Storytelling for Science

There is a new beast in town... In the age of short form social media posts and lack of time to read, visual representations are extremely valuable. A new entity, called graphical abstract was born.  A graphical abstract is a single image designed to assist the reader in quickly gaining an overview of the manuscript. It accompanies the written abstract but does not replace it.   I would never dream of expanding on design concepts I know nothing about. So, I'll defer to the experts.👇 A lot of cool designs are available from some of the most well-known platforms, such as BioRender , Mind The Graph , and Animate Your Science . Given the complexity of making design concepts work for summarising the main take-home message of a scientific paper, these are typically used on social media and journal websites. They usually have little to no text at all, and communicate with other elements of the scientific paper, whilst still being self-explanatory. The purpose of a graphical abs...

What interesting abstracts did for me Most young scientists dream with a call for papers! When you're doing your postdoc, often the first chance you get to get your name associated with your area and your work, is to present at a conference. I was very present in those things. I liked them, and often won prizes. 🏆 Look, it's me! My feet are in the Pacific! 😊 How? With a good abstract, how else?   See here the citation for the one below. Let's explore how I got to attend conferences with paid travel expenses (university funding), hotel money (invititation to speak at a special symposium by a learned society), and a well deserved holiday (money from a research recognition award). 💰

Let’s begin with the end. Most scientific papers do. Placed at the beginning of a research article, the abstract is the last piece to be written. It is composed of ‘a few sentences that give the main idea in an article or a scientific paper’. First impressions are crucial in scientific publishing, and this short text has many jobs. 🥸 It must be a self-contained summary of the research paper. 🔉 It should accurately and clearly present the most important results. 🤔 While encouraging researchers to read on. It would help if some SEO-friendly keywords are sprinkled over, while maintaining coherent flow… and avoiding jargon, acronyms, abbreviations, footnotes… This may seem very simple to most people. To most first year graduate students, deeply involved in their research field, when minute details make or break publications and careers, and when statistically significant differences are what you live for… being simple is hard. So, for all your studies, allow readers to 👀 S...