Better Writing in Scientific Publications Builds Reader Confidence and Understanding.

ABSTRACT: Scientific publications are the building blocks of discovery and collaboration, but their impact is limited by the style in which they are traditionally written. Recently, many authors have called for a switch to an engaging, accessible writing style. Here, we experimentally test how readers respond to such a style. We hypothesized that scientific abstracts written in a more accessible style would improve readers' reported readability and confidence as well as their understanding, assessed using multiple-choice questions on the content. We created a series of scientific abstracts, corresponding to real publications on three scientific topics at four levels of difficulty-varying from the difficult, traditional style to an engaging, accessible style. We gave these abstracts to a team of read

SUBMITTER: Freeling BS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8430246 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature