Prof. Dr. Thorsten Jungmann (last updated 2026-11-03)
Relates to FTS-03 Weighing up, citing and designing your poster
Task
On your poster, everything that does not come from you carries its source, according to the guide to Scientific Work (FTS-03, chapter 4). In each of the following eight cases, an element of a poster on our example question, ‘Does hydrogen make steel production climate-neutral?’, is not cited correctly. Find what is missing or wrong, and say how to correct it. Work through the cases one after the other; the solution is below each case.
1 The electricity for a tonne of steel
In the column of the scientific answer, a poster reads: ‘Producing one tonne of liquid steel takes 3.48 MWh of electricity (Vogl et al. 2018).’
What is missing?
Solution
The page. A short reference in the name-year system gives the surname of the author, the year and the page, for example (Vogl et al. 2018, p. 736) (FTS-03, 4.1; guide to Scientific Work, section 3.5). Without the page, nobody can find the statement in the ten pages of the article.
2 A sentence from page 740
A student takes a sentence word for word from page 740 of the same article and puts it into the column of the scientific answer: ‘However, zero emission electricity is not sufficient for producing zero emission steel (Vogl et al. 2018, p. 740).’
What is wrong, and how can the student correct it?
Solution
The quotation marks are missing. If you reproduce the words of a source exactly, you write a direct quotation, and a direct quotation stands in quotation marks (FTS-03, 4.1; guide to Scientific Work, section 3.5). Without them, the words of the source look like the student’s own words. On a poster, indirect quotations in your own words are the rule (FTS-03, 4.1). A possible answer: ‘Even with zero-emission electricity, steel production is not free of emissions (Vogl et al. 2018, p. 740).’
3 Two statements in one column
In the column of the scientific answer, one statement ends with ‘[1]’, the next with a short reference such as (Vogl et al. 2018, p. 736).
What is wrong?
Solution
Two citation styles are mixed. The guide to Scientific Work provides two variants of citing, the name-year system and the numbering system, and a piece of work uses one of them (section 3.5). On your poster, as in your term paper, every short reference follows the name-year system: the surname of the author, the year and the page (FTS-03, 4.1). The number in square brackets belongs to the numbering system.
4 A photo of a steelworks
Below a photo of a steelworks, which a student found on a news website, the caption reads: ‘Figure 1: A steelworks’.
What is missing?
Solution
The source. A picture that you have not created yourself carries its source, like a figure from a source: the caption gives the short reference on the next line below the description, and the bibliography gives the long reference (FTS-03, 4.3; guide to Scientific Work, section 3.6). Pictures without a source do not belong on your poster (FTS-03, 3.2).
5 A diagram with two labels
A student copies a diagram from page 741 of the same article and adds two labels of their own. The caption gives the source as for a figure copied unchanged: (Vogl et al. 2018, p. 741).
How is the source given correctly?
Solution
With ‘cf.’ at the beginning, such as (cf. Vogl et al. 2018, p. 741). If you use the content or the design of a figure and revise it, you mark this with ‘cf.’ (FTS-03, 4.3; guide to Scientific Work, section 3.6). Only a figure that you copy unchanged carries the short reference without ‘cf.’. If you draw a figure of your own based on an existing one, you write ‘(based on <source>)’ after the description.
6 A bar chart of emissions
A student asks an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to generate a bar chart that compares the emissions of the blast furnace route and of hydrogen direct reduction. The student puts the chart on the poster with the caption ‘Figure 2: Emissions of the two routes, generated with an AI tool’.
What is wrong?
Solution
An AI picture never shows data or a diagram. On your poster, an AI picture may only show a scene that illustrates your topic – never data, a diagram or anything that serves as evidence (FTS-03, 4.3). The guide to Scientific Work expressly prohibits images and figures taken directly from AI without checking their source and content (section 2.10). Data come from your scientific sources: show a figure from a source with its short reference in the caption, or draw a figure of your own with the data from your sources and give all the sources that you have used (FTS-03, 4.3; guide to Scientific Work, section 3.6).
7 The column of the AI answer
In the column of the AI answer, a student quotes the answer of the AI service and puts the name of the service and the year in brackets behind it, like a short reference. The bibliography of the poster contains a long reference for this answer.
What is wrong?
Solution
Two things. First, the AI answer is never a source and never evidence, so it never gets a short reference. You quote it only to examine it, with its long reference directly at the quotation – the product, the access source, the model and the mode and the date of your query – followed by the note that the quotation is not evidence (FTS-03, 4.2; guide to Scientific Work, section 2.10). Second, its long reference stands nowhere else – not in the bibliography (FTS-03, 4.4). The AI service appears in the overview of tools used instead, as a tool, not as a reference.
8 The overview of tools used
In the overview of tools used on a poster, a student lists only DeepL Write, which corrected the spelling of the texts. The poster examines the answer of an AI service.
What is missing, and why?
Solution
The AI service that you questioned in step 3. The guide to Scientific Work requires you to list the AI tools that you have used in full, and the AI service whose answer you examine is one of them. It appears in the overview of tools used with the examination of its answer as the scope of use – as a tool, not as a reference: its answer is never evidence and does not belong in the bibliography (FTS-03, 4.4; guide to Scientific Work, section 2.10). The example poster in FTS-03, 4.5 shows such a row for Claude.
Bibliography
- VOGL, Valentin, ÅHMAN, Max and NILSSON, Lars J., 2018. Assessment of hydrogen direct reduction for fossil-free steelmaking. Journal of Cleaner Production [online]. 203, 736–745. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.08.279 [viewed 2026-10-19].