Age-associated changes in the circulating human antibody repertoire are upregulated in autoimmunity by Aaron Arvey, Michael Rowe and others is a study that characterizes antibody binding in peptides in 1675 to find that the antibody binding is age-dependent. The study’s purpose is to find a venue of treatment for patients and to better understand the changes to the immune system with age. Through the usage of the chronological development of their findings, descript visual figures and graphics, and a fragmented abstract, the researchers aim to clarify their research to the scientific community and enable the readers to continue looking for venues of treatment. 

In the results section of the article, the researchers introduced their findings in chronological order so the audience could understand that one result was a product of the one before it. The results were written in chronological order according to how the researchers came about these findings. For example, one section of the results was titled “Antibodies from older donors bind peptides with an N-terminus di-serine motif” followed by “Creating a N-terminus di-serine age-association score.” The researchers had a significant finding: antibodies from older patients bind to a specific location on peptides. The researchers created a score or a value so that it could be taught to a machine to predict immune age. In this example, the finding of the di-serine motif allows the researchers to introduce the next steps – create a score for machine learning. By breaking down the different steps and findings, it displays the logical sequence that the researcher took to complete the experiment and the goal of the paper, clarifying the research to the readers. This corroborates the goal of the findings of the experiment to the readers almost as if the reader is following along with the experiment while it is happening. By doing so, the researchers help the readers follow along in smaller pieces of information. Another example, the section that follows is titled “machine learning model of serum antibody binding predicts chronological age.” The researchers continually add on to the previous section in the results to help the readers follow their thought process and how they came about an answer to their scientific question. The researchers continue to do so with each step that they took and the corresponding result of that step allowing the readers to follow their experiment almost as if it was happening in real-time. This also allows the readers to be able to repeat the experiment and use the research to look for treatments. By breaking down their findings the researchers effectively accomplish the goal of their paper to elucidate the findings of the experiment.

The researchers also utilized figures tactfully to supplement areas of dense writing so that the audience can better understand the research. With these figures, the readers can view the work that the researchers completed more straightforwardly. For example, after mentioning the N-terminus di-serine motif for binding, the researchers provided a cluster of figures that they recorded to demonstrate what they exactly examined. For example, in their results, the researchers identified that if the di-serine motif is closer to the N-terminus of the peptide it will make it easier for the antibody to bind. The researchers provided a corresponding graph, figure 1D, to show that the di-serine binding would decrease as the distance from the N-terminus increases. Having the information displayed graphically makes the information easier to understand. Furthermore, the graph displays values to the information, allowing the readers to compare the values for themselves; the audience can view how much more likely the binding would be with distance changes. Showing the results visually, effectively supports the writing of the scientific paper and communicates to the reader what occurs, allowing the reader to better understand the experiment. This makes the paper more digestible to the reader and thus, achieves the goal of making the paper easier to grasp. Another example would be Figure 1A – the researchers provided a visual representation of how the microarray was to be used. This allows the readers to imagine and understand the process that the researchers utilized to perform their research. This takes a complicated topic and makes it easier to understand because it takes the readers through the steps of how the microarray is used and the exact steps of what occurs during the experiment. The figures help the researchers accomplish their goal by supplementing the reader’s understanding alongside the paper. Without these figures, the readers may be lost in the researcher’s description. 

By breaking down the abstract into the different sections of the paper, the researchers extract the most important or noteworthy parts of each section and make it easier for the readers to understand. For example, the background section of the abstract is succinctly broken down into the most essential parts. The background section is simplified into what we do know and what the paper will attempt to solve: “ immune system undergoes a myriad of changes with age… it remains unclear how the binding… antibody repertoire is impacted.” This allows the reader to understand the objective of the background section before reading the actual background section. The background section will eventually elaborate upon the ideas introduced in the abstract through the usage of other scientific research articles. This would only supplement their knowledge as well as the readers but by breaking down the main ideas in the abstract the information is more readily understood. This is further reinforced by their brief synopsis of the results; although the results will later be broken down into parts, the researchers selected the most important parts of their experiment so that the readers have a better understanding of the findings. The researchers will elaborate later in the paper but by breaking it down in the abstract, the audience will have some prior understanding before a more in-depth explanation. Having the main idea of the results section with less complex language, the readers can better understand the main concepts of the results without being bogged down by the technicality in the results section. In addition to the simplified information and usage of layman terms in the abstract, the researchers also created a keywords section for the readers so that the readers can look up and find the definition of words that may be tricky. These words are essential to the rest of the article so the readers must understand the meaning of these words. Furthermore, the readers may look up more information on the key terms before reading the rest of the article. Having the background information of these key terms in mind would help the readers to understand their interaction throughout the rest of the research paper. By simplifying the article by section in the abstract, the researchers enable the readers to have a better understanding of the article before getting into the rest of the article. 

In conclusion, Age-associated changes in the circulating human antibody repertoire are upregulated in autoimmunity by Aaron Arvey, Michael Rowe and others compose a comprehensive scientific paper while taking steps to effectively make it more accessible to their audience. The researchers utilized a chronological development and introduction of their findings, descript figures to help visualize data, and fragmentation of the abstract into different parts to make the information more clear to their audience. Without the tactful employment of each of these aspects, the scientific article would be very unclear and confusing to the audience.

References

Arvey, A., Rowe, M., Legutki, J. B., An, G., Gollapudi, A., Lei, A., . . . Ramamoorthy, P. (2020). Age-associated changes in the circulating human antibody repertoire are upregulated in autoimmunity. Immunity & Ageing, 17(1). doi:10.1186/s12979-020-00193-x

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