Research communication benefits researchers too
I spend a lot of time encouraging and supporting researchers to make their research accessible, interesting, and useful for non-researchers. After all, one of the purposes of research is to change how we understand and treat ourselves, each other, and the world around us. If the only means of achieving those changes is through reading a journal article or listening to a conference talk, the number of people who experience them will remain absolutely tiny.
And then I learned about this piece of meta-research* which indicates that journal article abstracts - you know, the research outputs which are intended to be accessible and interesting for other researchers so that they can decide whether they'd like to read the whole thing - have been getting harder and harder to read over the last 60 years.
If you take only one thing away from this post, make it this: writing about research for your fellow researchers is also research communication.
I know you're exhausted. I know you're just trying to get the paper out there. I know you've got a ridiculously tiny word count to work with. I know you're worried that if you don't write something that sounds like all the other abstracts you've read you won't come across as an expert. But writing an abstract full of jargon and acronyms and grammatically impenetrable sentences does not help anyone, including you, the person who wants other people to read and use the findings you're so excited about.
*research about research (thank you to Prof Emily Sena for introducing me to this term!)
If you need some help with writing well about research, that's one of the things I specialise in. I regularly run online Practical Research Communications Skills workshops, or if you want 1:1 support you can book a research communications clinic with me.