Abstracts - Rules


Please follow these rules carefully. Failure to comply with abstract submission rules will result in your abstract not being accepted for review.

**Please note that the rules set out below apply to Poster/Platform abstract submission only. Invited speakers should refer to instructions provided directly from the Congress Secretariat for the submission of abstracts for invited lectures.

1. Submission of abstracts describing data that has previously been published in any scientific journal is not permitted.

2. The multiple submissions of abstracts describing different components of the same study are not appropriate. Whenever possible, all findings generated from the same study should be included in a single abstract.

3. Abstracts containing single case reports will not usually be accepted, unless the report is of outstanding scientific or clinical interest because of the uniqueness of the findings or the sophistication of the investigations.

4. Abstracts containing data considered to be insufficiently informative may be accepted but published by title only. In the latter event, the Scientific Advisory Committee will inform the presenting author that the abstract contained insufficient data. Its acceptance (with publication by title only) may be conditional upon receipt of a statement in which the author(s) explain how an informative data set will become available for presentation by the time of the Congress.

5. All abstracts should be written, submitted and presented in English only.

6. Use a concise title that indicates the content of the abstract. The title should not exceed 250 characters. Avoid using abbreviations in the title.

7. The first name in each abstract should be that of the presenting author.

8. Submission of more than one abstract by the same first author is not permitted.

9. Each author is permitted to present at the congress only once. Please note however, that invited speakers may submit abstracts for consideration for platform/poster sessions.

10. Institution information should be provided for all authors. Include institution, city, state/province and country but do not include department, division, laboratory, etc.

11. Abstracts should be structured in 4 sections:
(1) Purpose
(2) Method
(3) Results
(4) Conclusion

The "Purpose" section should indicate the objectives of the work being presented. The "Method" section should describe study material or subjects (e.g. number and type of patients), intervention and evaluation procedures. The "Result" section should summarise the main findings. Wherever possible, give numerical values, including means with SD or SEM, and statistical significance or confidence intervals. The "Conclusion" section should state briefly the conclusions reached in the work.

12. Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words in length (this limit excludes the abstract title, authors and institutions but includes references).

13. For intervention studies (for example, therapeutic trials); type of design (prospective or retrospective, controlled or uncontrolled, randomised or observational, open vs. single-blind vs. double-blind), dosages, assessment methods and duration of follow-up should be specified.

14. Non-proprietary names of drugs must be used throughout. If results are considered to be specific for a given proprietary product (for example, bio-equivalence studies), the non-proprietary name must still be used, followed by the proprietary name and the name of the manufacturers in brackets.

15. Abbreviations should be used sparingly. For words that are abbreviated, use the whole term the first time, followed by the standard abbreviation in parenthesis. For anti-epileptic drugs, standard abbreviations are those published in Epilepsia 1993; 34:1151.

16. References should be used sparingly. They should be included within the text in brackets. For journals, mention first author "et al" followed by the name of the journal as abbreviated in the Index Medicus, year, volume number and inclusive pages (i.e. Hardus P et al. Epilepsia 2001;42:262-267.). For book chapters, give first author "et al", editor, title, publisher, city of publication, year and inclusive pages (i.e. Levy RH et al. In: Levy RH et al, Antiepileptic Drugs. Lippincott-Raven, 1996;13-30.).

17. Figures, tables and other illustrations should not be included in abstracts.

18. Submission of an abstract automatically implies acknowledgment that the work described was conducted in accordance with current ethical standards and regulations in biomedical research. Failure to adhere to these standards will result in rejection of the abstract.

19. If the work was supported by funds provided by a commercial organisation this should be stated in a short acknowledgment at the end of the abstract. Other sources of funding may be acknowledged in the same way.

20. All abstract submissions for Poster/Platform presentations must be submitted via the on-line abstract submission system at www.epilepsyberlin2008.org/aol.html.
Abstracts submitted via fax and email will not be accepted for review.

21. Abstracts will not be accepted unless they are submitted according to the rules, instructions and format described and received by the Congress Secretariat on or before midnight, 20th March 2008. Late abstracts will NOT be accepted.

22.You will not be permitted to make any changes once you have submitted the abstract. Please ensure the abstract you are submitting is the final version

23. Travel Bursary applications will be accepted from people under 45 years of age who have submitted an abstract. Application procedures are available on the Travel Bursary Information section of the website.

24. You will not be permitted to make any changes once you have submitted the abstract. Please ensure the abstract you are submitting is the final version

25. Instructions for both platform and poster presentations will be e-mailed with notices of acceptance. Abstracts selected for oral presentations may use either Microsoft PowerPoint (PC Format) or standard VHS video only. Please note that authors selected for poster presentation may be required to submit the poster for display in both electronic and traditional poster format.