Title and Abstract

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Title and Abstract

• Shobna Bhatia

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Aim of publishing

• Fame
• Recognition
• Advance science
• Requirement for professional recognition
• ..

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Title Purposes

• To draw the attention of a prospective reader
• To induce him / her to read the entire paper or
  at least the abstract
• To make electronic retrieval of the article both
  sensitive and specific

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Title

• Simple and concise, but informative
• Interesting and eye-catching
• Accurate and specific about papers content
• State the subject in full
• Indicate study design, animal species
• Grammatically correct
• State results or not ?

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Title

• Do not Use abbreviations (unless well
  accepted)Use literary titlesUse
  interrogative/exclamatory titlesUse all capitals

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Title

• Pediatric intussusception A report of 55 cases
• Studies on cobalt estimation in liver disease
• Comparative study of two new hypoglycemic drugs

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Title

• Pediatric intussusception A report of 55
  casesSmall bowel intussusception in children A
  report of 55 cases
• Studies on cobalt estimation in liver disease
• Comparative study of two new hypoglycemic drugs

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Title

• Pediatric intussusception A report of 55
  casesSmall bowel intussusception in children
• Studies on cobalt estimation in liver
  diseaseSerum cobalt levels in patients with
  cirrhosis of liver
• Comparative study of two new hypoglycemic drugs

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Title

• Pediatric intussusception A report of 55
  casesSmall bowel intussusception in children
• Studies on cobalt estimation in liver
  diseaseSerum cobalt levels in patients with
  cirrhosis of liver
• Comparative study of two new hypoglycemic
  drugsComparison of hypoglycemic effects of A and
  B with chlorpropamide in diabetic nude mice

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Keywords

• Words or short phrases used for cross-indexing,
  and retrieval
• 3-10 identifiers representing main concepts
  included in the article
• Use MeSH words
• Exclude words already in title
• Arrange alphabetically

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Keywords gtgt Possible title

• Key words
• Coeliac disease
• Children
• India
• Studied
• Clinical features
• Nutritional status
• Histopathology findings

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Keywords gtgt Possible Title

• Key words
• Coeliac disease
• Children
• India
• Clinical features, nutritional status,
  histopathology findings
• Title
• Coeliac disease in Indian children Assessment
  of clinical, nutritional and pathologic
  characteristics

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Keywords gtgt Possible title

• Key words
• Hepatitis B virus
• Asymptomatic infection
• Transmission of infection to babies
• Viral kinetics

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Keywords gtgt Possible Titles

• Asymptomatic hepatitis B virus infection is
  associated with low viral load and transmission
  of disease to babies
• Hepatitis B virus with low viral load low risk
  of transmission of disease to babies
• Low viral load in hepatitis B is associated with
  low risk of transmission of virus to babies

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Title examples

• Original paperEffects of tegaserod and
  erythromycin in patients with upper gut
  dysmotility- a comparative study
• EditorialPromotility drugs not all uniform?

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Title examples

• A placebo-controlled trial of interferon gamma-1b
  in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
• Self-reported treatment adherence in inflammatory
  bowel disease in Indian patients
• Daily aspirin -- only half the answer
• Influence of baicalin on TNF-a mRNA expression in
  pancreatic tissue and apoptosis of pancreatic
  acinar cells of rats with severe acute
  pancreatitis

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Abstract

• A succinct, accurate, summary of the paper
• Purposes
• Included in several abstracting services
  (including Medline)
• Helps readers browse and decide
• Independent (stand-alone)

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Abstract

• A brief statement of chief points
• Short but intelligible
• Informative and interesting
• Avoid unnecessary detail
• Stand alone
• Accurate

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Abstract

• IMRAD pattern purpose, basic procedures, main
  findings, principal conclusions
• Structured/unstructured
• Length 150-250 words
• No information not included in main body
• Not a copy of sentences in the text
• No references or abbreviations
• Include main statistical conclusions

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Structured abstract

•  Background Objective
•  Methods Design
•  Results Setting
•  Conclusion Subjects
• Intervention
• Main outcome measures
• Results
• Conclusions

Background, limitations
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Structured abstract

• Background/Objectives Disease progression in
  Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection may have
  association with different genotypes of the
  virus. In view of limited data available, we
  studied the prevalence/association and role of
  HBV genotypes, with reference to the viral and
  host characteristics in patients, reflecting the
  chronic form of the disease.
• Methods A total of 96 HBsAg seropositive and
  chronically infected patients attending the
  Gastroenterology out patients department of ___
  Gastroenterology were studied for determination
  of HBV genotypes by nested PCR using type-
  specific primers. Biochemical markers of liver
  functions and HBe antigen status were evaluated
  by standard methods. Serum HBV DNA levels of
  patients were also measured by real-time PCR
  using Taqman chemistry.

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Structured abstract

• Results HBV genotype was noted to be in the
  order of D (N 80 69.5) gt A (N10 8.6) gt B
  (N 3 2.6) or B D (N 3 2.6). Higher viral
  load (7.68 x 108 copies/ml) was associated in
  patients with elevated serum ALT activity (gt 64
  IU/L). Majority of the patients (86.3 ) also
  tested negative for HBe Ag upon serological
  analysis.
• Conclusion Identification of genotype B
  individually and intermingling of this genotype
  with the common genotype D is now reported for
  the first time from India. A detailed follow-up
  study, involving larger number of such patients
  might be helpful for better understanding of the
  HBV disease transmission and pathogenesis.

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Structured abstract Drug trial

• Objective To evaluate the efficacy of a single
  large oral dose of vitamin A in treating acute
  shigellosis in children in Bangladesh.
• Design Randomized, double-blind, controlled
  clinical trial.
• Setting Dhaka Hospital, International Centre for
  Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh.
• Subjects 83 children aged 17 years with
  bacteriologically proved shigellosis but no
  clinical signs of vitamin A deficiency 42 were
  randomized to treatment with vitamin A and 41
  formed a control group.
• Intervention Children were given a single oral
  dose of 200,000 IU of vitamin A plus 25 IU
  vitamin E or a control preparation of 25 IU
  vitamin E.

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Unstructured abstract

• Little information is available on the knowledge
  about scientific writing among medical teachers.
  We administered a 10-point questionnaire to test
  knowledge about scientific writing among medical
  teachers participants attending a writing
  workshop. 32 medical teachers participated. Of
  these, only 20 (63) achieved a score of 50 or
  above. The younger participants (aged less than
  30 years) scored worse than the older
  participants (aged gt 30 years), the average
  scores in the two groups being 6.5 1.5 and 4.5
  1.7, respectively (t-test plt0.05). Indian
  medical teachers lack skills in medical writing
  and steps to improve this are needed.

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Differences with main paper

• Main focus is Methods and Results
• V short introduction and Discussion

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Some guidelines in Abstract

• Do not provide
• References
• Figures
• Tables
• Long introduction / Discussion

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Consistency

• Main text
• No mismatch in numbers / results
• No contradictions

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Conclusions

• Title should be accurate, detailed, interesting
• Abstract
• Structured vs unstructured
• Short, concise and accurate