Opening date for late-breaker Abtract: May 20, 2008

Closing date for late-breaker abstract: June 16, 2008

What is an abstract?

An abstract is a short document with complete information of a study/project/work and key(s) message for further implication(s). The abstract presents the objective, methods, results, and conclusions of a research project.

Purpose of an abstract

The aims and objectives of an abstract are mainly improvement and sharing.

1. To enable target readers (e.g., selection committee of a conference) to quickly and accurately identify improvement in current work and /or new works, in terms of the substance and essence of the project activities and to decide its relevance to their own interests.
2. To share information on one's project activities with others with common concern. The information may include multi-dimension/background/perspective work analysis, new vision, new idea/model, new works that contribute to improvement in current project activities and capacity and capabilities of the staff involved.

Writing an abstract for the IAC 2008

(source: CCABA guide From Concept to critical discussion, February 2007)

1. Think about your presentation first – before writing your conference abstract

• What is my idea and is it good enough?
• How valuable will this topic be to this conference?
• Does it link to the theme of the conference?
• Does the work appear to be of a high standard?
• Is a new idea or new research being presented?

2. Make your presentation interesting

What does interesting mean?

• By indicating how and why your work might be transferable to other situations and why?
• By describing with enough details your HIV and AIDS work
• By presenting programs or policies that were tried but failed; what lessons were learnt?

3. Writing the abstract:

• Think about who is your audience?
• Find your track according that matches your work best
• Choose a specific category in your track that best describes your work. You must also indicate if your abstract is related to one of 5 cross-cutting themes
• Chose a descriptive and catchy title: the title must clearly represent the whole story of the abstract and must motivate the readers to continue reading.

• Think about 3 points to include in the title: where it happened; what you did; what you learned

You must divide the abstract in 4 sections:

1. Background statement : why do we do our work? What is/are the specific problem(s) that motivated us?
2. Description or methods statement : who did what, with how many, where? How did we do it? How you solved or try to solve the problem?
3. Results/lessons learned statement : What happened? What did we learn? What did you do well? What went wrong and how have you changed your approach because of it?
4. Conclusion/recommendations statement : What impact or implications does my work have? What is transferable?

• The teaser: Once your abstract is accepted, it becomes your advertisement for your oral or poster presentation. You should have a sentence in your conference abstract that entices the reader to attend your presentation.

Some other tips

• Find a good writer, someone who can help you to translate your ideas to the page
• Find a good editor who should look at your abstract in terms of clarity, style, grammatic
• Always think about your target audience
• Make sure you say who, what, when, where, and how
• Be brief, summarise and only say the essential
• Writing your main points in bullet form can help you limit what you are saying. Later, join the bullets using linking words, clauses or sentences
• Have always in mind the 4 ‘C’ for abstract contents: Clear: readable and well organized, not full with highly technical terms, jargons. Complete: with the major/essential parts of the project activities. Concise: no excess wordiness and no unnecessary Information. Cohesive: with clear logical flow between the parts.

Do not forget:

• Abstracts can only be submitted online . To apply for an abstract you must first create a Conference profile on the Conference website
• All abstracts must be submitted in English
• The abstract text should not exceed 300 words ; tables and graphs may be included
• Abstracts must no have been published or submitted for presentation to any orther national or international meeting

Your abstract, if accepted, will appear in its full form in the abstract book, on the abstract CD-ROM and on the conference and on the International AIDS Society (IAS) Website. In addition, all delegates will receive a final programme, which will contain the conference programme and a list of all oral and poster abstract presentations.

Accepted abstract submitters receive more points towards receiving a scholarship.

Use guides on how to prepare an abstract:

Coalition on Children Affected by AIDS has published a toolkit for people who wish to submit an abstract.

The toolkit is designed to help participants to:

• Develop a presentation that goes beyond the description of your work or research
• Write an abstract that is clear, concise and interesting enough to be accepted by the conference and persuade people to come to your presentation
• Prepare for and deliver a presentation or poster that will be informative and also stimulate discussion.

Download the guide :

• English version (PDF 618.76 kB)
• Français (PDF 690.92 kB)
• Español (PDF 667.18 kB

The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA) has developed a simple guide for faith based organisations on how to prepare an abstract and develop an abstract:

• English (PDF 1.61 MB)

• Français (PDF 915.35 kB)
• Español (PDF 618.83 kB)

Related links:

• IAC Website
• Partner Hubs grant
• Awards for young women and young researchers