Guidelines for Abstract Submission

The 19th ISLD Congress will accept Abstracts in the form of Oral Communication and Poster Presentation. The way of presentation will be evaluated in accordance with its scientific content, clinical relevance, quality and originality. All accepted abstracts will be published in a section of the journal Lasers in Dental Sciences (LIDS) dedicated to the Congress.

Abstracts submitted will only be accepted when in accordance with all the rules of submission presented below.

We strongly recommend authors to read and consider the documents “suggestions to write an abstract”.

Abstracts should include Title, Authors, Introduction, Aim, Materials and Methods, Results and Conclusions.

The abstract must be submitted in English (mandatory).

The main text of the abstract (excluding title and authors) should not have more that 400 Words.

All Abstracts will be reviewed and evaluated by independent reviewers in accordance to a specific evaluation grid.

The deadline for abstract submission is January 15, 2024.  Authors will be notified about the results on the February 19, 2024.

Suggestions on how to write an abstract

The aim of the conference is to provide the exchange of knowledge and experiences in this community. Writing an abstract is an important way to share your scientific or clinical work with your peers.

Sometimes the appreciation of an abstract is impaired by the way it is presented. This could lead to a good scientific/clinical abstract not being appreciated in the way it deserves. To avoid this, the following information presents practical advice on how to write a good abstract and increase its chance of being selected for presentation.

Why writing and submitting an abstract?
An abstract is a short version of an article, and it is important for several reasons.

• It provides the first opportunity to announce and cite the preliminary results of your study;
• It allows you to share your findings with your peers and get feedback and constructive criticism towards a finalized and solid research article.
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A structure of an abstract should include:

Title
The title should give a precise idea of the content of the abstract. It must expose as much as possible the content, aims of the study, the scope of investigation, the study design and objectives. Ideally the title should have 10 to 12 words, it must be easy to understand and avoid unfamiliar acronymous or abbreviations.

Authors
The list of authors should be restricted to the individuals who have worked to conceive, design, obtain data, crunched the numbers, and have written the summary of this study. The presenting author should be the first in the listed authors. All authors should read and approved the abstract before it is submitted.

Body of the abstract
A good abstract should answer the 5 questions mentioned below:

1. “How/Why did it start?” – Introduction or history
   This should summarize, preferably in one sentence, the actual knowledge or stat of the art, specifically related to the work that will be presented.
2. “What are you trying to answer?” – Purposes and aims
   Here you should define the aim of the study and ideally include a short statement of what is being studied.
   A legitimate study is not carried out “to prove that any finding is true”, but “to discover whether a given fact is true”. The difference seems small, but it is in fact abysmal. The exposition of a formal hypothesis demonstrates objectivity.
3. “What did you do to answer your question?” – Methods
   In an abstract, the description of methods should be concise and most details should be omitted. However, a short sentence should give the reader a good idea of ​​the design of the study, the context in which it was carried out, and the type of patients/measurements/analysis that were included.
4. “What were your findings?” – Results
   It is important to mention the main results of the study. You will need to make choices regarding the data you will choose to present in the abstract and the findings on which you will base your conclusions. Do not include a table or figure unless strictly necessary to show your results.
5. “What is the meaning of this study?” – Conclusions
   Space constraints generally limit conclusions to a single sentence explaining why you think your results are important and potential implications. Make sure your conclusions are supported by your study results.
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Resume of the abstract submission guidelines:
- Deadline for abstract submission: January 15, 2024.
- The presenter should appear as the 1^st author.
- The presenter complies with all the guidelines required for presentation.
- Affiliations of all authors should be listed.
- The abstract is organized in: Introduction, Aims, Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusion.
- The abstract is in accordance with all guidelines required, has the number of words and is in the required format.
- The abstract can only be submitted through the respective platform provided on this website, otherwise they will not be considered.
- All accepted abstracts will be published in a section of the journal Lasers in Dental Sciences (LIDS) dedicated to the Congress.