Dmmetler Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 DD10 is trying to write a 200 word abstract on her frog project for the upcoming state conference, and is struggling with summarizing to that degree. Anyone have any great resources or suggestions? My music ed conferences tend to have a proposal format when you want to do a talk that has a lot more room to explain what you have in mind than a 200 word summary, so I'm struggling a bit, too. (Admittedly, conference sessions in my field tend to be 60-90 minutes, not 15-30 (and only the Plenary and keynotes are even ever 30 minutes at DD's herp conferences). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KSinNS Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 We were taught to find an abstract on a similarish topic or type of study, and copy the format. If you find a few, it makes it easier. HTH. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tm919 Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 For journal articles, I follow the structured format, then take out the "structure" part, e.g., here is a pretty common one (Without the blah blah part). What I actually do is look at the articles I've cited, and the articles IN the journal I'm submitting to (or the journals she'd aspire to submit to) and mimic their structure, e.g., if they have implications for practice, I'm sure to include those. Basically, it helps because in some fields the originality/value part goes at the front, in some its at the back, etc. STRUCTURED ABSTRACTPurpose. In this study, I blah blah blah. (up to 2 sentences) Design/methodology/approach. The analysis was blah blah.. (up to 2 sentences) Findings. We found the blah blah.. (up to 2 sentences) Research limitations/implications. Limitations stemmed blah blah. Future research blah blah. (up to 2 sentences) Original/value. While previous studies have blah blah, this study blah blah. (up to 2 sentences) Go back, and then trim until you get 200 words or less. A lot of times you need to remove most article adjectives to make it. I hate the ones that are 100 words. Really... 100?! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted August 23, 2015 Author Share Posted August 23, 2015 One of the frustrations is that the biggest herpetology journals (and the national level conference) have 500 word abstracts, but the conference wants 200 words, so most of the abstracts we have are more than twice as long as they're supposed to be. I guess it's a good lesson in writing efficiently, hoop jumping, and managing frustration! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted August 23, 2015 Share Posted August 23, 2015 Some conferences publish the abstracts that were presented. Maybe you can try to obtain a copy? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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