“There’s a whole system behind this!”: Reflections on the Conference Abstract Writing Workshop

On Saturday, October 11, 2025, we gathered at 9 a.m. for a hands-on workshop on conference abstract writing with 19 enthusiastic participants, all with teaching positions. While the majority of the participants were from the field - English Language Teaching -, there was one participant from English Language and Literature and one from Political Science.

The workshop

The workshop was based on an extension module of producing knowledge in our ReaLiTea project. The module aimed to provide a step-by-step pathway for participants to understand how abstracts are created and structured, both rhetorically and linguistically, to increase participants’ genre awareness and knowledge, and to support their skills in producing effective conference abstracts. This was the first piloting of the material.

While the module includes five learning objectives, which I anticipated that could be achieved in three hours, we only had two hours and were able to address three of the learning objectives. Still, the workshop proved highly productive with actively engaged participants and filled with valuable insights from them.

Empowering teachers to write research abstracts

The workshop reaffirmed how important it is to pilot teaching and learning materials. I received very constructive feedback that will help me to adapt the module materials in line with teachers’ learning needs for our ongoing teacher research literacy initiatives and before wider implementations. Feedback from the participants highlighted the pedagogical value of the activities, particularly in making abstract writing both accessible and meaningful. They noted that the workshop was useful not only for those preparing to present at conferences but also for those who wish to understand abstracts they read in academic resources.

Striking a balance between academic and professional perspectives

There were three main negative comments from the participants. The first one, expressed by a few, was about the duration of the workshop. They wished the workshop could be longer so that they would have a chance to practice conference abstract writing, too. The second negative comment was about the reconstructing activity, in which they reordered the scrambled sentences for a meaningful conference abstract that followed the order of the communicative functions we studied. I had already decided to change it while observing them when they were working in pairs to complete the activity.

The third critical comment was from only one participant, which I find highly useful: “Too academic - too much jargon.” This feedback really stayed with me as a teacher educator. It is a valuable reminder to me that teachers do not necessarily need to know or use genre terminology. The technical terms, such as rhetorical, moves, and steps, can easily be replaced with clearer language that conveys the same concepts without creating unnecessary distance between the content in the material and teachers.

"There's a whole system behind this!"

One memorable comment was made by the participant from English Language and Literature, who said in Turkish “Bu işin matematiği varmış!” Although its translation does not wholly capture its nuance, it roughly means “There’s a whole system behind this!” I found this comment very meaningful since it resonates with the very essence of the corpus approach we took to creating the teaching material, revealing the systematic patterns underlying what may seem like creative writing. The participant’s comment beautifully captured this realization: writing among the members of certain social communities is not random; it has its own “mathematics.”

Challenging monolingual norms

One final very important comment, provided orally by the participant from the political science, was about translating the module into Turkish. Isn’t this a great idea to reach a broader audience of teachers and novice researchers from other disciplines as well?

With all the insightful feedback that I received, the next steps will be including more examples, changing the abstract in the reconstruction activity, and creating a Turkish version for bilingual accessibility. The adaptations will help us better in supporting  the community of confident, research-literate educators.