At the Annals of Botany editorial meeting, we found some people wanted guidance on how to improve the impact of their paper.

There is one step you can take that will make a massive difference.

The abstract is the public face of your paper, and it's also its business card. It gets passed around databases and republished away from the original research.

Its one job is to draw people back to the source.

"Do it better" is not helpful advice by itself. However there are two things people can overlook.

What is in your paper that is in no other paper? If your abstract starts "It is known that..." you're burying the novelty of your paper.

I'm reading dozens of abstracts a day. I cannot read every paper, so why should your paper matter to me?

You're not writing for a stupid reader, but you are writing for a busy and overworked reader who could use some help.

The abstract is not the paper. It helps put the paper in context with other research, If the paper is only of interest to specialists, then that context is narrow.

If you want to show your paper is interesting to a wide range of researchers, you'll need to make your abstract accessible to people outside your specialism.

This will not compromise the detail in your paper.

Keeping up with the literature is a herculean task. It can seem like a raging torrent of information at times.

If your research passes a potential reader by, it's likely that they'll be concentrating on the next new thing.

The abstract is your big chance to stand out from the crowd.

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