{"id":2339,"date":"2008-03-05T10:49:03","date_gmt":"2008-03-05T10:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2008\/03\/05\/dorky-poll-talk-or-poster\/"},"modified":"2008-03-05T10:49:03","modified_gmt":"2008-03-05T10:49:03","slug":"dorky-poll-talk-or-poster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2008\/03\/05\/dorky-poll-talk-or-poster\/","title":{"rendered":"Dorky Poll: Talk or Poster?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Female Science Professor is thinking about conferences<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Some scientific conferences are dominated by talks and some are comprised of talks + poster presentations. At conferences with talks and posters, it varies from conference to conference as to whether talks are more prestigious or whether it doesn’t matter very much because there are so many posters, though of course it tends to be the case that talks are preferred. Big professors typically get talks, and students and other unfamous people get posters.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Naturally, this ends up being about the difference between her and one of her male colleagues, but that’s not what I want to talk about. She’s missed a crucial qualifier in her description of conferences, at least in physics, that makes this open to a Dorky Poll. I’ll post the question here, with a little more explanatory context below the fold. The question is:<\/p>\n

\n

Which would you prefer to do: a 10-minute contributed talk, or a poster presentation?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Leave your snap judgement in the comments, or click through and read further explanation before deciding.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The context that’s missing is this: At most of the physics meetings I go to, there are two classes of talks, in addition to the posters. There are “invited talks,” which are half-hour presentations generally given by Big Names in the field (or the students or post-docs of Big Names– I have several invited talks to my credit for this reason), but there are also “contributed talks” which are vastly more numerous, and limited to only about ten minutes. <\/p>\n

Everybody agrees that invited talks are vastly more prestigious and useful than contributed talks. There’s still a slight prestige advantage for a contributed talk over a poster, but which is more useful<\/strong> is the subject of much debate.<\/p>\n

Ten minutes is not nearly enough time to give a good in-context description of a significant research accomplishment. In a ten-minute talk, you can just about get the main points across to an audience who already knows basically what you’re talking about, and is just looking for whatever new wrinkle your work provides. It’s pretty much the movie-trailer version of a research presentation, though: just enough of a taste of the work in question to hopefully get people interested in seeing the whole thing.<\/p>\n

A poster, on the other hand, is usually part of a poster session that runs for an hour or two. In a poster session, people who are interested in a given topic an seek out the poster presenter, and discuss it in full detail. People doing posters usually have a ten-minute spiel that they can run through for the casual viewer, or people passing by who just happened to make eye contact, but the real advantage of a poster presentation is that people with a deep interest in the work can stop by the poster, and discuss it at length and get into all the gory details that don’t fit in a ten-minute talk.<\/p>\n

From the audience side, posters are clearly preferable to ten-minute talks. The amount of information transferred is potentially much greater, and as a bonus, there are often snacks and beer at poster sessions.<\/p>\n

From the presenter side, though, it’s much less clear. Both have their pros and cons. A poster presentation offers the chance for more meaningful discussion, but it generally entails two hours of standing in an crowded, overheated room with little chance to enjoy the snacks and beer. And if nobody is interested in the topic of your poster, it can be lonely and pathetic.<\/p>\n

A ten-minute talk, on the other hand, offers almost no chance for information transfer, but at least it’s over quickly. It does involve public speaking, though, which many people regard as a fate worse than death.<\/p>\n

So, if you had the choice, which would you<\/strong> pick? Ten-minute talk, or poster presentation?<\/p>\n

(Please note, I’m still out of town. If your comment gets held for moderation, it may be a while before I get a chance to approve it. Similarly, if you post something that requires a response from me, it may be some time before it arrives.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Female Science Professor is thinking about conferences: Some scientific conferences are dominated by talks and some are comprised of talks + poster presentations. At conferences with talks and posters, it varies from conference to conference as to whether talks are more prestigious or whether it doesn’t matter very much because there are so many… Continue reading Dorky Poll: Talk or Poster?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}