How should abridged scientific articles be presented in journals? A survey of readers and authors.

SEVERAL SCIENTIFIC AND GENERAL MEDICAL JOURNALS publish full-length articles on their Web sites and abridged versions in their print journals. We surveyed a stratified random sample of BMJ readers and authors to elicit their preferred format for the abridged print version. Each participant received a research paper abridged in 3 different formats: conventional abridged version, journalistic version and enhanced-abstract version. Overall, 45% (95% confidence interval [CI] 42%-48%) of the respondents said they liked the conventional version most, 31% (95% CI 28%-34%) preferred the journalistic version and 25% (95% CI 22%-27%) preferred the enhanced-abstract version. Twenty-eight percent (95% CI 25%-32%) indicated that use of the journalistic format for abridged articles would very likely stop them from submitting papers to BMJ, and 13% (95% CI 11%-16%) said the use of the enhanced-abstract version would stop them from submitting to BMJ. Publishers of general medical journals who publish shortened articles should consider that authors and readers prefer a more conventional style of abridged papers.