A day or more?

It's 500 words max and I have a fair idea of what I need to say so I'm hoping it shouldn't take too long?!

I did a 350 one last week - it took me 30 mins but I did steal most of the content from work I had already written up.

These adyas I do them very quickly in about an hour. For the last one, I only remembered the deadline with 45 mins to spare and I wrote it off the top of my head- it was accepted, but I felt embarrassed about the writing, I could have made a much better job of it with more time - especially if I'd left time for re-drafts.

it really depends on what it is and how familiar the particular aspect of your research. I'd usually only take 30-45 mins to draft it out, then leave it and come back a couple of hours later or the next day for editing.

A bit of an over-estimation on my part then :$

Thanks guys!!!

having said '30 mins' though - it depends how you work. If you want to put a day in to it, then do! tbh, I hate conferences so put little effort into submissions in the hope I can say to my supervisor that I wasn't accepted. Although, maybe I should write my thesis in 30 mins cos I always get in :-s

Asking an academic how long they take to write anything is like asking them how much meat they are packing down below.

They are not going to say its a bit of a cocktail, are they?

it takes me at least 1 hour :-(
boo hoo hoo

Just wondering, are references included within the word count? At the moment, I'm struggling to cut down my word count - it's about 700 right now excluding references - but including references it's up at almost 1000!

Larry David, thats the second comment by you that verges on being crude. Are you by any chance THE Larry David?

Ev, don't know about yours, but in my field citations are a bit of a no-no in abstracts. They are rarely included, but not often.

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Thanks for your input Siwee. I'm in the sciences, I'm not sure about you. The sample extracts (showing correct formatting etc.) on the conference website do have citations and list of references so I'm just wonderinf if they would be included in the word count?

I would guess no, but thats a guess! sorry I cant help more

Not to mention sexist. Not all academics have "meat to pack down below" ie some are women you know. Altho you probably have some crude reference for women too...

Ev, in my opinion I would say a day. That's how long it took me to do my abstract for my upcoming major conference. I had a fair idea of what I wanted to say, but I had to refine it, refine it and refine it. Maybe I'm a bit anally retentive but I thought about every word, the structure of it, and then formulated a catchy title to make it stand out from the others.
I am perhaps a little slow though, when it comes to these things. I wouldn't have thought more than a day though.

I think Wally could be right, I felt embarassed about my lasr abstract and that doesn't help the old confidence when presenting/networking. Also, a poorly constructed abstract can make you pare harder to write: you can end up trying to fit your paper around a not to well thoought out framework, or presenting apaper which doesn't match the abstract - a bit annoying for the audience, I think.