{"id":15132,"date":"2020-01-14T07:33:05","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T07:33:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/?p=15132"},"modified":"2025-08-11T06:04:33","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T04:04:33","slug":"graphical-abstracts-ugly-and-dangerous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/sciencesurf\/2020\/01\/graphical-abstracts-ugly-and-dangerous\/","title":{"rendered":"Graphical abstracts: ugly and dangerous"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I see all these graphical abstracts in Elsevier papers along with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elsevier.com\/authors\/journal-authors\/graphical-abstract\">instructions<\/a> like &#8220;please use Times, Arial, Courier or Symbol font&#8221;. The intention behind these drawings is probably a &#8220;cut &amp; paste template&#8221; for busy congress speakers. Or some social media ads. \u00a0But there are arguments against this practice.<br \/>\nThe strong argument: It is the task of a speaker to carefully read an article, find out out strengths and weakness, and put the results into context. Just cut &amp; paste a graphical abstract is inacceptable.<br \/>\nAnd there is another argument: As drawn by lay people, most of these graphical abstracts are ugly, hard to understand and biased. They often steal ideas and concepts, making art directors, illustrators and typesetter unemployed.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Graphical_abstract#cite_note-NCBI-1\">For a more in depth<\/a> analysis see an essay by <a href=\"https:\/\/iris.sissa.it\/handle\/20.500.11767\/69352#.Xh1uj1NKjUJ\">Nico Pitrelli.<\/a>..<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>added 11 Aug 2025<br \/>\nno words required<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_25523\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-25523\" style=\"width: 620px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25523\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_0968-620x664.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"664\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_0968-620x664.jpeg 620w, https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_0968-467x500.jpeg 467w, https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_0968-768x822.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_0968.jpeg 1145w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-25523\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/sholtodavid.bsky.social\/post\/3lw3eufnkf22w<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"bottom-note\">\n  <span class=\"mod1\">CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 17.04.2026<\/span>\n <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I see all these graphical abstracts in Elsevier papers along with instructions like &#8220;please use Times, Arial, Courier or Symbol font&#8221;. The intention behind these drawings is probably a &#8220;cut &amp; paste template&#8221; for busy congress speakers. Or some social media ads. \u00a0But there are arguments against this practice. The strong argument: It is the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/sciencesurf\/2020\/01\/graphical-abstracts-ugly-and-dangerous\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Graphical abstracts: ugly and dangerous<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy-of-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15132"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25524,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15132\/revisions\/25524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}