Conference abstract

Writing a conference abstract

Writing a conference abstract is a useful preliminary step toward giving a talk or writing a full-fledged paper. Talks at LSA and some other conferences are accepted or rejected on the basis of the submitted abstract. Your abstract should boil your argument down to its essence, on a single typewritten page.

Doing this well takes practice. The LSA provides model abstracts here. In particular, compare this good abstract and bad abstract that describe the same research. The abstracts have been commented to explicitly highlight the strengths and weaknesses.

Please write your abstract as if for submission to LSA. LSA asks that abstracts be one 8.5 x 11" page long, in type no smaller than 10 point, with margins of at least .5 inches on all sides.