The article relates to a PhD School which Daniel Gile and the author jointly taught within the framework of a European Marie Curie PhD training program on critical reading and writing of research papers on 29th April 2007 in Vienna. It presents an overview of formulae for writing abstracts as a basic research skill for young researchers when “getting started” in research, as they are offered by standardization institutes, universities and conference conveners. Reflecting Daniel Gile’s comments on the topic, it is suggested that writing abstracts for conferences needs to take into account more than just the factual dimension. On the basis of Schulz von Thun’s communication model (1981) several interrelated dimensions of writing abstracts for conferences are discussed and exemplified.