Because the conference poster is one form of publication, you need to treat the citation as for any other publication.

Sadly, most readers of your paper will not have access to the text or images in your poster session, unless you have put it on the Web. So, it cannot easily be verified.

To obtain an earlier date of publication, it makes sense to copy the relevant material that you want to paraphrase or quote and make references to the poster. Otherwise, if it is reader-unfriendly to have lots of references, insert a general proclamation at the beginning of your paper: “This paper is partially based on a poster session presented at … on …”

Because the conference poster is one form of publication, you need to treat the citation as for any other publication.

Sadly, most readers of your paper will not have access to the text or images in your poster session, unless you have put it on the Web. So, it cannot easily be verified.

To obtain an earlier date of publication, it makes sense to copy the relevant material that you want to paraphrase or quote and make references to the poster. Otherwise, if it is reader-unfriendly to have lots of references, insert a general proclamation at the beginning of your paper: “This paper is partially based on a poster session presented at … on …”

Usually conferences have their proceedings published in abstract or complete form. It is better to cite it to its formal publication; because a poster may have mistakes which is usually proof-read before finalizing. Another way is to ask the author to give u a authentic text of his work and its citation. And also check for the Manuel style (APA, MLA, Vancouver, Harvar, Tourabian, Chicago,...) of your discipline or the journal u r writing for. U can also ask the "poster citation in APA or else in Google or other search engines.

Good Luck!

Hi Amir, I would say yes its OK. If it's published in a proceedings cite as a conference paper. As Majid says check with the appropriate style manual to get the correct syntax. There is a convention in citation to put additional or missing information in [ ]. you could add [Poster] after the poster title if you think you need to make it clear. If its your poster you could post it to the web, even ResaerchGate :-> and cite it as a web resource.

Ian makes a good point in that a poster is a very particular form of publication. Used by early career researchers, PhD's, those reporting early results or presenting prior to later publication. It would be smart to see if the authors of the poster had later published a full paper based on their data. Do an author search and check. The key here will be the date. If a poster is over two years old, say that to me would be a signal to check for a full article.

Finally, the slightly ephemaral nature of posters means that it might be a mistake to rely too much on it as a source for a substantial part of your writing. If it is that significant, and you feel confident I would contact the rearchers directly to discuss the topic. Best Wishes, Matt

Dear Professor Ian Kennedy, Professor Majid Rezai-Rad, and Professor Matt Holland,

I thank you for your supports. I am very appreciated that you have taken time and advised me.

With best wishes,

Amir

I think that an author should cite posters that have not only an abstract, accepted in the proceedings, but at least 2-page paper. For instance, at the Shape Modeling International (SMI) conference, a 6-page paper is accepted for a poster (short paper). At the VISIGRAPP another 6-page paper is accepted, while a 2-page paper is accepted at the VisWeek (Poster Compendium). I should not cite a poster without nothing of published.

For APA style check this:

http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2012/08/how-to-cite-materials-from-meetings-and-symposia.html

Majid - 'because a poster may have mistakes which is usually proof-read before finalizing': who says a poster is liable to have mistakes? If the person has made the effort to publicly present his work for scrutiny, then why is this any different from an oral presentation or submitting a journal article?

Majid & David - I am very interested in the perceptions and practices of poster presentation around the world. The 2012 SMI guidelines (http://smi2012.viz.tamu.edu/11.shtml) state: 'All accepted submissions will be published as either full-length (14 pages max) or short (6-8 pages) journal papers in issue 36(3) of Computers & Graphics (Elsevier).' There is no mention of a poster (!) & I think that papers and posters are very different animals.

My own recommendations for poster citation would be to follow only published citation techniques, such as:

MLA - http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/09/

APA - http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/09/ (at the bottom)

CMS - http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/717/08/

Harvard - http://libguides.jcu.edu.au/content.php?pid=82408&sid=775553

@Nicholas Rowe

Probably, it is not mentioned explicitly, but a short paper at the SMI conference consists of a poster and a short article (6-8 pages). I published an article at the SMI 2011 (see my article regarding IA* data structure) and my advisor in 2012, always as poster+article.

The SMI is a very good conference, since not only you can present your poster, but also write a short paper regarding your poster, which will be published on a journal. Other conferences (SGP for instance) does not publish articles related to posters on journals. It is very convenient thing in case a paper was misunderstood by reviewers, like in our case.

David - I can see your point, although in matters of citation I would consider anything published as a conference proceding in the ways prescribed. I don't think we can create our own arbitrary rules (but we can influence the existing ones).

I see posters as having both networking and knowledge transfer roles. I think recognition should be given for accepted papers, especially as you describe. On the other hand, a 'pretty picture' with little more than a 300 word abstract is often treated as a lesser publication. I would like to see more standardisation of poster events as they have great potential to facilitate knowledge transfer.

Look at this example

Charles L, Gordner R. Analysis of MedlinePlus en Espanol customer service requests. Poster session presented at: Futuro magnifico! Celebrating our diversity. MLA `05: Medical Library Association Annual Meeting; 2005 May 14-19; San Antonio, TX.