An abstract is a short summary of your completed research. If properly written, could lure readers to go through the entire research/report. Abstract summited for a conference paper should do two things-tell conference participants what you are going to say, and interest them in coming to hear you say it.
An abstract should not be more than 250 words.
Basic components of an abstract:
- Motivation/problem statement: Why this research? What practical, scientific, theoretical or artistic gap would your research close? Identify the topic/subject of your paper. Devise a title that is descriptive and inviting.
- Methods/procedure/approach: How did you get the results of your research?
- Results/findings/product: What were your findings?
- Conclusion/implications: What are the larger implications or deductions from your findings?
The following formatting and style conventions should be followed:
Layout
- Titles should be Arial Bold 14 point single spaced.
- Author information should be set two lines below the title and in Arial 11 point. It should consist of three lines single spaced: your name, your department/school, your institution.
- The body of the abstract should be set two lines below your author information.
- Font should be Arial 11 point.
- Line spacing should be 1.5 with double spacing between paragraphs.
- Text should be set, non-justified, block paragraph/s (no indent).
- Margins should be set at 2.54cm on top, bottom and right, with a 3.5cm margin on the left.
- There should be two spaces after the end punctuation of each sentence in the text.
Style
- Place all titles of separately published works in italics.
- Use double quotes throughout except for quotes inside quotes.
- Avoid abbreviations such as “e.g, i.e, etc.” - spell out the words.
- Use the em-dash for dashes. The em-dash is a solid double hyphen between words with no space before or after.
- Do not include footnotes in your abstract. Instead weave any references to authors/titles into the text of the abstract.
- Edit your abstract carefully for grammar, punctuation, typos, etc.
- Plan the abstract as a single paragraph that is unified (i.e., one topic) and coherent (i.e., ideas flow continuously).
- Find words that are accessible to both specialists and non-specialists, especially if it will be a cross-disciplinary conference.
(Sources-Associate Professor Barbara H. Milech of Curtin University of Technology, Leah Carroll, Ph.D., Director, Office of Undergraduate Research)
