An academic poster examining: Personal Identity

Over our lifetimes, we develop and change in all sorts of ways. Reflect back on your own life, and you will find that there are things about you – your hobbies, interests, aspirations – that are very different now from five or ten years ago: and in five or ten years’ time, they will probably be just as different again.

Given that over the course of a lifetime we can change so much, this has prompted some people to ask, what exactly is it which makes us ‘us’? Alongside your daily challenges, this week we are setting you a bigger project, to investigate ‘personal identity’. You should start by reading the Oxplore page here

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Based on what you have read, create an academic poster to submit at the end of this week, via the guidelines below. Your poster title should be: “How [your topic] impact(s) our personal identity.”

Select [your topic] from the options provided below for your stream (select ONE option only). Include both a definition (with justification) of how your chosen topic perspective would define personal identify, and examples of how this topic would lead to different personal identities (or not!). Are there any weaknesses to this view of personal identity?

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Poster guidelines

Your poster should include/follow the guidelines listed below. Advice on all these points is found in the ‘Creating an academic poster’ section.

• A title (selected from one of the options above)
• Your first name, and the St John’s Inspire Programme logo (found here)
• A2 size (portrait or landscape)
• Digital or hand-drawn
• Use good quality, peer-reviewed information
• A reference list of academic sources
• Use only copyright free images (and include a statement to confirm this)

Be saved as a PDF file

Your poster should include your first name and the St John’s Inspire Programme credits ONLY. DO NOT include any other identifying information, such as your school, other names or any contact details.

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Creating an academic poster

You have probably made posters before, so what makes an academic poster different? Mostly, it is to do with the amount of information that is included on an academic poster. There must be enough to let people see how you have come to your conclusions and decide whether they agree with your approach.

Academic posters are used widely at conferences and research meetings, where many people come together to present their research. You may also have to prepare one during your degree studies. Therefore, making a good academic poster is a key skill.

Watch the video below on ‘Creating an academic poster’.

If you want to return to this video for reference, use these times to help you find the information you need: A2 poster size (01:20), Poster content (06:40), Poster sources (08:35), Referencing (13:50), Organising content (16:45), Finding images (18:55), Creating graphs and diagrams (23:30), Layout (26:10), Colour schemes (28:10), Fonts (31:00), Final touches (35:05), Exporting your poster (36:00)

Information on good content and image sources mentioned in the video is included in this booklet. The example poster produced during the video can be viewed here as a PDF. If you would like guidance on how to use your time this week to create your poster, see the ‘Managing your time’ section below.

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Managing your time

In order to research and create your academic poster, you have a few different tasks to complete. You should plan how you will complete these tasks, to ensure you are able to submit your poster at the end of the Summer School. A suggested task list for each day is provided here – click each bar to load the suggested task list.

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