Writing Papers for Biomaterials

Next to the title, the abstract will be the second most important point of entry to the paper since most search facilities will print the abstract as part of the service, and far more people will read the abstract than the full papers. The abstract should be concise and informative. It is not the place to expand on techniques or discuss philosophy, and the conclusions that it expresses have to be an accurate reflection on what was found. Abstracts should be not used to exaggerate the significance of the work and they should not contain subjective opinions on this importance or speculate how a material might be used. Very commonly submitted abstracts will include a phrase such as ‘material X is very biocompatible and shows promise for use in orthopaedic implants’. This is rarely a sensible approach to writing an abstract. We do not require the abstract to be split into sections (e.g. background, experiments, results, conclusions) as demanded by some other journals. The instructions specify a length of