Polarimetry "Conference" Abstract and Poster

There are a number of ways in which chemists report the results of their research to the scientific community including journal articles, oral presentations and poster presentations. In an oral presentation, the author gives a talk which is often 12-15 minutes in length (depending on the conference these could be longer). A poster presentation is more informal where the author displays the work on a large format poster and discusses the work with those who come to view it. This assignment will introduce you to what is involved with giving a poster presentation at a conference. This is a group assignment is worth 30 points.

The Conference Abstract

While some of the presenters at a conference are invited to participate, most "apply" for the privilege of presenting their work. The organizers of the conference issue what is known as a "Call for Abstracts", often as far in advance of the conference dates as a year. From the submitted abstracts, the organizers select those who may present what is called a contributed paper (can be either an oral or poster presentation). For this reason, the conference abstract is a very important document. It needs to "sell" the merits of your work. The abstract must conform to the length and formatting specifications set by the organizers. They are short often having a 100-200 word limit, and exceeding the length limit will usually result in rejection of the abstract. Conferences with online, electronic submission forms may limit the number of characters in the abstract. In these scenarios, when you reach the character limit, you are blocked from adding more text! Abstracts that have been accepted for inclusion in the conference are typically published in a book called the conference proceedings. This book is used by the attendees of the conference to decide which talks they want to attend and which posters they wish to view.

The term abstract has multiple roles in the dissemination of research results. It is used for the summary that appears at the beginning of a journal article and for the description of what will be presented at a conference. You learned about writing the abstract for a journal article in CH 350W. In this assignment, you will learn how to write a conference abstract. There are two resources you are to use to learn about writing this type of abstract. Read this short discussion on Writing Titles and Abstracts. For more indepth coverage of the topic, read Chapter 8 in "Write Like A Chemist". You also will generate a poster as the method of presenting your project results.

Details of the Abstract Part of the Assignment:

Your abstract is to be limited to 150 words. At the top of the abstract will be the title, author names and their affiliation (these do not count in your word limit). You are to use the organizational structure developed in Chapter 8 of "Write Like a Chemist". Be sure to define any abbreviations and/or acronyms that you might include. Think about the keywords you will use in your abstract and title and be sure to use tense and voice appropriately. Observe the styles listed on page 276 in writing your abstract.

Details of the Poster Part of the Assignment:

You are going to describe your experiment and present the results in the form of a poster. Since the poster is a visual medium through which you are reporting scientific work, the words you choose (important to tell your story efficiently) and the visual appeal of the poster are both very important. Your poster will have the following sections: introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusions and references. Some examples of what a poster might look like are shown on pages 295, 350-352 of "Write Lika a Chemist. To learn how to prepare a poster, read Chapters 9 and 10 in "Write Like a Chemist. Chapter 9 will describe how to write the different sections of the poster, and Chapter 10 will help you with designing something that is visually appealing. You will generate your poster using the Powerpoint template provided. This is the actual template we use to generate the posters that we present at conferences. Normally, when the poster is in finalized form, it is printed to poster size using a large-format plotter. You will not submit your poster in life-size form. Once your poster is in finalized form, you will save it in pdf form for submission. The poster must fit onto one 8.5 x 11 sheet.

Additional Notes:

Any chemical structures should be incorporated into your paper either as scanned images, legally downloaded graphics (either from the public domain or cited with a reference) or drawn using chemical drawing software such as the ChemSketch freeware which is available for download from the internet. Your references must conform to the style described in the ACS Style Guide.

This assignment is due (uploaded to Moodle) by 5 pm on the day listed as the due date for your group for this project. Late work will not be accepted.