Could we please talk about abstracts?

[nauru]

Hi, I'm very confused about what an abstract is.

Until recently I've been personally familiar with only four types of "research dissemination":

1. Journal publication
2. Book or book chapter
3. Conference talk
4. Conference poster

1. A journal publication often, but not always, has an abstract. The abstract of the publication is not considered a separate publication; it's just a summary of the paper.

2. Not sure if book chapters have abstracts but again, I would not expect it to be considered a separate publication if they do.

3. An invited talk at a conference may have an abstract that goes in the agenda; this is not separate from the talk, but rather a summary of the talk. They are still one thing. The conference proceedings may or may not be printed in a peer reviewed journal, but this doesn't change anything as far as I can tell.

4. A poster may have an abstract, but again, this is just a summary of the poster -- the abstract may even be on the poster itself. So the abstract is not separate from the poster; they are one thing, regardless of whether the agenda gets printed in a journal afterward or not.



APPARENTLY--and I may be completely mixed up here--apparently many medical schools and residency programs consider a poster's abstract to be separate from the poster itself, and count these as two separate "research dissemination items" on an application. So the fifth category is "abstract" and this makes no sense to me. And apparently this true for invited talks as well, is that right? And if so, what is the rationale? It seems odd to consider the abstract a separate publication. But I have a feeling I just haven't understood what medicine considers a publication or considers an abstract. So if anyone is able to explain this in really simple terms, I would appreciate it. A field-specific convention perhaps?

Do people in medicine list on their CV an abstracts section, in addition to the invited talks section and posters section, and separately list the abstracts of all the posters and talks they just listed on the previous page?

Thanks.

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[deleted343839]

What I think you are referring to is this: some peer-reviewed journals will publish a special issue containing the abstracts of posters presented at selected meetings. The author does not have to do anything extra to make this happen (in fact, you would have a harder time keeping an abstract from being published in this scenario). These published abstracts often end up being searchable in research databases such as Scopus, which make them somewhat useful as a form of dissemination. However, I don't list my published abstracts separately on my CV, and I don't come across a lot of CVs with a separate category for this. After all, the bar for getting a poster accepted for presentation, even to a higher-profile meeting, is relatively low. As you say, though, there may be some fields in which this practice is more accepted.

In general, I recommend listing every CV item once under the best fitting category (eg, peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, other non-refereed publications, conference talks, conference posters, etc.). You could make a separate section for published abstracts (assuming you had any), but it could come off as CV padding if it's redundant with another line on your CV in a different section.

 

[nauru]

Great, thank you.

 

[Earl Simmons]

Bump


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[Law2Doc]

The abstract is a short summary of a paper or presentation/poster. Usually a couple thousand characters. It is often the vehicle (proposal) you use to submit and get accepted to present a presentation or poster. It also gets affixed to the front of a paper you submit as readers of journals often peruse abstracts before deciding if it's worth their time to read the whole paper. In general as its meant to be a vehicle to something else, the abstract should not be listed separately on a CV once a paper, poster or presentation has been accepted. I have not seen abstracts used with book chapters.

 

[Goro]

Here's an example of an abstract:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27058907

Hi, I'm very confused about what an abstract is.

Until recently I've been personally familiar with only four types of "research dissemination":

1. Journal publication
2. Book or book chapter
3. Conference talk
4. Conference poster

1. A journal publication often, but not always, has an abstract. The abstract of the publication is not considered a separate publication; it's just a summary of the paper.

2. Not sure if book chapters have abstracts but again, I would not expect it to be considered a separate publication if they do.

3. An invited talk at a conference may have an abstract that goes in the agenda; this is not separate from the talk, but rather a summary of the talk. They are still one thing. The conference proceedings may or may not be printed in a peer reviewed journal, but this doesn't change anything as far as I can tell.

4. A poster may have an abstract, but again, this is just a summary of the poster -- the abstract may even be on the poster itself. So the abstract is not separate from the poster; they are one thing, regardless of whether the agenda gets printed in a journal afterward or not.



APPARENTLY--and I may be completely mixed up here--apparently many medical schools and residency programs consider a poster's abstract to be separate from the poster itself, and count these as two separate "research dissemination items" on an application. So the fifth category is "abstract" and this makes no sense to me. And apparently this true for invited talks as well, is that right? And if so, what is the rationale? It seems odd to consider the abstract a separate publication. But I have a feeling I just haven't understood what medicine considers a publication or considers an abstract. So if anyone is able to explain this in really simple terms, I would appreciate it. A field-specific convention perhaps?

Do people in medicine list on their CV an abstracts section, in addition to the invited talks section and posters section, and separately list the abstracts of all the posters and talks they just listed on the previous page?

Thanks.

 

[nauru]

Right, I do know what an abstract is, when it's in the context of a standard paper in a journal! (like the one above) And I have written them before.

However, I still do not understand is why an medical school admissions director/dean would advise listing abstracts separately and in addition to publications on a supplementary application. The way I see it, an abstract is just a necessary part of the submission/publication process for a paper. It's not a separate project/accomplishment. But a certain director/dean of admissions, who is a physician, seems to think otherwise.

 

[Earl Simmons]

I think some journals actually publish abstracts which may be the cause of the confusion?


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[Law2Doc]

...
However, I still do not understand is why an medical school admissions director/dean would advise listing abstracts separately and in addition to publications on a supplementary application...

Most med school admissions directors would NOT advise this. Either you misunderstood, or found yourself an outlier.

 

[Goro]

Every poster I've presented had an abstract. Whether the abstract got published depended upon the meeting where the poster was. You CAN'T double dip and say you had an abstract published and then count the poster as a "presentation".

A typical CV has:

Publications
(may be split into "in press" and "published works")

Seminars

Posters and Presentations
[this is where an abstract would go if it got published in, say the Kansas Journal of Ornithology]

Capeesh?


APPARENTLY--and I may be completely mixed up here--apparently many medical schools and residency programs consider a poster's abstract to be separate from the poster itself, and count these as two separate "research dissemination items" on an application. So the fifth category is "abstract" and this makes no sense to me. And apparently this true for invited talks as well, is that right? And if so, what is the rationale? It seems odd to consider the abstract a separate publication. But I have a feeling I just haven't understood what medicine considers a publication or considers an abstract. So if anyone is able to explain this in really simple terms, I would appreciate it. A field-specific convention perhaps?

Do people in medicine list on their CV an abstracts section, in addition to the invited talks section and posters section, and separately list the abstracts of all the posters and talks they just listed on the previous page?

Thanks.[/QUOTE]