Let’s say you want to apply to present at a conference. Amazing! Step One: Submit an Abstract. How on earth do you do that? Here is one way to go about it. (not the only way! not even the best way! but a way).
I developed this template for a collaborative project with a research team comprised of both academics and non-academics, and want to share in case it’s useful to you. Abstract norms vary widely by field, and this post reflects patterns in abstracts I’ve written and read in Food Studies and Anthropology. I suggest looking through programs for past meetings of the conference you are applying to to get a sense of what abstracts look like for that conference and that field.
What is an Abstract?
An abstract is a paragraph summary of the paper (or talk) you will give at the conference, and it’s your application to be accepted to present. Your presentation at the conference might be a 12-15 minute talk, but you need to come up with a quick (usually 200 – 250 word) summary of what you’ll be talking about so the conference organizers can do their thing. When you submit your abstract, conference organizers then decide the following:
- Is this talk good enough to be in the conference?
- Is this a good fit for this conference?
- How does this fit with other abstracts we received so we can put 4 or 5 papers together into a panel?
Abstracts are often published in the conference program, so the abstract (and most importantly, the title of the talk!) are advertising for your presentation to entice other attendees to come see it.
An Abstract Template
Opening Sentence
This is a hook or a strong statement to make the reader curious and engaged. They simply must accept your application because they want to know what’s going to happen in this paper! This can take several forms, such as:
- Vignette or Description of a Scene that serves as an example in your talk. “My breath catches in my chest as I watch two goats, balanced precariously on a stack of recycled tires, begin to butt heads. I cry out as one tumbles to the ground, but their caretaker Oscar assures me I have nothing to worry about.”
- Strong Assertion that you will go on to prove in your talk. “Queerness is a collaborative project that we enact through dinner parties.”
- Question that motivates your research and your reader also cares about. “Can yogurt determine what you wear?”
Project Background
Take two or three sentences to explain the project or research. You could include here the research question, the site and methods of your research, or the problem or setting in which the research takes place. Give the reader a sense of what has led up to this conference presentation and what the research is that you’re presenting on. The research project is possibly much bigger than just what you’re presenting in this paper, so you can give a sense of how this little nugget is a part of that larger project but focus mostly on the paper at hand – don’t get lost in the labyrinth of a larger project.
Here’s a sort of silly example that I made up just to demonstrate:
“In a longitudinal study of dairy consumption among midwest high schoolers, I’ve investigated when and where teens consume dairy and how it influences their interpersonal interactions. Through large-scale surveys, in-depth interviews, and participant observation in cafeterias, I have found that dairy consumption directly influences fashion choices, and that these fashion choices in turn result in varied emotional experience. Shame and regret most strongly affected the dairy-consuming teen girls in my study, and here I examine the connections between teen girls’ dairy consumption, feelings of regret, and subsequent shoe purchases.”
Theoretical Ties
Signpost to your audience what scholarly conversations you’re participating in by name dropping or citing. What theory are you bringing to this presentation and how will you implement it?
Continuing this example (which, I must stress, is entirely made up and not connected to my work!):
“The relationship between food consumption and negative affect is well-established in the anthropological literature. Madrigalinian’s (2015) research on popsicle consumption and rage argues negative affect is a bio-chemical reaction to artificial dyes, but subsequent research (Tarrygaren 2016, Poppulicksven 2020) has indicated negative affect is more likely a result of breach of communicative norms surrounding the act of consumption. My research extends this communicative argument by considering how fashion choices communicate one’s affect to others.”
Paper Outline
Finish the abstract with a mini outline of what this paper will include.
“In this paper, I will….
- Introduce _________
- Examine __________
- Argue that ___________”
This gives your readers a clear idea of what’s going on in this paper in particular. Here’s an example I made up, that has no relation to any research I’ve done:
“In this paper, I introduce the concept of “dairy chagrin.” I examine the experiences of regret following dairy consumption experienced by teen girls in Wisconsin and how these experiences shape their shoe selections. I conclude the paper by arguing that research on food consumption must attend to the sartorial.”
Titling the Talk
The title of your talk will circulate widely both as advertisement in the conference program and on your CV after the conference is over, so give some thought to how you’d like to represent your work to these audiences.
Talk titles often take the form of “Sexy: Unsexy.” That is, some striking hook comes before the colon, and then a drier description of your talk and its positioning comes after. A Mad Libs template for a title might look like:
[Perplexing or Intriguing Phrase]: [Phenomenon] through/in/on [Place or Context]
For example:
No One Puts Bebe in the Corner: Unmaking Brand Loyalty through Spatial Reorganization
Stroopwafels in Space: National Cuisines on the International Space Station
“I bought them because I regretted the yogurt”: Dairy Chagrin in a Midwest High School
Ta-Da!
You’ve done it! You’ve written the abstract! Be sure to include references for any citations, proofread it two more times than you think you need to, and check that it’s under the word limit! To bring it all together, here’s the full (made up!) example from this post:
“I bought them because I regretted the yogurt”: Dairy Chagrin in a Midwest High School
Can dairy determine what you wear? In a longitudinal study of dairy consumption among midwest high schoolers, I’ve investigated when and where teens consume dairy and how it influences their interpersonal interactions. Through large-scale surveys, in-depth interviews, and participant observation in cafeterias, I have found that dairy consumption directly influences fashion choices, and that these fashion choices in turn result in varied emotional experience. Shame and regret most strongly affected the dairy-consuming teen girls in my study, and here I examine the connections between teen girls’ dairy consumption, feelings of regret, and subsequent shoe purchases. The relationship between food consumption and negative affect is well-established in the anthropological literature. Madrigalinian’s (2015) research on popsicle consumption and rage argues negative affect is a bio-chemical reaction to artificial dyes, but subsequent research (Tarrygaren 2016, Poppulicksven 2020) has indicated negative affect is more likely a result of breach of communicative norms surrounding the act of consumption. My research extends this communicative argument by considering how fashion choices communicate one’s affect to others. In this paper, I introduce the concept of “dairy chagrin.” I examine the experiences of regret following dairy consumption experienced by teen girls in Wisconsin and how these experiences shape their shoe selections. I conclude the paper by arguing that research on food consumption must attend to the sartorial.
Madrigalinian, Sarah. 2015. Popsicle Rage. New York: Blanderblurg Press.
Poppulicksven, Martha. 2020. “Talking to the Toast: Communicative Underbellies of Feeling Bad.” Affect Triquarterly 12(1): 1978-1979.
Tarrygaren, Britney. 2016. “Don’t Make Me Milk! Semiotic Responses to Animal Proteins.” FoodTalk Journal 102(3): 12-17.
Ariana Gunderson 