Annals of Laparoscopic and Endoscopic Surgery goes visual

Visual abstracts, also called “graphical abstracts” or “infographics”, are images that summarize the essential information of manuscripts, providing an easily and expeditive understood overview of study findings at a glance. They are eye-catching pictural representations that complement the written abstract and effectively convey information of research; this new form will be well-appreciated by readers who may not have the time to read through the entire research project. Memorization and retention of portrayed data have been reported to be better than those obtained from words, the so-called “picture superiority effect”. Visual or graphical abstracts are particularly well adapted to social media platforms and as such will increase the visibility, and therefore the diffusion, of your work.

Starting with our next issue, we will be asking authors to compose a visual or graphical abstract for all manuscripts that are accepted for publication in Annals of Laparoscopic and Endoscopic Surgery. The request will not be mandatory but on a voluntary basis. We are sure that all potential authors will readily uptake the endeavor, understanding that this adjunct is an attractive tool that adds value to the publication.

Some journals provide guidelines for the composition, with different templates, often based on the type of study (comparative, non-comparative, cohort, case-control, randomized, systematic review, meta-analysis…); we will leave this open to the discretion of the author, with the idea of stimulated innovation and diversity in the format rather than a strict harness for this new vehicle of information. All we ask is that it be complete, including the title, a pictural representation to convey each key point of the article (incorporating methods and results), topped by a sentence to summarize (conclude) the message, all less than a half of page in size. We will add the full citation (title, authors and the reference with the corresponding URL and DOI). A template can be seen below (Figure 1).

Figure 1 ALES visual abstract template.

Acknowledgments

Funding: None.

Footnote

Provenance and Peer Review: This article was commissioned by the editorial office, Annals of Laparoscopic and Endoscopic Surgery. The article did not undergo external peer review.

Conflicts of Interest: Both authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at https://ales.amegroups.com/article/view/10.21037/ales-24-31/coif). M.Z. and A.F. serve as the co-Editors-in-Chief of Annals of Laparoscopic and Endoscopic Surgery from April 2016 to April 2026. The authors have no other conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical Statement: The authors are accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.