Structured abstracts in information retrieval from biomedical databases: a literature survey

Clear guidelines have been provided for structuring the abstracts of original clinical research and review articles and, in the last 10 years, several major medical journals have adopted the policy of publishing all such articles with structured abstracts. Proponents claim that structured abstracts enhance peer review, improve information retrieval, and ease critical appraisal. However, some journals have not adopted them and their opponents claim they make articles longer and harder to read and restrict author originality. Previous research on structured abstracts has focused on how closely they follow prescribed structure and include the salient points of the full text, rather than their role in increasing the usefulness of the article.