For conferences and trade shows, the abstract highlights the key points, goals, and insights the speaker will cover, helping attendees decide if the session aligns with their interests.
Abstracts generally contain four main elements: Purpose: Clearly define the purpose and importance of your research. Methodology: State the research methods used to answer your question. Results: Summarize the main research results. Conclusion: What are the implications of your research?
“The abstract is a brief, clear summary of the information in your presentation. A well-prepared abstract enables readers to identify the basic content quickly and accurately, to determine its relevance to their interests or purpose and then to decide whether they want to listen to the presentation in its entirety.”
Typically, an abstract describes the topic you would like to present at the conference, highlighting your argument, evidence and contribution to the historical literature. It is usually restricted to 250-500 words.
Let's consider first the abstract words definition. In language, abstract words are words that refer to ideas, beliefs, and other intangible things. Intangible means something that does not have a physical presence.
On abstract structure: Start with the topic, state the problem or paint point, tease a solution, then finish off with the takeaways. Your abstract serves as a promise of what conference attendees will learn from your talk.
The best way to go about an abstract is to start with what you want the audience to take away from the session. From there, you can start summarizing what the speaker plans to say without giving too much away.
Abstract words allow us to convey important human ideas like scientific (e.g. theory, calculus) and social (e.g. justice) concepts, and extend our capacity to convey ideas beyond the physical reality of the here and now.
Abstracts commonly have these parts: introduction, purpose, method, result, and conclusion. Each part has a different communicative goal or specific function. Most abstracts examined had purpose, method, and result with about half including a clear introduction and conclusion.