Journal Article

Practical guidance on publishing plain-language summaries for scientific manuscripts with an Asia-Pacific audience

Ganesan, Shobana, Lee, Sharon Wei Ling, Onuma, Anna, Wei, Alvin, Lee, Joyce Hiu Yan, Wang, Shu, Yuan, Julie, Chen, Bert Yu-Hung, Hesp, Blair, Stentiford, Tim

2025

Overview

Plain language summaries (PLSs) of scientific publications are intended to distill full-length scientific publications into a short, inclusive, accessible format that can be rapidly comprehended by all potential readers, but often retain cultural and linguistic barriers to accessibility, particularly for audiences in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC). Various publications have attempted to provide guidance on how to prepare PLSs, but there have been limited attempts to standardize structure or content and there is no universal guidance for PLSs. Furthermore, PLSs pertaining to research in patient populations in APAC, or relating to conditions that are prevalent in APAC, should be developed using language and imagery appropriate for the intended audience. This commentary aims to outline key considerations for preparing a PLS for an APAC audience, including language, imagery, and font selection. Developing culturally-sensitive PLSs for potential readers in APAC may increase the audience for the scientific literature and assist effective engagement in the region.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Accessibility / Asia-Pacific / Audiences / Biomedical and Life Sciences / Biomedicine / Comment / Communication / English as a second language / English language / Ethnicity / Language / Life Sciences / Medical research / Medicine, Experimental / Medicine/Public Health / Methods / Patients / Plain language summary / Practice guidelines (Medicine) / Readability