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Beyond the abstract in the internet age.

What is an abstract? An abstract is a short, but powerful statement about the manuscript that follows. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA, 2010) suggests that the abstract should give the reader a description of the manuscript, along with the title so that its relevance can be judged. Abstracts should bring readers to the journal for the full details of the study published in the manuscript. Researchers and clinicians search indexes such the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature by means of key words of interest. The key words ultimately direct the search to abstracts. By bringing the search to specific journals, readership of the journal is expanded. Additionally, citations of manuscripts in journals influence the journal’s impact factor. The impact factor is a measure of the citation frequency of the journal and citation frequency is one measure of recognition (Polit & Northam, 2010). An abstract can be descriptive or informative. A descriptive abstract is usually 100 words or less and provides a very brief description of the work reported. It usually does not provide the results or conclusion. Abstracts should use key words found in the narrative of the manuscript. An informative abstract, which The Journal of School Nursing recommends to authors, is actually a short representation of the manuscript. APA (2010) actually provides direction for abstracts of specific study designs including empirical studies, integrated literature reviews, or methodological articles. In informative abstracts for empirical studies, the problem is briefly presented as well as the purpose. The methods are described and may include the theoretical framework, sample, design, and special features that would be sought in an electronic search. For example, many researchers are looking for previous intervention studies with rigorous designs like randomized clinical trials. General results are reported including statistical significance as well as general conclusions and implications. Abstracts for literature reviews also include a problem statement and a specific purpose for the review. For example, the review may be designed to report the state of the science. A good example of such a review abstract is by Issel and Bekemeier (2010) who report a gap in the application of patient safety to population care as a quality indicator in the specialty of public health nursing. Authors should report the inclusion criteria for literature as well as the targeted population or concept included in the primary studies. The abstract for a literature review includes the main results, often including the number of studies reviewed and common or disparate findings across studies. Conclusions and implications for future research or practice are briefly described. Abstracts for methodological articles describe the method presented and the components of the method. For example, a manuscript reporting psychometric testing of a measure (method) would describe the steps that are taken to report the reliability and validity of the measure being tested, perhaps test–retest and factor analysis. A study published earlier in The Journal of School Nursing has an abstract introducing a psychometric study designed to measure school nurses perceived barriers to addressing pediatric obesity (Wu & Steele, 2011). The common charge for all abstracts is to link the abstract to the manuscript with key words but not with repetition of particular statements. With the availability of journals on the Internet, manuscript utilization patterns are available and online usage can be described. In 2010, 60% of the explorations to the The Journal of School Nursing resulted in downloading abstracts compared to nearly 70% as of December 1, 2011. ‘‘So what?’’ you may ask. I worry because the Internet consumer may substitute the abstract for the manuscript itself. Is that a valid worry? Do reviewers stop at the abstract or digest the entire manuscript? A clue to a complete review of a cited manuscript is a reference that critiques a study and synthesizes findings. The challenge facing authors and editors is to provide an abstract that is complete enough to engage the reader and inform the decision to review the entire manuscript.