Clarifying the abstracts of systematic literature reviews.
Year: 2000
Type: review
Abstract: 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 (type-sizes, spacing, and weights) should be planned to help, rather than confuse, the reader.
Source: Europe PMC (PubMed Central)
Author: J Hartley
Institution: Keele University
Language: English
Subfield: Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2186505542