Two of the best-known journals in psychology and multidisciplinary science each require a short, specifically named statement alongside a manuscript’s abstract: PNAS’s Significance Statement and the American Psychological Association’s Public Significance Statement. They sound similar and both push authors toward plain language, but they are separate, differently governed editorial requirements — different word counts, different audiences, different reviewers, and different roles in the manuscript. Confusing them, or drafting one and assuming it satisfies the other, is a real risk for authors who publish across both venues (for example, a psychology researcher submitting a multidisciplinary paper to PNAS after a career of writing APA-journal abstracts).
This guide compares the two requirements directly, field by field, and offers writing conventions for each. It is deliberately narrow: for the broader skill of writing in plain language for lay and mixed audiences generally, see CASRAI’s Plain-Language Summaries for Research Papers guide and the Plain Language Summary (PLS) dictionary entry, which cover the wider practice this pair of specific journal fields sits inside.
Quick comparison
| Field | PNAS Significance Statement | APA Public Significance Statement |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 50–120 words (one paragraph) | 1–3 sentences, roughly 30–70 words |
| Intended reader | An educated scientist outside the paper’s own specialty — broad scientific audience, not necessarily the general public | A member of the general public with no scientific or psychological training |
| Who uses it in review | PNAS editorial board members and reviewers, including those outside the paper’s subfield, as part of assessing the paper’s broad significance | Not a distinct review criterion in the same way; it is an author-supplied public-facing supplement to the abstract |
| Where it appears | Published with the article, set apart from the abstract | Appended to the end of the abstract, online and in print |
| Required for which submissions | PNAS research articles (the journal’s main research-report track) | Varies by journal — each APA journal’s editor chooses whether to require a public significance statement, a translational abstract, or neither |
| Primary purpose | Justify the paper’s broad scientific importance to a scientifically literate but non-specialist reader, partly as an evaluative tool for editors | Communicate, in plain language, what the study found and why it matters to non-specialists |
The PNAS Significance Statement
PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) requires research articles to include a Significance Statement of between 50 and 120 words. PNAS’s own author instructions describe the intended reader as an undergraduate-educated scientist outside the paper’s specific field — not a lay member of the public, but a scientifically literate generalist who could, for instance, be a chemist reading a Significance Statement for a neuroscience paper. The statement is written and submitted separately from the paper’s regular abstract and is printed alongside the article rather than folded into it.
Because PNAS is a multidisciplinary journal publishing across the physical, biological, and social sciences, the Significance Statement also functions as an evaluative tool: editorial board members and reviewers who are not specialists in a submission’s specific subfield use it to judge whether the work clears the bar of broad importance that PNAS looks for, alongside the more technical review of the paper itself. A Significance Statement that reads as narrowly technical, or that simply restates the abstract’s methods and results without explaining why the finding matters beyond the immediate subfield, tends to be flagged in review.
Writing conventions for a PNAS Significance Statement
- Stay inside 50–120 words. This is a hard submission requirement, not a suggestion; check the current word count against PNAS’s author instructions before submission, since journal-specific limits are occasionally revised.
- Write for a scientist outside the field, not a specialist and not a member of the general public. Technical terms specific to the subfield should be defined or avoided; broader scientific vocabulary (statistics, common biology/chemistry/physics terms) can generally be assumed.
- Lead with why the work matters, not what was done. The methods and results belong in the abstract; the Significance Statement’s job is the ‘so what’ — the broader scientific or societal problem the finding bears on.
- Avoid citations, abbreviations defined nowhere else, and equations. The statement should be readable on its own, without cross-referencing the rest of the paper.
- Draft it last, not first. Because its job is to explain broader significance rather than summarize content, it is easier to write accurately once the paper’s findings and framing are finalized.
The APA Public Significance Statement
The American Psychological Association introduced the public significance statement as an optional tool that individual APA journals can adopt; the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology was the first to require one. Where a journal requires it, APA guidance specifies a statement of roughly 30 to 70 words, written as one to three sentences, appended to the end of the abstract both online and in print. The intended reader is explicitly the general public — not a scientist in an adjacent field, as with PNAS, but someone with no background in psychology or research methods at all.
APA guidance frames the statement around two questions the author should answer: what did the study find, and why do those findings matter to the people the statement addresses. Jargon and acronyms are to be avoided, or defined in plain terms if unavoidable. APA journal editors can instead choose to require a translational abstract — a longer (roughly 150–250 word) structured summary following the abstract’s introduction/method/results/discussion pattern — but a journal typically asks for one tool or the other, not both, for a given submission.
Writing conventions for an APA Public Significance Statement
- Keep it to 1–3 sentences, roughly 30–70 words. This is markedly shorter than the PNAS Significance Statement and leaves little room for hedged or qualified language.
- Write for someone entirely outside psychology and research methodology. Assume no familiarity with statistics, study design terms (e.g., ‘randomized,’ ‘effect size’), or clinical/psychological terminology.
- Answer two questions only: what was found, and why it matters to the reader. Do not summarize methods or sample characteristics — there is no room, and it is not the statement’s job.
- Define or cut any acronym. A term familiar within psychology (for example a specific therapy’s abbreviation) will not be recognizable to a general reader.
- Check whether your target journal requires this or a translational abstract instead. The two are not interchangeable formats for the same underlying content — confirm which one the journal’s instructions for authors actually ask for before drafting either.
Why the difference matters in practice
The two statements are easy to conflate because both sit under the umbrella of making research accessible beyond a narrow specialist audience, and both are frequently discussed alongside the broader practice of plain-language science communication (see CASRAI’s Plain-Language Summaries for Research Papers guide for that wider context). But an author who reuses one statement as the other without rewriting it typically produces a poor fit in both directions:
- A PNAS Significance Statement dropped into an APA submission will usually run too long for the 30–70 word APA limit and will likely still assume more scientific background than a true general-public reader has.
- An APA Public Significance Statement submitted as a PNAS Significance Statement will usually fall short of PNAS’s 50-word minimum and may read as too simplified for PNAS’s ‘educated scientist outside the field’ target reader, potentially undercutting the paper in editorial evaluation.
The safest approach for authors publishing across both venues is to treat each as a distinct, from-scratch drafting task governed by that journal’s own current instructions for authors — word limits for both statements have been known to be revised, so the specific numbers should always be checked against the live PNAS and APA author guidance rather than assumed from a previous submission.
Frequently asked questions
Is the PNAS Significance Statement peer reviewed?
Yes — it is submitted with the manuscript and is part of what editorial board members and reviewers assess, specifically as evidence of the paper’s broad importance to readers outside its own subfield, alongside the technical review of the paper’s methods and results.
Does every APA journal require a Public Significance Statement?
No. It is adopted journal by journal at each APA journal editor’s discretion, and a journal that wants a plain-language supplement may choose either the shorter public significance statement or the longer translational abstract rather than both. Authors should confirm which, if either, their target journal currently requires in its instructions for authors.
Can I write one statement and adapt it for both requirements?
Treat them as separate drafts rather than one adapted into the other. The word counts differ by roughly a factor of two at the top end, and more importantly the target reader differs: PNAS’s audience is a scientifically literate non-specialist, while APA’s is explicitly the general public with no assumed scientific background. A statement calibrated for one audience will typically misjudge the other.
What is the difference between the APA Public Significance Statement and a translational abstract?
Both are APA tools for reaching non-specialist readers, but the public significance statement is a short, 1–3 sentence supplement appended after the abstract, while the translational abstract is a longer (roughly 150–250 word) structured summary that follows the abstract’s introduction/method/results/discussion pattern. A journal generally requires one or the other, not both.
Where do these statements appear once the paper is published?
The PNAS Significance Statement is published with the article as a distinct element separate from the abstract. The APA Public Significance Statement is appended to the end of the abstract itself, both in the online listing and the print version.
