Scientific abstracts: Texts, contexts, and subtexts

In their 4000-year history, abstracts have taken several forms and represented a variety of documents. The scientific journal emerged in the 1600s and gave rise to what would become the modern scientific abstract. Here, I describe the contexts in which abstracts evolved, address the subtexts of opin...

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Main Author: Thomas A. Lang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: European Association of Science Editors 2022-11-01
Series:European Science Editing
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Online Access:https://ese.arphahub.com/article/85616/download/pdf/
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author Thomas A. Lang
author_facet Thomas A. Lang
author_sort Thomas A. Lang
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description In their 4000-year history, abstracts have taken several forms and represented a variety of documents. The scientific journal emerged in the 1600s and gave rise to what would become the modern scientific abstract. Here, I describe the contexts in which abstracts evolved, address the subtexts of opinions about their purpose, and review the texts of 12 kinds of abstracts. For most readers, articles do not exist beyond abstracts. However, the quality of abstracts is often poor. Inaccuracies are common, serious, widespread, and long-standing. Abstracts should inform only the choice of what to read and never what to do.
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spelling doaj-art-cbff79afb91b4733a88a1f6ce619ac602025-08-20T02:02:09ZengEuropean Association of Science EditorsEuropean Science Editing2518-33542022-11-014811610.3897/ese.2022.e8561685616Scientific abstracts: Texts, contexts, and subtextsThomas A. Lang0Tom Lang Communications and Training InternationalIn their 4000-year history, abstracts have taken several forms and represented a variety of documents. The scientific journal emerged in the 1600s and gave rise to what would become the modern scientific abstract. Here, I describe the contexts in which abstracts evolved, address the subtexts of opinions about their purpose, and review the texts of 12 kinds of abstracts. For most readers, articles do not exist beyond abstracts. However, the quality of abstracts is often poor. Inaccuracies are common, serious, widespread, and long-standing. Abstracts should inform only the choice of what to read and never what to do.https://ese.arphahub.com/article/85616/download/pdf/Abstracts of research papersconference proceedin
spellingShingle Thomas A. Lang
Scientific abstracts: Texts, contexts, and subtexts
European Science Editing
Abstracts of research papers
conference proceedin
title Scientific abstracts: Texts, contexts, and subtexts
title_full Scientific abstracts: Texts, contexts, and subtexts
title_fullStr Scientific abstracts: Texts, contexts, and subtexts
title_full_unstemmed Scientific abstracts: Texts, contexts, and subtexts
title_short Scientific abstracts: Texts, contexts, and subtexts
title_sort scientific abstracts texts contexts and subtexts
topic Abstracts of research papers
conference proceedin
url https://ese.arphahub.com/article/85616/download/pdf/
work_keys_str_mv AT thomasalang scientificabstractstextscontextsandsubtexts