Writing the abstract for LMP 1001Y
Presenting in LMP1001Y gives students an opportunity to share their research with
their fellow students, and gain experience presenting to an audience. It also lets students
obtain valuable feedback from the audience on their research in the form of questions
directly from the audience, as well as on their presentation skills in the form of anonymous
student evaluations. Because research backgrounds are so diverse in our department,
questions from your fellow students in LMP1001Y can often be from viewpoints that you
may have never considered yet, and may eventually lead to new ideas and exciting new
insights into your research.
A key point to consider when writing your abstract is the diversity of research fields
represented in the department; your abstract has to be easily understood by a wide
range of people. It should clearly yet concisely convey the rationale for your study, the
specific hypothesis you have, your experimental approach and results, and finally the
insights into your field of research you’ve gained – all this in about 400 words or less.
In order to help everyone write an effective abstract, and also to make it easy for
everyone to understand your rationale, hypothesis, experimental methods and results and
conclusions of your study, we have provided a template that MUST be followed for
LMP1001Y.
Please prepare your abstract as follows:
The abstract body is to be no more than 400 word in length. Spell out all nonstandard abbreviations, and spell out Greek characters (ie alpha, gamma, etc). It must
include the subheadings as they appear below in BOLD (they count towards your 400
word limit).
Title: Your title should give the overall idea of your presentation in a single brief sentence.
Share your main finding, and make the title interesting.
Authors: Your name and your supervisor(s).
INTRODUCTION: Your introduction should briefly (2-3 sentences) outline why your study
is being undertaken. What problem or conceptual gap has been identified that you are
pursuing (what is your rationale)? What is the critical information or key concepts to
understand your project? Keep it interesting!
HYPOTHESIS: Your hypothesis is a proposed explanation (or mechanism) to a particular
phenomenon in your research field. State this in one sentence. The hypothesis should be
specific and testable.
METHODS/RESULTS: Your methods/results section is the bulk of your abstract (4-6
sentences), and gives important supporting information supporting or refuting your
hypothesis. The methods used to collect data or regarding the populations/samples should
be given briefly before any results, especially if they are very specialized techniques. Not
all of your data has to be here – just those data that are considered immediately important
to your study hypothesis. Student early in their degree having limited data can use this
section to expand upon their experimental approach, and on what they expect to find from
their proposed experimental design.
CONCLUSIONS: Summarizes the overall findings of the study, and stresses the significance
and implications thereof in one sentence. You can also briefly include future directions for
your study here.
GRANT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: List any funding agencies of your supervisor(s) that
contributed to your research, and any awards you personally hold (ex. CIHR PGS D, etc.).
PERSONAL INFO/BIO: One or two sentences about yourself – this will be given to the
Moderator to introduce you in class before your presentation (not included on email
distribution).