The Importance of Lay Summaries for Improving Science Communication

Abstract

Lay summaries help the public connect with your research. Communicate your science with these guidelines for crafting lay summaries

Journal article authors write lay summaries to emphasize the focus and significance of the article’s research findings in accessible language in contrast to jargon-filled, longer scientific abstracts. Annals of Behavioral Medicine now requires lay summaries. However, lay summaries were only included in 1% of journals as of 2017, making them a somewhat unusual feature [1]. While more journals are beginning to offer or require lay summaries to accompany research articles as part of increasing science communication to the public, practitioners, and scientific experts from other disciplines, most scientists do not receive training or substantial guidance for crafting them, further discouraging scientists to create them when opportunities exist. This creates barriers in a time when science communication could substantially positively impact public health.

Science communication encourages more informed decision making by individuals and policy makers. Given recent world events including the COVID-19 pandemic and the proliferation of misinformation campaigns, the need for behavioral medicine to influence public opinion, public policy, and public health is at its peak. Additionally, solving complex modern issues requires interdisciplinary collaborations, which itself requires science communication. However, traditional academic publishing models suboptimally facilitate dissemination of relevant science to the public and media due to jargon and cautious language regarding findings, thereby limiting the complete translational science spectrum. With Annals of Behavioral Medicine’s fundamental roles in the broader behavioral medicine literature, adding lay summaries may facilitate increased uptake of the journal’s publications into the media, lay audiences, and community partners in the field thus turning research into action. Adding lay summaries to research articles supports translational science and may improve public health communication as non-scientists view this work.

Previous research suggests that lay summaries are purported to convey numerous benefits [2–4]. The first is increased dissemination to non-academic audiences via media uptake of journal content or community-level engagement with the material. Critically, an article’s lay summary appears before the journal paywall, eliminating major access barriers that have historically separated academics’ science from the public. Authors are highly encouraged to utilize open access publishing when possible to further facilitate lay audiences’ access, when coupled with lay summaries, to overcome language, and understanding barriers [2]. Authors are also encouraged to promote the lay summaries on social media and through their community contacts, to further improve research access. Furthermore, lay summaries offer an author-guided description of findings and impact thereby reducing the likelihood of misconstrued results summarized after publication by a member of the media or public. Given scientists’ recurring hesitation to engage in science communication for fear of their message being taken out of context, the lay summary is a brief strategy to communicate with the media with perhaps fewer concerns about misinterpretation. Including lay summaries also upholds the ever-changing social contract between scientists and their broader communities; this is one step towards informing the taxpayers who contributed to funding and those who also participated in the research so that the research findings may now benefit those communities [3]. Finally, scientists who engage in science communication such as lay summaries appear to get cited more per h-indices [4]. Further work is needed to better determine how science communication may offer professional benefits across career stages.

Given their rationale and benefits, the odds of successfully creating compelling lay summaries are bolstered by reviewing best practices for their creation (see Table 1). Specific lay summary principles include being brief, avoiding jargon, and ambiguous words, using positive phrasing and active voice, and answering key questions that the reader needs to know; these principles help make the summary suitable for non-expert audiences. More general strategies include allowing plenty of time to write the lay summary, showing it to a member of the intended audience for feedback, and connecting the lay summary with other forms of science communication (e.g., adding an infographic); these principles and strategies are detailed in Table 1, which also includes examples of these suggestions.

Table 1.

Tips for Creating Lay Summaries

Do	Don’t
• Do create simple sentences—write shorter sentences without many clauses	• Don’t use jargon or acronyms. For example, spell out randomized controlled trial and keep the details about complex study designs short and sweet
• Use positive phrasing of your research findings—that is, rather than, “We found no significant differences in post-cessation weight gain”; try, “Weight remained stable before and after quitting smoking.”	• Don’t use ambiguous words such as it, these, those, and this. For example, rather than indicating that, “This indicates that self-monitoring multiple times per day is important for weight loss.” Try “Participants who logged 2–3 times per day were more likely to achieve clinically significant weight loss.”
• Use the active voice—that is, rather than, “Guidelines have been published outlining recommended elements for graphical abstracts”; try, “Annals of Behavioral Medicine published guidelines outlining a recommended format for graphical abstracts.”	• Don’t use big words! Lay summaries are often written at too high of a reading level. Use a readability tool to help you aim for the 8th grade reading level, which is the reading level for many newspapers
• Make sure you answer the following questions in your lay summary [5]  o Why was the research needed?  o What kind of study was this?  o What happened during this study?  o What were the study results?  o Why do the study results matter?	• Don’t create your lay summary at the last minute! Make sure you will have time to get feedback from your colleagues on your lay summary in a similar way that you get feedback on the scientific manuscript
• Consider showing your lay summary to a peer outside of your research area or a member of your intended audience. It is easy to mistake niche expertise for common knowledge	• Do not forget about other ways to communicate your science. Lay summaries are just the first step. Consider also submitting an infographic, graphical abstract, posting about the accepted publication on social media, and working with your institution’s communications representative to extend your article’s reach

Unsurprisingly, we advocate for tracking and evaluation of lay summaries and their effects for authors and journals, as well as evaluating other formats of science communication that journals currently use (e.g., graphical abstracts, highlights, public significance statements). Further work should be done to optimize the desired effects for scientists, journals, and the intended audience. Lay summaries may be the first foray for many into science communication, but hopefully they are far from the last. Those who publish in Annals of Behavioral Medicine should continue to communicate their science beyond their fellow colleagues because public health depends on it; the full magnitude of behavioral medicine’s impact is within reach.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.