What is a Twitter abstract?
We’ve recently added new author functionality on published articles that allow authors to provide a Twitter abstract. This blog outlines what a Twitter abstract is, why you should add one, and guidelines on how to do add one to your article.
A “Twitter abstract” is a series of linked Tweets that provide an engaging, social-media-friendly overview of your article. It’s usually posted to Twitter by the corresponding author (or whoever has the most Twitter followers!).
Once your PeerJ article is published you can add your Twitter abstract link to it so readers can navigate from your article directly to the thread on Twitter.
When you enter the link, this button is displayed on your article:
Why create a Twitter abstract for your article?
- Provides researchers with a central location on Twitter to engage with your article and co-authors.
- Boost engagement with your research (inc. citations, views and downloads).
- Give your funders, institutions and other parties an easy-to-share version of your article.
- Facilitate an open discussion with your academic community (and beyond).
- Include images, commentary etc. to complement your article’s abstract.
Here are two Twitter abstract examples for inspiration (click to view the full thread on Twitter):
And here's the paper! https://t.co/QX7OwkwaCm We studied how the kneecaps (patellae/patelloids) of marsupial mammals evolved. This is a followup to our 2017 Samuels et al. paper on mammals more broadly (also in @thePeerJ)- #JohnsFreezer post here: https://t.co/OEkfEbuctD (1/n)
— Professor John R. Hutchinson (@JohnRHutchinson) August 19, 2020
Several methods have recently been proposed for pruning neural networks at initialization. In our new paper (@KDziugaite, @roydanroy, @mcarbin), we rigorously study these methods to determine why they "miss the mark" and underperform pruning after training https://t.co/qKqa3a2foD pic.twitter.com/e3loMBlOoj
— Jonathan Frankle (@jefrankle) September 21, 2020
Adding your Twitter abstract to your PeerJ article
Time: 2 mins
- Post your Twitter Abstract on Twitter and copy the url (e.g. https://twitter.com/JohnRHutchinson/status/1295989106640592896).
- Login and view your article via it’s public link (e.g. peerj.com/articles/9585).
- Click the ‘Add’ button on the ‘Add Twitter Abstract’ article todo:
- Enter the link to the first tweet of your Twitter Abstract and save:
- Click on the ‘View Twitter Abstract’ button now displayed just above your article abstract to test it.
It should open Twitter in a new tab and show the tweet you linked to.
Twitter abstract tips
- Author the tweets as one piece of text, so they flow well and coherently when read together.
- Feel free to Use this Google spreadsheet – Twitter abstract tweet planner – to plan your tweets (make a copy to edit).
- Aim for 5-10 tweets (i.e. don’t make it too long!).
- When ready to post, tweet each successive tweet as a reply to the previous tweet, starting with the first in the series. Twitter will automatically link them together into a thread.
- Use images and other media to keep readers engaged.
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