Time is running out for students who wish to submit abstracts for the National Conference for Undergraduate Research on April 16.

The NCUR is an annual conference which is “dedicated to promoting undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activity in all fields of study,” according to the website for the Council of Undergraduate Research.

This year, the NCUR will be hosted at EWU.

The Council has parameters for students’ presentations. They can be in poster form, an exhibit, an oral presentation or a performance session.

Dr. John Bladek, a writer’s center responder at EWU, explained what should be in an abstract, “You’re summing up what your research project is, how you did it, what your results were and what it means,” he said.

Bladek also said, “You’ve got the big question, and then you’ve got your avenue into that.”

Kristina Pfleegor, also a writer’s center responder, said, “It’s a summary of whatever research project you’re working on, so it’s really important that you’re able to talk concisely about your project and just give a really good overview of what you’re working on.”

Bladek said the abstract must be general and not specific to the writer’s discipline.

“There are all kinds of people from a lot of different disciplines who get a pile of these things,” Bladek said. “They need to be written in a way that a general audience can understand,” he said.

Additionally, Bladek said, “For NCUR, they have a 450 word limit. You don’t want to do too much.”

Ultimately, “The purpose of doing research is to add to the sum of knowledge. That’s why these universities exist, not just to educate people, but to also create new knowledge. Universities don’t produce things like factories; they add to the sum total of knowledge of the human race,” Bladek said.

Students who wish to submit an abstract must do so by Dec. 2, on the NCUR website. A link is provided online.