Student text for the panels of a poster should be concise, accurate, and authentic. At least, these should be the goals as the product will certainly be variable from student to student.
Concise
In most cases, 50 or so words is the functional maximum text for a panel. If the text runs over a bit, we can drop a few words, decrease the font size or use other design tricks to make the text fit. For certain poster designs, more text space is available but the extra space should be used wisely. Excessive text generally means that the poster may not actually be read by the intended audience.
If you need your students to write more than 40-60 words, consider having them first write a traditional report and then use the report as their source to write their poster text. Many teachers use the poster as the final product of a unit which includes a research report.
If you submit more than 40-60 words for a panel, we will shrink the font size to make the text fit. The poster may look a bit crowded. As the amount of text increases, the chances that the audience will read it diminishes. Try to have all students with approximately the same range of text. Otherwise, some panels will have text of standard size and others will have shrunken text. We will suggest editing to shorten text in these cases.
Concise also includes getting right to the point. Starting with "For my animal, I wrote about the wood turtle" and ending with "Isn't the wood turtle an amazing animal?" uses about 20% of the text space and provides no information. Of course, if that style is the student's writing level, then we need to use it (see Authentic, below).
Accurate
The public enjoys reading these posters and learning something from them. Thus, the posters should be informative and accurate. We will help you by editing the final text, as best as is possible, for accuracy of content. In most cases, we will not change the error but will mark it for the student to change or verify. We will not make changes in syntax and writing style (see Authentic, below) but will point out to the student where the point of the text is not understandable. Common usage errors (it’s, its, two, too, there, their, etc.) will be fixed when noticed.
Authentic
Text should also be age and grade appropriate. Even though the text has probably been peer reviewed and edited many times, it should still sound as though it were written by the student. Sometimes vocabulary and punctuation suggest too much of an adult influence; the use of a semicolon is almost always suspect.
Students often interject judgments and emotions into their text. Statements such as: :"I love wood turtles", "wood turtles walk funny", "I think it is wrong to kill wood turtles", "touching a wood turtle was awesome" would be appropriate for certain grades and types of reports. If the topic is "Our Wetlands", for example, one would hope for personal involvement.
Putting it another way, it is okay and expected for a second grade poster to read as though it were written by seven year olds. Certainly we should strive for a high level in producing something for Outreach. However, the final product should reflect the achievement level of the student. Teachers report that some of the "upgrading of text" happens when parent volunteers type out the text and "fix a few mistakes".
From an education perspective, it is important that a student be able to point to the final poster and say "I did that."
Text Files
Please send the text to us by email as an attached file (Word document (.doc) or Rich Text Format document (.rtf)) or cut and paste the text into the body of the email. We are PC people here and do not work well with Mac files. You can get around that by putting the text in the email and not as an attached file. Do not mail a disk. If the disk does not work, a lot of time is lost.
Try to use the traditional two spaces after a period. If students do their own key boarding, they sometimes find unique ways to space and punctuate. We will fix what we can. The text should include the student's name or other identifier so we can match it with the appropriate art.
You will receive a draft of the poster. At that time, changes may be made to the text to react to edits or you may make changes of your own.
