Some scientific journals require authors to prepare highlights for their articles.
In this video, I ll explain what highlights are and how to prepare them.
What are highlights and where do they appear?
Highlights are three to five bullet points listing the main findings of a paper.
They may also mention new methods or special facilities used in the study.
They are designed to attract readers to your paper.
Highlights usually only appear in the online journal where they help search engines find
your article.
For example, this paper was published in a journal requiring highlights.
The highlights weren't included in the pdf of the paper but instead appeared in the online
article as you see here.
Here is how I crafted the five highlights.
First, I went to the journal instructions to authors and searched for highlights.
The brief instructions stated that highlights are mandatory and should be submitted as a
separate editable file to the online submission system.
The idea is to convey the study's findings using language that is understandable by a
broad readership and includes words and phrases likely to be used as search terms.
But don't try to include all ideas, concepts, or conclusions because the highlights are
meant to be short.
Only three to five highlights are usually allowed, and each bullet may be restricted.
In this case to 85 characters, including spaces.
That's shorter than a Tweet.
So, you must be able to concisely describe each finding or conclusion.
Highlights should clearly convey the major findings without the use of jargon, acronyms,
or abbreviations.
To identify what results to use as highlights, I looked at the abstract, which had already
pared the results down to the most important findings.
Our coastwide survey documented the deposition of sediment by two hurricanes in areas that
were subsiding or sinking.
This observation was restated as a highlight and introduced the rationale for the study.
This bullet included important search terms such as hurricanes and sediment but also the
location of the study in wetlands of the Mississippi River Delta.
The next highlight told the reader how sediment affected areas dominated by saline wetlands
and added new search terms, soil accretion and elevation gain.
The next highlight described how hurricane sediment was distributed within the wetlands,
more deposited in interior areas of low elevation where it was most needed.
The last two highlights conveyed the main finding that despite differences in plant
structure, grasses versus trees, vegetation type did not influence sediment deposition
patterns.
Two more important search terms were included, mangrove and salt marsh.
Although we didn't include a highlight about how this information might be applied, that
is something to consider if relevant.
Also, if your study used a novel technique, that might also be included in a highlight.
To summarize, highlights are the first thing a reader will see after the title of a paper.
They should briefly convey the main results of a study.
They should be written in language understandable by a wide readership.
They should include as many relevant search terms as possible.
If your target journal requires highlights, spend some time looking at the highlights
for papers already published to get an idea of what is expected and how the authors crafted
them.
Thanks for watching and please like this video if you found the information helpful.