Popular Summary: Physical Review X requires authors to submit a nontechnical summary that conveys the context, the essential message(s), and the significance of the work to all readers. The summary should be concise (approximately 250 words), readable, objective, and have broad appeal. Please avoid including mathematical expressions.

When writing the Popular Summary, imagine how you would explain your work to a junior physics undergrad: someone familiar with physics fundamentals but likely unfamiliar with your area of research. Step back from the details (expert readers can always read the paper) and focus more on the essence of your work. Depending on the paper, that essence may be a new paradigm, the discovery of some phenomenon, a new technical milestone, or a new methodological capability. The tone can be casual and conversational. Be careful with jargon—avoid it if possible, but if a technical word or phrase is essential, please make a conscious effort to explain it using plain language.

We recommend a three-paragraph structure. The first paragraph provides the “big picture” context and tells the reader why your investigation is worth doing. The reader should come away knowing what problem you’re trying to solve and the main point of what you found. Keep the wording concise—don’t make the reader wade through lots of background before revealing the central point of the paper. Think of this paragraph as a summary within a summary—a reader could read just this paragraph and have a sense of what you did and why it’s useful.

The second paragraph fleshes out the most essential details. This is a good place to add extra background and context and to tell the reader how you went about your work and, when appropriate, the new qualitative physical insights you gained from the detailed results. But stay focused on the essentials: The reader doesn’t need to know everything you did, just a “taste” of how you arrived at your results and what your results teach all readers.

The third paragraph provides the reader with an outlook to the future. In just a sentence or two, tell the reader where you see this research going or what a logical next step might be.

Submit the popular summary when you first submit the manuscript to minimize any processing delay, although it is acceptable to submit it at a later stage.