Reminds me of How to Get a Paper Accepted at OOPSLA by Kent Beck

Excerpt:

One startling sentence. [You] need to find the one thing you want to say that will catch their interest. [...] Find the most interesting thing you have done and write it down, [...] You want the reader's eyes to open wide when they realize what it is you've just said. I think some people are reluctant to boil their message down to one startling sentence because it opens them up to concrete criticism. [...] You can be proven wrong. Wait! You spent five years proving it was easy. Make your case.

Divide your paper into four sections. The first describes the problem to be solved. When the [comittee] member is done reading it, they should understand why it is a problem, and believe that it is important to solve. The second section describes your problem. You are convincing the [comittee] member that your solution really could solve the problem. This section is sometimes supplemented with a section between the defence and related work which describes implementation details. The third section is your defence of why your solution really solves the problem. The [comittee] member reading it should be convinced that the problem is actually solved, and that you have thought of all reasonable counter arguments. The final section describes what other people have done in the area. Upon reading this section, the [comittee] member should be convinced that what you have done is novel.

I try to have four sentences in my abstract. The first states the problem. The second states why the problem is a problem. The third is my startling sentence. The fourth states the implication of my startling sentence.