A Practical Guide to Writing and Reviewing Abstracts for Pediatric Academic Meetings.

Writing and reviewing abstracts for academic meetings are essential skills for any academic pediatrician. An accurate and reliable peer review process is critical for fair determination of which abstracts are accepted for presentation at these meetings. Unfortunately, studies of abstract review practices across many fields in medicine have found that there is often poor concordance in scores among abstract reviewers, with some scores being so divergent that they are no different from what would be expected if assigned randomly. However, several studies have examined the development of abstract and journal article rating criteria and have found that the use of a standardized scoring process is feasible and can lead to better interrater agreement. The highest levels of interrater reliability occur with the more objective criteria such as those focusing on methods and analysis.