Best Practices for Scientific Presentations
Please view this online guide for an overview of best practices in designing, building, and delivering a scientific presentation.
Writing Up Your Data As An Abstract & Submitting It To A National Meeting
If you have an ongoing project with preliminary data, think about submitting it to a national meeting as an abstract. With abstract submission and presentation of your work at a meeting, you get preliminary feedback and peer-recognition on the work done.
A few tips:
1. Know the rules!
Each meeting has a format for abstracts to be submitted. Make sure to check these first.
2. Know the Format:
Format is usually: Introduction/Background, Methods, Results, Conclusion/Discussion and Relevance … or something very similar…
*The Introduction/Background: This is the link to the literature (the big picture) and you should end this part with stating the hypothesis you are testing or your research question.
*Methods: What did you do? Qualitative? Quantitative? Mixed-method? What was the tool you used?
*Results: Be brief but clear. Use statistics (p-values) if you have them. Use tables if allowed.
*Conclusion: What was your main finding and its relevance? What does it bring to the field? What next?
3. Remember that you need to “sell” your work in this brief abstract so it has to be short but powerful, especially the title
Other resources for writing an abstract:
Other resources for writing an abstract for a paper/journal:
Video: How to write an abstract
Presenting Your Data At A National Meeting
If you have an ongoing project with preliminary data, always think about submitting it to a national meeting as an abstract- don’t wait until it is a full manuscript to share with your professional community.
With abstract submission and presentation of your work at a meeting, you get preliminary feedback and peer-recognition on the work done.
Your poster should tell the story of your research: A standalone story that is easy to follow and conveys the main points.
A few points to keep in mind as you are presenting your poster:
- Clarity: What were the objectives? Did your explain your purpose? What was the research question?
- Your input: What was your contribution to the research? What was your role? What did you do and what did you learn from the experience?
- Originality and Impact: Explain how your research stands out. How is it original and innovative? How is it different from what has been published? How does it contribute to the field?
- Each time someone comes to view your poster it is an opportunity to get practice and also obtain valuable feedback on your study
- Remember to take notes on the responses and/or questions. Was anything confusing? Did they have questions on the methodology? Were the results clear? (This can be helpful in writing your manuscript for publication)
- Each encounter can help you develop confidence in explaining the research study
- Don’t forget to ask for feedback!
- Consider participating in social media/Twitter. The trend for almost ALL conferences (including GW Research Day) is to use Twitter. Post, highlight your work let people know your research.
- Consider your audience (students, faculty, attendees, judges) as well as the generational differences and preferences for communicating. Have business cards, copies of your poster or your manuscript or a QR code for your poster.
Creating effective poster presentations: AMEE Guide no. 40
Writing Up Your Data As A Paper
Writing for academia: getting your research into print (AMEE Guide No. 74)