lancet-abstract
Use to write The Lancet's structured abstract — ≤300 words under the exact headings Background, Methods, Findings, Interpretation, Funding — leading with the clinical question, reporting the primary outcome with effect size and 95% CI, citing the registration number, and naming the funder.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill lancet-abstract --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Structured Abstract (lancet-abstract) ## When to trigger - The design, reporting, and statistics are settled (do this late). - The abstract is unstructured prose, over 300 words, or uses the wrong headings. - The abstract uses "Results" and "Conclusions" — The Lancet uses **Findings** and **Interpretation**. - The registration number or funder is missing from the abstract. ## The Lancet's five mandatory headings The Lancet uses a structured abstract of **≤300 words** (confirm the exact cap in the current author guidelines) under these specific headings — and the wording of two of them is distinctive: 1. **Background** — the clinical/public-health problem and the specific question. One or two sentences. 2. **Methods** — design, setting (and countries, for multi-country trials), participants and eligibility, intervention/exposure and comparator, primary outcome, analysis population (ITT), and the **trial registration number** (e.g., ClinicalTrials.gov NCTxxxxxxxx; ISRCTN). 3. **Findings** *(not "Results")* — recruitment dates and numbers analysed; the **primary outcome with effect size and 95% CI** (absolute and relative where relevant); key secondary outcomes; principal harms/adve
- When to trigger
- The Lancet's five mandatory headings
- Concrete template
- Hard constraints
- What an editor reads in the abstract at triage
- Worked micro-example (illustrative numbers — not real data)
- Output format
- Anti-patterns
What does the lancet-abstract skill do?
Use to write The Lancet's structured abstract — ≤300 words under the exact headings Background, Methods, Findings, Interpretation, Funding — leading with the clinical question, reporting the primary outcome with effect size and 95% CI, citing the registration number, and naming the funder.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill lancet-abstract --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 984 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.