Guidelines
How to write an abstract
An abstract is a brief (100-200 words) synopsis of your presentation.
Make your abstract accessible to a broad audience. Do not assume much previous knowledge of your topic.
If possible, avoid mathematical notation both in the title and the abstract. If you must use mathematical typesetting, use LaTeX format.
The abstract should indicate what is the presentation about, what is significant about the problem/question you study, how you approached the problem/question, and what are the solutions/conclusions of your work.
See also this post by Ivars Peterson for additional guidance on mathematical abstracts.
Abstracts may have four parts of about the same length: Background, Methods, Results, Conclusions. Sometimes, it is OK to "merge" Results and Conclusions and effectively have three parts only.
Abstracts for talks with more than one presenter should be submitted only once (by the corresponding author). However, all presenters must register for the conference and provide the name of the corresponding author. See the registration form for more information.
Abstracts are not papers. Please do not use references in the abstract.
In general, please avoid the use of CAPS in titles and abstracts. It is OK to say "NTD" if you introduce it as a shortcut for "Neglected Tropical Disease". But It is not OK to write "NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASE".
As an example, consider the following abstract for a talk "Mathematical modeling of Zombie infection" based on this paper by Munz et. al.
As documented by many popular movies and TV series, outbreaks of Zombie epidemics are becoming increasingly common in the US and all around the world. Zombies are mindless monsters who do not feel pain and who have an immense appetite for human flesh. Starting with a basic compartmental model, we determine the zombie-free and zombie-only equilibria and their stability. We then consider several increasingly complex extensions of basic model, namely a model that introduces a latent period of zombification, or a quarantine, or a cure. Finally, we examine the impact of regular impulsive reduction of zombies. We derive conditions under which zombie eradication can occur. We show that only quick, aggressive attacks can prevent the apocalypse when the society collapses as zombies overtake us all.
We note, however, that the presenters would likely fail to present all the advertised content within the allotted 15 minutes. Therefore, think carefully about what you want to present and what you can fit in your presentation.
How to prepare the talk
Watch a great instructional video The art and science of great presentations by Dr. Igor Erovenko. Visit his youtube channel for more videos.
Learn from these slides by Dr. Stacey Smith?. While the actual talk is longer than 15 minutes and some points focus strongly on disease modeling talks, there are many good ideas for all scientific presentations.
Also recommended are these points.
Specifically for 15-20 minutes talk, see here.
Some additional pointers that may help you think about your presentation:
Do three things (and do not miss or skip any of the steps)
Tell them what you’re going to tell them.
Tell them.
Tell them what you’ve told them.
Early on, say something specific about the content – “I’m going to talk to you today about how using the newest combinatorial principle can shorten the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem", for example. Do not use any of the generic slides that just reads “Introduction. Methods. Results. Conclusions.” Those have very little informational value.
Towards the end, the recap is your chance to bring your point home. What’s the take home message the audience should remember? If they were to go up to their colleagues tomorrow and say “I saw an interesting talk yesterday that showed ….” – what do you want that last part to be?
How to prepare an asynchronous talk
Preparing a recording of your talk:
Create your presentation slides in LaTeX Beamer, Google Slides, PowerPoint, Canva, or other similar programs.
Open a screen recorder (Zoom, Panopto, or another similar program) and share your screen with your slides showing.
Record yourself with or without your webcam turned on (your choice) giving your presentation.
Make sure to watch the video afterward to make sure there are no issues.
Follow the guidelines above for live talks for general best practices for talks.
The final video should be about 15 minutes long.
Uploading the video to YouTube:
Sign into studio.youtube.com (any Google account should work here; if needed, create a Google/YouTube account).
In the top right-hand corner, click CREATE and choose Upload video.
Select the recording file you prepared to upload.
Add a title, description, and thumbnail for the video, and answer the question about whether the video is for kids (say no), and click next twice to move to the visibility question.
For the "save and publish" question, decide whether you want the file to be available publicly (public option) or available to people with a link (unlisted). To be included in the conference, you must choose one of these two options.
Once your video is available on the YouTube site, share the video link with us by April 6 by emailing it to mathstatstudentresearch@gmail.com.
The videos should be available from the time you email us until April 20, which is the end date for viewing of asynchronous (recorded) presentations.
Credit: The above guidelines are prepared using a similar guide prepared by GVSU OURS.