This article gives an overview of the biomedical literature on spin. Spin is defined as: “a specific intentional or unintentional reporting that fails to faithfully reflect the nature and range of findings and that could affect the impression the results produce in readers”. The overview is well structured and starts with different practices of spin: misreporting of the methods, misreporting results, misinterpretation, and other forms of spin. Then they show the prevalence of some form of spin, the possible impact of spin, and reasons why researchers add spin.

The article ends with several recommendations to reduce spin. Some of these recommendations are rather broad like the recommendation to change the perception of spin from “commonly accepted practice” to “seriously detrimental research practice”, and the recommendation to change the rewarding system of science. Others are more concrete, such as the recommendation to require and enforce protocol registration, and the recommendation to develop and expand reporting guidelines.

While this study gives an overview of the biomedical literature, the distinction between various forms of spin and reasons to add spin are likely generalizable to other experimental sciences as well.