Submission guidelines

1. Requirements for preparation of abstracts
Abstracts submitted for scientific sessions should describe work that has not been published or presented at another national meeting. The selection of contributions for scientific sessions will depend on the quality of the abstract submitted.

2. Title box
Use sentence case, bold, Calibri font 10 point, maximum of 12 words. Concisely encapsulate the work presented in the abstract. Sentence case is when you only capitalise the first letter of the first word in a heading – like you would in a sentence. Proper nouns also have a capital.

3. Authors
Starting on a new line, without a line-space to the Title, list the Presenting Author first, followed by other authors and contact details entered as directed in the template. Use a mixture of upper and lower case text, e.g., Geoffrey A Harrison, Peter L McCartney & James H Lennon. Do not use ‘bold’ or ‘underline’.

4. Addresses
Follow the authors’ address details immediately after the names (ie., do not start a new line). Author’s department and institution should be abbreviated. Superscript numbers should be used to link the author(s) to their address(es) presented (e.g. Geoffrey A Harrison¹, Peter L McCartney^1,2. Dept of Pharmacol, Univ of Melbourne¹, Parkville, VIC; Dept of Clin Pharmacol, Royal Melbourne Hosp², Parkville, VIC).

5. Text
Leave one line space after the Authors/addresses. Do not indent. Type as one block of text and include sub-headings: Introduction, Aims, Methods, Results and Discussion (including any conclusions drawn from results). Start each heading on a new line with text immediately following heading and without additional line spacing. If any references are added, include one additional line spacing following the abstract text (see sample of references below). The abstract should be left-and right-justified. The text should be as informative as possible. Statements such as “The results will be discussed” are not acceptable and will likely result in rejection.

6. Units
Concentration – use either molar or mass units as most appropriate: nmol/L, μmol/L, mmol/L, etc.; or: ng/L, µg/L, mg/L, etc.
Dose – use mg/kg, or mmol/kg, etc.
Dose schedules – use mg/kg per day, or mmol/kg per day etc.
Pressure – may be in mmHg, psi, Pascal, or Torr, etc, as appropriate.
Tension – may be in “g”, etc.

7. Anaesthetic
If an anaesthetic is used, it must be named along with the dose and route of administration.

8. Figures and tables
One figure or table is allowed per abstract; these should not contain a separate written title or legend, and the table should not contain any vertical lines. PARTICULAR EMPHASIS SHOULD BE PLACED ON CLARITY AND ABSTRACT FORMAT. ANY ERRORS IN THE ABSTRACT MAY LEAD TO REJECTION. Abstracts will be printed in black and white only, therefore it is preferrable that you use greyscale images.

9. Statistics
Use the format: mean±SEM (n= ; P<) e.g. 57±3 (n = 7, P<0.02).
If ± is used to indicate anything other than a standard error, e.g., a range or standard deviation, this should be specified in the abstract. Where appropriate, authors should ensure consistency in the number of decimal places used.

10. References
In the text, citations should appear as first author plus et al (if multiple authors) followed by year (eg., Medic et al, 2010). The listed references after the text of the abstract are to be shown in alphabetical order of first author. They should include authors’ last names followed by initials (use “et al” for three or more authors), year of publication (in brackets), the title of the journal (abbreviated in accordance with Index Medicus), volume number, and the first and last page numbers. References to articles in books should consist of the names of authors, year of publication, title of the book, the editors, page numbers, place of publication and the publishers. Example: Jagger MS et al (2010) Br J Clin Pharmacol 33:56-61.

11. Standard abbreviations
Excessive use of abbreviations should be avoided. All abbreviations should be defined when they are first used, except for the following standard abbreviations: