Writing the first draft of a scientific conference abstract is challenging. As part of an Early Career Advisory Committee ‘Science Jam’ sponsored by the UVM CVRI, a group of us came up with fill-in-the-blank, Mad Lib-style guide to help guide the completion of the first draft of a scientific conference abstract.

There’s one Zip file with 2 documents:

• Clinical or epidemiological-style abstract (Note: Not intended for case reports)
• Basic science abstract

The first page is where you declare all of the terms and concepts, the second page is the fill-in-the-blank section that is drawn from the first page. Do the first page first. I also color coded the clinical/epidemiology one since that’s the one I’m using.

These documents use some fancy MS Word features to help you complete the sections that may not work too well with browser-based MS Word applications, so best to do on your computer with the ‘standard’ MS Word desktop app.

Here’s the link: Conference Abstract Mad Libs.zip

Enjoy!