Hi, does anyone know how strict these things are? I'm writing a conference abstract that can only be 250 words. I have managed to prune it down from 325 to 283 today but any more and I'll start losing meaning! It's for the cognitive neuroscience society if that helps.

Anyway off to count the words from some of last years submissions!

Hi Catalin, My instinct is usually to stick to the word limit, but 250 words is very short, so I can see why you are having problems. If you really can't cut it any shorter, how about asking them if they'll accept a slightly longer piece? I've never run a conference so I'm not sure how strict organisers are about these things, hence I'm not advising you to send it as it is. Someone else might know better.

In my experience, they are usually quite strict about it. I've just submitted an abstract where they didn't even go by a word limit - they went by a character limit including spaces. I really struggled to cut mine down but fortunately managed it in the end. It's surprising how many 'ands' and 'buts' you don't need. The wording needs to be very tight, even though that's really difficult. Don't forget to click my helpful user tab ;-)

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I think it depends on the conference (how big/formal etc), but yes, I would stick to the word limit, if at all possible. Sometimes on online submissions, the abstract field won't allow more than 250 words (or certain number of characters/spaces) and any extra will be cut off. What I find useful when having to cut down a signifcant number of words (like 33 in your case) is to either delete whole sentences/subclauses or to restructure the text completely instead of trying to save a word here and there. Remember to focus on the key point(s) you want to make, which should be possible in 250 words?!

I once had to sumbit a conference abstract which could be no longer than 100 words. It was basically 2 sentences including my title and what my presentation would cover. When the word limit is so small, I doubt they need a lot of detail. It's just to guage whether your presentation would fit with the conference themes. Try not to stress too much, giving the basics should be enough... also try cutting out words you don't need, like "and" or "moreover" or "also". Words like that can easily be removed without taking away from the meaning.

Good luck

Thanks everyone. After coming back to it for another cull i'm down to 256. Having looked at last years abstracts there were a few with this many words so I'm gonna assume it's ok.

Hi Catalin,

I think you have two choices.

1. To contact / e mail the editor and ask whether it is OK. I have done this and the editor in my case was quite happy with a few extra words (I think it was something like 25).
2. Remove, like mentioned before whole sentences, for example from the background. Keep method compact and provide only a summary of a summary of the results.

:-)