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Writing & Publishing

Need help getting published? This guide has resources to help you create a poster or manuscript.

Abstracts

Abstracts are concise summaries of your work.  Typically, you submit an abstract first, then if accepted, develop a poster or podium presentation. 

Follow the "call for abstracts" very carefully - especially word count and matching conference theme. If there are lots of submissions, reviewers may be looking for any reason to reject. Some calls ask for a "structured" abstract:

  • Background / Introduction
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Analysis
  • Discussion

Additional tips:

  • Have a person not associated with the project read your abstract - for clarity
  • Watch wordcount
  • Proofread - ask someone not associated with the project (such as your librarian)
  • Submission systems can get overwhelmed - try to submit a day before the deadline!

Discipline specific

Ethics - Can I submit the same abstract / poster to different conferences?

  • Check the submission guidelines carefully.
  • Many conferences allow you to do this, but some do not allow "encore" presentations. 
  • Sometimes you may want to highlight different aspects of your work to different audiences and will need to create different posters based on your data.
  • Foster C, Wager E, Marchington J, et al. Good Practice for Conference Abstracts and Presentations: GPCAP. Res Integr Peer Rev. 2019;4:11. Published 2019 Jun 5. doi:10.1186/s41073-019-0070-x

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