Should we put the references in slides/poster when we already have them in paper?

Question

After reading this question about slides making and asking myself two questions about poster making and TED talking, I realize that these activities are for showing what you found, make the audience be attracted. If they need further explanation, they should read your paper, which has successfully defensed and proved that your work is validated. One important thing when you attempt to attract people is concentrate on the important, which means unnecessary things need to be trimmed. I think the reference is one of those. So, should we put the references in slides/poster when we already have them in paper?

Answer 1

My rule for presentations is:

Don't say anything that an interested member of the audience will not be able to remember.

This includes tables, but also bibliographic references to things that are not absolutely central to the presentation. There is a caveat: if the conference is recorded or the slides are available offline, you could write them in a non intrusive way (but not mention them during the talk).

Posters are different, as an interested reader may spend a longer time reading it. But then, the rule becomes:

Don't include anything that an interested reader will not be able to remember, or won't bother to write down.

This trims away "previous work" (except, perhaps, a single very good review) or citations for the exact value of a certain constant you used; but you should include things that are indeed central.

And of course, by all means, you should include the reference to your own paper, so it is easy to find.

Answer 2

I always include key references (i.e. ones necessary to ground the work in the literature including my own refereed work) in my slides and on my posters. I absolutely consider the references to be important as they ensure appropriate credit for prior work and to demonstrate one's understanding of the current state of the field. I do this in one of two ways for slides:

1. Include the bibliographic reference by author at the bottom of the slide. This is my preferred way for conference presentations where people familiar with the field will likely already know the article you refer to.

2. Provide a bibliography at the end of the presentation. This approach can be useful if there are quite a few references, or especially if the presentation is likely to be used as a resource in its own right. This can be the case if you ever upload slides to e.g. your personal website, or if it's for a tutorial-style presentation.

Answer 3

If you subscribe to the "slides should be teasers to motivate people to read the paper" view (I don't), then make sure you provide full bibliographic information for the paper at least. If the paper is not published yet when you give the presentation, take the time to edit your presentation once the paper is published, if you can still access the presentation - e.g., if it is on your website.

There is little more frustrating than looking through an old presentation about a paper that nowhere tells the reader which paper is being talked about, so you have to scare up the presentation's author and hope he tells you. (As likely or not, he may not even remember himself which paper he was talking about.)

And then you can certainly skip references in your presentation.

EDIT: And I would suggest the same for a poster: if you make the poster available even after the paper was published, e.g., as a download, add the info what paper it was about.

Answer 4

Just give the references in the shortest possible manner, e.g.:

(Smith et al. 2004)

There is no need to provide a full list of references anywhere. Such a minimal reference is sufficient for the following purposes:

• It clearly shows that this particular result is not from your current work.
• The year of publication helps to clarify the relative timing of prior work.
• Smith et al. in the audience will appreciate your talk.
• The few experts in the audience can guess which work you are referring to, especially if this is a very well-known paper in the field.

Answer 5

I've only done one of these. I followed the same rules I'd follow in a paper. If the poster mentioned the work of another, there was a citation in the poster text and a reference at the bottom of the poster. That resulted in ten references (out of about 100) on the poster. http://scis.nova.edu/~robebrow/dissertation/cellular_automata_poster_brown_robert_20131209.pdf

Answer 6

There's different schools of thought on that, and I don't think there is any really dominant convention (at least in my field). By and large, for conference papers, I tend to only include citations when it seems particularly important to do so (for instance when citing something in verbatim), or when I want to stress that an opinion that I am presenting originates from a different author.

It is somewhat different for defense-style talks (thesis defense, job talks, etc.). I tend to use more (self-)citations in such presentations, as it seems more essential here to make immediately clear that I am not making my content up as I go along, i.e., that the material is actually peer-reviewed. Also, having references to good papers of yours directly on the slides is a subtle but powerful reminder that you were able to get your research published in good venues.

Answer 7

One important consideration is whether any of the people who wrote the references are in the audience. It can't hurt to mention them because academics like to have their egos tickled. Of course, this doesn't apply for posters.

Answer 8

According to https://wilkes.libguides.com/c.php?g=191944&p=1266692

If you have a handout to accompany your poster, you may list your references on that. If not, you should list them in small type at the bottom of the poster.

Answer 9

I always try to put references to papers of people that are likely to be in the audience.

I noticed that it draws their attention and keeps them alert throughout the talk.