NCUR Abstract Guidance

 

NCUR Abstract Formatting Guidelines

1. References are allowed within abstracts, but not required.
2. Currently the submission form does not provide formatting and special characters (e.g. scientific symbols or italics). Use plain text format for your abstract. There is space in the form to include a link to online documentation, formulas, images, music files, etc. in support of your submission. You may use this space to provide a link to a location to view your abstract in its original form.
3. Abstracts are usually 200-300 words long with no paragraph breaks. Maximum length= 300 words!

What is an abstract?

Communicate:

1. What was done?
2. Why was it done?
3. How was it done?
4. What was found?
5. What is the significance of the findings?

Big Picture Abstract Tips

• Make sure there are no typos, especially in your name and email address (it happens!)
• Plan ahead – make a timeline for when everything will need to be done
• Abstracts are text only and don't typically include citations
• Make sure your abstract is well written; consider using your institution's writing center
• Give your mentor plenty of time to review with you
• Title: describes your work but is light on jargon
• NCUR includes many topics; consider your audience

General Guidelines

• Clearly state the central research question and/or purpose of the project.
• Provide brief, relevant context that demonstrates a unique contribution to the area of inquiry.
• Provide a brief description of the research methodology.
• State conclusions or expected results.
• Visual arts, performing arts and architecture have somewhat different guidelines – see abstract website

More specifically... 1-2 sentences on each:

• Background: What issues led to this work? What makes this work interesting or important?
• Aim: What were the goals of this work? What gap is being filled?
• Approach: What went into trying to achieve the aims (e.g. experimental method)? What was actually done?
• Results: What were the main results of the study (including numbers, if appropriate)?
• Conclusions: What were the main conclusions? Why are the results important? Where will they lead?

Good Example

An Assessment of Oral Health on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (derived from AISES National Conference example)

Background: Oral health is an area of concern for Native people. Our Center is focused on helping to identify ways to improve Native health. We identified the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota population as an area of focus for oral health study and support.

Aim: We assessed the oral health of the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota people, described a new oral health assessment tool for Indigenous people, and suggested ways to improve Native oral health. 

Approach: The Check Up Study team of dentist and dental hygienists performed examinations of teeth and oral soft tissue for a convenience sample of 292 adults and children. Screening personnel counted the number of decayed, filled, sealed and total teeth, used probes to measure periodontal disease and screened for oral lesions.

Results: Half of adults had 27 or fewer teeth. Sixteen percent of adults had at least one tooth with a pocket depth greater than 6mm. Participants had higher numbers of decayed teeth and lower numbers of filled teeth than those reflected in Indian Health Service cross-tribe aggregated data from 1999.

Conclusions: Amongst Lakota people of Pine Ridge, our study documented a high prevalence of cavities and periodontal disease, numerous people with missing teeth and unmet dental needs. Future studies of oral health related behaviors and access to oral health care are needed to explain the dental, periodontal and soft tissue problems that adversely affect the Oglala Lakota.

Typical Mistakes; Bad Example

Native Oral Health

Half of adults had 27 or fewer teeth. 16% of adults had at least one tooth with a pocket depth > 6mm. Participants had higher numbers of decayed teeth (p<0.0001), and lower numbers of filled teeth (p<0.0001) than those reflected in Indian Health Service cross-tribe agregated data from 1999. Amongst Lakota people of Pine Ridge, our study documented a prevalence of caries and periodontal disease, numerous people with missing teeth and unmet dental needs. The oral health of the Lakota people is they're most major concern.

Title issues

No background

Watch special characters and unusual data

Too broad of conclusions

Typos

Be careful of too much jargon, though use of terms depends on the audience. For NCUR you will want to be more general than you would for a conference in your field.

Have at least one person check for typos and bad sentence structure.

Still Conducting Your Research?

• You should be able to write the background, aim and approach sections. If not, perhaps the project is not ready for presentation – talk to your advisor.
• For the results and conclusion sections, you can state the types of data you will show during the NCUR presentation and the types of conclusions you will be able to draw. Do not give your expected conclusion if you don't have the data yet, but just the category.
  • Example: The Check Up Study team of dentist and dental hygienists will perform examinations of teeth and oral soft tissue for a sample of about 300 adults and children. Screening personnel will count the number of decayed, filled, sealed and total teeth, use probes to measure periodontal disease and screen for oral lesions. Our poster will give the results of the our screening data and compare the data to the Indian Health Service cross-tribe aggregated data from 1999. We will draw conclusions about the prevalence of cavities and periodontal disease, missing teeth and dental needs amongst Lakota people of Pine Ridge. These conclusions can inform future studies of oral health related behaviors and access to oral health care that adversely affect the Oglala Lakota.