Formulating Optimal Manuscript Keywords and Abstracts

Authors work hard to formulate high-quality manuscripts for submission to journals in the hope of smooth acceptance and publication. However, selecting keywords and formulating abstracts often is an afterthought, quickly put together during the journal submission process without due care and consideration. As an editor, I often see poorly constructed abstracts and keywords that detract from the quality of the overall work. To achieve the best short- and long-term outcomes for their work, authors need to take the time to carefully construct both abstracts and keywords as they develop their work. Publication of a manuscript is not the end of the process. Today, there is increasing emphasis on publication metrics, such as achieving high citations, which are both important for improving your personal h-index, for academic promotion, and for the impact of research and individual journals. Therefore, getting your work disseminated broadly is important. Many authors and journals also encourage the promotion of publications through social media channels, increasing exposure of their work so others might utilize and cite it (Harder, 2023Harder N. How your articles are making an impact.Clinical Simulation in Nursing. 2023; 77: A1Google Scholar). Increasing numbers of journals are choosing not to publish traditional narrative literature reviews, only considering those that have been systematically developed such as integrative, scoping, systematic, rapid, and umbrella reviews. Simultaneously, there is rapid growth in the number of reviews being published. Searching for papers to include in structured reviews is usually based on manuscript keywords and the initial screening process involves reviewing abstracts of sourced studies (Müngen and Kaya, 2018Müngen A.A. Kaya M. Extracting abstract and keywords from context for academic articles.Social Network Analysis and Mining. 2018; 8: 45Google Scholar). If either keywords or abstracts are not well constructed, a manuscript that should be included in a review might be missed and hence, deprived of a subsequent citation and due recognition. This makes the construction of abstracts and keywords increasingly important for any publication. There may be two sets of keywords for an individual manuscript, those included in the manuscript itself and selected by the author/s, and those entered into a journal's system on submission. Those included in the manuscript will subsequently be published with the work and what future readers will access, while those in the journal's system will be used by editors to seek out appropriate reviewers. These are generally selected from the journal's own, often limited, keyword list. Selecting the right keywords is essential to optimize your paper being located by other researchers, in particular, those undertaking reviews. Therefore, taking the time to find the right keywords is crucial. Firstly, think about the types of review topics your manuscript might be picked up on. Secondly, consider the audience/s that your work might be relevant to. Where possible, utilize the maximum number of keywords the journal allows to optimize other researchers finding it. Keywords should cover all aspects of your work such as study type, population, focus, and key findings. Consider also keeping them broad to widen the reach of your work, for example, use the keyword "nurse" rather than "specialist nurse" or "nurse practitioner." Keywords selection can be assisted through various strategies. To find suitable keywords, you could explore keywords in relevant databases, such as Cumulated Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL). Another useful resource is the National Library of Medicine's, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/), a vocabulary developed for PubMed database indexing. You can also look at keywords used in manuscripts you are citing in your own paper that could also be relevant to your own work. Finally, consider the words that are commonly used in the area of your work and most likely to be used (Bahadoran, Mirmiran, Kashfi and Ghasemi, 2020Bahadoran Z. Mirmiran P. Kashfi K. Ghasemi A. The principles of biomedical scientific writing: Abstract and keywords.International Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism. 2020; 18e100159Google Scholar; Zhu et al., 2020Zhu R. Wang Y. Wu R. Meng X. Han S. Duan Z. Trends in high-impact papers in nursing research published from 2008-2018: A web of science-based bibliometric analysis.Journal of Nursing Management. 2020; 28: 1041-1052Google Scholar). Abstracts are also important parts of manuscripts and similar care should be taken in their development. An abstract should provide readers with a concise summary of the entirety of your paper, that is, the background, study aim/question and design, population, setting, key findings, discussion, and recommendations. Reviewing the abstract, readers will make decisions about whether the work is relevant to them and if they will continue to source and/or read the full paper. It could also determine whether your work is included in structured reviews. Hence, readers should be able to understand the whole of your manuscript by reading just the abstract. Many journals, such as Clinical Simulation in Nursing, require structured abstracts with key headings reflecting those within the manuscript itself, and making the process of abstract writing more streamlined. Furthermore, it is generally accepted that abstracts should not contain references or abbreviations that might not be readily understood. Extensive work goes into preparing manuscripts for submission to journals. However, the work is not complete on publication. Optimizing your work to be identified and cited by others is an important ongoing consideration and supported by careful keyword and abstract construction.