最近忙着找工作，找工作的过程其实也是一个广泛学习的过程，因为需要去了解各个潜在老板的背景。无意中发现Chemical Society Reviews这个杂志，影响因子高达26.6；上面兰州大学的一篇文章Recent developments in metal catalyzed asymmetric addition of phosphorus nucleophiles的Graphical Abstract里面，居然有中国特色的“八仙过海”，有意思~
Graphical Abstract是个有趣的东西，翻译成中文应该是“图片摘要”。投稿时自己每次也都画过，自认为自己画的图总结了文章的核心内容或结论，但遗憾的是没有一次被采用过。有些杂志要求投稿必须有Graphical Abstract，有些杂志则不作要求——可有可无。究竟什么是Graphical Abstract？它是用来干什么的？
先来看看Elsevier中对Graphical Abstract的要求：“allow readers to quickly gain an understanding of the main take-home message of the paper and is intended to encourage browsing, promote interdisciplinary scholarship, and help readers identify more quickly which papers are most relevant to their research interests. The Graphical Abstract should summarize the contents of the paper in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership. Authors must provide images that clearly represent the work described in the paper. A key, summarising figure taken from the original paper can also be submitted as a graphical abstract.” 从中可见，图片摘要的作用就是让读者（包括其它学科的）迅速捕获文章的核心内容，吸引眼球，提高关注。
Cell杂志的定义也类似：to give readers an immediate understanding of the take-home message of the paper. Its intent is to encourage browsing, promote interdisciplinary scholarship, and help readers quickly identify which papers are most relevant to their research interests. 自己投稿的JMS的要求也大同小异： to summarize the contents of the article in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership online.
自己画的图片摘要没被采纳过，原因基本已经明确了：虽然总结了文章的核心内容或结论，但有点呆板，过于专业，所以不够吸引眼球。浏览被采用的Graphical Abstract，有些是自己拍摄也可能是下载别人拍的照片，居然也能被采用；有些与其说是Graphical Abstract，还不如说是Visual Introduction，因为图片只是跟研究内容沾点边而已。它们之所以能被采用，也许在于它们或花哨或震撼或唯美，总之都能吸引眼球。
根据对采纳的别人的Graphical Abstract的研究，个人觉得Graphical Abstract需要：（1）通俗易懂，最好能让外行也能一目了然；（2）图片要精美，就像“八仙过海”图一样，不了解“八仙过海，各显神通”的老外打死可能也理解不了为啥用那个图衔接两边的官能团，但他们会觉得那图很美、很有意思；（3）未必像真正的Abstract那样需要总结全文，只要能吸引眼球就行。总之，Graphical Abstract的核心作用就是Quickly attract readers’ attentions/interests (也就是吸引眼球)。