Dr Anne Marie Raftery is Lead Nurse for Palliative Care at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Salford. She won the PCRS Best Poster Prize at the Palliative Care Conference in 2026 for her poster ‘Beyond the Clinical Gaze: What Support Staff Teach Us About End of Life Care’. Here, she shares insights on how to create effective posters and presentations.
Conference posters and short oral presentations are often the first way research is shared with peers. They are also frequently the most overlooked part of the research process. Yet, when done well, they can spark rich conversations, make research accessible, and help findings travel beyond academic audiences.
Based on my own experience presenting at conferences, including the Palliative Care Congress, here are a few practical tips that can help researchers make the most of posters and short talks.
1. Start with why your work matters
The most effective posters don’t begin with methods or frameworks. They begin with the problem. Ask yourself: Why should someone care about this work? This is especially important in palliative care, where audiences often include clinicians, educators, researchers and policy makers. Ground your work in practice and human relevance before introducing technical detail.
2. Decide on one clear message
A common mistake is trying to fit an entire study onto a poster. Instead, aim to communicate one key insight. If someone walks away remembering a single idea or question, the poster has done its job.
A helpful test is to ask: What would I say if I had thirty seconds to explain this? That answer should guide the whole design.
3. Design for busy, mobile readers
Most posters are skim read—or photographed on phones. Use short headings, white space, and visual flow. Avoid dense blocks of text. If a section takes more than a few seconds to understand, it’s probably too crowded.
Good design is not about decoration; it is about helping people follow your thinking with ease.
4. Tell a story, not a summary
Whether it’s a poster or a three minute talk, structure helps ideas land. A simple narrative works well:
the problem → what you did → what you found → why it matters.
This approach makes research feel coherent and memorable, especially for interdisciplinary audiences.
5. Practice for pace, not perfection
For oral presentations, many people try to speak too quickly to include everything. Speaking slightly slower than feels natural allows ideas—particularly emotionally complex ones—to register. Clear pacing, presence and connection with the audience matter more than delivering every detail.
Final thought
Posters and short presentations are not just about displaying research; they are opportunities to invite conversation. When we design them with care, we make research more inclusive, more engaging, and more likely to influence practice.