2025 Graduate Research Symposium Competition Guidelines
Department of Horticulture and Crop Science
March 27th & 28th, 2025 at the Shisler Ballroom in Wooster
Competition Eligibility
- Participants must be:
- A graduate student enrolled in the department of Horticulture and Crop Science (HCS) and/or advised by an HCS faculty member
- OR a graduate student that graduated in the fall of 2024 from the HCS Department
- OR a graduate student outside of HCS whose major advisor is from HCS and is funded by HCS (ex. Translational Plant Sciences)
- Students who participated in previous Graduate Research Symposium competitions are required to report additional or different data unless the previously presented data is being used to answer a different research question or different analytical procedures are utilized.
- Students presenting research results can present either a poster or an oral presentations. Oral presentation slots are subject to availability, and will be selected based on scored abstracts. Non-selected oral abstracts are welcome to present a poster instead.
- Students presenting proposal results are limited to presenting a poster during one of the poster sessions.
- Students may submit to no more than one talk or poster.
- Students must be registered for the event by the deadline.
Non-HCS Graduate Student Participants
Those who wish to give a presentation but are not currently a graduate student in HCS are allowed to do so in a non-competition poster.
Eligible participants include, but are not limited to: postdocs, interns, undergraduates, research fellows, and graduate students from other departments. Note that HCS graduate students are not eligible for non-competition categories.
Abstract Submission Guidelines
General Information
- All competition and non-competition categories require an abstract submission.
- Abstracts will be published in the Graduate Research Symposium Program Booklet that will be given to all participants of the Symposium (University affiliates and visitors) via the HCS GSA website.
- 20% of score will be from the submitted abstract.
Submission Date & Scoring
- Submitted by Friday, February 14th, 2025.
- Must include title, authors, and affiliations.
- 250-word limit without the title, authors, and affiliations.
- Times New Roman Font, Size 12, left aligned, and 1.15 spacing must be used.
- Submitted as a Word Document through the HCS GSA website under the GRS abstract submission page HERE.
- Points will be deducted for missing any of the above information or formatting or going over the word limit. Attached is an example of correct abstract formatting.
Oral Presentation Guidelines
Results Category Only
- Time: 10 minutes
- Eligibility for this category:
- A student that has new results (not presented at last year’s GRS) from research to present.
- OR a student that is asking a different question or using a different analytical technique with data that was previously presented at a GRS.
- Competition Rules:
- Talk should cover only a single project.
- PowerPoint slide(s) are encouraged. If you choose to use PowerPoint, please bring your presentation on a flash drive and upload it to the computer in the Shisler Ballroom before your scheduled oral session.
- The abstract (20%) and the presentation/question session (80%) will count toward the final score.
- Presentations should be between 9:00-10:00 minutes.
- A 5-point deduction for students who are under or overtime.
- There will be a questions segment immediately following the presentation lasting 5 minutes.
Poster Presentation Guidelines
Proposal and Results Categories
- Poster Size: One sided, no larger than 42” x 36” displayed horizontally or vertically
- Poster Format Links: CFAES Template better poster templates better poster Video
- Each Poster should include:
- Title Banner – Including the title, author(s), and department(s). The entrant must be the first author listed.
- Introduction – A clear and concise statement of the rationale, hypothesis, and justification for the project, the objectives of the research, and general approach.
- Materials and Methods – An outline of the key materials and methods defining how the experiment or study was conducted.
- Results – Data visualizations (Charts, graphs), photos, etc., showing and documenting experimental findings and analyses.
- Conclusions and Discussion – A statement of the conclusions from the study results and a brief explanation of the study’s results relationship to the drawn conclusion(s) considering significance, and congruence (or lack of) with the body of scientific knowledge.
- Acknowledgments and References – A brief acknowledgment of other contributors who are not authors, and key literature references to the study, if required.
- Poster authors will stand at their poster during their designated session for 35 minutes to answer any questions and engage with those who visit their poster.
Awards
Monetary awards will be given for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners in each competition along with a people’s choice award. Subject to change.
Abstract Example
Your awesome title will be here
J. Doe1 and J. Smith2
1The Ohio State University, Department of Horticulture and Crop Science
2The Ohio State University, Department of Plant Pathology
The body of your abstract will go here. Please be sure to follow all the formatting instructions. For a refresher, the text should be Times New Roman, 12-point font, left aligned with 1.15 spacing. Please do not go over the 250-word limit.
Competition Rubric
Please view the detailed rubrics here:
The links need to be updated after the committee meeting on 2/4/25. Update poster guidelines, and add a pdf version of the rubric.