Publisher perspective

2:20 PM - 2:35 PM

Within medical journals, publishers and editors are seeing increased uptake of plain language summaries (PLS) of scientific articles. Published alongside the journal article or as a standalone article, PLS are offered in a variety of formats: text, infographic, or even audio and video. Recent evidence shows that PLS can help a broad audience—including patients, healthcare professionals, and the public—understand and digest complex clinical studies, and pilot studies have confirmed that PLS improve article views and downloads. Authors often share PLS on social media to raise awareness of their work, which increases the impact and reach of the scientific article itself. In this presentation, Caroline Halford (Springer Healthcare) and Kelly Soldavin (Taylor & Francis) will discuss publisher developments in PLS, as well as current guidelines and best practices, and share examples of publisher initiatives focused on increased discoverability of PLS. They will also talk about lessons learnt about PLS publication—what has gone well and what hasn’t (?!)—and their perspectives on the future of PLS.

The evolution of plain language summaries at Springer Nature