BMS Cellular Science (6H5Z1002)
Poster assignment
You will design a poster based on the knowledge gained from the practical on sperm
morphology assessment and a literature research on published articles relating to sperm
morphology and male infertility.
Upon completion of this assignment, you will have gained valuable skills in literature research
and critical analysis of published material. At this stage in your academic career, you should
be able to search the scientific search engines, such as PubMed
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed), or Google Scholar for peer-reviewed scientific articles.
Textbooks are good for basic, background knowledge. However, the information tends to be
outdated by the time they are published.
The Title of the poster is:
Clinical Significance of Sperm Morphology Assessment
You will do a literature search to investigate the current understanding and practice in sperm
analysis. To do this you can use key search terms, for instance; “sperm morphology”, “IVF
and sperm morphology” etc. When you search for these terms in PubMed you will get a list of
publication titles. You can then select the ones relevant to your topic.
You should download the papers and read them – developing a critical view of their findings.
The WHO Examination and processing of human semen, 5th edition is attached together with
some other relevant papers.
From your reading (and the laboratory practical), you should develop an understanding of
semen analysis and diagnostic andrology. You should be able to provide a critique of semen
analysis, in particular sperm morphology, that is: is assessing sperm morphology clinically
relevant.
You will present your findings in a poster format.
Posters are usually proportioned in to Introduction, Results, Discussion and Conclusion.
(note: the methods section in this poster can be omitted – as you are more describing the
clinical findings in the literature).
You may use the images of sperm morphology (not the vitality stain) taken during the practical
(available on Moodle).
You Do NEED to print the poster in one A3 size paper. You have to design it on PowerPoint
and submit it through BOTH the coursework receipting office (Blue Box) and also through
Turnitin (in the cellular science’s Moodle area – scroll down to find it!). Please note: to submit
in turnitin, the PowerPoint file will have to be converted to a pdf file.
Some notes on posters:
Posters are a visual representation of your scientific work. It should be concise, visually
attractive and easily read. Think about it, what poster would you prefer to review? One that is
just like a paper, word-full and difficult to follow or a visually attractive display, which is easy
to read within 5 minutes. Know your audience and usually they will be just like you! Less is
more – Do not make your posters very wordy. For instance bullet points your content, or use
short paragraphs. Make the font an easy to read font – like Arial. Use imagery – and make
sure that they can be expanded to avoid pixelated images.
This assignment will examine the student’s ability to present scientific information in a poster
format. A scientific poster is designed, in general, with the following in mind:
