Number of found records: 18
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DUPUY, Alain; KHOSROTEHRANI, Kiarash; LEBBE, Celeste; RYBOJAD, Michel; MOREL, Patrice |
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Quality of abstracts in 3 clinical dermatology journals |
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Archives of Dermatology, 2003, vol.139, n.5, pp. 589. |
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On line (12/05/2005) |
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Structured abstracts have been widely adopted in medical journals with little demonstration of their superiority over unstructured abstracts (AU) |
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structured abstracts; medical journals; unstructured abstracts |
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HARTLEY, James |
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Clarifying the abstracts of systematic literature reviews |
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Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 2000, vol 88, n. 4, pp. 332-337 |
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On line (11/2005) |
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Background: There is a small body of research on improving the clarity of abstracts in general that is relevant to improving the clarity of abstracts of systematic reviews.
Objectives: To summarize this earlier research and indicate its implications for writing the abstracts of systematic reviews.
Method: Literature review with commentary on three main features affecting the clarity of abstracts: their language, structure, and typographical presentation.
Conclusions: The abstracts of systematic reviews should be easier to read than the abstracts of medical research articles, as they are targeted at a wider audience. The aims, methods, results, and conclusions of systematic reviews need to be presented in a consistent way to help search and retrieval. The typographic detailing of the abstracts (typesizes, spacing, and weights) should be planned to help, rather than confuse, the reader. (AU)
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abstracts; systematic reviews; medical research articles |
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HARTLEY, James; BENJAMIN, Michele |
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An Evaluation of Structured Abstracts in Journals Published by the British Psychological Society. |
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On line (12/05/2005) |
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Aims. The aim of the studies reported here was to assess the effectiveness of these structured abstracts by comparing them with original versions written in a traditional, unstructured, format.
Method. The authors of articles accepted for publication in the four journals were asked to supply copies of their original traditional abstracts (written when the paper was submitted) together with copies of their structured abstracts (when the paper was revised). 48 such requests were made, and 30 pairs of abstracts were obtained. These abstracts were then compared on a number of measures.
Results. Analysis showed that the structured abstracts were significantly more readable, significantly longer, and significantly more informative than the traditional ones. Judges assessed the contents of the structured abstracts more quickly and with significantly less difficulty than they did the traditional ones. Almost every respondent expressed positive attitudes to structured abstracts.
Conclusions. The structured abstracts fared significantly better than the traditional ones on every measure used in this enquiry. We recommend, therefore, that the editors of other journals in the social sciences consider the adoption of structured abstracts (AU) |
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abstracts; scientific communication; writing; readability; evaluation; |
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HARTLEY, James; SYDES, Matthew |
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Are Structured Abstracts Easier to Read Than Traditional Ones?. Les résumés structurés sont-ils plus faciles à lire que les résumés traditionnels? |
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Journal of Research in Reading, 1997, vol. 20, n.2, pp.85-170 |
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On line (12/05/2005) |
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Background: Structured abstracts (which contain sub-headings such as this one) have replaced traditional abstracts in most current medical journals. Evaluation studies have shown that such abstracts usually contain more information, are of a higher quality, and facilitate peer review.
Aim: The aim of the studies reported here was to investigate an additional, but as yet unexamined, feature of structured abstracts - namely whether or not they might be easier to read.
Method: Eight studies were carried out. The first two compared the Flesch and the Gunning readability scores of traditional abstracts that were published in particular journals with those of structured ones that were published in the same journals after these journals had moved to using structured abstracts. The next two examined the Flesch and the Gunning readability scores of traditional and structured abstracts when they were written by the same authors. The next two examined the ability of readers to re-construct scrambled versions of abstracts to see if it was easier to re-construct structured abstracts than it was to re-construct traditional ones. The last two examined readers' judgements of the readability of pairs of traditional and structured abstracts.
Results: The first two studies showed that there were no significant differences in the readability scores of the earlier and the later abstracts. The next two studies showed, however, that when authors revised traditional abstracts to produce structured versions then the structured abstracts had higher readability scores. The next two studies showed that when readers were asked to re-sequence sentences taken from traditional and structured abstracts, they sometimes found this harder to do with traditional abstracts. The last two studies showed that readers rated structured abstracts more readable than traditional ones.
Conclusions: These studies suggest that structured abstracts may be easier to read than traditional ones - sometimes! (AU)
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structured abstract; medical journals; evaluation studies |
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