Are structured abstracts more or less accurate than traditional ones? A study in the psychological literature

James R. Hartley

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Academic Writing and Publishing Meta-analysis and systematic reviews Psychology Research and Bibliometrics

Abstract

Background: Recent studies of structured abstracts in medical journal articles have shown that they do not always reflect accurately the work that is reported in more detail in the subsequent text. It is not known, however, whether or not structured abstracts fare better or worse than traditional ones in this respect. Aim: The aim of this study was to compare the accuracy of traditional and structured versions of the same abstracts prepared for publication in psychology journals. Method: Thirty traditional abstracts - originally written to accompany articles submitted for publication in journals published by the British Psychological Society (BPS) - were compared with the 30 structured ones that the authors were required to submit when their papers had been later accepted for publication. The abstracts were examined to see whether or not they contained data that were inconsistent with the corresponding data in the subsequent articles. Results: Few inaccuracies were found and there was no evidence that these structured abstracts fared any better or worse than the traditional abstracts in this respect. The structured abstracts contained more information and were, therefore, more informative, but they were no more inaccurate than the traditional ones. However, there were examples of what might be called ‘selective reporting’ in both types of abstract and both styles contained information that could have been provided more clearly. Conclusions: This study suggests that there are few inaccuracies in abstracts published by the BPS and few differences between traditional and structured abstracts in this respect. The difference between these results and those obtained in the medical field most probably reflects the nature of the abstracts in these different disciplines.

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References

1999Accuracy of Data in Abstracts of Published Research Articles 1994Quality of nonstructured and structured abstracts of original research articles in the British Medical Journal, the Canadian Medical Association Journal and the Journal of the American Medical Association.2020European Science Editing 1998Can the Accuracy of Abstracts Be Improved by Providing Specific Instructions?1993Presentation Deficiencies in structured medical abstracts 1999The Need for Concrete Improvement in Abstract Quality 1998Reporting of Randomized Clinical Trial Descriptors and Use of Structured Abstracts 1998An evaluation of structured abstracts in journals published by the British Psychological Society

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2013English-Written Abstracts for Spanish Publications: A Challenge in the Globalization of Science 2007Technical editing of research reports in biomedical journals 2000Typographic Settings for Structured Abstracts 2009Quality of abstracts in articles submitted to a scholarly journal: A mixed methods case study of the journal Research in the Schools 2005

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