Twitter has emerged as a key tool for scientists — and for the journals in which they publish their findings — to share new research with the world.

MORE FROM THE LAB: Subscribe to our weekly newsletter

A new study shows a way for that research to reach even more people, spreading new ideas and findings further.

The means: a Twitter-friendly graphic called a visual abstract, which can nearly triple the number of people who click the link in the tweet to read a full paper, the new study shows.

The results are published in the Annals of Surgery, a journal that began creating visual abstracts for selected research papers last July. More than 20 journals across medicine, basic science and social science have started doing the same in recent months, spurred by the rapid success of the Annals effort.

With this paper, the University of Michigan surgery resident who pioneered Annals’ use of visual abstracts — and coined the phrase — wanted to document the specific impact of the approach.

Working with colleagues who also serve on the journal’s editorial board, Andrew Ibrahim, M.D., designed a study to measure the effect of the visual abstract in its first months.