Scoping Review of Comparisons between Abstracts and Full Reports in Primary Biomedical Research. BMC Medical Research Methodology. 2017 Dec;17(1):181.
Are you among those people who decide to cite a paper by reading only its Abstract? If yes, then you need to think again. The possibility is you may miss some important findings which the abstract failed to include from the full text! Some of the reasons why readers almost always rely on the abstract alone are – the full text is in a foreign language, it is just not available anywhere, or it is too expensive to lay one’s hands on. These are understandable reasons. But quite a few researchers make the mistake of believing that reading an abstract is good enough. And that is wrong.
The authors of this article used a proper statistical method to measure the inconsistency in an article & its abstract. And found various minor and major inconsistencies in the abstracts. Based on those, it is suggested that the authors, reviewers and editorial staff should carefully scrutinize the consistency and accuracy of an abstract, during the submission and peer-review processes.
Now, do you believe this abstract or will you read the article? We suggest you read the full text 🙂