How to Submit

Preparing Your Abstract for a WVU Symposium

WVU Office of Undergraduate Research hosts three symposia each year: Fall, Spring and Summer Undergraduate Research Symposia. Undergraduates engaged in mentored research at WVU are eligible to submit to any and all of these events.

Abstracts must be submitted through the Symposium platform by ForagerOne. Note: you will need to create a ForagerOne account if you do not already have one.

Use this handy template to prepare your submission. Details below.

Spring Symposium 2024 Critical Dates:

Important: Be sure to provide your title and abstract to your mentor and any co-authors for their approval before you submit. You  MUST   include your mentor as a co-author. Before you begin your submission, you will need the following information. Please be prepared before you begin.

Authors/Presenters and Co-Authors/Presenters:

The student presenter should be the lead author/presenter of the presentation and the mentor MUST be included as a co-author/co-presenter. You may add up to 7 additional co-authors/co-presenters for a total of 8 authors/presenters. Typically, a student includes their mentor and any other people that have made significant and meaningful contributions to the work. Discuss with your mentor who should be included as an author on your abstract.  For yourself and each co-author/co-presenter, you will need:

• Full name

• email address 

• Level/classification (freshman, sophomore…graduate student, faculty, etc)

• Department name

• Institution. If the contributor is in industry or private, ask them how they would like their department and affiliation to read.

Title: 

Your title should be 14 words max  and be entered using title case. Capitalize the first letter of each main word. For example: "Success in Undergraduate Research at WVU". Your title should succinctly communicate the subject of your poster to a wide audience. Avoid technical jargon to engage the widest audience possible. Think of your grandparents or a family friend – will they understand your title? Share your title with your mentor and at least one non-specialist before you submit to be sure it makes sense, is grammatically correct, and has no typos or errors.

Abstract: 

Your abstract should be 160-250 words  and structured as a single paragraph that: 1) conveys the motivation for the work, 2) research question/hypothesis/purpose, 3) methods/approach, 4) results, and 5) significance of your work to science and/or society. Write for a general audience. Please note when pasting your abstract, certain formatting (e.g. bold, italics, etc.) may not be kept. Please do not include figures, tables, or references in your abstract. Images, tables and figures can be included in the media section. Please double check your abstract. BE SURE TO GET FEEDBACK FROM YOUR FACULTY RESEARCH/CREATIVE MENTOR AND ANY CO-AUTHORS ON YOUR ABSTRACT BEFORE SUBMITTING YOUR FINAL VERSION.

Need help getting started writing your abstract? Try  How to Construct a Nature Summary Paragraph 

Example Abstract

Abstract originally by: Brittany Witherspoon  and Eva Erdosne Toth

The introduction of novel technologies, such as nanotechnology, has become a topic of interest in scientific literacy and education. Consequently, the perspectives of the public on the risks and benefits associated with Nanotechnology are important. In this study, we collected and analyzed pre-service elementary teachers’ perceptions on nanotechnology to further inform a larger scale instructional innovation for pre-service science teacher education. We surveyed students in an elective, media-literacy course through measurement instruments such as pretests, worksheets, and posttests to analyze their perspectives and reasoning as related to the use of nanotechnology for everyday problem solving. The results indicated that students had a “cautiously optimistic” perspective on the application of nanotechnology and that this general perspective was stable and unchanging after instructional innovation. However, we found interesting changes in how students reasoned for these opinions. The significance of the study is that it addresses the concerns of improving public literacy about novel technologies by way of elementary teacher training, and thus it establishes a way for public literacy that starts early in K-12 education.

Category:

You will be asked to choose a category for your poster presentation, oral presentation, or performance. All presentations will be judged by faculty, staff and graduate student judges by category. Typical categories include (see rubrics below): 

Poster presentations

• Arts, Humanities & Design 

• Biological & Biochemical Sciences

• Environmental & Agricultural Sciences

• Health Sciences & Community Health

• Physical Sciences & Engineering 

• Social & Behavioral Sciences 

• Arts, Humanities and Design - Oral presentation
• Biological & Health Sciences - Oral presentation
• Physical Sciences, Engineering & Technology - Oral presentation
• Social & Behavioral Sciences - Oral Presentation
• Performing Arts - Performance