Thread by @RebeccaCBurch

Sharing some tips for improving the abstract section of medical papers! As an editor, I spend a lot of time on the abstract. It’s often the only part of a paper that readers see due to access limitations and paywalls. #MedTwitter #academicWriting #MedicalEducation 1/

Journals differ in how much space they give for abstracts and how they are structured. Rule one is to follow the journal’s instructions to authors, but it’s generally better to err on the side of more detail. The abstract should stand on its own. 2/

I’m making the assumptions here that this is an abstract for a primary research paper and that the abstract is more or less structured: there are sections with headers like Objective/Methods/Results/Conclusions, or it’s expected that those topics are included. 3/

The abstract should include
1) a clear statement of the study aims or research question. This should be the same as what appears in the main paper, typically at the end of the Introduction. 4/

2) A concise summary of the methods, including the study design and dates, population source, major inclusion/exclusion criteria, exposure/intervention and outcome assessment methodology, and statistical methods in brief. Primary outcome should be clear. 5/

3) Results including sample size and demographic, numerical description of the primary outcome including a point estimate, p value, and 95% confidence interval. Relevant secondary outcomes can be added if there is space. /6

4) A conclusion statement that does not go beyond the findings of the current study and mentions major limitations. The conclusion of the abstract may be the single most important sentence in the whole paper. It’s literally the one liner summary of the findings of the study. /7

Study reporting guidelines such as CONSORT (for clinical trials) and PRISMA (systematic reviews) have specific guidance for what to include in an abstract. /8 consort-statement.org/extensions

Including all of this information in the abstract is worth the effort! It allows readers who can’t access the full paper to understand what the paper contributes, improves discovery of the paper in searches, and increases the chances of being included in review articles. /9

One last point: if revisions are made to the main paper, be sure to update the abstract to reflect those changes. This is a common reason for a paper to get sent back for that pesky third or fourth round of revisions. /10