Botany Honours 2020 Blogs

A poster is usually a large printed picture that is used to promotion ideas, product or events put up in public space. However, I have learned that a design of a poster differs from person to person and from department to department. From the walk in the botany and zoology department I have observed some perfect example of a poster, a good poster with minor problems and a bad poster that should have never been used in the department or anywhere else. Sometimes there is a small difference between a good and bad poster. What I have observed from the botany department posters is too much text on the post, too much text bores the audience. Text on the poster should be enough to pass the message and if the audience is interested to read more about what is on the poster, they should access it in the paper liked to the poster. In addition, avoid following the journal format on the poster as it results in too much word being used. Sections such as the bibliography is unnecessary text an...

I have learned that writing for most people globally is a major challenge because they lack certain tools to make them good writers. Generally, in primary school and high school, writing was about writing what you think and sharing your opinions without having to persuade the reader. However, at post-graduation level writing is an important tool to change readers’ ideas. From Larry McEnerney video I have learned helpful rules, skills, and resources that further develops my writing style. A good piece of writing must be clear, valuable, organized and most importantly it must persuasive to the readers who are reading it. I have learned that the audience has different views regarding how a writer should write but Larry states out that a writers writing should help readers understand something they want to understand better. There are certain functions that makes writing better to understand, these functions are; having a good structure when writing, being creative when writing and hig...

So, you’ve done all the fieldwork, all the statistical analysis and your final manuscript has been completed… What’s left is your scientific communication that goes beyond your journal article: The scientific poster. Scientists are notorious for creating poor posters. Whether its overwhelming paragraphs of text or incomprehensible graphics, scientists usually find a way to make a poster as unappealing as possible. This is in direct contrast to the actual purpose of a poster, to advertise the scientists’ research. A common mistake in poster creation is that scientists try and summarise the information of their journal article into a poster format. The poster is a completely different medium and the viewer expects to digest it in a completely different way. Whereas the journal article is information-orientated, the poster is a visual beast, with its primary objective to grab the eye of a potential viewer, who can then dig into the information once interest has set in. As far as...

Writing is the most widely used medium for the conveyance of information. Unlike speech, writing does not allow the author the use of gesture, expression or eye contact. All a writer has is their words, and how they structure these words is of paramount importance to the message they send. There are numerous styles of writing --- from fiction novels to technical manuscripts --- each with a different intended audience. Writers of each style possess a unique set of tools that are appropriate for the respective audiences, with most of these tools not being interchangeable between styles. For example, the allusion is one of the most widely used devices in modernist novels but has little place in other styles, such as scientific writing.   In high school, I believe that these distinctions between styles of writing is not sufficiently taught (though one may argue that it is not necessary at that level). High school teachers place a lot of emphasis on sentence structure, grammar a...

One or two tips to make me like your poster By: Priscah Lakane Have you ever come across a poster that you were amazed by and thought “that is the best poster I have ever seen”? What attracted you to it? What did you like about it? See, I have never come across a perfect poster. Yes, I have seen posters that were good but when I paid more attention to them there was always something lacking. Something that does not make them get to the “perfect” line. Growing up, in our Arts and Culture class, we were told that whatever poster we made it must be creative, colourful, have lots of pictures and the writing must be large enough to read. I do not remember the last time I made a poster though,  I think I was still in primary school if not early high school. Bear in mind back then we had to draw or write whatever it is that we wanted to be on the poster BY HAND! Now, imagine having to come up with a whole new heading style that you need to write with free-hand and still try to m...