oral presentation abstract example

Contact AAPS
Get the Newsletter

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!

ASCO Connection

The professional networking site for asco's worldwide oncology community, search form, presentation tips for first-time abstract presenters.

Apr 28, 2020

By Muhamad Alhaj Moustafa, MD

The ASCO Annual Meeting is the largest educational and scientific conference in oncology. In 2019, ASCO attracted more than 42,000 attendees from all over the world. The fundamental goal of such a scientific meeting is to share knowledge and accelerate scientific advances. Investigators use different types of presentations as methods to disseminate and share their valuable work with others in the field. This is an important aspect of promoting their scientific careers. These presentations are important to communicate findings and connect with others in the field with similar interests. During these meetings, your research work has the potential to get the highest attention and visibility. This is a great opportunity to get feedback on your work and to build future collaborations and valuable connections.

I attended my first ASCO Annual Meeting as a post-doctoral fellow in 2015. I remember being so excited about my abstract acceptance but also stressed out about presenting at such a large-scale meeting. I had to read a lot of articles and seek advice from mentors on how to prepare the perfect presentation and how to connect with and impress the audience.

Now, having presented multiple times and in different formats and meetings, I have come to the conclusion that presentation skills are highly valued tools that can promote your work and help you achieve prominence in your field. Thus, it is important to train yourself and master these skills. Here are some tips that I have learned from my experience, particularly for first-time presenters.

Understand Your Audience

Knowing who your audiences are and what they are looking for in your presentation is of utmost importance. It will help you determine the appropriate scope and depth of content you should provide.

In general or large audience sessions, including poster presentations, you have to presume that most of your audience members are not experts in the topic you are presenting (although some are). Thus, you have to give a concise and easy-to-understand background of your topic before you go into details of your work. That way you will connect with a larger portion of your audience.

In smaller sessions, where the room is filled with experts in a certain field, you can assume that you don’t have to give a lot of details about the basic background. Focus more on your research question, methodology, and the importance of the results.

Prepare for the Right Presentation Type

Just as you must tailor your presentation to your audience, you must also tailor it to the type of session where you will be presenting. These are the main types of sessions at which you might be invited to present your abstract at a future ASCO Annual Meeting or similar conference:

Oral abstract presentation

High-quality abstracts are selected for Oral Abstract Sessions. These sessions typically attract audiences with special interest in the topic you are presenting. The typical presentation time is 10 to 12 minutes. Two or three presentations are given back to back, followed by a presentation by a discussant of the abstracts, then a Q&A session.

Usually, you will need to prepare PowerPoint slides to help you walk the audience through the presentation. These slides are not meant for you or the audience to read from. The best PowerPoint slides are ones with simple high-resolution figures and tables that help you illustrate the concepts that you are presenting. Refrain from using busy and over-filled slides with more than three to four lines of text.

Tip: Create a story! A good narrative starts with a captivating introduction. Once you’ve hooked your audience, they will be ready and attentive to learn more about your research. Make sure your first slide and your first words are engaging.

Through your presentation, you have to convey to your audience the primary research question and why it is important to answer (background) , what you did to find your answer (methodology) , and the interesting findings you expected or did not expect to find (results) . Lastly, you have to showcase the importance of your findings and how they add to the current knowledge with emphasis on the next steps you are planning to take (conclusion) . You are the storyteller of your work and it is your presentation that makes the content more compelling and exciting to the audience.

Presenting your research is essentially an act of performance, and therefore preparation is crucial for your success. Try to start practicing early by videotaping yourself and/or by presenting to your mentors and colleagues. Constructive feedback is key to improving your performance.

Poster presentation

Many abstracts are selected for poster presentations, where abstracts are displayed in poster format. The advantage of a poster presentation is that you have more time to interact with your audience and get their feedback, compared to a 15-minute oral abstract presentation. This will also give you the chance to mingle with more people who are interested in your research and possibly build some contacts.

To gain all the benefits of this format of presentation, you have to start with building an attention-grabbing poster that is easy to read. Keep in mind that most people don’t have time to read the whole poster. Avoid filling the board with small text that is difficult to follow; use bullet points rather than long paragraphs. High-quality figures might be all you need to convey your message.

Building a good poster for the first time can be difficult and time-consuming. Initiate the process a few weeks prior to the presentation and review your poster multiple times with your mentors.

First impressions really count in poster presentations. You should be prepared with a quick 1- to 2-minute talk-through presentation that highlights the significance of your work. This can be used to engage in conversations with people who are interested in your poster.

During your presentation time, try to stand next to your poster for the entirety of the session and do not block the view of your poster by standing in front of it. Be welcoming, give appropriate time to each interested individual, and avoid ignoring visitors who are standing and waiting for you.

You can support your poster presentation by using handouts. Handouts will help individuals remember you and your research, and also give them a way to contact you should they have further questions. Handouts typically include:

Abstract title and number
Your name and affiliation (include your email if you are interested in people contacting you regarding your project)
Key information from your abstract
Any supporting material that is not included in the poster
A scannable QR code to help people locate your abstract online

Poster discussion presentation

Select posters will be chosen for Poster Discussion Sessions, where abstract authors will be participating as panel members. These sessions are followed by networking sessions with discussants and authors. In this hybrid type of presentation, you will have the chance to talk to your audience and answer their questions in similar fashion to Oral Abstract Sessions. Prepare yourself to highlight the important points of your research and to answer audience questions.

Be the Expert on Your Abstract

Many presenters, especially in their first few presentations, may demonstrate lack of confidence because they believe that their audience knows more than they do. This increases stress levels and can impair your performance.

Good preparation and sufficient practice are the keys to tackle this issue. You need to make sure that you know and understand all the key points, figures, and tables you are presenting and their implication on the current knowledge. Along with your mentor, prepare a list of possible questions the audience is likely to ask and practice how you will answer them. You may not yet be an expert in your field, but you can and should be the expert on the abstract you are presenting.

Although it is rare, be prepared for negative comments. Do not be defensive in the face of criticism. Your knowledge of your work will help you answer critiques in a professional way. It is very important to welcome feedback with open mind. Always remember that every piece of feedback, whether negative or positive, is a great opportunity to learn, improve your work, and understand different perspectives on a particular topic.

Finally, always keep in mind that the people who have listened to your lecture or visited your poster could potentially be future employers, colleagues, or collaborators. Be polite, professional, and gracious.

Dr. Alhaj Moustafa is a hematology/oncology fellow and assistant professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic in Florida. He is a member of the ASCO Trainee Council and Publishing Research Group. Follow him on Twitter @AlhajMoustafa .

Search form

Advanced search
Search responses
Search blogs
How to prepare and...

How to prepare and deliver an effective oral presentation

Related content
Peer review
Lucia Hartigan , registrar 1 ,
Fionnuala Mone , fellow in maternal fetal medicine 1 ,
Mary Higgins , consultant obstetrician 2
1 National Maternity Hospital, Dublin, Ireland
2 National Maternity Hospital, Dublin; Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin
luciahartigan{at}hotmail.com

The success of an oral presentation lies in the speaker’s ability to transmit information to the audience. Lucia Hartigan and colleagues describe what they have learnt about delivering an effective scientific oral presentation from their own experiences, and their mistakes

The objective of an oral presentation is to portray large amounts of often complex information in a clear, bite sized fashion. Although some of the success lies in the content, the rest lies in the speaker’s skills in transmitting the information to the audience. 1

Preparation

It is important to be as well prepared as possible. Look at the venue in person, and find out the time allowed for your presentation and for questions, and the size of the audience and their backgrounds, which will allow the presentation to be pitched at the appropriate level.

See what the ambience and temperature are like and check that the format of your presentation is compatible with the available computer. This is particularly important when embedding videos. Before you begin, look at the video on stand-by and make sure the lights are dimmed and the speakers are functioning.

For visual aids, Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Mac Keynote programmes are usual, although Prezi is increasing in popularity. Save the presentation on a USB stick, with email or cloud storage backup to avoid last minute disasters.

When preparing the presentation, start with an opening slide containing the title of the study, your name, and the date. Begin by addressing and thanking the audience and the organisation that has invited you to speak. Typically, the format includes background, study aims, methodology, results, strengths and weaknesses of the study, and conclusions.

If the study takes a lecturing format, consider including “any questions?” on a slide before you conclude, which will allow the audience to remember the take home messages. Ideally, the audience should remember three of the main points from the presentation. 2

Have a maximum of four short points per slide. If you can display something as a diagram, video, or a graph, use this instead of text and talk around it.

Animation is available in both Microsoft PowerPoint and the Apple Mac Keynote programme, and its use in presentations has been demonstrated to assist in the retention and recall of facts. 3 Do not overuse it, though, as it could make you appear unprofessional. If you show a video or diagram don’t just sit back—use a laser pointer to explain what is happening.

Rehearse your presentation in front of at least one person. Request feedback and amend accordingly. If possible, practise in the venue itself so things will not be unfamiliar on the day. If you appear comfortable, the audience will feel comfortable. Ask colleagues and seniors what questions they would ask and prepare responses to these questions.

It is important to dress appropriately, stand up straight, and project your voice towards the back of the room. Practise using a microphone, or any other presentation aids, in advance. If you don’t have your own presenting style, think of the style of inspirational scientific speakers you have seen and imitate it.

Try to present slides at the rate of around one slide a minute. If you talk too much, you will lose your audience’s attention. The slides or videos should be an adjunct to your presentation, so do not hide behind them, and be proud of the work you are presenting. You should avoid reading the wording on the slides, but instead talk around the content on them.

Maintain eye contact with the audience and remember to smile and pause after each comment, giving your nerves time to settle. Speak slowly and concisely, highlighting key points.

Do not assume that the audience is completely familiar with the topic you are passionate about, but don’t patronise them either. Use every presentation as an opportunity to teach, even your seniors. The information you are presenting may be new to them, but it is always important to know your audience’s background. You can then ensure you do not patronise world experts.

To maintain the audience’s attention, vary the tone and inflection of your voice. If appropriate, use humour, though you should run any comments or jokes past others beforehand and make sure they are culturally appropriate. Check every now and again that the audience is following and offer them the opportunity to ask questions.

Finishing up is the most important part, as this is when you send your take home message with the audience. Slow down, even though time is important at this stage. Conclude with the three key points from the study and leave the slide up for a further few seconds. Do not ramble on. Give the audience a chance to digest the presentation. Conclude by acknowledging those who assisted you in the study, and thank the audience and organisation. If you are presenting in North America, it is usual practice to conclude with an image of the team. If you wish to show references, insert a text box on the appropriate slide with the primary author, year, and paper, although this is not always required.

Answering questions can often feel like the most daunting part, but don’t look upon this as negative. Assume that the audience has listened and is interested in your research. Listen carefully, and if you are unsure about what someone is saying, ask for the question to be rephrased. Thank the audience member for asking the question and keep responses brief and concise. If you are unsure of the answer you can say that the questioner has raised an interesting point that you will have to investigate further. Have someone in the audience who will write down the questions for you, and remember that this is effectively free peer review.

Be proud of your achievements and try to do justice to the work that you and the rest of your group have done. You deserve to be up on that stage, so show off what you have achieved.

Competing interests: We have read and understood the BMJ Group policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: None.

↵ Rovira A, Auger C, Naidich TP. How to prepare an oral presentation and a conference. Radiologica 2013 ; 55 (suppl 1): 2 -7S. OpenUrl
↵ Bourne PE. Ten simple rules for making good oral presentations. PLos Comput Biol 2007 ; 3 : e77 . OpenUrl PubMed
↵ Naqvi SH, Mobasher F, Afzal MA, Umair M, Kohli AN, Bukhari MH. Effectiveness of teaching methods in a medical institute: perceptions of medical students to teaching aids. J Pak Med Assoc 2013 ; 63 : 859 -64. OpenUrl

Tips for First-Time Abstract Presenters

The fundamental goal of scientific meetings is to share knowledge and accelerate scientific advances. Investigators use different types of presentations to disseminate and share their valuable work with others in the field. This is an important aspect of promoting their scientific careers. These presentations are important to communicate findings and connect with others in the field with similar interests.

Muhamad Alhaj Moustafa, MD

During these meetings, your research work has the potential to receive attention and visibility. This is a great opportunity to get feedback on your work and to build future collaborations and valuable connections.

I attended my first ASCO Annual Meeting as a postdoctoral fellow in 2015. I remember being so excited about my abstract acceptance but also stressed out about presenting at such a large-scale meeting. I had to read a lot of articles and seek advice from mentors on how to prepare the perfect presentation and how to connect with and impress the audience.

Now, having presented multiple times and in different formats and meetings, I have come to the conclusion that presentation skills are highly valuable tools that can help to promote your work and advance in your field. Thus, it is important to train and master these skills. Here are some tips that I have learned from my experience, particularly geared to first-time presenters.

Understand Your Audience

Understanding who your audience is and what they are looking for in your presentation is of utmost importance. It will help you determine the appropriate scope and depth of content summary you should provide.

In general or large audience sessions, including poster presentations, you have to presume that most of your audience members are not experts in the topic you are presenting (although some are). Therefore, giving a concise and easy-to-understand background of your topic before you go into details of your work is helpful. That will connect with a larger portion of your audience.

In smaller sessions, attended by experts in a certain field, you can assume that you don’t have to give a lot of details about the basic background. Focus more on your research question, methodology, and the importance of the results.

Prepare for the Right Presentation Type

Just as you must tailor your presentation to your audience, you must also tailor it to the type of session where you will be presenting. Here are the main types of sessions at which you might be invited to present your abstract:

Oral Abstract Presentation

High-quality abstracts are selected for oral abstract sessions. These sessions typically attract audiences with special interest in the topic you are presenting. The typical presentation time is 10 to 12 minutes. Two or three presentations are given back-to-back, followed by a presentation by a discussant of the abstracts, then a question-and-answer session.

Usually, you will need to prepare PowerPoint slides to help you walk the audience through the presentation. These slides are not meant for you or the audience to read from—the best PowerPoint slides are ones with simple, high-resolution figures and tables that help to illustrate the concepts that you are presenting. Refrain from using busy and overfilled slides with more than three to four lines of text.

Tip: Create a story!

A good narrative starts with a captivating introduction. Once you’ve hooked your audience, they will be more attentive and ready to learn about your research. Make sure your first slide and your first words are engaging.

Throughout your presentation, you will have to convey to your audience the primary research question and why it is important to answer (background) , what you did to find your answer (methodology) , and the interesting findings you expected or did not expect to find (results) .

Lastly, you’ll want to showcase the importance of your findings and how they add to the current knowledge, with emphasis on the next steps you are planning to take (conclusion) . You are the storyteller of your work, and it is your presentation that makes the content more compelling and exciting to the audience.

Presenting your research is essentially an act of performance, and therefore, preparation is crucial for success. Try to start practicing early by videotaping yourself and/or by presenting to your mentors and colleagues. Constructive feedback is key to improving your performance.

Poster Presentation

To gain all the benefits of this format of presentation, start with building an attention-grabbing poster that is easy to read. Keep in mind that most people don’t have time to read the whole poster. Avoid filling the board with small text that is difficult to follow; use bullet points rather than long paragraphs. High-quality figures might be all you need to convey your message.

Building a good poster for the first time can be difficult and time-consuming. Initiate the process a few weeks prior to presentation and review your poster multiple times with your mentors.

First impressions really count in poster presentations—you should be prepared with a quick 1- to 2-minute summary that highlights the significance of your work.

During your presentation time, try to be available for the entirety of the session and do not block the view of your poster by standing in front of it. Be welcoming and give appropriate time to each interested individual.

You can support your poster presentation by using handouts or supplemental materials. Handouts will help individuals remember you and your research and also give them a way to contact you should they have further questions.

Handouts typically include:

Abstract title and number
Your name and affiliation (include your e-mail if you are interested in people contacting you regarding your project)
Key information from your abstract
Any supporting material that is not included in the poster
A scannable QR code to help people locate your abstract online.
Poster Discussion Presentation

Select posters will be chosen for poster discussion sessions, where abstract authors participate as panel members. These sessions are followed by networking sessions with discussants and authors. In this hybrid type of presentation, you will have the chance to talk to your audience and answer their questions in similar fashion to an oral abstract session. Prepare to highlight the important points of your research and to answer audience questions.

Be the Expert on Your Abstract

Many presenters, especially in their first few presentations, may demonstrate lack of confidence because they believe that their audience knows more than they do. This can increase stress and impair performance.

Good preparation and sufficient practice are key to tackle this issue. Make sure that you know and understand all the key points, figures, and tables you are presenting and their implications for the current knowledge. Along with your mentor, prepare a list of possible questions the audience is likely to ask and practice how you will answer them. You may not yet be an expert in your field, but you can and should be the expert on the abstract you are presenting.

Although it is rare, be prepared for negative comments. Do not be defensive in the face of criticism. Knowledge of your work will help you answer critiques in a professional way. It is very important to welcome feedback with an open mind—always remember that every piece of feedback, whether negative or positive, is a great opportunity to learn, improve your work, and understand different perspectives on a particular topic.

Editor’s note: Although these tips were originally written for researchers presenting at in-person meetings, we hope they will also be useful to presenters preparing for virtual conferences.

Dr. Moustafa is a hematology/oncology fellow and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Florida. He is a member of the ASCO Trainee Council and Publishing Research Group. Follow him on Twitter @AlhajMoustafa.

Adjuvant Everolimus in Localized Papillary and Chromophobe Non–Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Pregnancy-associated cancer incidence and risks of adverse obstetric, perinatal outcomes, olaparib may be effective without hormone therapy in some men with biochemically recurrent prostate cancer, medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw in patients with breast cancer, remembering a pioneer in melanoma and immunotherapy jeffrey weber.

Editorial Board
Advertising
Disclosures
Privacy Policy

Jae DiBello Takeuchi Research & Teaching Projects

Sep 26, 2023

How to write a 300-word conference presentation abstract

Updated: Nov 8, 2023

I recently participated in a workshop for graduate students preparing abstract proposals for

the 2024 ICJLE (International Conference on Japanese Language Education) conference . During the workshop, I shared some tips that I use when I write abstracts, so I thought it might be helpful to post them here. Note that I’m assuming you have already settled on the topic and the project is underway. If that’s not the case… well, that’s a topic for another blog.

Don’t start by planning to write 300 words. Your goal should not be “write 300 words.” If it is, and you stop at 300 words, or hastily wrap up when you get to that length, you may stop before you’ve included all the necessary elements. Or worse, you may stop writing before you’ve articulated your presentation’s conclusions or contributions.

Although it’s common to think about writing in terms of length, it’s important to ensure that you write through all your key ideas. Have you ever heard the expression “writing is thinking”? This is the idea that writing is not figuring out everything we’re going to say in our heads, and then writing down a bunch of fully formed thoughts. Instead, it is in the act of writing that we figure out what it is we want to say. As Steven Mintz observed, “writing is not simply a matter of expressing pre-existing thoughts clearly. It’s the process through which ideas are produced and refined.”

In drafting your abstract, use the act of writing to articulate and refine your ideas. Write an outline . A good place to start is with a basic outline, which might include: introduction and background, description of the study, preliminary findings, conclusion, and contributions. Now, instead of writing 300 words, your goal becomes writing a few sentences or a short paragraph for each section in the outline.

If you find that you can’t write at least a sentence or two for each section, that means you still have some work to do before you’ll be ready to write the abstract. Maybe you need to do a little more work on previous research literature before you can write the background or contributions. Or perhaps you need to revisit your analysis before you can articulate the preliminary findings. Writing through the outline will help you find these missing pieces.

After you finish writing through each section of the outline, you will have a rough draft of your abstract. Maybe it’s 400 words, or maybe closer to 500 words, that’s ok. This step will help you complete the crucial task of articulating your ideas.

Revisit the evaluation criteria . Before you start editing, take some time to think about how your abstract will be evaluated. Return to the Call for Proposals and see if the evaluation criteria are specified. If so, evaluate your abstract based on that. Read as if you were a reviewer and see how well your draft aligns with the criteria. If the criteria are not listed in the CfP, re-read the conference description, and use this information to review your draft description. It’s safe to assume that abstracts will be evaluated based on how clearly they explain the topic, background, study details (data, methodology), conclusions or findings, and contributions. If this list looks a lot like the outline you wrote in the step above, you’re doing it right!

As you read your draft, ask yourself which sections are unclear, for example, from the perspective of someone who hasn’t read the same research articles you’ve read. Maybe you need to add some definitional information, or there are details missing from the description of your study. As you read, ask yourself “so what? Why does this matter?” If the answer isn’t clear from the information you’ve provided, you need to address that. As you go through this process, you may find you’re adding more to address these missing pieces. Again, that’s ok. Right now, you want to make sure your abstract has all the details it needs to have.

Edit and Cut. Now it’s time to start looking at that word count! If you have 400 words or less, careful editing should easily get you down closer to 300. But if you have 500 words or more, you are going to need to remove entire sentences or whole sections. First, look for redundancy. You may be surprised to find that you’re saying the same thing twice in two different sections – for example, in the introduction and the conclusion. In a 150-page book, repeating something from the introduction when you write the conclusion is ok, since the reader may have forgotten some early details by the time they get to the end. But such repetition isn’t necessary in a 300-word abstract. So identify spots where you are repeating yourself, and start your cutting there.

Next, look for details that aren’t needed for the abstract, and keep only those that are necessary to help the reader understand your project and where it fits in your field. For example, do you have a lot of information in the background section? A lot of literature review details and multiple citations? That’s a good place to start cutting or collapsing. Do you have more details about the study than are needed in an abstract? Cut that, too.

Another detail to pay attention to at this stage is the structure and order in which you introduce ideas. Experiment with moving sentences around to see if there’s a more effective way to present your topic. Check to see if something you have in the conclusion section might actually work better in the introduction section.

While you’re doing all this cutting, be sure to keep earlier drafts and save any of the language you’re cutting. You may find it useful later, for your presentation or an article write-up.

At this point, if you’re still struggling to get the word count down, move on to the next step!

Put it aside before editing again . This step is essential, so be sure to give yourself enough time before the submission deadline. Put your abstract aside and work on something else. You can work on the project or the presentation, but don’t work on the abstract. Come back to it, in a few days or, ideally, in a week. After some time away, return to your abstract and re-read it with fresh eyes. Focus on clarity, structure, and coherence. If it was still too long when you set it aside, this break should help you spot more places to cut.

Polish and submit . At this point, you should have a more refined and concise presentation of your ideas than when you started. If you have time to get feedback from a friend or mentor, great! But if not, the steps I’ve outlined here will have helped you come up with a solid abstract that demonstrates to the reader what your project is and how it will contribute to the conference.

Now submit your abstract and get started on prepping the actual presentation!

Publications & Writing

How to Write an Abstract For a Poster Presentation Application

Published on 15 Aug 2023

Attending a conference is a great achievement for a young researcher. Besides presenting your research to your peers, networking with researchers of other institutions and building future collaborations are other benefits.

Above all, it allows you to question your research and improve it based on the feedback you receive. As Sönke Ahrens wrote in How To Take Smart Notes "an idea kept private is as good as one you never had".

The poster presentation is one way to present your research at a conference. Contrary to some beliefs, poster presenters aren't the ones relegated to oral presentation and poster sessions are far from second zone presentations; Poster presentations favor natural interactions with peers and can lead to very valuable talks.

The application process

The abstract submitted during the application process is not the same as the poster abstract. The abstract submission is usually longer and you have to respect several points when writing it:

Use the template provided by the conference organization (if applicable);
Specify the abstract title, list author names, co-authors and the institutions in the banner;
Use sub-headings to show out the structure of your abstract (if authorized);
Respect the maximum word count (usually about a 300 word limit) and do not exceed one page;
Exclude figures or graphs, keep them for your poster;
Minimize the number of citations/references.
Respect the submission deadline.

The 3 components of an abstract for a conference application

Most poster abstract submissions follow the classical IMRaD structure, also called the hourglass structure.

To make your abstract more memorable and impactful, you can try the Russian doll structure. Contrary to IMRaD, which has a more linear progression of ideas, the Russian doll structure emphasizes the WHY and WHAT. It unravels the research narrative layer by layer, capturing the reader’s attention more effectively.

Your abstract should be something the reviewer wants to open in order to discover the different layers of your research down to its core (like opening a Russian doll or peeling an onion). Then, it should be wrapped up elegantly with the outcomes (see figure below) like dressing the same Russian doll.

Hence, to design the best Russian doll, I recommend Jean-Luc Doumont's structure as detailed in his book Trees, Maps and Theorems that I adapted in 3 main components:

1. Background. The first component answers to the WHY and details the motivations of your research at different levels:

Context : Why now? Describe the big picture, the current situation.
Need : Why is it relevant to the reader? Describe the research question.
Tasks : Why do we have to do this way? Review the studies related to your research question and emphasize the gap between the need and what was done.

2. Core . The center component answer to the HOW and consists in describing the objective of your research and its method:

Objective : How did I focus on the need? Detail the purpose of your study.
Methods : How did I proceed? Describe briefly the workflow (study population, softwares, tools, process, models, etc.)

3. Outcomes . The final component answers to the WHAT and details the take-aways of your research at different levels:

Findings : What resulted from my method? Describe the main results (only).
Meanings : What do the research findings mean to the reader? Discuss your results by linking them to your objective and research question.
Perspectives : What should be the next steps? Propose further studies that could improve, complement or challenge yours.

It's worth noting that this structure emphasizes the WHY and the WHAT more than the HOW. It is the secret of great scientific storytelling .

The illustration below provides a clearer understanding of the logical flow among the three components and their respective layers. Note that, if authorized, sub-headings can be used for each section mentioned above.

4 tips to help get your abstract qualified

Here are some tips to give yourself the best chance of success for having your poster abstract accepted:

Start by answering questions . It is very hard for the human brain to create something totally from scratch. Hence, allow the questions detailed above to guide you in creating the first path to explore.
Write first, then edit . Do not try to do both at the same time. You won't get the final version of your abstract after your first try. Be patient, and "let your text die" before editing it with a fresh new point of view.
"Kill your darlings'' . Not everything is necessary in the abstract. In Stephen Sondheim's words , West Side Story composer, "you have to throw out good stuff to get the best stuff". You will be amazed at just how surprising and efficient this tip is.
Steal like an artist . As suggested by Austin Kleon's book title , get inspiration from others by reading other abstracts. It can be very helpful if you struggle finding punchy phrasing or transitions. I'm not referring to plagiarism, only getting good ideas about form (and not content) that can be adapted and used in your abstract.

When you get accepted, it's time to design your poster board and prepare your pitch. Pick your favorite graphics software and bring your abstract to life with figures, tables, and colors. We have written an article on how to make a scientific poster , do not hesitate to take a look.

5 Best Event Registration Platforms for Your Next Conference

By having one software to organize registrations and submissions, a pediatric health center runs aro...

5 Essential Conference Apps for Your Event

In today’s digital age, the success of any conference hinges not just on the content and speakers bu...

How to write a successful conference abstract

February 20, 2024

Coming up with an abstract idea

Make sure your abstract aligns with the conference themes and topics.

Types of abstracts and presentations

The next step in writing your abstract submission is to choose your presentation format. There is a submission format to suit everyone – depending on the work you’d like to share, and how confident you feel presenting to an audience. Typically, abstracts can be submitted for:

Research-based oral presentations: Presentations on original research findings, case studies, completed projects and theoretical analyses.
Practice-based oral presentations: Presentations analysing issues and solutions to problems in clinical practice, community engagement, education, health promotion and policy.
Models of Care and Programs presentations: Present on real-world examples of innovative models of care, programs, or interventions to enhance health care delivery.
Multi-media presentations: Presentations delivered via multi-media, typically video, which showcase models of care, case studies, or other activities which improve health promotion, policy, advocacy, or delivery.
Poster presentations: Posters will be displayed within the exhibition and catering area. Poster presentations can be a great choice for early-stage or preliminary research, or for those who are not confident presenting an oral presentation.

Depending on the conference guidelines, oral presentations can often be presented as either a 10+ minute presentation, or five minute rapid-fire presentation with a Q&A component.

Recently, ASHM has introduced new types of presentations to make conference sessions even more accessible and interactive. These include:

Tabletop presentations: In small rotating groups, share how you implemented a solution or initiative in-community, and explore how this initiative can be improved upon or expanded further through discussion.
Case presentations: Present a clinical case report relevant to the conference theme which showcases innovation or practical advice.
Storytelling sessions: Come together with delegates from across the sector to give an informal short five minute talk on your work or program which relates to the conference theme.
Lessons learned: Share and reflect on your experiences through a standard oral presentation or rapid-fire presentation and Q&A session.

Think carefully about which type of presentation best suits the work you want to present. For example, a case study video on how you delivered a program in-community might be best suited to a multi-media presentation. Meanwhile, findings from academic research may work best as a research-based oral presentation.

The types of presentations and abstracts accepted vary by conference and are being updated all the time – make sure to check the ‘Abstract Submission’ page of each conference before starting your submission.

What is an abstract and what does it include?

An abstract is typically a short, stand-alone document which concisely summarises the work you wish to present. When submitting an abstract for an ASHM conference, you can download an abstract template for your type of presentation outlining everything you need to include.

Depending on the type of presentation you are hoping to give, the abstract requirements, guidelines, and template may vary. Below are some general tips – make sure to read and abide by the appropriate guidelines and use the most recent template when submitting your abstract.

Always consult the abstract guidelines for the conference you are submitting to! Make sure to follow any formatting instructions and word limits.

Research-based abstracts: What to include

For research-based abstracts, you will need to include:

Abstract title
Authors: The principal author must appear first, and any authors presenting the paper underlined. Include affiliations/organisation for each author.
Background: Any relevant contextual information, the research problem or rationale, and why this research is important.
Methods: The methods taken to undertake research.
Results: A summary of the most significant results of the research related to the conference themes.
Conclusion: Discuss further any of the outcomes of the research, how it adds to the existing body of knowledge, and any implications for future research and practice.
Disclosure of Interest Statement: Declare any potential conflicts of interest and/or relevant funding sources or organisational funding in this section. If you have no interests to declare, you can write ‘Nothing to disclose’.

While data should be included in your results section, tables, figures and references should not be included in the abstract.

Practice-based abstracts: What to include

For practice-based abstracts, you will need to include:

Background/Purpose: Outline any relevant background information, including the need for this practice/project.
Approach: A brief description of your practice design and approach including any methodologies used, the population researched/impacted, the type of data collected and how it was analysed.
Outcomes/Impact: A summary of the most significant results related to the conference themes.
Innovation and Significance: Describe how your practice has contributed to the sector’s body of knowledge, any novelty or innovations it has made, and any implications for future advancements in this area.

Spend most of your attention and word limit on your outcomes and impact.

Important tips for writing an abstract submission

1. Create a catchy title!

Stand out from other submissions by coming up with a catchy and memorable abstract title. Choose something that would make you want to engage with your presentation. Is there a surprising statistic, or standout quote that would grab people’s attention?

2. Assume that the audience has no previous knowledge on your topic

While it can be easy to rely on acronyms and sector-specific terminology, not everyone who reads your abstract or attends your presentation may know these terms. Assume the reader has no previous knowledge and improve the readability of your abstract by avoiding acronyms where possible (and expanding when included), explaining topic-specific terminology, and only including information related to your presentation.

Who knows – maybe your presentation will be the gateway for an audience member to pursue a new area!

Use the right language in your submission

When submitting an abstract and writing a presentation for an ASHM conference, it is encouraged that you use person-centred language. Putting the person first in your presentation is vital for combating stigma and respecting the dignity of all people.

To make sure your abstract and presentation is using person-centred language, we recommend consulting these helpful language guides:

Trans Care BC and ACON’s Trans-Affirming language guide – for language related to people who are transgender
NADA’s Language Matters guide – for language related to alcohol and other drugs and people who use them
INPUD & ANPUD’s Words Matter! Language statement & reference guide – for language related to alcohol and other drugs and people who use them
Reconciliation Australia language guide – for language related to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and reconciliation

Submitting your abstract online

Once you’ve written your abstract using the template and made sure it follows the guidelines, it’s time to submit. The video below gives a general overview of how to submit your abstract online – depending on the conference this process may differ.

Further questions?

If you have any questions about abstract requirements or submissions, contact ASHM’s Conference and Events team using the enquiry form at the bottom of our Conference and Event Management page.

Learning Hub

Prescribers.

ASHM Head Office – Sydney Level 3, 160 Clarence Street Sydney, NSW 2000

Tel: (+61) 02 8204 0700 Fax: (+61) 02 8204 0782

Acknowledgement of Country

ASHM acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country across the various lands on which we live and work. We recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ continuing connection to land, water, and community and we pay our respects to Elders past and present. ASHM acknowledges Sovereignty in this country has never been ceded. It always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.

About the LSE Impact Blog
Comments Policy
Popular Posts
Recent Posts
Subscribe to the Impact Blog
Write for us
LSE comment

January 27th, 2015

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

34 comments | 135 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.

Enjoying this blogpost? 📨 Sign up to our mailing list and receive all the latest LSE Impact Blog news direct to your inbox.

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!

Pingback: How to write a conference abstract | Blog @HEC Paris Library
Pingback: Writer’s Paralysis | Helen Kara
Pingback: Weekend reads: - Retraction Watch at Retraction Watch
Pingback: The Weekly Roundup | The Graduate School
Pingback: My Top 10 Abstract Writing tips | Jon Rainford's Blog
Pingback: Review of the Year 2015 | Helen Kara
Pingback: Impact of Social Sciences – 2015 Year-In-Review: LSE Impact Blog’s Most Popular Posts

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.

Pingback: How to choose a conference then write an abstract that gets you noticed | The Research Companion
Pingback: Impact of Social Sciences – Impact Community Insights: Five things we learned from our Reader Survey and Google Analytics.
Pingback: Giving Us The Space To Think Things Through… | Research Into Practice Group
Pingback: The Scholar-Practitioner Paradox for Academic Writing [@BreakDrink Episode No. 8] – techKNOWtools

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

Pingback: Exhibition, abstracts and a letter from Prince Harry – EAHIL 2018
Pingback: How to write a great abstract | DEWNR-NRM-Science-Conference
Pingback: Abstracting and postering for conferences – ECRAG

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

Pingback: Tips to Write a Strong Abstract for a Conference Paper – Research Synergy Institute

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!

Pingback: 2020: The Top Posts of the Decade | Impact of Social Sciences
Pingback: Capturing the abstract: what ARE conference abstracts and what are they FOR? (James Burford & Emily F. Henderson) – Conference Inference
Pingback: LSEUPR 2022 Conference | LSE Undergraduate Political Review
Pingback: New Occupational Therapy Research Conference: Integrating research into your role – Glasgow Caledonian University Occupational Therapy Blog

‘It could be effective…’: Uncertainty and over-promotion in the abstracts of COVID-19 preprints

September 30th, 2021.

How to design an award-winning conference poster

May 11th, 2018.

Are scientific findings exaggerated? Study finds steady increase of superlatives in PubMed abstracts.

January 26th, 2016.

An antidote to futility: Why academics (and students) should take blogging / social media seriously

October 26th, 2015.

Visit our sister blog LSE Review of Books

Scientific Posters: An Effective Way of Presenting Research

Scientific publications such as manuscripts, abstracts, posters, and oral presentations aid in disseminating clinical data to the scientific world and maintain transparency of the research outcome and interest in a medical brand.

Publication of a manuscript in a scientific journal generates peer-reviewed citable references. Whereas, the presentation of an abstract, poster, and oral presentation at scientific conferences ensure that research data is made available in the public domain prior to the peer-reviewed publication.

Creating Effective Scientific Posters

Amongst different publication types, poster presentation is a unique mode of scientific communication. It is a popular method of presenting research findings succinctly through a combination of text and graphics. A scientific poster is a design hybrid between an oral presentation and a manuscript; it is more detailed and interactive than an oral presentation but less than a manuscript.

Poster development includes two major elements, content and layout development.

Content development requires expertise in presenting complex data into a concise and simple form. Generally, the content is developed by a medical writer with scientific knowledge on the topic and exceptional writing skills.
Poster layout is developed by graphic designers; they work closely with medical writers and ensure the scientific story is creatively presented in a visual format as per the conference guidelines.

A good poster conveys the research as a simple, clear story in the form of bulleted text and diagrams/images. The “W’s” (who, what, when, where, why) are an effective way to organize the elements of a poster. 1

The content of the poster should interest the audience and provide them with a clear take-home message that they can grasp in the few minutes they spend near your poster. Create the title, charts, and the text to emphasize the key message. The poster starts with a title, aim, background, methods, results, and concludes with the summary of findings and their implications for research. The best poster is a perfect mix of content, color, figures, fonts, and a defined layout.

In our next article, “ Most Effective Tips When Presenting Your Scientific Poster ,” we will share the prerequisites and tips on how to develop a good presentable poster.

Poster illustration: An effective poster with relevant and focused content under various headings

Jane E Miller. Preparing and Presenting Effective Research Posters. Health Serv Res. 2007 Feb; 42(1 Pt 1): 311–328.

Enago Life Sciences is a medical writing company with specialization in medical communications services. We provide a full poster (print / electronic format) and encore poster development services. We work closely with the authors/client to develop the poster from initiation up to final approval. A full poster is developed within a typical turnaround time of 6 weeks (kickoff – print ready file). Keeping the focus on the target audience, our team of writers and graphic designers convert your research into a simple succinct eye-catching poster. Our highly qualified, experienced team, with an excellent knowledge across therapy and industry standards, develops posters as per the conference guidelines and good publication practices.

Click here to download an effective sample poster.

clear and to the point

very informative

Rate this article Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Enago Academy's Most Popular Articles

Content Analysis vs Thematic Analysis: What's the difference?

Reporting Research

Choosing the Right Analytical Approach: Thematic analysis vs. content analysis for data interpretation

In research, choosing the right approach to understand data is crucial for deriving meaningful insights.…

Cross-sectional and Longitudinal Study Design

Comparing Cross Sectional and Longitudinal Studies: 5 steps for choosing the right approach

The process of choosing the right research design can put ourselves at the crossroads of…

Career Corner

Unlocking the Power of Networking in Academic Conferences

Embarking on your first academic conference experience? Fear not, we got you covered! Academic conferences…

Research Recommendations – Guiding policy-makers for evidence-based decision making

Research recommendations play a crucial role in guiding scholars and researchers toward fruitful avenues of…

AI in Academia

Disclosing the Use of Generative AI: Best practices for authors in manuscript preparation

The rapid proliferation of generative and other AI-based tools in research writing has ignited an…

Choosing the Right Analytical Approach: Thematic analysis vs. content analysis for…

Comparing Cross Sectional and Longitudinal Studies: 5 steps for choosing the right…

How to Design Effective Research Questionnaires for Robust Findings

Sign-up to read more

Subscribe for free to get unrestricted access to all our resources on research writing and academic publishing including:

2000+ blog articles
50+ Webinars
10+ Expert podcasts
50+ Infographics
10+ Checklists
Research Guides

We hate spam too. We promise to protect your privacy and never spam you.

Industry News
Publishing Research
Promoting Research
Diversity and Inclusion
Infographics
Expert Video Library
Other Resources
Enago Learn
Upcoming & On-Demand Webinars
Peer Review Week 2024
Open Access Week 2023
Conference Videos
Enago Report
Journal Finder
Enago Plagiarism & AI Grammar Check
Editing Services
Publication Support Services
Research Impact
Translation Services
Publication solutions
AI-Based Solutions
Thought Leadership
Call for Articles
Call for Speakers
Author Training
Edit Profile

I am looking for Editing/ Proofreading services for my manuscript Tentative date of next journal submission:

In your opinion, what is the most effective way to improve integrity in the peer review process?

Log In Username Enter your ACP Online username. Password Enter the password that accompanies your username. Remember me Forget your username or password ?
Privacy Policy
Career Connection
Member Forums

If you are unable to login, please try clearing your cookies . We apologize for the inconvenience.

Guide to Preparing for the Abstract Competition

The College has put together materials to assist you in communicating your research results. The following articles provide helpful advice on the entire scientific communication process, from writing the abstract to delivering the poster or oral presentation. To make the most out of your research experience, and to make it as rewarding as possible, we strongly encourage you to read the appropriate chapters.

1. Writing a Research Abstract

2. Writing a Clinical Vignette Abstract

3. Preparing the Research Presentation

4. Preparing the Clinical Vignette Presentation

5. Preparing a Poster Presentation

6. Selecting Visual Aids

7. Preparing Visual Aids

8. Giving the Oral Presentation

Acknowlegements: Patrick Alguire, MD, FACP and the Michigan State University Primary Care Fellowship Program

Writing an Abstract for a Conference

January 2, 2022 8 min read

January 2, 2022 | 8 min read

Writing Abstracts for a Conference

An "abstract" for an academic conference is a short summary of the scientific research you are involved in. While abstracts generally have a standard format and include more or less the same information and in a similar layout, each conference may have its unique requirements. It is, therefore, essential that you make yourself aware of that conference's specific requirements when planning to submit an abstract for a conference.

Abstracts are submitted to the conference organizers by or on behalf of one of the research authors. This person is called the "presenting author". The presenting author submits the abstract because they wish to present their work at the conference. The conference then has a committee that decides and selects the abstracts that most fit the topic and purpose of the conference. These chosen abstracts are then scheduled into the conference.

Presenting at a conference is a privilege; so typically, the presenter registration fees are not waived. On the contrary, many conferences will not review an abstract if the person who has submitted it is not registered to attend the conference or has not paid an abstract submission fee.

How to Write a Research Abstract for a Conference.

Conferences are essential academic activities pursued by researchers worldwide. They drive the advancement of knowledge through presentations and discussions among their participants. They also help researchers from different regions and backgrounds to connect, thereby enabling future research cooperation.

The Benefits of Presenting at an Academic Conference

Researchers who present their research at conferences open the door to multiple opportunities to advance their research. They receive direct feedback, new ideas, and advice from influential scientific community members and colleagues.

On both a personal and professional level, presenters receive attention from influential members of the community that can benefit them in the future. In addition to this, presenters gain the opportunity to build their reputation and to add colleagues, future employers, and future collaborators to their network.

Participating in an international conference can be expensive. To present at a conference, participants must have ways to fund their conference participation, including travel and accommodation expenses. Unfortunately, the conference organizers usually will not cover presenters' costs and will not even exempt presenters from the conference registration free. However, presenters can apply for grants from any academic institution they are affiliated with. Associations may also have funds to help members present in conferences. In addition, many organizations will generally fund conference participation for their employees.

To begin with, you need to prepare and submit an abstract of your research.

1. What is a Conference Abstract?

As mentioned above, a conference abstract is a limited-length outline of an oral presentation or poster that you intend to present at a conference.

A conference abstract includes:

Article abstract vs. conference abstract.

Article abstracts are submitted alongside the full article or paper and are therefore evaluated alongside the full paper. In the case of academic journals, if the abstract is not perfect, but the editors liked the article, they can request that the author fix the abstract. However, this is not the case with a conference; a conference abstract is submitted by itself and judged by itself.

On the other hand, many conferences will accept poor abstracts because they need to fill slots to make their conference bigger. In a conference, the quality of your abstract as evaluated by the organizer will affect the type of presentation (live or poster) and the scheduling of the presentation provided to you.

2. Processing and Reviewing Abstracts in Conferences.

Conference abstracts are processed and reviewed in several steps. These are listed below:

Conference name.
Conference date and location.
Conference topics.
Abstract submission guidelines.
Abstract submission deadlines.
Abstract processing fees.
Potential speakers submit their abstracts.
The conference secretariat receives the abstracts. They then ensure the abstract is valid, complete, and follows the guidelines

The secretariat is responsible for assigning the abstract for review by one or more reviewers. The secretariat or the Abstract Management System will select the reviewers based on the abstract topic and rules defined by the conference organizers and the conference chairperson.

In small conferences, the chairperson will review all the abstracts and decide how to include them in the conference agenda.

In other conferences, a group of reviewers (known as the scientific committee) will review and give a grade to each abstract. Each reviewer will grade each abstract independently. Depending on the specific conference, each reviewer may also suggest filing the abstract under a different conference topic, recommend the presentation type (poster or oral), or ask the author to revise the abstract (revise and resubmit).

There are two main types of review processes:

After all reviewers complete their review, the abstract management system will calculate the average score of each abstract. The chairperson will then make the final decision regarding the abstracts.
The secretariat will communicate this decision to the abstract submitters and will guide them about the next steps they should take.
The conference chairperson, along with the organizers, will schedule the accepted abstracts to a conference session.

Abstract review criteria.

Most conferences aks reviewers to review and grade abstracts based on similar criteria.

Common abstract grading factors:

Relevance of the abstract to the conference.
Originality.
Significance.
Adherence to abstract submission guidelines.

Conference organizers may have additional goals, so they may consider additional factors.

Example of additional abstract selection factors:

Encouraging young researchers
Ethnic diversity
Author reputation

3. Challenges in Writing a Conference Abstract.

Writing a conference abstract is challenging since it is a limited-length text that needs to appeal to all the different groups of people involved in the conference. In addition, each group has somewhat other interests.

The main groups are the conference organizers, reviewers, and conference attendees. Organizers decide if the abstract is good enough before assigning it to the reviewers, and after the abstract is accepted, they choose when to schedule it. Reviewers score the abstract based on conference criteria such as fitting the conference topics and scientific significance. Attendees need to have an interest in attending the presentation after reading the abstract.

4. Getting Ready to Write the Abstract.

Before writing your abstract, check if a preliminary conference agenda has been published. There may be a list of sessions that you can aim to present and topics that get more time on the agenda.

How many users enter the website, where they are from, the browser they use, how many pages they visit, the time they spend on each page, and more.

Remember to check the conference's abstract submissions guidelines.

Things to note:

Submission deadlines.
Topic list.
Abstract length limit.
Are tables and figures permitted?
Review criteria.

Check for scientific committee members and chairpersons.

Search Abstract Examples

Check abstracts submitted to the conference over the last years can help get an idea of what is required in the abstract.

If previous year abstracts are not available online, ask your colleges if they have a copy of the conference abstracts book from previous years. Attempt to figure out what made each one work.

5. Writing the Abstract Title.

The title is one sentence that describes your research and presentation. It is probably the most important sentence in your abstract because:

It is the first impression of people reviewing your abstract.
It will appear in the conference agenda with a possible link to your abstract.
More people will only read the title than read the abstract or attend the presentation.
People remember and recite your article by its title.

A good title is a clear, easily understood, and attention-grabbing sentence that describes your research and highlights its importance. A good title attracts attendees to read the full abstract or attend the oral presentation.

To make your title clear, straightforward, and short:

Keep it under 14 words.
Avoid using obvious words such as "Research on", "Results of ", "Investigation", "Role of".
Remove unnecessary words such as "the".
Remove words that give no information to the readers.
Avoid special symbols and units.
Avoid complicated words, uncommon abbreviations, and too much jargon.

Writing the abstract title step by step

Explain what your research and presentation are about in two or three sentences. Do not reveal the conclusions.
Shorten and combine the sentences into one title.
Remove unnecessary words.
Review and refine the title.
Make sure that it is informative, clear, and interesting.

6. Writing the Abstract Body.

The abstract body is the main part of the abstract and typically has 200 to 500 words.

General tips:

Concentrate on the research Objective, Methods, Results, and Consultation (OMRC).
Keep sentences brief and concise.
References are not required in the abstract.
Keep background information to a minimum.
Do extensively referring to other works.
Do not define terms.
Avoid asking questions and not answering them.
Make sure your abstract is error-free before submitting it.

An abstract body typically has four parts abbreviated as OMRC.

Abstract body parts (OMRC):

Conclusions

Let us have a look at the main parts of the abstract:

Part 1 - Objective and Purpose

This part is typically two to four sentences and covers: background information, the reason for doing the research, the problems or questions the research aims to solve, and the overall topic of the research. It also outlines why your research is important and how difficult it is.

Typically, this part of the body will end with a sentence that describes the purpose of the research. For example, "The purpose of this study was to _____."

Examples of abstract purpose:

Examining a new topic. Remember to outline why you are examining this new topic.
Filling a gap in previous research.
Applying new methods to take a fresh look at existing ideas or data.
Resolving a dispute within the literature.

Part 2 - Methods

When doing the research, what research methods were used? How extensive was the investigation? Remember to explain who the participants are, what the researchers measured, and what tools they used. Was the research empirical or theoretical? What sources of information did the research rely on?

This section should not include what the researchers expected to find.

Part 3 - Results

This section describes the research findings.

In the case that the research does not have results yet, you should describe the preliminary data or results with some statistical work. If you expect to have results before the conference, the abstract can include a note that a finalized version of the abstract will be updated at a later date before the conference.

Part 4 - Conclusion

This section explains the meaning of the findings, the importance of the findings, and their implications.

An abstract that does not include a conclusion or result section is called a descriptive abstract. If the abstract has a conclusion, it is called an informative abstract.

Participating in an international academic conference potentially brings multiple opportunities. Presenting at a conference adds a significant boost to these opportunities and can also help fund participation. Writing a good abstract is key to making this possible.

Please share your tips with us on Twitter. Did you find any part of this article helpful? Please share it with your colleagues and friends.

Read more about the Eventact Software for abstracts submission and review here.

Review Management

Event Websites

Event Professionals

Diversity & Inclusion Statement/Code of Ethics
Climate Change Position
What is Horticulture?
ASHS Board of Directors
ASHS Committees
Professional Interest Groups
News and Press
Division News
Discussion with the ASHS President
Membership Benefits
Member Resources
Privacy Policy
Staff Directory
Career Center - Post or Search Jobs
Seed Your Future - Internships and Career Planning
Advice for Preparing for Graduation
Career Paths
A Day in the Life of
Horticultural Science Resources
ASHS Certifications
Donor Recognition
ASHS Endowment Fund
Esmaeil and Bahar Fallahi Award
APS Chad Finn Ambassador Award Fund
Pi Alpha Xi Endowment Fund
Publish with ASHS


Name:
Category:
Share:

Abstract (Poster & Oral) Submission Guidelines

- Early Decision Abstract submission deadline for Orals and Posters - All abstract fees must be paid at the time of submission (decisions sent on March 15th)

- Abstract submission deadline for Oral and Posters (at $25 fee) - All abstract fees must be paid at the time of submission

- Final Abstract Submission Deadline (March 15-April 22nd fee is $50)

- Notification of paper acceptance sent for Oral and Poster submissions

- Deadline for all authors to be registered and paid in full*

- Deadline for all authors to have hotel reservation - presenting author's name must be on the hotel reservation system

*Paid in Full Deadlines - for those paying by check, the check must be received by ASHS Headquarters by this date.

**Please note: Purchase orders are not a form of payment.

Please note that ASHS is using a new system for submissions this year. As a first time user, you will be asked to create an account. This is separate from your ASHS member account.

Oral and Poster presentation submissions are accepted as the major forms of scientific communication at the Conference. All abstracts, regardless of their presentation method, are subject to the same rules for submission and presentation.
Abstract length is limited to 400 words. If your abstract is longer, the system will instruct you to reduce the number of characters before you can continue the submission process. Please use title casing, capitalizing only the first letter in each word. If you are pasting your abstract text into the submission site, please note that special characters and scientific symbols may cause translation problems.
Do not repeat the abstract title or authors in the abstract text field. Review your submission carefully.
Presentations must be made in English, as no translation service will be available.
The Presenting Author for each abstract submitted must be clearly identified at the time of abstract submission.
Please be sure to list ALL authors at the time of submission.
Abstracts should be informative. Those suggesting that the work is not yet completed will be rejected.
A non-refundable abstract submission fee of $25 is due and payable at the time of abstract submission. All abstract submission fees must be received by March 15th or your abstract will be withdrawn and not be submitted for review by the ASHS Technical Program Committee.
Accepted Oral submissions and Poster submissions will be organized by the Technical Program Committee into group subject matter based on preference indicated by the submitter. However, the Technical Program Committee shall have full authority to assign papers to appropriate Oral sessions.
The Technical Program Committee will accept or reject a presentation upon evaluation of the title and the abstract. Rejection of a presentation by the Technical Program Committee is final.
An individual cannot submit the same material for two different talks. The author must choose either a Poster or an Oral presentation. Only one presentation is allowed per person using the same data. If you intend to submit both a Poster and an Oral, the content of the material discussed must be different for each presentation with clearly different abstracts.
Changes to submitted abstracts can be accepted (including presenting author's name) until May 1st. Please list ALL authors at the time of submissions. Due to overwhelming requests in recent years, any requests for modifications such as adding additional authors, changing data, or changing the presentation type from Oral to Poster or vice versa after March 15th will be accommodated by withdrawing the original submission and having the author resubmit the abstract. This will incur an abstract fee for the new submission.
No paper will be presented at the ASHS Annual Conference that has been given previously in another scientific society meeting or that has appeared in print prior to the ASHS Annual Conference.
You may submit an unlimited number of abstracts for presentation. However, please do not submit the same abstract multiple times.
Abstract submissions accepted by the Technical Program Committee will be published in the Program of the Annual Conference ONLY if the presenting author is registered and paid in full by June 30th. If the presenting author is not registered and paid in full by this date, ASHS will remove the abstract from the Program.

ALL ABSTRACTS:

Only the abstracts of presented* papers will be published in an online supplement to HortScience in the fall of 2024. The supplement will be posted on the ASHS online journal site. The file will be open access and paginated as a supplement, with each page number beginning with “S”.

The proper citation format for the abstracts is given in the example below:

Smith, A.B. and C.D. Jones. 2010. Cold hardiness of peach trees as affected by cultural practices.

HortScience 45(8):S234. (Abstr.)

* The Oral or Poster papers must be presented (i.e., the presenting author must be registered/attend the Conference in Honolulu and present his or her work during the assigned presentation time), or the abstract will be pulled from the Program and from the online supplement to HortScience .

Exclusive Publishing Offer:

We are excited to extend a special offer: a 10% discount on publishing conference-related manuscripts in any of our 3 peer-reviewed scholarly journals -- HortScience , HortTechnology or the Journal of ASHS .

Your pioneering work deserves the spotlight, and our eminent open-access journals provide the perfect platform to showcase it. By publishing in one of our journals, you'll not only share your insights with fellow academics but also contribute to the global conversation in your field.

Seize this opportunity to amplify the impact of your research—whether it's innovative methodologies, groundbreaking discoveries, or insightful analyses, we welcome your contributions.

Submit your conference-related manuscripts before August 1, 2025 and enjoy significant savings on publication fees. For details on how to submit, please contact us at: [email protected]

Remember Me

8/15/2024 ASHS Goes to Hawaii!

8/15/2024 Far-red Light and Nitrogen Concentration Elicit Crop-specific Responses in Baby Greens

8/8/2024 Hemp Morphology and Physiology Standards for Research and Industry Applications

8/8/2024 Genetic Analyses Reveal Insights into Onion Bulb Shape, Volume, and the Impact of Daylength on Bulbi

8/1/2024 Evaluation of Trunk Injection Techniques for Systemic Delivery of Huanglongbing Therapies in Citrus

8/1/2024 Organic Aminoethoxyvinylglycine Is an Effective Alternative for Reducing Apple Preharvest Drop

7/25/2024 Effects of UV- A and Blue Light on Lettuce Coloration and Phytochemicals

7/18/2024 Performance of Heat-tolerant Lettuce Cultivars in Southern New Mexico in 2020—21

9/4/2024 Webinar - Navigating Conferences Like a Pro: A Guide to Effective Participation

9/10/2024 Webinar - ASHS Collaboration Center: Facilitating Partnerships

9/23/2024 » 9/27/2024 2024 ASHS Annual Conference - Honolulu

10/8/2024 Webinar - Long-term Sustainability of Peat in Horticulture

2/3/2025 » 2/6/2025 NARBA & NASGA Annual Conference

Quick Links

ASHS Journals
Certifications

1018 Duke Street Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone: (703) 836-4606 Email: [email protected]

Donate to ASHS

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Publications
Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

Advanced Search
Journal List
Lippincott Open Access

How to deliver an oral presentation

Georgina wellstead.

a Lister Hospital, East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust

Katharine Whitehurst

b Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital

Buket Gundogan

c University College London

d Guy's St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK

Delivering an oral presentation in conferences and meetings can seem daunting. However, if delivered effectively, it can be an invaluable opportunity to showcase your work in front of peers as well as receive feedback on your project. In this “How to” article, we demonstrate how one can plan and successfully deliver an engaging oral presentation.

Giving an oral presentation at a scientific conference is an almost inevitable task at some point during your medical career. The prospect of presenting your original work to colleagues and peers, however, may be intimidating, and it can be difficult to know how to approach it. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that although daunting, an oral presentation is one of the best ways to get your work out there, and so should be looked upon as an exciting and invaluable opportunity.

Slide content

Although things may vary slightly depending on the type of research you are presenting, the typical structure is as follows:

Opening slide (title of study, authors, institutions, and date)
Methodology
Discussion (including strengths and weaknesses of the study)

Conclusions

Picking out only the most important findings to include in your presentation is key and will keep it concise and easy to follow. This in turn will keep your viewers engaged, and more likely to understand and remember your presentation.

Psychological analysis of PowerPoint presentations, finds that 8 psychological principles are often violated 1 . One of these was the limited capacity of working memory, which can hold 4 units of information at any 1 time in most circumstances. Hence, too many points or concepts on a slide could be detrimental to the presenter’s desire to give information.

You can also help keep your audience engaged with images, which you can talk around, rather than lots of text. Video can also be useful, for example, a surgical procedure. However, be warned that IT can let you down when you need it most and you need to have a backup plan if the video fails. It’s worth coming to the venue early and testing it and resolving issues beforehand with the AV support staff if speaking at a conference.

Slide design and layout

It is important not to clutter your slides with too much text or too many pictures. An easy way to do this is by using the 5×5 rule. This means using no more than 5 bullet points per slide, with no more than 5 words per bullet point. It is also good to break up the text-heavy slides with ones including diagrams or graphs. This can also help to convey your results in a more visual and easy-to-understand way.

It is best to keep the slide design simple, as busy backgrounds and loud color schemes are distracting. Ensure that you use a uniform font and stick to the same color scheme throughout. As a general rule, a light-colored background with dark-colored text is easier to read than light-colored text on a dark-colored background. If you can use an image instead of text, this is even better.

A systematic review study of expert opinion papers demonstrates several key recommendations on how to effectively deliver medical research presentations 2 . These include:

Keeping your slides simple
Knowing your audience (pitching to the right level)
Making eye contact
Rehearsing the presentation
Do not read from the slides
Limiting the number of lines per slide
Sticking to the allotted time

You should practice your presentation before the conference, making sure that you stick to the allocated time given to you. Oral presentations are usually short (around 8–10 min maximum), and it is, therefore, easy to go under or over time if you have not rehearsed. Aiming to spend around 1 minute per slide is usually a good guide. It is useful to present to your colleagues and seniors, allowing them to ask you questions afterwards so that you can be prepared for the sort of questions you may get asked at the conference. Knowing your research inside out and reading around the subject is advisable, as there may be experts watching you at the conference with more challenging questions! Make sure you re-read your paper the day before, or on the day of the conference to refresh your memory.

It is useful to bring along handouts of your presentation for those who may be interested. Rather than printing out miniature versions of your power point slides, it is better to condense your findings into a brief word document. Not only will this be easier to read, but you will also save a lot of paper by doing this!

Delivering the presentation

Having rehearsed your presentation beforehand, the most important thing to do when you get to the conference is to keep calm and be confident. Remember that you know your own research better than anyone else in the room! Be sure to take some deep breaths and speak at an appropriate pace and volume, making good eye contact with your viewers. If there is a microphone, don’t keep turning away from it as the audience will get frustrated if your voice keeps cutting in and out. Gesturing and using pointers when appropriate can be a really useful tool, and will enable you to emphasize your important findings.

Presenting tips

Do not hide behind the computer. Come out to the center or side and present there.
Maintain eye contact with the audience, especially the judges.
Remember to pause every so often.
Don’t clutter your presentation with verbal noise such as “umm,” “like,” or “so.” You will look more slick if you avoid this.
Rhetorical questions once in a while can be useful in maintaining the audience’s attention.

When reaching the end of your presentation, you should slow down in order to clearly convey your key points. Using phases such as “in summary” and “to conclude” often prompts those who have drifted off slightly during your presentation start paying attention again, so it is a critical time to make sure that your work is understood and remembered. Leaving up your conclusions/summary slide for a short while after stopping speaking will give the audience time to digest the information. Conclude by acknowledging any fellow authors or assistants before thanking the audience for their attention and inviting any questions (as long as you have left sufficient time).

If asked a question, firstly thank the audience member, then repeat what they have asked to the rest of the listeners in case they didn’t hear the first time. Keep your answers short and succinct, and if unsure say that the questioner has raised a good point and that you will have to look into it further. Having someone else in the audience write down the question is useful for this.

The key points to remember when preparing for an oral presentation are:

Keep your slides simple and concise using the 5×5 rule and images.
When appropriate; rehearse timings; prepare answers to questions; speak slowly and use gestures/ pointers where appropriate; make eye contact with the audience; emphasize your key points at the end; make acknowledgments and thank the audience; invite questions and be confident but not arrogant.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no financial conflict of interest with regard to the content of this report.

Sponsorships or competing interests that may be relevant to content are disclosed at the end of this article.

Published online 8 June 2017

COMMENTS

PDF Writing an Abstract for a Conference Presentation
What is an Abstract? •"The abstract is a brief, clear summary of the information in your presentation. A well-prepared abstract enables readers to identify the basic content quickly and accurately, to determine its relevance to their interests or purpose and then to decide whether they want to listen to the presentation in its entirety."
Preparing an Abstract, Traditional Poster, Oral Presentation
Once the panel has completed its review, individuals who submitted abstracts will receive a letter to inform the applicants whether or not the abstract is accepted. If it is an acceptance letter, the ISMRT will provide information on the type of presentation the abstract is accepted for, oral or poster as well as the date, time and location of ...
How to Write an Abstract for a Presentation
A presentation abstract is a brief, structured summary of the main content, objectives, and key points of your presentation. It typically ranges from 150 to 250 words and is used to help event ...
How to Write a Really Great Presentation Abstract
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 ...
Presentation Tips for First-Time Abstract Presenters
Oral abstract presentation. High-quality abstracts are selected for Oral Abstract Sessions. These sessions typically attract audiences with special interest in the topic you are presenting. The typical presentation time is 10 to 12 minutes. ... To gain all the benefits of this format of presentation, you have to start with building an attention ...
How to Write Abstracts for a Conference
Medium-Length Abstracts (250-350 words): These are common for oral presentations and should provide a bit more detail about your research. In addition to the basics, you can include more context or background information. ... Examples of Abstracts. To illustrate these points, here is an example of a well-crafted conference abstract:
How to prepare and deliver an effective oral presentation
The success of an oral presentation lies in the speaker's ability to transmit information to the audience. Lucia Hartigan and colleagues describe what they have learnt about delivering an effective scientific oral presentation from their own experiences, and their mistakes ... Abstract. The success of an oral presentation lies in the speaker ...
Tips for First-Time Abstract Presenters
High-quality abstracts are selected for oral abstract sessions. These sessions typically attract audiences with special interest in the topic you are presenting. The typical presentation time is 10 to 12 minutes. Two or three presentations are given back-to-back, followed by a presentation by a discussant of the abstracts, then a question-and ...
How to write a 300-word conference presentation abstract
In drafting your abstract, use the act of writing to articulate and refine your ideas. Write an outline. A good place to start is with a basic outline, which might include: introduction and background, description of the study, preliminary findings, conclusion, and contributions. Now, instead of writing 300 words, your goal becomes writing a ...
How to Write a Poster Abstract
Specify the abstract title, list author names, co-authors and the institutions in the banner; Use sub-headings to show out the structure of your abstract (if authorized); Respect the maximum word count (usually about a 300 word limit) and do not exceed one page; Exclude figures or graphs, keep them for your poster; The 3 components of an ...
PDF How to Write an Abstract That Will Be Accepted for Presentation at a
Scientific papers have abstracts that are similar to but not the same as abstracts for presentation at meetings.2 The format may be different, depending on the require-ments of the society or the meeting. Meeting abstracts typically allow more liberal and extensive use of abbrevi-ations than article abstracts, and they may contain refer-
PDF Tips & Tricks for a Successful Abstract
• Authors can request that their presentation format be assigned by committee (oral, eLightning or poster discussion session) on their abstract submission form or that their abstract should be considered for poster only. • Note: It is not possible to request only an oral presentation. • Potential session types may include:
How to Write an Abstract for a Presentation
When writing an abstract for a presentation, the demands of an abstract require the information presented to be more succinct. A typical abstract for a scientific paper should be between 200 and ...
How to write a successful conference abstract
Practice-based oral presentations: Presentations analysing issues and solutions to problems in clinical practice, community engagement, ... More information on how to create an effective and engaging practice-based abstract, including examples, can be seen in the video below. Important tips for writing an abstract submission. 1. Create a catchy ...
How to write a killer conference abstract: The first step towards an
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 ...
Writing Abstracts and Developing Posters for National Meetings
Once the abstract is prepared, submitted, and, hopefully, accepted, your next job is to prepare the presentation. Whereas a few select abstracts are typically selected for oral presentation (usually 8-10 minutes followed by a short question-and-answer period), the majority of submitted abstracts will be assigned to poster sessions.
Scientific Posters: An Effective Way of Presenting Research
Whereas, the presentation of an abstract, poster, and oral presentation at scientific conferences ensure that research data is made available in the public domain prior to the peer-reviewed publication. Creating Effective Scientific Posters. Amongst different publication types, poster presentation is a unique mode of scientific communication.
Preparing a Poster Presentation
Posters are a legitimate and popular presentation format for research and clinical vignettes. They efficiently communicate concepts and data to an audience using a combination of visuals and text. Most scientific meeting planners take advantage of the popularity and communication efficiency of poster presentations by scheduling more poster than oral presentations.
Guide to Preparing for the Abstract Competition
The following articles provide helpful advice on the entire scientific communication process, from writing the abstract to delivering the poster or oral presentation. To make the most out of your research experience, and to make it as rewarding as possible, we strongly encourage you to read the appropriate chapters. 1. Writing a Research ...
(PDF) A novice's guide to preparing and presenting an oral presentation
been outlined by Ranse and Aitken, 2 whereas this article will focus on information to assist. the novice presenter with preparation of an oral presentation - from submitting the abstract to ...
Writing an Abstract for a Conference
A good title is a clear, easily understood, and attention-grabbing sentence that describes your research and highlights its importance. A good title attracts attendees to read the full abstract or attend the oral presentation. To make your title clear, straightforward, and short: Keep it under 14 words.
Abstract (Poster & Oral) Submission Guidelines
Oral and Poster presentation submissions are accepted as the major forms of scientific communication at the Conference. All abstracts, regardless of their presentation method, are subject to the same rules for submission and presentation. ... The proper citation format for the abstracts is given in the example below: Smith, A.B. and C.D. Jones ...
How to deliver an oral presentation
Abstract. Delivering an oral presentation in conferences and meetings can seem daunting. ... which you can talk around, rather than lots of text. Video can also be useful, for example, a surgical procedure. ... making sure that you stick to the allocated time given to you. Oral presentations are usually short (around 8-10 min maximum), and it ...

How to Write a Really Great Presentation Abstract

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

ASCO Connection

Understand Your Audience

Prepare for the Right Presentation Type

Be the Expert on Your Abstract

Recent Articles

Search form

How to prepare and deliver an effective oral presentation

Preparation

Tips for First-Time Abstract Presenters

Adjuvant Everolimus in Localized Papillary and Chromophobe Non–Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

How to write a 300-word conference presentation abstract

Recent Posts

How to Write an Abstract For a Poster Presentation Application

The application process

The 3 components of an abstract for a conference application

4 tips to help get your abstract qualified

5 Best Event Registration Platforms for Your Next Conference

5 Essential Conference Apps for Your Event

How to write a successful conference abstract

Coming up with an abstract idea

Types of abstracts and presentations

What is an abstract and what does it include?

Research-based abstracts: What to include

Practice-based abstracts: What to include

Important tips for writing an abstract submission

Submitting your abstract online

Further questions?

Learning Hub

Acknowledgement of Country

January 27th, 2015

Image credit: allanfernancato ( Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain )

About the author

34 Comments

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Related Posts

‘It could be effective…’: Uncertainty and over-promotion in the abstracts of COVID-19 preprints

How to design an award-winning conference poster

Are scientific findings exaggerated? Study finds steady increase of superlatives in PubMed abstracts.

An antidote to futility: Why academics (and students) should take blogging / social media seriously

Scientific Posters: An Effective Way of Presenting Research

Creating Effective Scientific Posters

Poster illustration: An effective poster with relevant and focused content under various headings

Enago Academy's Most Popular Articles

Choosing the Right Analytical Approach: Thematic analysis vs. content analysis for data interpretation

Comparing Cross Sectional and Longitudinal Studies: 5 steps for choosing the right approach

Unlocking the Power of Networking in Academic Conferences

Disclosing the Use of Generative AI: Best practices for authors in manuscript preparation

Guide to Preparing for the Abstract Competition

Writing an Abstract for a Conference

Writing Abstracts for a Conference

How to Write a Research Abstract for a Conference.

1. What is a Conference Abstract?

A conference abstract includes:

2. Processing and Reviewing Abstracts in Conferences.

There are two main types of review processes:

Abstract review criteria.

Common abstract grading factors:

Example of additional abstract selection factors:

3. Challenges in Writing a Conference Abstract.

4. Getting Ready to Write the Abstract.

Things to note:

Search Abstract Examples

5. Writing the Abstract Title.

To make your title clear, straightforward, and short:

Writing the abstract title step by step

6. Writing the Abstract Body.

General tips:

Abstract body parts (OMRC):

Part 1 - Objective and Purpose

Examples of abstract purpose:

Part 2 - Methods

Part 3 - Results

Part 4 - Conclusion

ALL ABSTRACTS:

Exclusive Publishing Offer:

Quick Links

Donate to ASHS

How to deliver an oral presentation