Particularly when the abstract is the only thing available if you don’t have (fiendishly expensive) journal access.
Replies
This is true. But whoever decided that turning abstracts into clickbait articles was a good idea needs to get smacked upside the head. It's not generating more journal subscribers, but LESS. Because people wrongly assume that the abstract is summarizing the report.
aug 30, 2025, 12:45 pm • 7 0 • view
This is, to me, the duality of SEO. It's needed to get the traffic. But it necessarily is incomplete and seen by a much wider audience without enough knowledge or education to understand the difference between an abstract and the actual outcome.
aug 30, 2025, 12:49 pm • 5 0 • view
And in the process makes it very easy to strip out the context and make it seem like the report is saying something it's not. "Evaluating the efficacy of NIOSH rated masks in an office environment" becomes "SCIENTIST at Harvard doubts masks are safe!" We saw this with climate change science.
aug 30, 2025, 12:52 pm • 5 0 • view
aug 30, 2025, 3:37 pm • 0 0 • view
The simplest and most effective solution would be to publish both the abstract AND the conclusion outside of the paywall. Because often times the abstract is just our summarization of the process, and the conclusion is a summarization of the results. It's still a narrative, but more complete.
aug 30, 2025, 1:02 pm • 2 0 • view
Sadly it works too, people tend to prefer simplicity even if any further review would contradict their point
aug 30, 2025, 12:54 pm • 2 0 • view
To give them all benefit of the doubt, we place scientific journals behind such paywalls that unless you're a university or a research department, you can't afford to read them. I can't afford to read the journals I'm published in without subsidy. If the author can't, how can the laypeople?
aug 30, 2025, 12:59 pm • 3 0 • view
This has been a frustration for me. I have three rare diseases & a rare manifestation of failure of a medical device (the device often fails but how it failed for me was rare). It's near impossible to stay up to date. Even worse is it's near impossible for my doctors to do so. For the same reasons.
aug 30, 2025, 1:03 pm • 2 0 • view
Especially since things like journal subscriptions are the first expenses that hospitals and labs will cut to save on costs. And I don't care how much you make, those journals will end up making your budget look like a dril candle tweet.
aug 30, 2025, 1:05 pm • 1 0 • view