Submitting a Well Written Abstract

What is an Abstract?

An abstract is a short, concise summary of your research used to represent yourself and your work to your colleagues and peers. The purpose is to allow the reader to quickly identify the relevance or significance of the research, methods used to complete the research, and the results and conclusions of the research. When you submit an abstract to SRI, reviewers are asked to use the guidelines below to score your abstract, and therefore determine its acceptance and its placement in the program (i.e. oral vs poster).

Guidelines for Scoring

  1. Originality/Innovation: Is the idea or approach novel, or is the work primarily confirmatory and/or a direct extension of previous work?
  2. Significance/Relevance: Does the work address an important problem?
  3. Objective/Hypothesis: Is an objective, specific research question and/or hypothesis stated?
  4. Methods: Are the methods described? Are the methods employed appropriate to the research question? Were new methods used and validated?
  5. Results: Are the results described clearly and succinctly? Was the data evaluated statistically?
  6. Discussion: Is the conclusion supported by the data?

Suggested Abstract Structure

When writing an abstract for SRI, you should use a structured approach for your abstract – title, introduction, methods, results, and conclusions. To maximize the chances your abstract will be accepted for presentation, keep the following in mind:

TITLE: Keep it short, and make sure it appropriately describes the research being presented.

INTRODUCTION: The introduction should describe the scientific gap or problem, why it concerns the reader, and the hypothesis made. The experiments described must test the hypothesis presented.

METHODS: This should be a clear, concise description of the research design and the appropriate statistical tests. Describe what was actually done to get results, including numbers of patients, animals, samples, etc., which data were collected, and how it was quantified.

RESULTS: Present the actual data collected together with statistical significance. Describe what was learned as a result of the study. Statements from ongoing studies that “data will be presented” are not acceptable.

CONCLUSION: Analyze your results, and the effect it has on the hypothesis made in the introduction. Make sure it supported by data in the abstract, and that it is not overly speculative or broad.

Remember, you are allotted 2,700 characters, which will include your Abstract Title, Abstract Body, Authors/Institutions. Tables and Figures are not permitted. The allotted characters do not include white space.

Examples of Well-Written Abstracts

Abstract Acceptance/Rejection

The SRI Program Committee is committed to maintaining high standards for the meeting, and therefore anticipates rejecting up to 10% of abstracts submitted.

Be sure to check your abstract for proper spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and abbreviations, as these types of mistakes reflect poorly on the author. Any changes requested after submission will require a change fee.