How to create visual (graphical) and video abstracts

Although the concept of visual abstracts began even before the widespread use of the internet, with journals like Angewandte Chemie and Tetrahedron Letters featuring graphical abstracts in the late 20^th century, it wasn’t widely used across all journals until the surge in scholarly papers and information overload. Given that almost 3 million scientific papers were indexed by Scopus and Web of Science alone in 2022, it isn’t surprising that it takes 17 years for research evidence to reach clinical practice. Therefore, for research to influence clinical practice, it must be effectively communicated to key audiences such as policymakers, healthcare professionals, and patients.

Since 2016, Dr Andrew Ibrahim has helped popularize the use of visual abstracts on social media. His studies have shown that presenting research findings in a visual way promises to improve audience reach and drive change, as visual abstracts make use of our ability to rapidly process and retain visual over textual information.

Planning your visual abstract

Paediatrics & Child Health encourages authors to submit visual or video abstracts with their manuscripts. While visual (or graphical) abstracts provide a succinct, pictorial summary of the paper, video abstracts are short, engaging audio-visual recordings. These abstracts give readers a quick, visual overview of an article’s main findings and information briefly. The purpose of visual abstract isn’t to divulge all the details of a study or to replace the full text, but to provide busy readers with an efficient way to find articles of interest. However, as the addition of visual abstracts on social media is relatively new (since 2016), there is a need for more quantitative studies to fully understand how effective visual abstracts are in communicating research. Preliminary data suggest that visual abstracts do increase text abstract views and enhance Altmetric attention scores of papers.

Follow these tips to create effective visual or video abstracts.

1. First, wrap up your paper: Develop your abstract after fully writing your manuscript. This will help you to fully understand your research story and highlight the key aspects of your paper. Ask yourself these questions:
   • Why did I decide to do this research?
   • What is the problem/knowledge gap my work addresses?
   • How do my key findings compare with what has been done previously?
   • And how does it matter to my peers and the public?
     
2. Create a plan: Plan out your ideas and organize your abstract in a logical way, so that readers can take a quick glance and easily follow. You can use SmartArt Graphics on Microsoft PowerPoint (process, cycle, list, matrix etc.) or search for similar elements on Canva.
   
3. Learn about your audience: It is important to understand your audience’s level of expertise when choosing the visual elements for your graphical abstract.
   
4. Less is more: Select key points from each section of your paper. This will keep your abstract succinct. Adding too many details can overwhelm the readers. The purpose of a visual or a video abstract isn’t to replace full-text articles but to pique the interest of the reader.
   
5. What to keep in mind: Learn what sizes and formats are allowed. For Paediatrics & Child Health, for example, graphical abstracts should be one panel, 1200 pixels (width) x 900 pixels (height) at 300 ppi (which corresponds to 4 inches/10 cm x 3 inches/7.5 cm at 300 ppi). You can submit your graphical abstract as TIFF, PDF or JPG file and video abstracts as AVI or MP4 files. Other journals or societies may have different requirements.
   
6. Get feedback before you submit: Send your visual or video abstracts to folks not only within your profession but also outside it, to see if they understand your paper just by looking at your visual or video abstract.
   

Technical tips for creating your visual abstract

There are technical elements to creating a visual abstract. Here are some tips for how to approach the process. For graphical abstracts:

• Choose a design program you are comfortable with such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe Creative Cloud, Canva, etc.
• Select a colour palette (≤5 colours) and a font size (12- to 16-point UNICODE) to ensure legibility.
• Use simple and clear visual elements/icons to communicate your research. For general graphical elements, you can use PowerPoint, Canva, Draw.io, and Adobe Illustrator. However, for more specific visual elements, you can use software such as:
  
  1. BioRender for creating professional, scientific figures. It is best for life sciences, medicine, and biology papers.
  2. Mind the Graph for creating compelling infographics from scratch. This tool is best for health professionals, scientists, and academicians.
  3. ChemDraw to draw out chemical reactions or biomolecules e.g., drawing out the structures of essential amino acid or adenosine diphosphate in your manuscript.
  4. If pictograms/images won’t help communicate your research work, you can always include data or charts. For information on different chart types and their uses, try The Data Visualisation Catalogue.

Once you have created your graphical abstract, proofread and revise if necessary.

If a video abstract best suits your paper:

• It is good practice to begin your video with a hook to catch the attention of your viewers. Start the video with an interesting question or revealing key findings of your study.
• To make your video, create a storyboard to identify potential issues using free software like Canva storyboards or Wonder Unit Storyboarder.
• Select your mode of delivery:
  1. Talking head: You can record yourself talking about your study, creating a human connection between you and your audience.
  2. Presentation style: If you are looking for a free, beginner-friendly way to record your video abstract, you can create simple visuals on Microsoft PowerPoint or Canva and record the presentation.
  3. Whiteboard animation: You can make a video abstract by drawing out the key findings of your paper on an actual whiteboard (or using a whiteboard tool online). This method is effective but might need some prior sketching practice. To make it more creative and add motion to your drawing, you can create animated videos using Canva, Powtoon, Microsoft PowerPoint or other paid software.
• Record your audio-visual: If you opt to create a talking head video, you can use a mobile phone or a digital camera using the highest quality to record your video. For recording the script, select a quiet room and, if possible, use a plug-in microphone. Ensure your voice is audible and clear, and your tone resonates with your intended audience. You can also add free music to your video (check license and copyrights).
• End your video with a call to action e.g., you can say something like “now that you’ve watched this video, don’t forget to read and share this paper” to the audience to increase the chances of a viewer taking action.
• Lastly, use any editing software (e.g., Canva Pro, PowerPoint, iMovie, descript) to put together your final video abstract.

Conclusion

Visual and video abstracts are effective ways to increase visibility, reach, and engagement of your research work. For example, the papers published in Paediatrics & Child Health accompanied by visual abstracts, some of which were recently shared on the journal’s LinkedIn page, received higher engagement and article views on both platforms.

For more information about submitting your manuscript to Paediatrics & Child Health, please visit our website or email us at [email protected].

^{Featured image by Luke Miller via Unsplash.}