MBS Doctoral Research Conference: Briefing

Professor Stuart Hyde

Director of Postgraduate Research

MBS Doctoral Conference

• MBS Doctoral Conference will be held on Monday May 11th and Tuesday May 12th.

• It is an early opportunity to present your research ideas to Faculty and other students.

• Alongside your sessions there will be research workshops.

• This year there will also be Faculty presentations on funded research projects and impact.

• First you need to submit an abstract about your proposed research (presentation).

When/ why do you need to write an abstract?

• MBS doctoral conference : submit by Friday March 13th.

• External conferences and workshops:- Some require full papers for acceptance- Many require abstract onlyMany good conferences (including doctoral events) are competitive; your abstract needs to persuade the organisers to select your paperYour abstract may be used to schedule papers; you want to ensure you end up in an appropriate sessionAbstracts are published in proceedings; a well-written abstract may persuade people to come to your session

• When submitting your thesisYour abstract will be accessible to other researchers

• When submitting journal articlesA well written abstract will help to make your work visible in online searches and put it in front of other researchers

What does a good abstract look like?

• An abstract is a summary (of your research project, of your paper, of your thesis)

• A well-written abstract should leave your reader wanting to read more (eg to download the paper, to come to your conference session…)

• It should be informative & sell your research (but not misrepresent it)

• It should be self-contained (you can’t refer to the paper)

What does a good abstract look like?

In general terms, should cover the following:

•Problem statement &/or motivation – what are you doing & why is it interesting/ important; what kind of question are you addressing (theoretical, empirical, practical…); avoid lots of background

•Methods or approach – what are doing/ what did you do to address this question

•Findings – what have you learnt (in general, not great detail)

•Conclusions and implications, including contribution

What does a good abstract look like?

For the MBS doctoral conference (early stage abstract):

•The nature of the problem; or the topic (be specific); research questions

•Why it is interesting and worthwhile

•Key pointers from the literature

•Methodology chosen (& why)

•Any problems you might expect

•Potential contribution, expected results

•[plus pilot study design, initial findings etc]

General advice

• Follow the requirements setWord length (do not exceed; use the available words)Format (some journals specify headings in the abstract e.g. Emerald journals require ‘structured abstracts’ with precise set of headings); sometimes you need to provide keywords (think carefully about how someone would be searching; match themes of conference, special issue etc)

• Connect with themes of conference, journal or event (make sure the abstract helps to sell the paper as relevant, especially for competitive doctoral colloquia, prestige peer reviewed events etc)

• Make sure you meet any criteria for selection (eg type of research); be explicit that you do

General advice

• Pay careful attention to proof reading: carelessness creates a poor impression

• Allow sufficient time to draft and redraft; it can take several attempts to get it right; make sure the text is fluent i.e. connect the sentences rather than random sentences

• Write clearly and concisely: you need to communicate effectively (your reader may not be a specialist in this area); try to avoid jargon, less well-known acronyms etc; avoid unnecessary detail

General advice

• You need to know what the paper or presentation is about, before you can write an abstract; otherwise it will be too vague about the objectives, methods, data and findings etc

• References/ bibliographic citations not required (though you might want to refer to a key text if that helps explain your motivation)

• Don’t be lazy: generally it won’t work to simply take a paragraph from your intro or conclusion

• Give it to someone else to read: be friendly critics