I would just like to pitch in to support Mike Stuart. Abstracts are OK as SnOuts – they can help us to rule out articles of inadequate design to answer a question. Given that word limitations are usually dictated by the house style of source journals I would be very reluctant to treat them as SpIns - to rule in suitable studies.

 

There is already quite a body of evidence around structured abstracts (Abstract Based Medicine?) My colleagues and I have demonstrated that structured abstracts are more effective at retrieving relevant items to answer a focused PICO question. However the acknowledged guru is Professor J Hartley from Keele who has written in medicine and in social sciences and indeed presented at the Cochrane Colloquium in Rome. (Always reminds me of the UK Yellow Pages advert for the book on fly fishing!)  . See also “Related Articles” function below.

 

1:	Hartley J.	Related Articles, Links
	Current findings from research on structured abstracts. J Med Libr Assoc. 2004 Jul;92(3):368-71. Review. PMID: 15243644 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

 

2:	Kostoff RN, Hartley J.	Related Articles, Links
	Structured abstracts for technical journals. Science. 2001 May 11;292(5519):1067. No abstract available. PMID: 11352053 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

 

3:	Hartley J.	Related Articles, Links
	Clarifying the abstracts of systematic literature reviews. Bull Med Libr Assoc. 2000 Oct;88(4):332-7. PMID: 11055300 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

 

4:	Hartley J.	Related Articles, Links
	Applying ergonomics to Applied Ergonomics: using structured abstracts. Appl Ergon. 1999 Dec;30(6):535-41. PMID: 10693833 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

 

5:	Hartley J.	Related Articles, Links
	Headings in structured abstracts. Br J Psychiatry. 1998 Aug;173:178. No abstract available. PMID: 9850232 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Evidence based health (EBH) [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of EVIDENCE-BASED-HEALTH automatic digest system
Sent: 17 July 2005 00:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: EVIDENCE-BASED-HEALTH Digest - 15 Jul 2005 to 16 Jul 2005 (#2005-134)

 

EVIDENCE-BASED-HEALTH Digest - 15 Jul 2005 to 16 Jul 2005 (#2005-134)

Table of contents:

·         Retrieving the best evidence [was "efficient retrieval,etc]

·         Critically appraising abstracts (4)

·         dinsoaurs can turn into birds given the correct triggers for gene expression

1.      Retrieving the best evidence [was "efficient retrieval,etc]

o        Retrieving the best evidence [was "efficient retrieval,etc] (07/15)
From: Dean Giustini <[log in to unmask]>

2.      Critically appraising abstracts

o        Critically appraising abstracts (07/16)
From: Jon Brassey <[log in to unmask]>

o        Re: Critically appraising abstracts (07/16)
From: Mike/Linda Stuart <[log in to unmask]>

o        Re: Critically appraising abstracts (07/16)
From: "Jay M. Fleisher" <[log in to unmask]>

o        Re: Critically appraising abstracts (07/16)
From: Roger Keller Celeste <[log in to unmask]>

3.      dinsoaurs can turn into birds given the correct triggers for gene expression

o        Re: dinsoaurs can turn into birds given the correct triggers for gene expression (07/17)
From: Bruce Arroll <[log in to unmask]>

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