example of an abstract for a conference presentation

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How to Write a Really Great Presentation Abstract

Whether this is your first abstract submission or you just need a refresher on best practices when writing a conference abstract, these tips are for you..

An abstract for a presentation should include most the following sections. Sometimes they will only be a sentence each since abstracts are typically short (250 words):

• What (the focus): Clearly explain your idea or question your work addresses (i.e. how to recruit participants in a retirement community, a new perspective on the concept of “participant” in citizen science, a strategy for taking results to local government agencies).
• Why (the purpose): Explain why your focus is important (i.e. older people in retirement communities are often left out of citizen science; participants in citizen science are often marginalized as “just” data collectors; taking data to local governments is rarely successful in changing policy, etc.)
• How (the methods): Describe how you collected information/data to answer your question. Your methods might be quantitative (producing a number-based result, such as a count of participants before and after your intervention), or qualitative (producing or documenting information that is not metric-based such as surveys or interviews to document opinions, or motivations behind a person’s action) or both.
• Results: Share your results — the information you collected. What does the data say? (e.g. Retirement community members respond best to in-person workshops; participants described their participation in the following ways, 6 out of 10 attempts to influence a local government resulted in policy changes ).
• Conclusion : State your conclusion(s) by relating your data to your original question. Discuss the connections between your results and the problem (retirement communities are a wonderful resource for new participants; when we broaden the definition of “participant” the way participants describe their relationship to science changes; involvement of a credentialed scientist increases the likelihood of success of evidence being taken seriously by local governments.). If your project is still ‘in progress’ and you don’t yet have solid conclusions, use this space to discuss what you know at the moment (i.e. lessons learned so far, emerging trends, etc).

Here is a sample abstract submitted to a previous conference as an example:

Giving participants feedback about the data they help to collect can be a critical (and sometimes ignored) part of a healthy citizen science cycle. One study on participant motivations in citizen science projects noted “When scientists were not cognizant of providing periodic feedback to their volunteers, volunteers felt peripheral, became demotivated, and tended to forgo future work on those projects” (Rotman et al, 2012). In that same study, the authors indicated that scientists tended to overlook the importance of feedback to volunteers, missing their critical interest in the science and the value to participants when their contributions were recognized. Prioritizing feedback for volunteers adds value to a project, but can be daunting for project staff. This speed talk will cover 3 different kinds of visual feedback that can be utilized to keep participants in-the-loop. We’ll cover strengths and weaknesses of each visualization and point people to tools available on the Web to help create powerful visualizations. Rotman, D., Preece, J., Hammock, J., Procita, K., Hansen, D., Parr, C., et al. (2012). Dynamic changes in motivation in collaborative citizen-science projects. the ACM 2012 conference (pp. 217–226). New York, New York, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/2145204.2145238

📊   Data Ethics  – Refers to trustworthy data practices for citizen science.

Get involved » Join the Data Ethics Topic Room on CSA Connect!

📰   Publication Ethics  – Refers to the best practice in the ethics of scholarly publishing.

Get involved » Join the Publication Ethics Topic Room on CSA Connect!

⚖️  Social Justice Ethics  – Refers to fair and just relations between the individual and society as measured by the distribution of wealth, opportunities for personal activity, and social privileges. Social justice also encompasses inclusiveness and diversity.

Get involved » Join the Social Justice Topic Room on CSA Connect!

👤   Human Subject Ethics  – Refers to rules of conduct in any research involving humans including biomedical research, social studies. Note that this goes beyond human subject ethics regulations as much of what goes on isn’t covered.

Get involved » Join the Human Subject Ethics Topic Room on CSA Connect!

🍃  Biodiversity & Environmental Ethics – Refers to the improvement of the dynamics between humans and the myriad of species that combine to create the biosphere, which will ultimately benefit both humans and non-humans alike [UNESCO 2011 white paper on Ethics and Biodiversity ]. This is a kind of ethics that is advancing rapidly in light of the current global crisis as many stakeholders know how critical biodiversity is to the human species (e.g., public health, women’s rights, social and environmental justice).

⚠ UNESCO also affirms that respect for biological diversity implies respect for societal and cultural diversity, as both elements are intimately interconnected and fundamental to global well-being and peace. ( Source ).

Get involved » Join the Biodiversity & Environmental Ethics Topic Room on CSA Connect!

🤝  Community Partnership Ethics – Refers to rules of engagement and respect of community members directly or directly involved or affected by any research study/project.

Get involved » Join the Community Partnership Ethics Topic Room on CSA Connect!

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January 27th, 2015

How to write a killer conference abstract: the first step towards an engaging presentation..

34 comments | 137 shares

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Helen Kara responds to our previously published guide to writing abstracts and elaborates specifically on the differences for conference abstracts. She offers tips for writing an enticing abstract for conference organisers and an engaging conference presentation. Written grammar is different from spoken grammar. Remember that conference organisers are trying to create as interesting and stimulating an event as they can, and variety is crucial.

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The Impact blog has an  ‘essential ‘how-to’ guide to writing good abstracts’ . While this post makes some excellent points, its title and first sentence don’t differentiate between article and conference abstracts. The standfirst talks about article abstracts, but then the first sentence is, ‘Abstracts tend to be rather casually written, perhaps at the beginning of writing when authors don’t yet really know what they want to say, or perhaps as a rushed afterthought just before submission to a journal or a conference.’ This, coming so soon after the title, gives the impression that the post is about both article and conference abstracts.

I think there are some fundamental differences between the two. For example:

• Article abstracts are presented to journal editors along with the article concerned. Conference abstracts are presented alone to conference organisers. This means that journal editors or peer reviewers can say e.g. ‘great article but the abstract needs work’, while a poor abstract submitted to a conference organiser is very unlikely to be accepted.
• Articles are typically 4,000-8,000 words long. Conference presentation slots usually allow 20 minutes so, given that – for good listening comprehension – presenters should speak at around 125 words per minute, a conference presentation should be around 2,500 words long.
• Articles are written to be read from the page, while conference presentations are presented in person. Written grammar is different from spoken grammar, and there is nothing so tedious for a conference audience than the old-skool approach of reading your written presentation from the page. Fewer people do this now – but still, too many. It’s unethical to bore people! You need to engage your audience, and conference organisers will like to know how you intend to hold their interest.

Image credit:  allanfernancato  ( Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain )

The competition for getting a conference abstract accepted is rarely as fierce as the competition for getting an article accepted. Some conferences don’t even receive as many abstracts as they have presentation slots. But even then, they’re more likely to re-arrange their programme than to accept a poor quality abstract. And you can’t take it for granted that your abstract won’t face much competition. I’ve recently read over 90 abstracts submitted for the  Creative Research Methods conference in May  – for 24 presentation slots. As a result, I have four useful tips to share with you about how to write a killer conference abstract.

First , your conference abstract is a sales tool: you are selling your ideas, first to the conference organisers, and then to the conference delegates. You need to make your abstract as fascinating and enticing as possible. And that means making it different. So take a little time to think through some key questions:

• What kinds of presentations is this conference most likely to attract? How can you make yours different?
• What are the fashionable areas in your field right now? Are you working in one of these areas? If so, how can you make your presentation different from others doing the same? If not, how can you make your presentation appealing?

There may be clues in the call for papers, so study this carefully. For example, we knew that the  Creative Research Methods conference , like all general methods conferences, was likely to receive a majority of abstracts covering data collection methods. So we stated up front, in the call for papers, that we knew this was likely, and encouraged potential presenters to offer creative methods of planning research, reviewing literature, analysing data, writing research, and so on. Even so, around three-quarters of the abstracts we received focused on data collection. This meant that each of those abstracts was less likely to be accepted than an abstract focusing on a different aspect of the research process, because we wanted to offer delegates a good balance of presentations.

Currently fashionable areas in the field of research methods include research using social media and autoethnography/ embodiment. We received quite a few abstracts addressing these, but again, in the interests of balance, were only likely to accept one (at most) in each area. Remember that conference organisers are trying to create as interesting and stimulating an event as they can, and variety is crucial.

Second , write your abstract well. Unless your abstract is for a highly academic and theoretical conference, wear your learning lightly. Engaging concepts in plain English, with a sprinkling of references for context, is much more appealing to conference organisers wading through sheaves of abstracts than complicated sentences with lots of long words, definitions of terms, and several dozen references. Conference organisers are not looking for evidence that you can do really clever writing (save that for your article abstracts), they are looking for evidence that you can give an entertaining presentation.

Third , conference abstracts written in the future tense are off-putting for conference organisers, because they don’t make it clear that the potential presenter knows what they’ll be talking about. I was surprised by how many potential presenters did this. If your presentation will include information about work you’ll be doing in between the call for papers and the conference itself (which is entirely reasonable as this can be a period of six months or more), then make that clear. So, for example, don’t say, ‘This presentation will cover the problems I encounter when I analyse data with homeless young people, and how I solve those problems’, say, ‘I will be analysing data with homeless young people over the next three months, and in the following three months I will prepare a presentation about the problems we encountered while doing this and how we tackled those problems’.

Fourth , of course you need to tell conference organisers about your research: its context, method, and findings. It will also help enormously if you can take a sentence or three to explain what you intend to include in the presentation itself. So, perhaps something like, ‘I will briefly outline the process of participatory data analysis we developed, supported by slides. I will then show a two-minute video which will illustrate both the process in action and some of the problems encountered. After that, again using slides, I will outline each of the problems and how we tackled them in practice.’ This will give conference organisers some confidence that you can actually put together and deliver an engaging presentation.

So, to summarise, to maximise your chances of success when submitting conference abstracts:

• Make your abstract fascinating, enticing, and different.
• Write your abstract well, using plain English wherever possible.
• Don’t write in the future tense if you can help it – and, if you must, specify clearly what you will do and when.
• Explain your research, and also give an explanation of what you intend to include in the presentation.

While that won’t guarantee success, it will massively increase your chances. Best of luck!

This post originally appeared on the author’s personal blog and is reposted with permission.

Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Impact of Social Science blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please review our  Comments Policy  if you have any concerns on posting a comment below.

About the Author

Dr Helen Kara has been an independent social researcher in social care and health since 1999, and is an Associate Research Fellow at the Third Sector Research Centre , University of Birmingham. She is on the Board of the UK’s Social Research Association , with lead responsibility for research ethics. She also teaches research methods to practitioners and students, and writes on research methods. Helen is the author of Research and Evaluation for Busy Practitioners (2012) and Creative Research Methods in the Social Sciences (April 2015) , both published by Policy Press . She did her first degree in Social Psychology at the LSE.

About the author

Dr Helen Kara FAcSS has been an independent researcher since 1999 and an independent scholar since 2011. She writes about research methods and research ethics, and teaches doctoral students and staff at higher education institutions worldwide. Her books include Creative Research Methods: A Practical Guide and Research Ethics in the Real World: Euro-Western and Indigenous Perspectives for Policy Press, and Qualitative Research for Quantitative Researchers for SAGE. She is an Affiliate at Swansea University and a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University.

34 Comments

Personally, I’d rather not see reading a presentation written off so easily, for three off the cuff reasons:

1) Reading can be done really well, especially if the paper was written to be read.

2) It seems to be well suited to certain kinds of qualitative studies, particularly those that are narrative driven.

3) It seems to require a different kind of focus or concentration — one that requires more intensive listening (as opposed to following an outline driven presentation that’s supplemented with visuals, i.e., slides).

Admittedly, I’ve read some papers before, and writing them to be read can be a rewarding process, too. I had to pay attention to details differently: structure, tone, story, etc. It can be an insightful process, especially for works in progress.

Sean, thanks for your comment, which I think is a really useful addition to the discussion. I’ve sat through so many turgid not-written-to-be-read presentations that it never occurred to me they could be done well until I heard your thoughts. What you say makes a great deal of sense to me, particularly with presentations that are consciously ‘written to be read’ out loud. I think where they can get tedious is where a paper written for the page is read out loud instead, because for me that really doesn’t work. But I love to listen to stories, and I think of some of the quality storytelling that is broadcast on radio, and of audiobooks that work well (again, in my experience, they don’t all), and I do entirely see your point.

Helen, I appreciate your encouraging me remark on such a minor part of your post(!), which I enjoyed reading and will share. And thank you for the reply and the exchange on Twitter.

Very much enjoyed your post Helen. And your subsequent comments Sean. On the subject of the reading of a presentation. I agree that some people can write a paper specifically to be read and this can be done well. But I would think that this is a dying art. Perhaps in the humanities it might survive longer. Reading through the rest of your post I love the advice. I’m presenting at my first LIS conference next month and had I read your post first I probably would have written it differently. Advice for the future for me.

Martin – and Sean – thank you so much for your kind comments. Maybe there are steps we can take to keep the art alive; advocates for it, such as Sean, will no doubt help. And, Martin, if you’re presenting next month, you must have done perfectly well all by yourself! Congratulations on the acceptance, and best of luck for the presentation.

Great article! Obvious at it may seem, a point zero may be added before the other four: which _are_ your ideas?

A scientific writing coach told me she often runs a little exercise with her students. She tells them to put away their (journal) abstract and then asks them to summarize the bottom line in three statements. After some thinking, the students come up with an answer. Then the coach tells the students to reach for the abstract, read it and look for the bottom line they just summarised. Very often, they find that their own main observations and/or conclusions are not clearly expressed in the abstract.

PS I love the line “It’s unethical to bore people!” 🙂

Thanks for your comment, Olle – that’s a great point. I think something happens to us when we’re writing, in which we become so clear about what we want to say that we think we’ve said it even when we haven’t. Your friend’s exercise sounds like a great trick for finding out when we’ve done that. And thanks for the compliments, too!

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Thank you very much for the tips, they are really helpful. I have actually been accepted to present a PuchaKucha presentation in an educational interdisciplinary conference at my university. my presentation would be about the challenges faced by women in my country. So, it would be just a review of the literature. from what I’ve been reading, conferences are about new research and your new ideas… Is what I’m doing wrong??? that’s my first conference I’ll be speaking in and I’m afraid to ruin it!!! I will be really grateful about any advice ^_^

First of all: you’re not going to ruin the conference, even if you think you made a bad presentation. You should always remember that people are not very concerned about you–they are mostly concerned about themselves. Take comfort in that thought!

Here are some notes: • If it is a Pecha Kucha night, you stand in front of a mixed audience. Remember that scientists understand layman’s stuff, but laymen don’t understand scientists stuff. • Pecha Kucha is also very VISUAL! Remember that you can’t control the flow of slides – they change every 20 seconds. • Make your main messages clear. You can use either one of these templates.

A. Which are the THREE most important observations, conclusions, implications or messages from your study?

B. Inform them! (LOGOS) Engage them! (PATHOS) Make an impression! (ETHOS)

C. What do you do as a scientist/is a study about? What problem(s) do you address? How is your research different? Why should I care?

Good luck and remember to focus on (1) the audience, (2) your mission, (3) your stuff and (4) yourself, in that order.

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I don’t know whether it’s just me or if perhaps everybody else encountering problems with your site. It appears as if some of the text in your content are running off the screen. Can someone else please comment and let me know if this is happening to them as well? This could be a issue with my browser because I’ve had this happen before. Thank you

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Thank you Dr Kara for the great guide on creating killer abstracts for conferences. I am preparing to write an abstract for my first conference presentation and this has been educative and insightful. ‘ I choose to be ethical and not bore my audience’.

Thank you Judy for your kind comment. I wish you luck with your abstract and your presentation. Helen

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Dear Dr. Helen Kara, Can there be an abstract for a topic presentation? I need to present a topic in a conference.I searched in the net and couldnt find anything like an abstract for a topic presentation but only found abstract for article presentation. Urgent.Help!

Dear Rekha Sthapit, I think it would be the same – but if in doubt, you could ask the conference organisers to clarify what they mean by ‘topic presentation’. Good luck!

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Tips for Writing an Excellent Conference Abstract

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Have you ever attended a nursing conference and thought to yourself that someday you would love to present a session at this conference? Perhaps you submitted an abstract that didn’t get accepted. Have you read a call for abstracts and wished you knew how to write an excellent abstract? Maybe you are ready to take your professional growth to the next level by presenting at a national conference. Following are some tips to help you write an excellent conference abstract.

The road to an outstanding abstract begins with carefully reviewing the submission guidelines for the conference.

Before You Begin

• Read the directions carefully and often.
• Understand the format, length and content expected.
• Seek a mentor who has experience writing abstracts.
• Allow yourself enough time to prepare a first-rate submission; waiting until the last minute rarely results in quality content.
• Make sure there is evidence to support your topic, and provide current references.

Selecting a Topic

Let’s start at the beginning of your submission with the topic of your abstract. Consider the audience who attends the conference, and think of clinical or professional practice topics that would be meaningful and valuable to them. Timely and relevant topics with fresh ideas and takeaways are a great way to start, and they include:

• New research or clinical guidelines
• Topics that highlight your area of expertise
• Topics that are relevant to conference attendees
• Subjects that apply to current practice challenges or workplace concerns
• Narrowing your topic to focus on key information that will fit in the time allotted

Abstract Titles

The title is the first thing abstract scorers and conference attendees will see, so it is worth spending some time trying a few variations to see what conveys the main point of your abstract and entices the audience to read further:

• Keep the title clear and concise; be certain it accurately reflects your presentation.
• Catchy titles grab the reader’s attention, yet describe the subject well.
• A title with 12 or fewer words is optimal.

Abstract Content

Plan your abstract thoroughly before writing it. A high-quality abstract addresses the problem or question, the evidence and the solutions. It is important to give an overview of what you intend to include in the presentation. Abstracts should be concise but also informative. Sentences should be short to convey the needed information and free of words or phrases that do not add value. Keep your audience in mind as you prepare your abstract. How much background information you provide on a topic will depend on the conference. It is a good idea to explain how you plan to engage the audience with your teaching methods, such as case studies, polling or audience participation.

• After the title, the first sentence should be a hook that grabs the reader’s attention and entices them to continue reading.
• The second sentence should be a focused problem statement supported by evidence.
• The next few sentences provide the solution to the problem.
• The conclusion should reiterate the purpose of your presentation in one or two sentences.

Learning Objectives

If the conference abstract requires learning objectives, start each one with an action verb. Action verbs are words such as apply, demonstrate, explain, identify, outline and analyze. Refrain from using nonaction verbs and phrases such as understand, recognize, be able to, and become familiar with. Learning objectives must be congruent with the purpose, session description/summary and abstract text. For a list of action verbs, refer to a Bloom’s Taxonomy chart .

Editing Your Abstract

Editing is an important part of the abstract submission process. The editing phase will help you see the abstract as a whole and remove unnecessary words or phrases that do not provide value:

• The final draft should be clear and easy to read and understand.
• Your language should be professional and adhere to abstract guidelines.
• Writing in the present tense is preferred.
• If there is more than one author, each author should review and edit the draft.
• Ask a colleague who is a good editor to critique your work.
• Reread your abstract and compare it with the abstract guidelines.
• Great content that is written poorly will not be accepted.
• Prevent typographical errors by writing your submission as a Word document first, and copy and paste it into the submission platform after you check spelling and grammar.
• Follow word and character count instructions, abstract style and formatting guidelines.
• Do not try to bend the rules to fit your needs; authors who do not follow the guidelines are more likely to have their submission rejected.
• After you finish writing your abstract, put it aside and return later with a fresh mind before submitting it.

Grammar Tips

• Avoid ampersands (&) and abbreviations such as, etc.
• Parenthetical remarks (however relevant they may seem) are rarely necessary.
• It is usually incorrect to split an infinitive. An infinitive consists of the word “to” and the simple form of a verb (e.g., to go, to read).
• Examples: “To suddenly go” and “to quickly read” are examples of split infinitives, because the adverbs (suddenly and quickly) split (break up) the infinitives to go and to read.
• Contractions are not used in scholarly writing. Using contractions in academic writing is usually not encouraged, because it can make your writing sound informal.
• I’m = I am
• They’re = They are
• I’d = I had
• She’s = She is
• How’s = How is
• Avoid quotations.
• Do not be redundant or use more words than necessary.
• Use an active voice.

National Teaching Institute (NTI) Submissions

We invite you to participate in AACN’s mission to advance, promote and distribute information through education, research and science. The API (Advanced Practice Institute) and NTI volunteer committees review and score every abstract submitted for NTI. Abstracts are reviewed for relevance of content, quality of writing and expression of ideas. At NTI there are four session times to choose from. Your abstract should demonstrate that you have enough content to cover the selected time frame.

Session Types for NTI

• Mastery: 2.5 hours of content
• Concurrent: 60- or 75-minute sessions
• Preconference half-day: 3 hours of content
• Preconference full-day: 6 hours of content

Links for NTI Submissions

• Submit an abstract for NTI
• Read the Live Abstract Guidelines before submitting your abstract

Putting time and effort into writing an excellent abstract is the gateway to a podium presentation. It’s time to kickstart your professional growth and confidently submit a conference abstract.

For what conference will you submit an abstract?

This is an excellent blog with very sound advice. It has great content for nurses who are wanting to submit an abstract but feel they do not know whe ... re to start and so they never take the opportunity to do it. Read More

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How to Write an Abstract for a Conference: The Ultimate Guide

Are you thinking about attending a conference? If so, you will likely be asked to submit an abstract beforehand. An abstract is an ultra-brief summary of your proposed presentation; it should be no longer than 300 words and contain just the key points of your speech. A conference abstract is also known as a registration prospectus, an information document or a proposal. It is effectively a pitch document that explains why your speech would be of value to the audience at that particular conference – and why they need to hear it from you rather than anyone else! Creating an effective abstract is not always easy, and if this is the first time you have been asked to write one it can feel like quite a challenge. However, don’t panic! This blog post covers everything you need to know about how to write an abstract for a conference – read on to get started now!

What Exactly is an Abstract?

As we have already mentioned, an abstract is a super-brief summary of your proposed presentation. An abstract is used in several different fields and industries, but it’s most often found in the worlds of research, academia and business. An abstract allows the reader to get a quick overview of the main points of a longer document, such as a research paper, a dissertation or a business plan. It’s therefore a useful tool for helping people to get up to speed with your work quickly. Abstracts are also used to summarize conference presentations. A conference abstract is effectively a pitch document that explains why your speech would be of value to the audience at that particular conference – and why they need to hear it from you rather than anyone else!

Why is an abstract important?

Conference organizers need to be able to effectively communicate what the event is about, who should attend and what each speaker will be talking about. This can often be challenging when there are hundreds of different speakers and presentations on a wide range of topics. By creating an abstract, you’re helping the event organizers by providing them with a concise overview of your speech. This is useful because it allows the organizers to quickly and easily communicate the key points of your presentation to the rest of the conference team and conference attendees. Conference abstracts are, therefore, essential for pitching your speech to the organizer – and hopefully securing a place on the conference schedule!

How to write an effective abstract?

If you have ever read the abstracts for research papers, you’ll know that they can vary significantly in quality. Some are written in a very engaging, straightforward style that’s easy to understand, whereas others can be overly complex and difficult to comprehend. You want your abstract to be engaging and easy for your readers to understand, so we recommend keeping the following points in mind when you’re writing yours: 

– Keep it brief. An abstract should be no longer than 300 words. 

– Keep it relevant. An abstract is not a replacement for your actual presentation, so don’t include any information that isn’t relevant to the topic of your speech. 

– Keep it accurate. Make sure that everything you include in your abstract is correct – if you get something wrong, you could have to correct it during your presentation! 

– Keep it interesting. Your abstract should be engaging and exciting to read. 

– Keep it professional. Even though it’s a short piece of writing, your abstract should be written professionally and engagingly.

  Final words

As you can see, creating an abstract can be challenging, mainly if this is the first time you have been asked to write one. However, by following the tips and suggestions in this blog post, you should be able to create an effective, engaging and easy-to-understand abstract. With a little preparation, you should be able to create a compelling abstract that will help you get your foot on the conference speaking circuit!

Thank you liked those tips.

Good advice

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Important Tips for Writing an Effective Conference Abstract

Academic conferences are an important part of graduate work. They offer researchers an opportunity to present their work and network with other researchers. So, how does a researcher get invited to present their work at an academic conference ? The first step is to write and submit an abstract of your research paper .

The purpose of a conference abstract is to summarize the main points of your paper that you will present in the academic conference. In it, you need to convince conference organizers that you have something important and valuable to add to the conference. Therefore, it needs to be focused and clear in explaining your topic and the main points of research that you will share with the audience.

The Main Points of a Conference Abstract

There are some general formulas for creating a conference abstract .

Formula : topic + title + motivation + problem statement + approach + results + conclusions = conference abstract

Here are the main points that you need to include.

The title needs to grab people’s attention. Most importantly, it needs to state your topic clearly and develop interest. This will give organizers an idea of how your paper fits the focus of the conference.

Problem Statement

You should state the specific problem that you are trying to solve.

The abstract needs to illustrate the purpose of your work. This is the point that will help the conference organizer determine whether or not to include your paper in a conference session.

You have a problem before you: What approach did you take towards solving the problem? You can include how you organized this study and the research that you used.

Important Things to Know When Developing Your Abstract

Do your research on the conference.

You need to know the deadline for abstract submissions. And, you should submit your abstract as early as possible.

Do some research on the conference to see what the focus is and how your topic fits. This includes looking at the range of sessions that will be at the conference. This will help you see which specific session would be the best fit for your paper.

Select Your Keywords Carefully

Keywords play a vital role in increasing the discoverability of your article. Use the keywords that most appropriately reflect the content of your article.

Once you are clear on the topic of the conference, you can tailor your abstract to fit specific sessions.

An important part of keeping your focus is knowing the word limit for the abstract. Most word limits are around 250-300 words. So, be concise.

Use Example Abstracts as a Guide

Looking at examples of abstracts is always a big help. Look at general examples of abstracts and examples of abstracts in your field. Take notes to understand the main points that make an abstract effective.

Avoid Fillers and Jargon

As stated earlier, abstracts are supposed to be concise, yet informative. Avoid using words or phrases that do not add any specific value to your research. Keep the sentences short and crisp to convey just as much information as needed.

Edit with a Fresh Mind

After you write your abstract, step away from it. Then, look it over with a fresh mind. This will help you edit it to improve its effectiveness. In addition, you can also take the help of professional editing services that offer quick deliveries.

Remain Focused and Establish Your Ideas

The main point of an abstract is to catch the attention of the conference organizers. So, you need to be focused in developing the importance of your work. You want to establish the importance of your ideas in as little as 250-300 words.

Have you attended a conference as a student? What experiences do you have with conference abstracts? Please share your ideas in the comments. You can also visit our  Q&A forum for frequently asked questions related to different aspects of research writing, presenting, and publishing answered by our team that comprises subject-matter experts, eminent researchers, and publication experts.

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