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Quick Formatting Tips for Abstracts

Julton Tomanguillo Chumbe, MD, is a PGY-2 internal medicine resident Tat Charleston Area Medical Center in Charleston, WV. He is a 2023 GI fellowship applicant pursuing transplant hepatology and serves as an AGA Young Delegate. Connect with him on Twitter @JultonTomanguil.
Julton Tomanguillo Chumbe, MD

 

You have the results of your study, and you are beyond excited due to the potential positive impact on patient care. You have p values that are <0.001, graphics that show the improvement of mortality over time, and an impressive table that shows not only mortality improvement but also a reduction in hospital length of stay and readmission. Now you have an important task to do: write and format your abstract.

Here are some tips on how to do this. My hope is that this will help your abstract become a strong candidate for acceptance at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2023.

  • Follow the abstract submission guidelines listed on the DDW website. Pay special attention to the number of words that the title and the main abstract need to have, as well as the subheadings (depending on the type of study that you are working on), such as introduction, methods, results, and conclusion.
  • Avoid excessive abbreviations; I would recommend using only two or three.
  • There is no need to add references.
  • The Title section needs to be informative, short and describe the focus of your study; if possible, try to avoid writing it as a question.
  • Communicate the necessity and the importance of why you are doing your study in the Introduction section. I would recommend only three to four sentences, with the last sentence describing the goal of your study.
  • The Methods section should describe the process that you used to arrive at the results. Many health care institutions have statisticians; they are an important source for help in this area.
  • In the Results section, you need to describe the findings of your study. Include not only what is statistically significant but also anything that is statistically not significant. Statisticians are an important source of help in this section as well.
  • The Conclusion section is the take-home message. Many authors made the mistake of writing more data in this section; instead, describe the importance and implications of your study’s findings.

 

All the best wishes for you with your abstract submission. Don’t forget that all abstracts are due Thursday, Dec. 1, at 21:00 Eastern Time (UTC –5).

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