If you are looking to present your work at a scientific conference, an abstract is vital! Your abstract is an overview of your work that concisely describes the content and key points of your presentation.
A good abstract will begin with a title that concisely conveys to the reader what your presentation is about while creating a curiosity to know more. As the first thing people will see about your presentation, your abstract must entice them to see your full work.
- Who is my audience? Is there a particular point of interest they may have in my presentation?
- How does my topic fit into the theme of the conference? And what makes it stand out?
- What are the highlights of my topic? What do I intend to include in my presentation?
- Focus on the new ideas – what are you presenting that is new and exciting, and why should people be interested in hearing it?
- Create a title that generates interest and curiosity, while providing substance to the experts in your field.
- Follow the submission guidelines. Conferences may have different requirements for an abstract regarding formats and word count. For PSI, a limit of 250 words is requested.
- Make your abstract engaging and unique.
- Focus on the reader’s needs, not the writer’s desires – what do people reading this abstract need to know?
- Use plain English wherever possible. Your abstract should be understandable by people not intimately familiar with the field.
- Look at abstracts that have been accepted from previous conferences for inspiration.
- Use some structure to make your abstract clearer. For example, it can be broken down into sections such as objectives, methods, results, and conclusions.
- Proofread!
- Get someone else to review your abstract – ideally, both someone who is familiar with your work and someone who is not.
- Typos, poor English, and abstracts that are too long.
- Using too much jargon and acronyms.
- Focusing too much on the details. Delving too far into the small details distracts the reader from the main point of the research.
- Defending or evaluating the presentation. It should just be a description.
We hope that you find these tips useful. Have fun writing your abstract!
