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Hypothesis 
Vol. 33 No.1  

Fall/Winter 2021 

Writing Structured Abstracts for Conference Submissions 
 
Abby L. Adamczyk, MLIS, AHIP 
MLA Research Caucus Chair 2021-2022 
Graduate Medical Education Librarian  
Scott Memorial Library 
Thomas Jefferson University 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7653-295X  
abby.adamczyk@jefferson.edu  
 
If you are new to academic conferences and see that a call for proposals requests the 
use of a structured abstract format, you may be tempted to use journal article abstracts 
as a model for your own writing. However, conference abstracts serve a different 
purpose than those for scholarly journal articles. A journal article abstract serves to 
summarize the contents of the full manuscript in order to convince readers to read the 
full article. Meanwhile, conference abstracts need to stand alone as a brief 
representation of your work. A conference abstract first aims to convince conference 
planners to select your work for inclusion. Second, an accepted conference abstract 
also tells attendees what to expect from your paper or poster if they attend your 
session. Third, an accepted abstract also may be used by judges when considering 
conference research awards. And finally, the conference proceedings may be used by 
future researchers compiling systematic reviews. All these purposes require a slightly 
different framing than the abstract you might write as the summary of a full manuscript.  
When designing a conference abstract, you have a few brief sentences to argue that 
your research project is valuable and worth the time of these conference attendees. 
This article briefly highlights key considerations for each section of a structured abstract 
for a conference research submission. For more detailed information about structured 
abstracts, see “The structured abstract: an essential tool for researchers” [1]. 
 
OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS/RESEARCH QUESTION(S): For research, this section is 
best summarized as a question. If you already have the results, this may require taking 
a step back to a time before you knew the answer to the question. For example, the 
statement "To show that a live demonstration improves student assignment scores 
compared to handouts alone" can be rewritten as a question "Does providing students 
with a live demonstration in addition to a pdf handout improve assignment scores 
compared to handouts alone?" If you cannot explain the purpose of your project with a 
question or hypothesis, you likely are not writing a research abstract. Consider 
submitting a program description (or alternative) instead. Use this section to argue that 
your question is worth considering, and that the answers to this question will be of 
interest to attendees of the conference. That may require different framing depending 
on the topic of the conference. 

http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7653-295X
mailto:abby.adamczyk@jefferson.edu


INVITED COMMENTARY  
 

 

 

Hypothesis 
Vol. 33 No.1  

Fall/Winter 2021 

METHODS: Explain what you did (or are planning to do) and why. You want to make 
sure to explain how the thing you are counting will answer your question. In the case of 
the research question example, we need to compare assignment scores. But which 
groups are we comparing? Two different years of the same course, two class sections 
in the same year, more classes, or two assignments in the same course? Each one of 
those introduces its own bias that will need to be considered. Demonstrate to the 
conference planners and attendees that you will be able to answer your question with 
this methodology. 
 
RESULTS: Numbers, numbers, numbers! This is where all of your numbers belong. Not 
just the comparison of, for example, an average assignment score of 9/10 points in one 
group vs. 6/10 points in the other. But also, how many students were in the class that 
you were evaluating? Was this in one class or 20 classes? If you used another 
methodology, what was the response rate to your survey? Present the data in a way 
that makes it clear how it answers your research question. Include as much information 
as possible within word counts limits. Often, when submitting a conference abstract, a 
project is in progress and may not yet have results. In that case, note that "If accepted, 
these data will be shared at the annual meeting." Be aware that in these cases, it is 
likely that further scrutiny will be paid to the Objectives and Methods sections, 
heightening the importance of conveying the purpose of your research and why your 
proposed methods are appropriate for answering your research question(s).  
 
DISCUSSION/CONCLUSIONS: Tell the audience what your results mean in the 
broader context. Did the data answer your question? Did the data give you the answer 
you expected? If not, consider reasons why not. What other questions do you have 
now? What should be repeated? Why will this be of interest to the conference 
audience? Since you will have a limited word count, use the abstract to focus on the 
conclusions that will be most interesting to the conference audience. Again, you may 
submit before having results to frame conclusions around. In this case, say something 
like "Discussion of results will be shared following completion of data collection. Results 
will be interpreted based on comparisons to existing literature on the topic." 
 
KEY POINTS: 

• Conference abstracts are a tool to advocate for your project’s inclusion in a 
conference. 

• The abstract is a stand-alone document, since there is no manuscript to read for 
more information. 

• Include as much information as possible within the word count limits, especially 
your data. 



INVITED COMMENTARY  
 

 

 

Hypothesis 
Vol. 33 No.1  

Fall/Winter 2021 

• An abstract without a question/hypothesis and data might not be a research 
abstract. 
 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
Bayley L, Eldredge J. The structured abstract: an essential tool for researchers. 
Hypothesis 2003 Spring; 17 (1): 1, 11-13. 
http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/hypothesis/issue/view/1604 

http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/hypothesis/issue/view/1604

