Graphical Abstract - Contents

Hi Reader, what should a graphical abstract include?

While there is no single right answer, what you choose to show will influence how easy (or difficult) the design process will be.

Just like with posters or figures for papers, it's a lot about prioritization.

Therefore, let's see how to decide what to include:

What To Show

Essentially, you want to show the key points that make the implications of your work clear.

As we discussed, you don’t simply visualize your written abstract—that quickly becomes overwhelming.

Instead, only prioritize the essentials needed to explain what the key takeaway of your work is.

How To Do It

It’s often advised to summarize the main message of your work in one sentence and then try to visualize it.

You might disagree but I think this is misleading.

This one sentence makes you focus too narrowly - it doesn’t yield enough content and therefore often leads you to adding too many “details” later on, which eventually overcrowds the graphical abstract.

This is why I would approach it differently:

• First implication
• Second key points
• Third design

Start by identifying what the key implication of your work is.

In other words: What novel insight would make it into a textbook? What could your method achieve once optimized? What does the drug you invented actually do?

This is what should remain in your reader’s mind in the end.

For you, it sets the stage and provides orientation for what to include and what you need to highlight visually later.

But instead of designing from there, you then think about the key points that enable your reader to grasp this advance.

In other words, ask yourself which string of key points would give someone else the best understanding of the key implication you identified above.

Tips For Prioritization

Of course, we are talking about key points, not every interesting aspect of your work—that’s why prioritization is so important.

Pro tip: Yes, this can be especially difficult when you are deeply immersed in your own research. However, try not to think about what you did.

Instead, create for someone writing a review three years from now, thus only caring about the combined final outcome of your work.

If you have changed fields or are publishing outside your usual area, rethink your prioritization based on the audience that will read your work.

• Academics often care most about novelty.
• Biotechnologists may be more attracted by methodological innovations.
• Medical professionals or those in translational research will prefer clinical relevance.

The list continues … when you write perspectives or opinion pieces, public health implications or broader societal impact may be most relevant.

Methods Or Not?

Finally, a common hurdle is deciding whether you should include methods... It's not mandatory but can certainly make sense:

However, it is highly advisable if your methods add to the significance of your work, i.e., if they are new, optimized, or essential for understanding the results.

A few examples where including methods makes sense:

• You use HPLC to analyze immune cells (instead of flow cytometry).
• You analyze environmental samples with HPLC to identify pollutants.
• You push conventional light microscopy to nanometer-scale resolution.

Other than that, if you already use a flow scheme, it can be a nice addition -but only if it doesn’t overcrowd your design.

This can happen very quickly, especially if you include many standard methods (such as PCR or SDS-PAGE) that do not add meaningful information to the message.

How We Feel Today