As part of the Technically Speaking Anniversary last week I did two mentoring calls. Both of them focused on writing abstracts. This is cool, because one of the things I discovered when Chiu-Ki and I ran our workshop is that Abstract Writing is something of a speciality for me and I actually quite enjoy writing them for other people.
General Comments About Abstracts
- Your abstract is a pitch for your talk. It’s when you sell the topic.
- Your bio is where you sell yourself as a good person to speak about the topic.
- It doesn’t need to be long.
- Be concrete, but not overly detailed. E.g. specific takeaways are good, the details of how you get to them are unnecessary.
Three Lists
Think about your topic and make three lists.
- Why is this topic important.
- What things do you want people to take away from it.
- What points do you plan to cover.
List #3 is the easiest, but lists #1 and #2 are most useful for writing your abstract.
A Formula
[Strong statement about why this topic is important at a macro level]. [Specific points that tie your more narrow topic to this macro point].
This talk will cover [2-3 most important points], after which you will be able to [concrete audience takeaway].