Tools for Authors - Getting Published

Visual and video abstracts are an accompanying feature of a research article that promotes the highlights of the study. It enhances your text abstract to entice others to read your paper and does not replace or simply restate the text abstract. Though this guide provides some general guidance for creating visual and video abstracts, you should follow any specific requirements outlined by the publisher of your article.

Best Practices for Visual Abstracts

• Use one slide or large graphic to summarize research
• Distill key findings or conclusions into as few words, numbers and graphics as possible
• Readable from top to bottom or left to right
• Include a link to the paper, perhaps using the DOI
• Include "FirstAuthor et al." if not listing all authors and the journal and year of publication
• Include your institutional and/or publisher logo
• Use a minimum 531X1328 pixel size with at least 300 dpi
• Export as PNG, TIFF, JPG or PDF

Best Practices for Video Abstracts

• Write a script
• Explain the research in a way anyone could understand
• Describe any visual content in adequate detail
• Do not use text or images that are too small
• Avoid having too much text on the screen
• Avoid distracting backgrounds
• Choose spaces with adequate lighting and no background noise
• Include a link to the full text
• Aim for 2-4 minutes

Tips from publishers:

• BMJ Author Hub

• SAGE Publishing

• Taylor & Francis

Example of Visual Abstracts
Step-by-step Demo on Creating a Visual Abstract

Example of Video Abstracts
You may achieve production quality similar to the animated video below by using Camtasia with PowerPoint.

Examples from scientific publishers:

• Cell Press

• BMJ Journals

• Physiological Reports