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Third step. At this juncture the writer of the abstract should Related to listing the author(s) is the number of institutions
list the main requirements. These are likely to be: acknowledged. If there are, for example, three authors but
O Maximum number of characters allowed for the abstract from different institutions that means the space needed for
title, does it include spaces or not? listing them all becomes greater. Less space is again avail-
O How
many authors are allowed and, if restricted to a maxi- able for the scientific text.
mum number, what is that?
In some abstract requirements the space available for the
O How many lines/characters are allowed for the institutional title, authors and institutions is restricted. A common require-
affiliations of the author(s)?
ment is for a maximum of five lines, as for the EAPD. That
O What is the size of the box for an abstract? should not be a problem if the title is brief and to the point,
O Forthe main text what is the maximum number of words or there are three or less authors and from one institution. It
lines allowed? may well be that in preparing an abstract based on an exten-
O How is the abstract to be laid out and are there specific sive piece of work, with multiple investigators a decision has
headings required? to be made as to who were the most important research-
Once these very basic requirements have been listed then the ers. There is always an opportunity when finally giving the
preparation of the abstract can begin. presentation either orally or as a poster to give credit to all
colleagues.
An important consideration is that the most important part of
an abstract is the science. Because all abstracts are limited Main text. This is the most important part of the abstract
by size and space as little as possible should be devoted to and is read in detail by assessors. It must be in good easily
authors and institutions. It is your scientific message that you read English (certainly for most international meetings) and
need to get across to assessors and then congress delegates. the English should be simple so as to be easily translated
into other languages.
Abstract content
Title. Clearly this is very important and must tell a reader the Headings are required these days and usually they are:
main subject. Because there is almost always a restriction on O AIM/OBJECTIVE: what was the objective in doing the
number of characters it has to be very carefully worded. It study? Usually one short simple sentence is all that is
must be precise, informative. A poor example might be: required,
Caries incidence in groups of children living in a district of O METHODS/DESIGN: a brief description of the main meth-
outer Ruristan. ods giving an indication of how the work was carried out.
This has 77 characters with spaces and if the maximum References should be avoided as they use valuable space,
allowed was perhaps 65 it is too long. At the same time it O RESULTS/FINDINGS: this is the most important part of
does not tell us anything interesting. What was thought to be abstract and should give hard data of the most important
related to the decline in caries and what age group was used? results with statistical significance if appropriate,
A better version might be:
O CONCLUSION: this should be a simple sentence making
Fluoride induced 85% caries decline in 6 yr-old a brief statement, speculation, political or philosophical
Ruristan children. statements should be avoided.
That title is 65 characters long and comes within the limit
In preparing the text always check back to the instructions.
allowed. It also tells why there was a decline, by how much
The headings given above may vary from organisation to
and in which age group.
organisation. Conformity to instructions is most important.
Space can be gained by changing words to simpler ones.
Abbreviations or symbols may be used in a title to save space The last point, having completed the first draft of the text, a
and an obvious one is & instead of ‘and’. check should be made as to the number of lines and words,
modern computers easily do this for you. Does the abstract
Authors. Some organisations specifically limit the number of
fit into the prescribed box? In most cases it will not as first
authors that can be listed. The European Academy of Paedi-
prepared. In that case editing has to occur to reduce the
atric Dentistry (EAPD) requires no more than five. But even this
number might be considered too many. The present authors size of the abstract. Practice over the years helps here and
have on occasion seen as many as 17 and the immediate criti- a researcher new to abstract presentation will learn by trial
cism is how could so many people be involved in a research and error the tricks in changing words. Simple ways are, for
project. In addition the more authors cited the less space example not repeating words, such as is shown in the fol-
there will be for the scientific content of the abstract. lowing examples.
Methods. Phrases to be avoided are for example: ‘the meth- saying the obvious. Such phrasing uses spaces that would
ods will be described’; ‘the methods of Angstruther were be more beneficially used in the methods or results sections.
used’; ‘children were examined for caries’ such phases should
Categorical statements or words such as ‘unequivocal’, or
be avoided. In the first example the phrase tells us absolutely
‘without question’ should be avoided as it implies there are
nothing of how the work was done. In the second example
no doubts at all when nothing is absolute in science. Authors
we may not be familiar with Angstruther’s work and an asses-
may sometimes use this section to express a political or philo-
sor and reader will not have to time to find out. In the third
sophical opinion. That is not appropriate. The findings/data
example this might appear to be acceptable but does not say
should speak for themselves and it is up to the reader to make
which caries diagnosis method was used, which children etc,
their own conclusions.
details are lacking.
Acknowledgement. Finally, if a study has been given finan-
Results. As with methods details are required and therefore it
cial support then an acknowledgement should be included
is not acceptable to say ‘the results will be given’ or, as noted
above ‘the results showed that considering the test group at the end of the conclusion. This is sometimes missed and
(group B) the caries was found to be significantly lower than in only appears at the actual oral or poster presentation. The
the control group (A)’. Another mistake in this section is not to acknowledgement needs to be brief so that ‘This research
give statistical results, if they were obviously carried out. was supported by a financial grant from the Childhood Trust
of Ruristan’ should be better written as ‘Supported by the
A further example of a wrong phrase is: Ruristan Childhood Trust’. It is usual to write this acknowl-
‘an extensive survey of dental caries rates in various coun- edgement in Italics to differentiate it from the main text. While
tries has been made and conclusions drawn about their such an acknowledgement is important characters and space
influencing factors’. used here means there is less for the main text and therefore
should be as brief as possible.
The best way of writing this would be:
‘In 200 articles dental caries rates from surveys (WHO Conclusion
criteria) in 20 European countries showed that doubling
The writing and presentation of abstracts for scientific
fluoride toothpaste use halved caries prevalence’.
conference/congress needs careful consideration. Detailed
Conclusion. Common mistakes here are to repeat the results, attention must be made to instructions and requirements
or to use phrases such as ‘in conclusion’ when the word con- and followed exactly. Every abstract is a mini-paper and
clusion has already been given. Other superfluous phrases must contain all the necessary information for any reader to
might be ‘on the basis of the findings in this study…’, or ‘the know exactly why research was undertaken, how and what
findings led to the conclusion…’ which are repetitive and important results were found.