Graphical abstracts are helpful complements to traditional abstracts. They provide additional context for all readers, but especially for people who are visual thinkers. (like me!)
Why are scientific abstracts so hard to write?
Abstracts are boring! They are written with a lot of jargon and complicated sentences, due to science tradition and increasing complexity in experiments. You can make them much more useful, interesting, and memorable by including GRAPHICAL abstracts with them in articles.
Check out this example: A Crystallization Robot for Generating True Random Numbers Based on Stochastic Chemical Processes
The graphical abstract shows highlights of the study
This works just like a traditional abstract. It relates the highlights in a different way, though, allowing for more connections to be made by the audience and resulting in a clearer understanding.
If you want readers to understand your science better, then the graphical abstract is a helpful tool to have available. It even gives you a head start on finding relevant imagery for a presentation!
👀 Have you written or read an article with a graphical abstract? What do you think?
If you are looking for a professional editor to make your article memorable, you can use my contact form to start that conversation.
