CRITERIA FOR ABSTRACT ACCEPTANCE

 

Presentations will be selected for the program on the basis of the scientific quality of the work as judged from the abstract. An impartial panel of reviewers (a minimum of three persons per Scientific Group/Network) will evaluate the content of each abstract. Selection of the abstracts will be made by these reviewers and by the ASC, whose decision is final. The following are the evaluation criteria used in the review of abstracts. This is provided to call your attention to points that will be considered. In the final analysis, it will be the reviewers’ judgment of the value of any abstract that will determine whether the abstract should appear on the program. Since the abstracts are published and become part of the world’s scientific literature, it is important that the content be scientifically sound and grammatically correct. Each abstract is reviewed so that high standards can be ensured.

 

Common reasons for rejection are:

    1. Abstract is not original research.

    2. The research is not innovative in its approach to the stated problem (methodology or data collection or analysis or data interpretation).

    3. Nature of problem not explicit from either title or abstract.

    4. Material too closely related to another abstract submitted by the same co-authors; should have been combined into a single paper.

    5. Abstract has been presented at other meeting(s) or previously published.  Abstracts based on manuscripts posted or submitted to a non-commercial preprint server are not considered previously published.

    6. Abstract poorly organized and/or not complete. Required information abstract are: a. Objective b. Methods c. Results – data and statistical analysis, and d. Conclusions

    7. Methods of obtaining data not appropriate with respect to the stated problem for the following reasons: a. Methods not sufficiently precise to permit the measurements to be accurate, i.e., variations are within the error limits for the method. b. Sampling method contains inherent discriminatory factors not recognized. c. Size of sample insufficient to show significant conformity or differences. d. No well-defined criteria given for evaluation of variables. e. Choice of controls questionable. f. No control groups reported.

    8. Significance of results related to the nature of the problem being studied is not stated.

    9. Conclusions do not necessarily follow as a consequence of the method of analysis applied to the data.

    10. Conclusions not adequately qualified, i.e., conclusions have greater limitations than implied by the author.

    11. Correlations suggested may be fortuitous insofar as no plausible cause-and-effect relation has been suggested, and none is obvious.

    12. Abstract is not in English. 13. Abstract is over word count.