Guidelines for the Preparation of Your Symposium Abstract

The Abstract for your Symposium presentation (oral or poster) can be thought of as an invitation to those who might be interested in your research. It should summarize your study in such a way as to let your audience generally know WHAT you did, HOW you did it and WHAT you discovered. The abstract is a very brief summary and will not contain all the details included in your talk or work. Your Abstract and your Symposium presentation should include the most important aspects of your final Senior Thesis. Part of your job in selecting what to present, with the help of your sponsor, is to focus on a question or a set of questions and results that can be covered clearly and concisely in a 15-minute talk. There will be 5 minutes available between presentations for you to answer questions from the audience.

In the Abstract, you should identify: (1) The PROBLEM, QUESTION, or HYPOTHESIS studied, (2) the METHODS used, (3) your RESULTS, (4) a brief interpretation of the SIGNIFICANCE of the research and/or any conclusions from your project. If you are not quite finished with your data collection when the abstract is due, you can describe the types of analyses and issues that will be discussed in your presentation without actually stating what your results and conclusions are. Attached are some examples of past Student Symposium Abstracts to give you some idea of how these should be written. In addition, follow the guidelines listed below.

• Abstracts should be no more than 150 words and comprise a single paragraph. Minor exceptions will be allowed if appropriate.

• Organize the abstract in the same way you organize a research report: state the problem, method, results and interpretation in that order.

• The abstract title must be the same as the presentation title. If you do not remember your exact title see Dr. Irina Shablinsky.

• Under the title, include your name and the name(s) of your sponsor(s). Your sponsor must approve your abstract before you submit it.

• If your project was supported by a grant of any kind, the funding source must be acknowledged in the last line of your abstract. Likewise, if your study is part of a larger study supported by funds from another institution (e.g., New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center), that support must be acknowledged (see attached examples). Generally, all off-campus projects should acknowledge the lab or agency that supported their work. Your sponsor will be able to provide you with this information.

• Abstracts must be created and saved using Microsoft Word. The saved Word file should be sent as an attachment in an email message to Irina Shablinsky (irina.shablinsky@purchase.edu). In order that  Irina Shablinsky does not receive many files with the same name the submitter MUST name the abstract files as the following example illustrates: Student Jane Doe will have  DoeJane.doc  as the name of her attachment.  In words, students last name then students first name then file extension.

All Abstracts must be submitted by 5:00 p.m. Tuesday, March 25, 2008. We only have a few days to prepare the Symposium program this year, so this is a firm deadline.

If you have further questions regarding your abstract or its format, please contact your sponsor directly or Irina Shablinsky (irina.shablinsky@purchase.edu) .