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Science Communication on the Internet: Old genres meet new genres
Edited by María José Luzón and Carmen Pérez-Llantada
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 308] 2019
► pp. 59–80

Chapter 4
The graphical abstract as a new genre in the promotion of science

This study explores an increasingly popular Internet genre, the graphical abstract, and its relations to verbal abstracts and to the images used in research articles. We develop a preliminary description of the form and function of GAs, based on a sample of texts from chemistry and engineering and on journal editors and authors’ perceptions about the genre. The results show significant variation among the texts, yet some discipline-internal regularities could be observed. These findings do not necessarily reflect editors and authors’ perceptions. The frequent use of color and drawings is related to the promotional role of graphical abstracts in attracting a wide range of readers, which approximates the genre to verbal abstracts, but dissociates it from scientific images. Graphical abstracts seem to combine the best of its precedent part-genres to optimize the journal readership.
Keywords: graphical abstract, Internet genres, genre relations, verbal abstract, images in science, commodification of scientific discourse
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Existing research article elements: Abstracts and visuals
    • 2.1Abstracts
    • 2.2Journal article visuals
  • 3.The graphical abstract as a digital genre
  • 4.Methodology
  • 5.Results and discussion
    • 5.1Layout and number of visual entities in GAs
    • 5.2Originality
    • 5.3Nature of the images
  • 6.Final remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 December 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.308.04hen
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Bennett, Hunter & Flynn Slattery
2023. Graphical abstracts are associated with greater Altmetric attention scores, but not citations, in sport science. Scientometrics 128:6 ► pp. 3793 ff. DOI logo
Zong, Qianjin, Zhihong Huang & Zhijun Deng
2023. Do graphical abstracts on a publisher's official website have an effect on articles' usage and citations? A propensity score matching analysis. Learned Publishing 36:2 ► pp. 266 ff. DOI logo
Sancho-Guinda, Carmen
2021. This Has Changed: ‘Out-of-the-Box’ Metadiscourse in Scientific Graphical Abstracts. In Metadiscourse in Digital Communication, ► pp. 81 ff. DOI logo

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