I’ve reviewed a bunch of abstracts in the last couple of days, here are some common suggestions I made:

  • No need to include your company name in the abstract text. Chances are I’ve not heard of your company, and even if I have, what does it add to my comprehension of your abstract and what you’re going to talk about? Possible exception would be the "hot" tech companies where people will see a talk just because it’s Netflix etc

  • I really don’t want just to read your project documentation/summary. It makes me worry your talk will be death by PowerPoint of the minutiae of something that’s only relevant in your company.

  • Following on from above, I want to see that there’s going to be things you’ll share that are useful for other people in a similar situation. Something that’s specific to your project, your company, doesn’t translate to mass-usefulness. Something that other people will hit, whether it’s technical or org-cultural, now that is interesting and is going to be useful

  • If my eyes start to glaze over reading the abstract intro, already I’m assuming that your talk will make me bored too. Read it back out loud to yourself…make sure each word justifies its place in the text. Boilerplate filler and waffle should be left on the cutting room floor.

  • You need to strike a balance between giving enough detail about the contents of your talk that I am convinced you have interesting things to share, but without listing every nut and bolt of detail. Too much detail and it just becomes a laundry list. You need to whet people’s appetite for the actual meal, not put them off their food.

  • For heaven’s sake, proof read! If you can’t be arsed to use a spell checker, then I definitely wouldn’t trust you to prepare a talk of any quality. I’ve recently started using Grammarly and it’s excellent.

This is all just IMHO, and I would strongly caveat it that I’ve never been on a program committee, so maybe others out there can set me straight if I’m going against the grain on any of this.

Some good feedback from David McKay in response to this article:

I always find that negative titles, on context and subject, particularly annoying; more so when it’s a double negative.

Your article, for example, would be better in the positive context of "Traps to Avoid When Writing an Abstract"

Which I totally agree with. I’ve stuck with the original title out of sheer stubbornness, and a reflection on the grump I was in after reviewing a crap abstract ;)

More good feedback, from Erik Riedel:

there is a lot tied up in your 5th bullet - and I recently read some twitter CFP advice (forget from who) what you should put ALL the "coolest" points into your abstract - vs trying to save some sizzle for the talk itself - i.e. the reviewers want to know ALL the coolness, because they are judging against the entire mass of other submitted coolnesses - even if you would want only hook/bait for the abstract that will be in the conference program - I’d suggest you make that point part of your 5th bullet somehow - i.e. "whatever you do, make sure ALL your COOLEST points from the talk are in the abstract - the sizzle" - ok to leave out "nuts and bolts" as you say