Thread by @karolikl

Hot tip: when submitting an abstract, keep in mind that a team who has spent the past 13hrs reading abstracts should be able to grasp the essence of your proposal after reading it max 2 times. If not, chances of rejection is very high. #ndcoslo

Making this into a thread of tips on writing abstracts for a tech conference so that the agenda committee correctly understands your intent.

#2: If you're submitting an "Introduction to [insert hot tech here]", consider submitting a second proposal on an Intermediate or Advanced level as well (given that you know the tech well enough). There is a limit to how many "Intro to X" talks we can accept.

#3: Make sure your abstract matches the level (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced) you have selected. Selecting Intermediate and writing "in this session, I will show you how to get started with..." confuses the agenda committee and makes us unsure of your level of competency.

Of course, getting started with an advanced part of a technology, where existing knowledge of said technology is required is an exception to #3.

#4: Link to previous talks or blog posts. We research every single submitter and here you have the opportunity to guide the agenda committee to look at the material that you're really proud of (instead of us finding a talk you did after a bad breakup, while having the flu)

#5: If you've spoken at #ndcoslo previously, we look at the feedback you received (you know, those red, yellow and green notes) in previous talks when considering your proposal.

#6: It's more important for a title to be descriptive of the talk than for it to contain a funny pun, punchline or movie reference. Although we appreciate a good pun, we might ask you to change the title if it's too cheesy.

#7: Reflect on the target audience of the topic you're proposing. Some niche talks with a limited audience are great, but we cannot accept too many of these. If you realize your target audience is too narrow, what can you do to broaden it?

#8: Don't be afraid to submit a talk as a new speaker, we love new speakers whether it's your first time at this conference or your first time speaking at any conference. If we are faced with two similar talks of equal quality, we tend to favor the new speakers.

#9: Could your session proposal be suitable as a workshop? Could your lightning talk be done as a session? If so, tell us so in the comment field as this will help us create a varied agenda (and it will help your chances in being approved).

#10: If your talk is rejected, don't take it personally. We constantly have to make hard decisions where topics are overlapping, the level of talks have to be balanced out, there needs to be a variety in the technologies covered etc. Keep submitting!

#11: Ask a friend, colleague, fellow speaker or your Twitter followers to provide feedback on your abstract. When you're deep into a topic, it can be difficult to see how to "sell" it appropriately in a couple of paragraphs.

#12: One or two sentences is not enough for us to gain trust in you being the right person to present the topic to a large audience. One to two paragraphs enables us to understand your intent. @nmerrigan has some great tips on how to write an abstract: google.com/amp/s/blog.ndc…