How to cite published abstract from a conference

edited April 2, 2024
In my field, it is common to present a lecture or poster at a conference and subsequently have the abstract for that presentation published in a journal. How should I cite such a thing?

We call them "published abstracts" to designate that – despite having DOIs and being published in a journal – they are not as rigorous or as long as peer reviewed papers.

Examples:
- https://doi.org/10.1093/micmic/ozad067.516
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2022.11.1141

Other discussions:
- I am not asking about situations were an entire paper is published by the conference https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/74130/proper-way-to-use-conference-name-and-proceedings-title
- I do not want to show the abstract in my citations/bibliography (like discussed here: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/84547/reference-style-with-abstract), I just want to cite the abstract
- I don't want to cite the *conference proceedings* or the *presentation* itself (like this https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/7648/citing-a-conference-presentation-from-a-symposium) because I may not have seen the presentation itself, I want to cite the *published abstract* of the presentation
- I'm asking a similar question to this 12-yo post but I want to cite the things not just store them in my database https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/22953/use-case-conference-posters-or-talks-with-published-abstracts
  • I don't feel confident that I understand because these two things seem contradictory:

    - I do not want to show the abstract in my citations/bibliography
    - ... I want to cite the things not just store them in my database

    Each of your examples was to an abstract printed in a journal. As the journal is where a reader of your manuscript will find the cited item; I would enter the metadata in Zotero using the Journal Article type. Cite it as a journal article with journal name, volume, issue, pagination, year, DOI, etc. I sometimes will append the words "conference abstract" after the title without the quotes and within square brackets.

    If you have access to the entire text of the presentation and it is published, wouldn't it be better to read and cite the whole?

  • Journal Article may be the best type of the available options.

    > - I do not want to show the abstract in my citations/bibliography (like discussed here:
    >https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/84547/reference-style-with-abstract), I just want
    >to cite the abstract
    I want to add an abstract to my Zotero Library. The linked discussion is about how to export references including the abstracts of the cited articles.

    >If you have access to the entire text of the presentation and it is published, wouldn't it be
    >better to read and cite the whole?
    Definitely. In the examples the whole text is not published.
  • I'd recommend entering this as a journal article (because that's where it's published) and then add
    Genre: conference abstract
    into the Extra field. Not all citation styles will pick that up, but e.g. APA style will add [Conference abstract] at the end of the title when entered like that.
  • That's helpful, thanks @adamsmith.
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