Video abstracts or other visual media can help publicize a scientific article. After creating a “visual abstract” for a recent paper on the Prezi platform, we sent the URL to the journal with the suggestion that they might like to link to it. Turns out, they were very interested and within days had featured it on their website (see image at right). The journal has also indicated that they will promote the visual abstract and paper through their social media outlets. This is great news, as having the journal highlight our paper raises its visibility.

The take-home message here is that journals are looking for rich content, and those authors who provide it are rewarded with increased attention.

Even if a journal does not feature video/visual abstracts, authors can still post them online, as I did on the Prezi website (and made the presentation publicly accessible). I was surprised to see that our visual abstract on the Prezi website had over 100 views in just four days (before the journal linked to it).

I also created a video of the visual abstract by recording my computer screen while playing the Prezi slideshow. I uploaded the video to YouTube (see below), which should help broaden its visibility and also provides an alternative to the Prezi slideshow (which does not play well on some viewing platforms).