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LSMRCE Poster Session

Abstract Formatting Guidelines

General Formatting

Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri in 11 pt font size.
No literature citations should be included in the abstract.
Do not write text in all capital letters.
Each of the 5 sections below must be included with one blank line after Sections 3 and 4.
You do not need to include the “Section 1” headers in the abstract. Just the content of that section.
Refer to the example abstract on page 2 to clarify the instructions.

Section 1: Abstract Title

The title should describe in scientific terms the topic and context of your research project
Use title case. Ex: Using Title Case is Important

Section 2: Author Names

The presenting author's name is first, in bold font, and is followed by each co-author’s name.
Each author should be listed as follows: first name, middle initial (if desired), and last name.
Ask your undergraduate research mentor if he or she wishes to be included as an author in addition to being listed as your mentor. If so, add him or her to the author list.
Do not use titles (Dr.) or degrees (Ph.D.).
The appropriate department/school superscript should be listed after each author.

Section 3: Author Department and School Affiliation

List the department and school of each author.
Use official department and school names.
Begin each department and school affiliation with a different numbered superscript.
If the affiliation is the same for multiple authors, one entry and superscript should be used.
Separate each affiliation by a semicolon.

Section 4: Abstract Body

Word count: The body of the abstract should contain no more than 250 words.
Tense: Use past tense since this is research you have already conducted.
Content
- Purpose (What question or problem did your research address?)
- Methodology/Approach (How did you go about addressing this problem?)
- Results (What was the outcome of your project?)
- Conclusion (What does it all mean for your discipline, society etc.?)

Section 5: Acknowledgments

Mentors/Advisors
- Names should be formatted the same as the author names.
- After each name list their department, school, and institution (or business, city, and state).
Project funders
- Include the funding program and award number
Use a semicolon to separate acknowledgments

Abstract Format Example

Section 1^*

A Very Important Research Project to Improve Society

Section 2

John Q. Jones¹, Harold H. Hinterbottom², Sage Edelweiss¹, and Sam S. Starburs²

Section 3

1 Department of Anatomy, Washington University School of Medicine; 2 Department of Materials Science, Stanford University School of of Liberal Arts;

Section 4

Author introduces the main subject and purpose of the research/project, indicates why the research/project is important, and places the research/project in a larger topical context (introduction). Author describes data sources and methods of data collection and convinces the reader that the methods employed were appropriate to the research/project (methods). Author describes what they learned, providing outcomes for the main results or an explanation for why no results were achieved. Author relates the results to the research/project question (results). Author describes the correlation between the research/project and its results, and the conclusions, anticipated or final, that they draw from the research/project. Author describes how their work will contribute to the field(conclusion).

Section 5

Acknowledgment: Sage Edelweiss, Department of Anatomy, IU School of Medicine, IUPUI; Mark Fruschel, Acme Business Solutions, Hartford, CT; Funded by the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (award number 12345).

^*Section numbers should not be included in the actual abstract. These are provided here to serve as a guide on where to put what abstract components.

Watch Abstract Writing How-To on YouTube

Examples of excellent abstracts
Example 1 | Example 2 | Example 3