The goals of the showcase are to celebrate student research and capstone projects, provide students with an opportunity to gain professional presentation skills, and network with those who connect with them.

Any student who is completing a capstone, research, or thesis with mentorship from a Northland faculty member this academic year is invited to register for inclusion.

If you participate as a student researcher, you will:

• Develop a poster presenting your work (digital and printed versions)
• Develop a written abstract with your faculty research supervisor that summarizes your project (digital and printed versions)
• Attend and present your work in person during the Research Showcase

How to Register

To register for inclusion in this event, submit information about your research and poster through this form by Wednesday, March 26, 2025, at 4:30 p.m.

Your submission will automatically be sent to the Office of Academic Affairs, which is coordinating the Research Showcase, and the faculty research supervisor who is overseeing and approving your final poster and written abstract.

If you have questions about how to complete the form, please contact the Office of Academic Affairs.

Register Now

What to Send In

Students must submit final digital versions of the required documents listed below on or before Monday, April 7, 2025, at 12 p.m. Failure to submit on time will result in exclusion from presenting.

Your materials must be reviewed and approved by your faculty research supervisor before submitting.

• A JPG version of your professional poster with minimum dimensions of 1600 x 1000px (for the Virtual Research Showcase)
• A PowerPoint version of your professional poster in a horizontal layout 48″ wide by 36″ tall (for printing)
• A Microsoft Word document of your written abstract that concisely summarizes your research work and includes your final poster title and your name (200–250 words in length)

If your faculty research supervisor is unable to review and edit, Library Director Julia Waggoner is available to assist, but you must schedule a meeting with her in advance of the submission deadline to receive help. Get in touch with Julia to set that up.

Submit Your Materials

Finished File Format

Students will save and submit two different versions of their poster. One will be printed on your behalf, and the other is displayed on the website.

Participants are asked to develop posters in PowerPoint, using a horizontal layout, which meets the following requirements:

• JPG file size: 1600 x 1000 pixels (for the Virtual Research Showcase)
• PPT file layout: 48 inches wide by 36 inches tall (for printing)

A PowerPoint template is available in the resources section below.

Your poster will be printed for you at no charge.* Your poster will automatically be sent to Professor Cyndi May, who will print them, when you fill out the final materials submission form. Before doing so, you must do the following:

1. Carefully proofread your poster to ensure there are no layout, grammar, or spelling issues, that you haven’t left out information or figures that you intended to include, and that all content is accurate.*
2. Share your poster with your faculty research advisor for their review and approval. You must do so before submitting your final materials, including your print-ready poster.
3. Verify that your poster is in a printable format with Professor Cyndi May by Friday, April 4, 2025, at 12 p.m. This can be done over email or by coordinating in person with Cyndi. Contact Cyndi.
4. Fill out the materials submission form on this page.

*Cindy will NOT be editing posters on behalf of students. Students are responsible for a $20 fee if their poster needs to be re-printed due to typos or other errors.

A downloadable PowerPoint poster template that is formatted for printing is available on this page. If a student chooses to use a different program, it will be especially important to verify the format with Cyndi. You should verify that your poster is printable earlier than the deadline to give yourself enough time to reformat it if needed.

This is how your poster will be viewed. Tap on the image below to expand the view. You can find more examples of posters on the Virtual Research Showcase page.

Abstracts should be 200–250 words. They should be saved as a separate Microsoft Word document, and are not included on the poster. Your faculty research supervisor must review your abstract before you submit it.

Although abstracts vary somewhat by discipline, all abstracts are a succinct summary of a completed work or work in progress. An abstract condenses a larger piece of writing (a thesis, research project, performance, etc.), highlighting its major points and concisely describing the content and scope of the project. For purposes of the Research Showcase, you will need to produce an informative abstract. Your abstract should include the following elements:

• Rationale

  Why should the reader care about the problem/issue you’ve chosen to explore? This section should focus on the importance of your work and the potential impact it might have if successful.

• Problem Statement/Purpose

  What problem are you trying to solve? What issue did you set out to explore? What do you hope to learn from it?

• Methodology

  How did you go about solving or making progress on the problem?? What method did you use to explore you problem (sampling, experimentation, trial and error)? If you did not do a research project, make note here of any theoretical framework or methodological assumptions that underlie what you did. If in the arts, this section should outline the media and process you used to develop your project.

• Results/Findings

  What did you discover/uncover during your research? Your explanation of the significance of your results (completed, unexpected, negative, and partial) is more important than the results themselves. If your research is not completed, this section should list the expected results or outcomes.

• Conclusions/Implications

  What are the implications of your findings? How does your work contribute to your field of study? Are there implications for future work in this area?

Review Your Work

• Is it complete—covering all the major parts of the project?
• Is it cohesive—flowing smoothly from start to finish?
• Is it concise—containing no unnecessary words or information?
• Is it clear—remaining readable for all your audiences, even in its abbreviated form?
• Is it correct—grammatically? Visually?

Below is one example of an abstract from a past student. You can view more examples on the Virtual Research Showcase page.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SMALL MAMMAL SPECIES DIVERSITY AND WOODLAND JUMPING MICE

Allison M. DeRose, Emily K. Heald, and Dr. Paula S. Anich

Northland College

April 4, 2013

Abstract: The Woodland Jumping Mouse (Napaeozapus insignis) is an old-growth boreal rodent species. Woodland Jumping Mice play an important role in forest ecosystems because they disperse the spores of fungi that are only found on coniferous tree species. The distribution of this species in Wisconsin and its interactions with other small mammal species are not well understood. Prior to 2011, the Woodland Jumping Mouse was represented statewide only by 48 museum specimens. Due to its perceived rarity, the Woodland Jumping Mouse has been listed as a Species of Greatest Conservation Need by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. This study analyzes the influence of other small mammal species on the presence of Woodland Jumping Mice. Over a period of 3 months in the summer of 2012, (6,600 trap-nights) we set Sherman-live traps in 14 different sites in Ashland, Bayfield, Price, and Sawyer counties within the Chequamegon National Forest. We targeted late-succession spruce-fir and hemlock sites in order to locate populations of Woodland Jumping Mice. We captured 7 definitive Woodland Jumping Mice, one of which was a recapture. In addition to the target species, we captured 593 animals of 10 species. We sexed and measured standard morphometrics (mass, total body length, ear length, tail length, hind foot length) for each animal trapped. We looked for statistically significant relationships between the presence of Woodland Jumping Mice and small mammal species diversity using the program R. We discovered that Woodland Jumping Mice are associated with sites that have high small mammalian species diversity. This relationship suggests that the presence of Woodland Jumping Mice at a particular site is an indication of pristine, unfragmented wildlife habitat.

• Video of how to make an academic poster in PowerPoint (Keep in mind, you will need to save your version twice; once as a PPT, and again as a JPEG—rather than a PDF as she suggests)
• You can also download this PowerPoint template.
• See the “Example Poster” above. You may also view posters from previous years for more examples.

Additional resources to help you write an abstract are available at Dexter Library.

LB 2369 .R87 2006

How to write a successful science thesis: the concise guide for students /  by William E. Russey, Hans F. Ebel, Claus Bliefert.

Q 180.55 .M4 B66 1995

The craft of research / by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams.