A graphical abstract is a visual summary of your research, designed to encapsulate your key findings and give readers a quick understanding of the main message, while inspiring them to engage and find out more. As the volume of scientific literature continues to expand, graphical abstracts have emerged as powerful tools for filtering and assessing relevance. Scientific journals increasingly require the submission of a stand-alone summary image, usually accompanied by a plain language description, to complement the written abstract. Their shareable nature makes graphical abstracts ideal for social media platforms, thereby contributing to the broader reach of scientific communication across disciplines and out to the public.
Here are some steps to an impactful graphical abstract:
- Carefully plan. Start by reviewing the publisher guidelines regarding content and style, and check out visual abstract galleries for inspiration, such as those from the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, the Journal of Internal Medicine, Cell, or The Journal of Physiology. Capture the take-home message of your study in a few concise sentences, then take pen to paper (or stylus to screen) to draft a rough sketch and visualize how the information flows before moving on to implementation.
- Leverage key graphic design principles. Prioritize clarity, simplicity, and visual appeal. Choose the layout that naturally follows the narrative of your project, such as unidirectional flow diagrams for sequential events or a side-by-side arrangement for comparing scenarios. Online tools like ColorBrewer can help you find chromatic schemes that accommodate readers with color vision deficiencies and keep good contrast, even in grayscale. For a professional appearance, avoid overcrowding and make sure that your fonts, color palettes, and graphic elements maintain consistency. PowerPoint contains a cohesive library of visual components to use royalty-free, including thousands of vector icons and pictograms.
- Optimize and refine. Solicit feedback â and not just from team members. Perspectives from trusted external parties will help you assess whether your graphical abstract effectively conveys the message outside your immediate research field. Check out the Graphical Abstract Hospital blog for examples of common pitfalls in visual abstract design and suggestions for successfully navigating them.
The process of ideating and crafting graphical abstracts will help you hone your skills in distilling the essence of your work â an added benefit to the increased discoverability and influence of your papers. Besides serving as an entry point to your latest publication, with a few strategic changes a thoughtfully designed graphical abstract can double as a social media post (think LinkedIn or ResearchGate), visual support for a presentation â or even a conference poster!
The Center for Health and Science Communication at Becker Library can also direct you to the best tools, tips, and resources to help you create clear, compelling graphical abstracts, sure to enhance the visibility of your research and make it accessible to audiences beyond the peer-reviewed paper. Our offerings include one-on-one consultations on using graphic design software (PowerPoint, CorelDraw, Adobe Acrobat Pro) and customizable graphical abstract workshops.