Writing a Conference Abstract

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Writing aConference Abstract

• David Gauthier
• david.gauthier_at_uregina.ca

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Outline of Talk

• General overview of abstracts
• Qualities of Good Abstracts
• Types of Abstracts
• Conference Abstracts
• Essential Elements of Abstracts
• Structure of Abstracts
• Examples of Abstracts
• The Checklist

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General Overview
The primary purpose of an abstract is to guide
readers.
A map of the writers argument or discussion
A fully self-contained, capsule description of
the work
An abstract should include the few things you
would like your reader to?remember long after
the details of your paper may be forgotten.
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Questions an Abstract Answers
Why did you do this study or project?? What did
you do, and how?? What did you find?? What do
your findings mean?? If the paper is about a new
method or apparatus the last two questions
might be changed to ?What are the
advantages (of the method or apparatus)?? How
well does it work?
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When are abstracts used?
Ordinarily part of a research article in a
journal. For chapters in a book, especially if
each chapter has a different
author. Library reference tools, such as
Biological Abstracts etc. For presentations at
scientific meetings (often the "published
abstract" is the only written record of such a
presentation) Dissertations in the sciences and
social sciences require abstracts.
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Qualities of a Good Abstract
Well developed paragraphs are unified,
coherent, concise, and able to stand alone.
Uses an introduction/body/conclusion
structure which presents the article,
paper, or report's purpose, results,
conclusions, and recommendations in that
order. Follows strictly the chronology of
the article, paper, or report.
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Qualities of a Good Abstract (contd.)
Provides logical connections (or transitions)
between the information included. Adds no
new information - simply summarizes the
paper. Is understandable to a wide
audience. Oftentimes uses passive verbs to
downplay the author and emphasize the
information.
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The Voice
Authors have grappled for years over the
appropriate way to talk about knowledge and
discoveries. Should it be, for example, "We
measured ion concentration in the blood." Or "Ion
concentration in the blood was measured."? ?Moder
n scientific style prefers the active voice.
Abstracts are often an exception, but only if
the passive voice reduces the total number of
letters and words. ?
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Donts
Do not commence with "this paper, "this
report" or similar. Write about the research,
not the paper. Do not explain the sections or
parts of the paper. Avoid sentences that end in
"is described", "is reported", "is analyzed"
or similar. Do not begin sentences with "it is
suggested that "it is believed that", "it is
felt that"or similar. In every case, the four
words can be omitted without damaging the
essential message.
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Donts
Do not repeat or rephrase the title. Do not
refer in the abstract to information that is not
in the document. If possible, avoid trade names,
acronyms, abbreviations, or symbols.
Omit all references to the literature and to
tables or figures. Do not include citations,
unless you have to refer to a source on which
your thesis is built.
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Donts
Do not include general introductory matters and
historical background. Do not merely copy key
sentences from your paper you'll put in too
much or too little information. Do not rely on
the way material was phrased in the article,
paper, or report summarize information in a new
way.
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Types of Abstracts
1. Descriptive Tells readers what
information the study contains. Include the
purpose, methods, and scope of the
study. Do not provide results, conclusions, or
recommendations. Usually relatively short,
generally from 100-300 words. Introduce the
subject to readers, who must then read the
study report, article, or paper to find out the
results, conclusions and recommendations.
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Issue/ program/ policy-based abstracts Give
enough detail for an inter-disciplinary audience
to understand your program, issue or policy
context.? Make sure someone outside of your
field reads your abstract and can properly
explain it back to you.
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2. Informative or Empirically- based Abstracts
Communicate specific information from the study.
Include the purpose, methods, and scope of the
study. Provide the study results, conclusions and
recommendations. Are short -- from a
paragraph to a page or two, depending upon
the length of the original work being
abstracted. Usually informative abstracts are 10
or less of the length of the original
piece. Allows readers to decide whether they
want to read the study report, article, or
paper.
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With any experimental data to report, the
following is important Review of previous work
in the area. What was the rate of inclusion (how
many in the study in relation to the whole
group)? All of the participants? A selection of
them? Which selection? ?? How were the
participants or samples chosen? ?? If there has
been an evaluation, report its methods,
statistics and results. If qualitative
methodology has been used, report it. Mere
observation isn't qualitative methodology.
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Conference Abstract
An independent document written primarily for
the conference review committee. Depends
entirely on how the writers conference abstract
is perceived by review panel. Appealing to the
conference participants is a secondary
consideration. This type of abstract is much
more of a selling job than the research
abstract.
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Abstracts submitted to conferences typically
serve these main goals Help reviewers decide
if they should choose the topic for a conference
presentation or poster. ?? Help readers
(reviewers and delegates) understand your
subject by acting as an outline of key points.
?? Help delegates anticipate what is coming in a
presentation, and thereby choose which session
to attend.
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Find Your Stream

• use the network of your peers to choose the
• stream to which you will submit - this will help
  the
• organizers group like projects with one another
  ?or
• ?
• b) choose a stream according to who you want to
• reach with your presentation.

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Choose a Descriptive Title Be descriptive and
simple (not too brief). The title must help the
reviewers categorize your presentation and help
conference delegates find your session. Don't
worry about being bland. e.g. "Youth Recreation
Centre" doesn't tell enough. "Lives of Youth
Improved by Network of Recreation Centres in
India." tells us more. Don't be clever, e.g.
"Children, challenges, changes" is cute, but
doesn't tell which children, which challenges, or
which changes.
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Use of Key Words
Titles and abstracts are filed electronically
Used by the indexing and abstracting services,
in addition to those already present in the
title. Judicious use of keywords may increase
the ease with which interested parties can
locate your study.
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Sources of Sample Abstracts
Journal articles
Read the abstract read the article. Pick the
best ones, the examples where the abstract makes
the article easier to read, and figure out how
they do it. Not everyone writes good abstracts,
even in refereed journals, but the more
abstracts you read, the easier it is to spot the
good ones.
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Essential Elements of the Abstract
Background A simple opening sentence or two
placing the work in context. Aims One or two
sentences giving the purpose of the
work. Method(s) One or two sentences explaining
what was done. (Described at length only
if it is unusual) Results One or two sentences
indicating the main findings. (Absolutely
essential) Conclusions One sentence giving the
most important consequence of the work.
(Telling what the results mean).
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Essential Elements (contd)
Motivation?Why do we care about the problem and
the results? Include the importance of the work,
the difficulty of the area, and the impact it
might have if successful. Problem
statement?What problem are you trying to solve?
What is the scope of your work (a generalized
approach, or for a specific situation)?
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Essential Elements (contd)
Approach?How did you go about solving or making
progress on the problem? What was the extent of
your work? What important variables did you
control, ignore, or measure? Results?What's
the answer? Conclusions?What are the
implications of your answer? Are your results
general, or have the potential to be generalized,
or are they specific to a particular case?
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Structure of an Abstract
Abstract Title The same as the title of your
study. Author Name(s), Affiliation(s),
Address(es) Introduction What is this project
about? Why is this project interesting or
important? Problem Statement or Hypothesis What
is the issue? What did you think you would find?
Why?
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Methods Briefly explain your procedure(s). Result
s What did you find when you performed your
study?) Discussion Are your results consistent
with your initial hypothesis? Why or why
not? Conclusion What is your interpretation of
what these results mean? Why should anyone
become excited about or interested in your
findings?
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Abstract Title A Test of the Competitive
Exclusion Theory in Two Related Species of
Butterflies Introduction The food habits of
larval butterflies of two related species from a
zone of overlap near ltname of geographic placegt
were examined. Problem Statement or
Hypothesis The theory of competitive exclusion
predicts that food habits of closely related
species should not overlap significantly where
species occur together. Methods Transects in five
different habitats were used to determine food
and habitat preferences in wild populations. Two
species of captive caterpillars were offered
various food in the laboratory weight changes
of foods and caterpillars were determined daily.
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Results Food habits in overlapping habitats were
significantly different between the two species
(ANOVA p 0.001). Food habits in
non-overlapping habitats were not significantly
different (ANOVA p 0.52). There were no
differences in food preferences (ANOVA p 0.76)
or growth rates (ANOVA p 0.88) on different
foods in laboratory maintained populations. Discus
sion These species are able to coexist because
they are not competing for the same, and
limiting, food resources in the same
area. Conclusion These results support the theory
of competitive exclusion because the two species
did not use the same food resources from similar
habitats.
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Abstract Title Effect of time spent on homework
on student student performance in
Philosophy. Introduction Numerous studies have
shown that the amount of instructional time and
study time devoted to a particular school
subject can influence student performance. Problem
Statement or Hypothesis The the amount of time
engaged in homework by students affects their
overall performance in philosophy. Methods Student
s reported the number of minutes spent doing
homework for philosophy each night. This was
added to the number of minutes that each student
was constructively engaged in course work during
"free" time at the end of the period, as
recorded by the instructor.
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Results There is a direct relationship between
the average number of hours/week spent doing
homework and the students total points for a
given unit of study. The correlation coefficient
for this relationship is 0.933. Discussion Concl
usion Students can effect their performance in
philosophy by controlling the amount of time
they spend engaged in homework.
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Examples
"'Freedom is a constant struggle' The dynamics
and consequences of the Mississippi Civil
Rights Movement, 1960-1984 Kenneth Tait Andrews,
Ph.D. State University of New York at Stony
Brook. Keywords Social Movements,?anti-poverty
programs,? voting rights, ?desegregation What
the Study Does This study examines the impacts
of social movements through a multi-layered
study of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement
from its peak in the early 1960s through the
early 1980s. By examining this historically
important case, I clarify the process by which
movements transform social structures and the
constraints' movements face when they try to do
so.
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How the Study Does It The time period studied in
this dissertation includes the expansion of
voting rights and gains in black political
power, the desegregation of public schools and
the emergence of white-flight academies, and the
rise and fall of federal anti-poverty programs. I
use two major research strategies (1) a
quantitative analysis of county-level data and
(2) three case studies.
What Materials are Used Data have been collected
from archives, interviews, newspapers and
published reports.
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Conclusions This dissertation challenges the
argument that movements are inconsequential.
Indeed, some view federal agencies, courts,
political parties, or economic elites as the
agents driving institutional change. Typically
these groups acted in response to movement
demands and the leverage brought to bear by the
civil rights movement. The Mississippi movement
attempted to forge independent structures for
sustaining challenges to local inequities and
injustices. By propelling change in an array of
local institutions, movement infrastructures had
an enduring legacy in Mississippi.
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"Gravitational radiation from black hole
spacetimes Luis Lehner, PhD, University of
Pittsburgh. Keywords Gravitational radiation,
wave forms, compactification techniques,
singularities.
Why do this study The problem of detecting
gravitational radiation is receiving
considerable attention with the construction of
new detectors in the United States, Europe and
Japan. The theoretical modeling of the wave
forms that would be produced in particular
systems will expedite the search and analysis of
the detected signals.
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What the study does The characteristic
formulation of GR is implemented to obtain an
algorithm capable of evolving black holes in 3D
asymptotically flat spacetimes. Using
compactification techniques, future null infinity
is included in the evolved region, which enables
the unambiguous calculation of the radiation
produced by some compact source. A module to
calculate the waveforms is constructed and
included in the evolution algorithm.
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Results This code is shown to be second-order
convergent and to handle highly non-linear
spacetimes. In particular, we have shown that
the code can handle spacetimes whose radiation
is equivalent to a galaxy converting its whole
mass into gravitational radiation in one second.
We further use the characteristic formulation to
treat the region close to the singularity in
black hole spacetimes. The code carefully
excises a region surrounding the singularity and
accurately evolves generic black hole spacetimes
with apparently unlimited stability.
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Independent Finite Sums for Km-free Graphs By
Neil Hindman, Howard University Coauthors
Walter Deuber (Howard University), David
Gunderson (Howard University), Dona Strauss (Hull
University) Recently, in conversation with
Erdos, Hajnal asked whether for each triangle
free graph G with vertices in N, there must exist
a sequence ltxn gtn 1\infty so that whenever F
and H are distinct finite nonempty subsets of N,
\Sigman in F xn, \Sigman in H xn is not an
edge of G. (That is, FS(ltxn gtn1\infty) is an
independent set.) In this paper we answer this
question in the negative. We also show that if
one replaces the assumption that G is triangle
free by the assertion that G contains no complete
bipartite graph on two sets of size m gt 2 , the
conclusion does hold. And we show that if for
some m gt 3, G contains no Km, then there must
exist a sequence ltxn gtn 1\infty so that
whenever F and H are disjoint finite nonempty
subsets of N, \Sigman in F xn, \Sigman in H xn
is not an edge of G. The counterexample is
purely combinatorial, while the positive results
utilize the algebraic structure of the semigroup
(\betaN, ) . (Surprise, surprise!)
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Distributed Multiprogramming System for Pen
Selectors with Error Probability Controllable
connections for input/output supervisor channel
adapters with line frequency scanning are often
used for unavailable time. This paper
describes the use of disturbance voltage with
equivalent junction temperature as an
OP-trade-in for zone packed print. The main
advantage over previous methods are the data
transmission lines and routine conversion.
Addressing, relative to preferred characters,
uses a magnetic disk machine to enable
incremental programming. The theory is based on
arithmetic overflow, qualified names, and axial
lead resistors. Using the Sparbuchdrucker-theorem
1 modified by ledger adjustment sales in
combination with a secondary operator control
station allows the number of single machines to
roll over the keyboard. In the future this
generalized sequential access method will be the
source for forced control field lines.
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The Footprint Function for the Realistic
Texturing of Public Room Walls Keywords
realism, rendering, textures, footprints Today's
radiosity methods are able to produce nearly
perfect light distributions of interior rooms.
Unrealistic appearance now mainly is due to
missing texturing of the walls. One important
feature of public room walls are footprints in
the lower areas. The basic footprint function is
a combination of trivial, i.e. easy to
implement, parametric functions. Distribution
techniques will be presented that ensure that
the lower part of the wall contains
significantly more footprints than the higher
parts. Especially, no footprints must occur
above a certain threshold height, due to
physiological limitations of the human being.
Preliminary investigations are encouraging. As
we have not implemented the new method yet,
there are no concrete results. The final paper
might include images.
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The Checklist Without over-simplifying language,
could people from other fields of study
understand it? Will people get more from the
presentation than from just reading the research
paper? Is it clear and concise? Have acronyms
been explained?
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The Checklist (continued) Is there too much
introductory material that sets the
context? Has someone checked it over to ensure
it is free of grammatical errors, spelling
errors and awkward sentence structure, and that
it is factually correct? Are the conferences
word limit and other guidelines absolutely
respected?
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If you assume the Abstract is an introduction to
your paper, you are wrong. If you assume that it
is a description of your paper, you are wrong.
If you assume that it is your contribution to
everything written and discovered in the field
before, you are wrong. If you assume that it is
the conclusion of what you have done, you are
wrong. The abstracts content is the balance
and incorporation of all of the above.