Structured Abstracts for Papers Reporting Clinical Trials

Excerpt

No experienced editor believes that readers of his or her journal go through each issue article by article, word by word. Some readers probably scan tables of contents, decide what articles if any merit their further attention, and scan titles and abstracts of selected articles; for these readers, authors and editors should take pains to supply titles and abstracts that represent content as accurately and as fully as space permits.

Editors certainly take responsibility for the quality and importance of papers they select to publish; they have no less responsibility for the quality of abstracts. But in the press of