Presenting Your ResearchWriting Abstracts, Creating Posters

Jason I. HongJuly 30, 2003

University of CaliforniaBerkeley

SUPERB 2003

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• Clarify your thinking• Get feedback from others• Sell your research

Why Present Research?

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• Papers• Presentations• Web Sites• Research Abstracts• Posters

Some Ways of Presenting Research

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What are Research Abstracts?

• Stand-alone summary of the research– What is the problem?– What did you do?– What were your results?– What do the results mean?

• Abstracts are important because: – Some conferences ask for abstracts first– First thing people read in papers– Used in searchable databases

• Is this research interesting to me?

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What are Research Abstracts?

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What are Research Abstracts?

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Example AbstractThrough a study of web site design practice, we observed that web site designers design sites at different levels of refinement—site map, storyboard, and individual page—and that designers sketch at all levels during the early stages of design. However, existing web design tools do not support these tasks very well. Informed by these observations, we created DENIM, a system that helps web site designers in the early stages of design. DENIM supports sketching input, allows design at different refinement levels, and unifies the levels through zooming. We performed an informal evaluation with seven professional designers and found that they reacted positively to the concept and were interested in using such a system in their work.

(CHI2000)

What is the Problem?

What did we do?

What were the results?What do they mean?

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Example AbstractCaspase 8 is a cysteine protease regulated in both a death-receptor-dependent and –independent manner during apoptosis. Here, we report that the gene for caspase 8 is frequently inactivated in neuroblastoma, a childhood tumor of the peripheral nervous system. The gene is silenced through DNA methylation as well as through gene deletion. Complete inactivation of CASP8 occurred almost exclusively in neuroblastomas with amplification of the oncogene MYCN. Caspase 8-null neuroblastoma cells were resistant to death receptor- and doxorubicin-mediated apoptosis, deficits that were corrected by programmed expression of the enzyme. Thus, caspase 8 acts as a tumor suppressor in neuroblastomas with amplification of MYCN.

(Nature, May 2000)

What is the Problem?

What did we do?What were the results?

What do the results mean?

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Tips on Writing Abstracts

• Write the abstract for your audience– Researchers in your field vs. General audience

• Abstract is stand-alone– Often read first to see if paper is interesting

• Length of abstracts vary– 1¶ for posters, tech reports, conference papers– 1-2¶ for journals– Some conferences 1-2 page abstracts first

• Different kind of research abstract, explains what you want to do, why it's important, and any early results

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Abstracts vs Introductions

• Both present an overview of the research– Introduction is longer, needs to have stronger,

broader problem motivation – Introduction also provides background info,

describing history of the research area

• Okay to duplicate some info in both• Abstracts should not have:

– References– Lots of background info

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Abstract Writing Exercise

• 10 minute exercise• Get in groups of 2-3• Write 1¶ abstract on SUPERB research

– "This is what I did" or "This is what I will do"

• Pass your abstract to others in your group and get feedback– Practice covering the basics

• Problem, what you did, results, and conclusions

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Creating Posters

• Use the poster to draw people in– Poster doesn’t have to cover everything– Pictures, graphs, and demos are great

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Creating Posters

• Use the poster to draw people in– Poster doesn’t have to cover everything– Pictures, graphs, and demos are great

• Cover the basics– What is the problem? (Why is it interesting?)– What did you do?– What were your results?– What do the results mean?

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Some Tips on Creating Posters

• Common mistakes in posters– Too much text– Text too small

– Disorganized content– Not writing for your audience

• The little things– Email address, Web page– Business cards– Have copies of any papers– Notebook for writing down comments– Post-its for people to leave comments

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Some Tips on Creating Posters

• SUPERB Poster session is general audience– Describe how your work

fits in the big picture– Also have specifics for

researchers in your field

• Prepare 5 min spiel– Elevator talk