I personally agree with what you say about structured abstracts. They help
the reader to understand the paper better and prevents author from leaving
out important information (i.e. methods).
However one should be careful in concluding to use only structured
abstracts. You agree that making an abstract structured does not improve
the quality. It could be structured nonsense!
Second and more importantly there are peer-reviewed and respected journals
that ask for unstructured abstracts. I am submitting a paper to a high rank
journal (Social Science and Medicine) that wants unstructured abstracts.
Perhaps we should ask the journals' editors to set some rules on this,
something like a CONSORT for abstracts. At least all research reports'
abstracts should be structured. This can also save time for systematic
reviewers.
Regards
Arash Rashidian
On May 11 2004, Feddern, Tanya wrote:
> ***apologies for cross-posting***
>
> Hello! Do you feel that a structured abstract indicates a) an
> easier-to-read article b) a better designed study or c) both? I find it
> easier to read a structured abstract, and it seems that they are more
> likely to include confidence intervals and p-values in the abstract than
> a traditional abstract. Structured abstracts seem more apt to include
> epi/EBM figures, such as the Positive Predictive Value and Number Needed
> to Treat.
>
> There are studies that say the quality of abstract is superior if it's a
> structured abstract. However, does a structured abstract correlate with
> better-designed studies and/or easier-to-read studies? If anyone has
> cites handy supporting or disproving this, please let me know. I will
> summarize to the lists. If structured abstracts are linked with better
> studies, I was thinking perhaps it could be a handy pre-screener for us
> librarians wanting to choose articles for our EBM students to critically
> appraise.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Tanya
>
> Tanya Feddern, MLIS, AHIP, MOT, OTR/L
> http://www.geocities.com/nqiya/EBMbib.html
> http://www.geocities.com/nqiya/index.html Evidence-Based Medicine
> Assistant Professor; Reference & Education Services Librarian University
> of Miami School of Medicine, Louis Calder Memorial Library
>
>
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