The research abstract: worth getting it right

Scientific merit and clarity are critical in evaluation of quality in research. We hypothesised that avoidable errors of presentation adversely impact on abstract selection for scientific meetings.

To prospectively evaluate compliance with abstract guidelines among abstracts submitted to a national surgical scientific meeting.

Compliance of all submitted abstracts with 13 instructions to authors was compared using ANOVA and Chi-squared tests. Results are expressed as mean (standard deviation, range).

Of 45 abstracts submitted, only 8 (17%) complied with all guidelines. Rejected abstracts were less concise than accepted abstracts (280.5 +/- 73.8 words vs. 244.2 +/- 42.5; p=0.006) and were more likely to be rejected (chi2 = 8.67, 1 df, p<0.05). There was no significant difference between the number of errors in accepted (1.6 [1.43, 0-4]) versus rejected (2.4 [1.87, 0-7], ANOVA; p=0.217) abstracts. All late submissions (30%) were rejected. Nine abstracts (20%) contained statistical errors or omissions.

Succinct presentation may reflect clarity of focus or increased writing experience. Reviewers favour concise abstracts. Concise presentation and timely submission are easily achieved and increase the likelihood of research acceptance for scientific meetings.