Abstract submission guidelines

ABSTRACTS FOR POSTERS AND ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 2019

Beside invited plenary presentations and workshops, free communications on all aspects of reproduction in domestic animals will be presented at the conference. Although most free communication will have to be presented as posters, ESDAR likes to give scientists the opportunity to present their data orally and numerous sessions with short oral communications will be offered. All submitted abstracts will undergo a strict peer-review process (see below). Accepted abstracts will be published in the journal Reproduction in Domestic Animals. You are invited to submit abstracts of your scientific work to be presented at the ESDAR conference 2019 not later than March 9^th, 2019.

Abstracts for posters or short oral communications can only be submitted through the ESDAR web site. Please follow the according submission advices there.

Abstract requirements

Abstracts must be written in English. If you are not a native speaker, ask for help to edit grammar and style. Your name must only appear once as first author of an abstract. However, you may submit additional abstracts as co-author. Abstracts should contain the purpose of the study, methods used, results, and conclusions. Do not forget to indicate the species within the title. A maximum of two references (first author, year, journal, volume, pages) of published full papers (no abstracts!) may be included. No figures or tables are allowed. Abbreviations have to be defined and should be used sparingly. Abstracts without results (e.g.: the results of this study will be presented at the meeting) are not acceptable. Abstracts are subjected to scientific review by peers. The decision on acceptance/rejection by the program committee is final.

The maximum size of abstracts is limited to 1,800 characters including spaces from the first word of the title through to the last word/character of the text, excluding author names and affiliations! This restriction must apply due to page limitations of the Journal (RDA). No exceptions can be accepted and longer abstracts will be rejected. All authors are obliged to indicate the number of characters in submission form

 

Preferred Method of Presentation

When you submit your abstract, please indicate your preferred method of presentation:

1. a) The poster session only
2. b) Poster session or oral communication
3. c) Participate in the student competition (Oral)
4. d) Participate in the student competition (Poster)

Submission of abstracts

By submitting the abstract, the author concedes (1) that the work has not been published previously and is the work of the named authors, who all agree to be listed as co-authors and (2) that the experiments have been conducted under the appropriate legal authority.

Make sure that the author or one of the co-authors is present at the conference and will present the publication either as oral communication or poster. Failure to present the work after the abstract has been published in the conference proceedings will result in rejection of abstracts from this particular laboratory in the following years.

Review of abstracts

The abstracts are subjected to a rigorous peer-review process. Firstly, abstracts must meet the formal requirements laid down in the information for authors of abstracts. Abstracts exceeding the character limit of 1,800 are not accepted. Abstracts may be re-submitted before the deadline expires. The corresponding author of each submitted abstract will receive an automated confirmation email. If not, they should make contact immediately with the program secretary.

Submitted abstracts are then distributed to the reviewers and rated

1. a) Accepted without revision
2. b) Accepted after minor revision
3. c) Major revision necessary
4. d) Not acceptable

A second reviewer will review abstracts rated not acceptable. In case the abstract is rated again not acceptable, the abstract will be rejected. In any other case, a third reviewer decides on the abstract. Abstracts, which need a major revision, will be returned to the corresponding author with detailed questions/instructions. After resubmission, the original reviewer again reviews the abstract. Abstracts, which need only minor revision will be returned to the author and will be rechecked after resubmission for the requested corrections. Very often the reason for rejection of abstracts is poor scientific quality. e.g. poorly designed experiments with inappropriate statistical analyses, or abstracts containing no data.

Poor language per se is not a reason to reject an abstract; however we strongly recommend all non-native speakers to get help from a native speaker. Minor language problems are edited by the reviewers and finally in the editorial office of the publisher.

Abstracts will be rated major revision necessary when the abstract contains interesting data but lacks some formalities e.g. description of methods, lack of statistics, lack of conclusion etc. Very often authors claim that they could not include sufficient information because of the limited characters. However, careful reading of the text usually reveals that there are quite a number of words, phrases or even sentences, which can be omitted without losing information.

Please refrain from inquiries about the status of the abstract after submission. The entire procedure will take up to 8 weeks. Authors will be informed by e-mail as soon as the final decision has been made.

Abstract Review and Selection

The decision whether an abstract is accepted as poster or oral communication is made by the program secretary and depends on the general layout of the scientific contents of the conference. The decision is final and will be announced around May 30^th, 2018.

ORAL COMMUNICATION GUIDELINES 2019

Oral communications are strictly limited to 15 minutes (12 minutes presentation and 3 minutes discussion) except for oral student competition (please see student competition guilenes section). Presentations should be in English. Come to your session in good time, so you can upload and test your presentation, talk to your chair about how he or she may introduce you, and express any concerns you may have about your presentation (e.g. use of technical equipment, photographs and video recordings of the session).

 

WORKSHOPS 2019

Workshops provide the platform for the intensive and interactive discussions of selected areas of reproduction in domestic animals with ESDAR conference participants. Within the conference programme, workshops should allow interactive discussion on specific issues; they are not extended oral presentations! The latter are reserved for plenary sessions and oral communications. The programme committee very carefully selects the objectives of the workshops, which fit in with the theme of the annual scientific presentations.

The following rules have been developed to help organizing good workshops. Workshop moderators and speakers are cordially requested to follow these rules.

- The local organizer invites the workshop moderator and discusses the topic of the workshop

- The workshop moderator invites up to 2 workshop speakers and develops the framework for content and timing. Moderator and speakers are requested to give an overview of the field of interest and to stimulate the discussion with their short oral contributions.

- Both the workshop moderator and the invited speakers submit electronically their abstract through the ESDAR web site not later than 1st of March 2018 using the registration forms provided in the abstract submission section of the website. Layout and length are described under abstract submission for posters

PLENARY SPEAKERS 2019

Plenary speakers are expected to submit a full paper to Reproduction in Domestic Animals by the end of February, 2019. The paper should be submitted as any other review in an electronic manner and will be subject to customary peer review: mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rda. Plenary speakers should add Review-ESDAR 2019 to the manuscript. Writing and submission instructions are in the following address: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1439-0531/homepage/ForAuthors.html

 

POSTER PRESENTATION GUIDELINES 2019

We hope that the following guidelines will help you when preparing your presentation. Poster session is one of the most important sessions at the Annual Conference of the European Society for Domestic Animal Reproduction.

Display boards will be provided for posters. POSTERS SHOULD HAVE A SIZE OF 120 x 90 cm (vertical presentation).

Copies of your poster reduced to A4 format are generally well appreciated by delegates. If you wish to distribute it, please prepare them before and bring them with you. Provide an envelope where delegates can leave their cards for more information.

Ideas for Improving Posters

(Based on guide-lines published in the Embryo Transfer Newsletter Volume 16, Number 3, September 1998 by G. E. Seidel, Jr.)

Accuracy, efficiency, and ease of communication should be the main criteria in designing posters. Secondary criteria include aesthetic appeal and variety (such as mixing graphs with tables, use of colour, and attention grabbers). The following suggestions will help to produce a poster that people will read and possibly remember:

1. Allow plenty of time to prepare the poster so that there is time to make corrections or obvious improvements.
2. Ask a colleague not directly involved with the material to read the poster and make suggestions.
3. The poster title should be in large letters that can be seen a long distance away (ideally, 4 cm high).
4. The names and addresses of authors should be in much smaller letters than the title.
5. Text letters should be at least 1 cm high.
6. A poster is not a scientific paper. It should be possible to read and understand a poster within 5 minutes. Long posters are ignored by most attendees. A maximum of two references (first author, year, journal, volume, pages) of published full papers can be included.
7. For posters, lists are preferable to text; tables are preferable to lists; and graphs are preferable to tables. Long and complex tables and complicated graphs have no place in posters.
8. A little colour adds immensely to posters particularly graphs; a lot of colour or gaudy colour is worse than no colour at all.
9. Be creative, but not cute. A good large colour photograph frequently adds greatly to a poster; overdoing this can be boring, however.
10. The use of photographs as a background for the entire poster is strongly discouraged. It usually makes it very difficult to read part of the text.
11. The following parts are absolutely essential for most posters:
12. Introduction (putting work into context)
13. Procedures (materials and methods)
14. Results (what was found)
15. Interpretation
16. Conclusions

Hypotheses often are appropriate or informative, but this depends on the nature of the experiment. Minimize abbreviations to one or two per poster. It is very difficult to remember three or more abbreviations (other than standard ones like FSH) when studying a poster.

12. Most people read the title and conclusions. If these do not pique their interest, they go on to the next poster. Design the parts just described to be simple and effective. It may be advisable to have a handout of your paper or copy of your poster to distribute
13. Get the housekeeping right: Poster size, method of attaching materials to poster, legible from a distance (see No. 5), have the poster up (and down) at the appropriate times and stand by the poster at the correct time.
14. ESDAR keeps a list of authors from previous conferences who submitted abstracts, but did not present a poster; abstracts will no longer be accepted from scientists who authored or co-authored previous abstracts and failed to put up a poster (without good cause).

Registration

Please remember to send your registration form in order to be allowed to participate in the poster session and to register at the Congress Secretary.

 

Mounting, viewing and removing the poster

Fixing tape for posters will be available in the poster exhibition area. Please use only the fixing materials made available by the poster exhibition staff in order to avoid damages on the poster boards. The authors are requested to be present to answer any questions concerning their poster during the poster session. Posters that are not dismounted by the authors will be dismounted and disposed of by the staff when the conference had finished.