Guidelines for Writing an Abstract

The first rule of abstract writing is that it should engage the reader by telling what your paper is about and why they should read it. Although strictly not part of your abstract, the title of the proposed paper is most important. Short attention-catching titles are the most effective. However, it is also important, for a conference paper, to ensure that the title describes the subject you are writing about.

With regards the body of the abstract you need to make a clear statement of the topic of your paper and your research question. You need to say how your research was/is being undertaken. For example, is it empirical or theoretical? Is it quantitative or qualitative? Perhaps it follows the critical research method. Of what value are your findings and to whom will they be of use?

The abstract should then briefly describe the work to be discussed in your paper and also give a concise summary of the findings. Finally your abstract should not include diagrams and in general references are not required in the abstract. Also, remember that this abstract will be used in the conference program to describe your presentation.

Although not part of the abstract as such, conferences now expect authors to provide key words at the same time as the abstract. Somewhere between 5 and 10 key words are normally required and they should be the words which most closely reflect the content of the paper.

Abstracts Critical Requirements:

·         Title: The abstract title should be 12 point Times New Roman and bold.

·         Author name: full name of the writer(s), institution/affiliation and email address.

·         Body: The abstract itself should be in 10-12 point, single spaced Times New Roman, and should be up to 300 words long. The abstract should be fully justified.

·         Keywords: Keywords should be in Times New Roman, 10 point, and italicized.

·         Format: Abstracts should be submitted in Microsoft Word format (.doc or .rtf).

Please do not submit in pdf or .docx format. If you have created you abstract using the latest version of Microsoft Office (2007 or 2008), please “save as” an earlier version.

Finally, UACS is now requiring a short biography to be sent along with the abstract. The bio usually needs to be up to 100 words long.