Tips for Submitting a Winning Abstract

for a Professional Meeting or Conference

Written by Daphyne Williams and Shannon Senefeld

What is an abstract?
Abstracts are short summaries of the research or material you plan to present at
the conference. They also help conference organizers decide which materials are
appropriate for the conference and to classify accepted presentations.

Conferences usually have abstract submission guidelines, which include the key
points each abstract should address. These guidelines may vary from conference
to conference but abstracts normally briefly include:
Relevance:
Why is this topic important?
Problem Statement:
What are the issues that are being addressed/studied?
Approach (Methodology):
How did you go about doing the research implementing the project?
Questions answered (Results):
What were the results? What questions were answered?
Implications:
What are the implications of the conclusions? How are they relevant?
Conclusions: What did the study/project accomplish?
Abstracts should:
• Contain all required information.
• Be free of unexplained jargon, acronyms, or euphemisms.
• Be grammatically sound.
• Be complete.
• Be concise.
• Follow conference instructions exactly, including the headings, format
and word limit specifications.
• Have an interesting but descriptive title.

Questions to ask yourself before submitting an abstract:

1. Does this abstract respond to the conference’s request for abstracts?
Most conferences have guidelines for abstract submissions. These guidelines may
include topic requirements, length of the submission, and format of submission.
When preparing to submit an abstract, every submission guideline should be
followed precisely. Remember, conferences receive many abstract submissions;
reviewers may eliminate those submissions that do not adhere to the guidelines.

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2. Is this new and/or innovative information?
Conference organizers and attendees are interested in new and innovative
programs that they can learn from to develop their existing program; they are
not interested in hearing the same information. Abstract submitters should ask
what is new and innovative about their program. Is implementing the program
in a different country new or innovative? Is this information generalizeable?
Submitters should ask themselves, what is different about this program? What can
others learn from the unique way program was implemented?

3. Is there a definitive conclusion and/or legitimate causal link or association?

How did you come to your conclusions? What was your methodology? Avoid
using terms such as about, maybe or perhaps.

4. Is this conference the appropriate venue for this abstract?

It is essential that abstracts be submitted to appropriate venues. Submitters
must know their audience! Abstracts should be in the language, style, and
strategic interest of the conference. Abstracts are submitted to reviewers who are
knowledgeable in the field. They require complete, concise and clear submissions.
Submissions with ambiguity are often rejected.

If the answer to the answers to these questions are no, the submitter should
consider reviseing the abstract and/or reconsider the appropriateness of the
abstract for submission for that meeting or conference.

Example of a Winning Conference Abstract

Abstract Submission to CDC/PEPFAR 2007 HIV Implementer’s meeting:
“Scaling Up through Partnership”
AIDSRelief Rwanda, Abstract For Category D-11
Implications of the CD4 Count at Initiation of Antiretroviral Therapy on Morbidity,
Mortality and Virologic Outcomes in Rwanda – A Descriptive Cross-sectional
Review in AIDSRelief Supported Health Centers
Authors: Ruth M Goehle, Alfonse Kayiranga, CRS/AIDSRelief Rwanda,
Kristen Stafford, Anthony Amoroso, Institute of Human Virology, University of
Maryland, USA.
Parfait Rabazanahary, Constella Futures, Washington, DC, AIDSRelief Rwanda
Keywords: CD4, immunologic improvement, ART

Context: Initiation of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) in HIV

positive patients at cd4 cell counts of 201-350 is now a favored approach, because
failure of therapy, opportunistic illnesses and death become more common when
therapy is started at cd4 counts of < 200. In this report, we compare opportunistic
events, mortality and virologic outcomes of HAART in the first Rwanda cohorts
from two AIDSRelief local partner treatment facilities with cd4 counts at
initiation of therapy.

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 Methods: In this cross-sectional retrospective review, the charts of patients who
had initiated HAART since February 2005 in two AIDSRelief supported clinics
in Rwanda and who had been on HAART for > 9 month were reviewed. Because
the cohort size was small, 182, all patient charts were reviewed and efforts
made to obtain blood samples for viral load determination. Data were extracted
from 200 charts of the cohort, including cd4 at start of therapy, opportunistic
illnesses, mortalities and status as at last clinical review. These included the
charts of patients who had died or transferred from care from start of ART
until chart review. Blood samples for viral load determinations were obtained
from 179 patients. Viral load analysis was performed by the National Reference
Laboratories, Kigali. No patient from this first cohort at either health center had
been lost to follow-up.

Results: Sampling and chart review were completed in October 2006. 200
patient dossiers were reviewed and are being analyzed. Median age of
the patients was 37 years; 61% were female. For viral suppression, 96% of
samples had counts < 400 viral copies, the majority, undetectable. Additional
information on the cd4 values at initiation and at time of viral sampling,
opportunistic infections and viral suppression and contributing factors to the
deaths of persons who began HAART in this first cohort will be provided.

Conclusions: Like its sister AIDSRelief programs in Kenya, Uganda, and

Zambia, it is expected that patients receiving HAART in Rwanda had more
undesirable outcomes if treatment was initiated at cd4 counts of less than 200,
including opportunistic illnesses and mortality. These can greatly increase the
costs of care and reduce program efficiency. Data from these four AIDSRelief
country programs support the recommendation that HAART should be initiated
before cd4 counts have fallen to 200 where possible.

Example of a Rejected* Conference Abstract

Conference: International AIDS Conference
Title: Reducion of stigma through a poetry
Objective: As most of the countries, people living with AIDS in Norgaland
are also being stigmatized in all the sectors at all the levels in all the country..
Especially they face discrimination in workplaces, as a consequence they have
done many protests, campaigns and registered many cases against stigmatization
in the courts. Worse still, there is no favorable law for people living with AIDS
in Norgaland. But alas the situation has not improved and continue to be very
tragic. To decrease the under lying stigmatization against people living with HIV
and AIDS from the community, a group of friends in Norgaland decided to write
a poetry.

Methods: A group of friends with HIV and other friends affected by AIDS
decided to write a poetry in their own words and at their own expenses without
any support from any other financial place. Once they wrote the poetry, they
decided they needed to share it with others, so they collected charity funds from

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 other friends for recording and visualization. They even find and selected one
of their own friends with recording equipment to reduce the costs. They started
and completed their objective of recording and shooting one of the friends
reading the poetry from December 2007 to January 2008.

Results: They recorded the poetry and it became one among the finest poetrys,
as the general comments was very good in the informal show at small groups.
The group is now planning to do the press conference of the poetry in order to
inform more people through print media, radio and other electric media and
ultimately waiting for the telecast of the poetry.

Conclusion: Although this stigmatization against people living with HIV/

AIDS is not going to stop or eliminate tomorrow or the next day but proper
message and sensitization in terms of advocacy should be implemented every
day. Stigmatisations and discriminations, especially in the workforce, must be
stopped and groups of freinds can make this stop faster.

Additional Information
CRS aims to be professionally represented at international and national
conferences. If you are interested in submitting an abstract for such a
conference and need technical support, please contact your Regional Technical
Advisor for HIV. You may also contact Shannon Senefeld (ssenefel@crs.org)
or Daphyne Williams (dwilliam@crs.org) at CRS Headquarters for additional
support and other sample abstracts. Technical Advisors at the region and
headquarters are happy to assist in the development and review of abstracts. As
many of these advisors sit on abstract review committees, they are often able to
provide an inside perspective for what the reviewers will be looking for.

References:
How to Write an Abstract(Draft 10/20/97) Phil Koopman, Carnegie Mellon University
www.writingcenter.unlv.edu/writing/abstract.html
www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/bucholtz/sociocultural/abstracttips.html
www.college.ucla.edu/urc-care/how%20to%20write%20an%20abstract.doc
The “how to” of writing and submitting an abstract, Cardiopulmonary Physical Therapy Journal, Sept. 2000 Eason, J M, LaPier, T
www.research.berkeley.edu/ucday/abstract.html

* The abstract has been reworked somewhat to maintain anonymity.

Photo by: David Snyder