are not as rigorous or peer reviewed does not make them any less crucial to the research process.

hi drdan
I noticed you didnt put a voting panel for "don't know"
love satchi

I think posters might be more useful for the Sciences because there's more in the way of results to show. Graphs, designs, materials etc can all be used to create quite a visually striking poster that's easy on the amount of text you have to read to get an idea of what's been going on.

For the Arts though I imagine there are only specific area's that could manage a similar effect (I could be very wrong though). It'd be difficult I think for many topics to steer away from being a 'wall of text' and make an effective poster.

The idea that Sciences prefer posters to peer review is silly though. I've found posters to usually be a means of showing off research that has just begun or hasn't been published yet. It's not instead of peer review it's just in place of it in the interim. And like you say they play a crucial part in the research process. They show others what you're working on, what you've found and actually the grilling you get from viewers can be pretty rigorous in itself! You can get all sorts of criticisms and suggestions that you can use to improve the research. It's a very effect two-way form of communication.

I think certainly more so for science vs. arts, but humanities is a bit tricky as it can fall into either. I have friend doing a PhD in demography, which probably counts as a humanity rather than a science, but he's done posters before.

Hi,

I've just seen this post, whilst browsing this site and think that it is a really interesting debate. Coming from a science background myself, I think that the poster is such a logical way to present scientific research, and is so suited to using visual aids such as diagrams, graphs and maps. Also, I know that when I made posters it really made me think critically about my research and evaluate its direction and purpose. As you say, this makes them so crucial to the research process.

I suppose this is the value it might have as an exercise for arts and humanities too. Therefore I don't think they are totally disregarded in those subjects. Also, perhaps the arts and humanities students that can put their research ideas into a poster are actually the best communicators, as they have to overcome the difficulty of visualising creative ideas to present an engaging poster to hook people in.

I also think that you cannot compare posters and peer reviewed papers because they are such different forms of research communication and should go hand in hand rather than fighting for importance.