ATC 2026

How to Write an Effective Extended Abstract

We provide some guidelines on how to write an effective extended abstract. This is important because the first round of reviews is based solely on the extended abstract. In most cases, we expect the extended abstract to be similar to the full paper’s Introduction, as the guidelines are the same for writing a good extended abstract or a good introduction.

A good extended abstract will have at least four clearly distinct parts, each consisting of 1-2 paragraphs:

• Motivation: explains what is the problem addressed and why it is important.
• Limitations of current approaches: explains why current approaches (if any) fail to adequately address the problem.
• Key insights or ideas: explains one or two insights or ideas that the paper introduces. These insights or ideas need to be novel and need to better address the problem than current approaches.
• Overview of results: provides highlights or a summary of the evaluation of a system that embodies the key insights or ideas

Any of the above parts can have citations to other papers, as well as forward pointers to subsections of the full paper. For such pointers to be unambiguous, we recommend that the extended abstract not contain numbered sections.

Finally, keep in mind that reviewers will be using the following review form to evaluate the extended abstract