How To Write Academic Conference Abstracts
Tips for Pitching Papers and Presentations to Scholarly Conventions
Sep 6, 2009
Abstracts are one-page summaries of academic papers or lectures, meant to give readers a quick idea about what those papers or lectures are about. For academic conferences, abstracts allow organizers to select and schedule presenters.
But conference abstracts differ from abstracts written for theses or dissertations. Whereas the latter are formal and often quite technical, academics are allowed much more freedom when drafting abstracts for conferences. However, there are still guidelines that need to be followed for those abstracts to be accepted.
Conference Abstracts Usually Describe a Paper in Progress
Few conference abstracts, when they are submitted to a scholarly society, describe a completed paper or presentation. Indeed, many academics will pitch their papers first, then use the conference as a deadline to motivate the work.
It's understood that conference abstracts may differ from the eventual presentation, which itself may be different from a paper published later. Academics need not worry that the talk they give at a conference must be exactly what was promised in the abstract.
But the talk should not end up being on a completely different subject than what the conference abstract had promised. To avoid this problem, a successful conference abstract should reflect research that has already been underway, besides being well written.
The Features of Good Conference Abstracts
A well-written conference abstract will achieve a number of goals:
- The abstract will meet technical requirements. Most scholarly associations, when they solicit abstracts for conferences, have a strict word count (about 250–300 words, or one page). As with résumés, conference abstracts that are too long will only alienate organizers, who must read piles of submissions (usually for free). Also, conference abstracts should be sent to a relevant society: an abstract about Icelandic sagas should be submitted to medieval or comparative literature conferences, not to classicists.
- The conference abstract will situate the presentation with current research. Perhaps the most important qualitative part of an abstract is to describe the scholarly work the lecturer will be presenting, and to show how it relates to current research within the discipline. While the conference abstract need not present a formal research problem, it should at least indicate what the topic is and why it is important.
- The conference abstract will "sell" the presentation. While they must have scholarly weight, abstracts for academic conferences need to stand out. The talks which they propose should sound interesting, even to scholars not working on the same line of research. Conference abstracts can be more informal in tone, and they may work in a (very brief) anecdote to introduce the topic.
Writing Conference Abstracts for Beginners
Inexperienced presenters may find it helpful, when writing their abstracts, to move from the general to the specific. One strategy is to draft three short paragraphs: the first introduces the topic (with or without a creative "hook"), the second sketches how the paper/presentation will treat that topic, and the third will point towards the specific significance of the work and what conclusions it may bring.
Colleagues can be a good resource. Graduate students writing their first conference abstracts should ask more senior students and faculty to read over their abstracts before submitting them. Experienced researchers (especially those who have vetted abstracts for academic conferences) can also provide examples of successful and unsuccessful conference abstracts from previous years.
Concluding Academic Conference Abstracts
Finally, all writers of conference abstracts should edit their drafts religiously. Not only must the abstracts be free of spelling and grammatical errors, all superfluous language must be cut. This allows more room for substantive detail, while remaining within the necessary word count.
But just as conference abstracts are part résumé, they are also part sales pitch. The best ones outline serious academic research problems in a professional manner, but they also make sure that the talks they propose sound interesting and relevant to a broad audience within their discipline.
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