1. The Essentials of Writing Scientific Papers

2. Original research paper Review article Case report Letter to editor
Articles intended For Peer Reviewed Journals
Original research paper
Review article
Case report
Letter to editor

3. 1. Original research paper

4. Planning original research
Formulate a clear research question
Obtain statistical advice
Suitable study design
Ethical Issues
No prejudiced opinions
Publish negative results
Principal investigator
Other authors and contributors

5. Declaration of Helsinki Publication ethics
Ethical Issues
Declaration of Helsinki
Publication ethics
Informed consent form patients
Inform the patient of :
a. deviation from usual practice
b. Any possible inconvenience imposed
c. Potential risks to participants/patients
d. Potential benefits to participants/patients

6. Patients’ confidentiality
Remove all identifiers:
age, sex, location
clinical details, test results
unusual personal story or context
Photographs

7. Requirements when writing research manuscripts
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals
reporting guidelines for research, at the EQUATOR
network resource centre

8. Writing : concise and precise
Keep it simple:
Use short sentences
Use familiar words
Avoid jargon and acronyms
Be precise/specific
Be unbiased, not equivocal
Think about what you want to write. Then write just that.

9. Frequency editors encounter problems
85%
80%
60%
49%
46%
40%
30%
Poorly written, excessive jargon
Inadequate/inappropriate presentation
Poor description of design
Excessive zeal and self promotion
Rationale confused, contradictory
Essential data omitted, ignored
Boring
Important work of others ignored
% are indicative only.

10. Who should be titled as an Author?
Authorship accreditation:
To qualify as an author on a paper, the following criteria must be met.
A substantial contribution to conception and design of the study
Involved in data analysis and interpretation
Planning and preparing the article
Critical reviewing the article [not correcting English language]
Approving the of the manuscript for publication
Solely acquiring funding or collecting data does not justify authorship 
No one who fulfils the criteria should be excluded

11. Who should be titled as an Author?
Contributors who took part in planning, conducting, and reporting the work, including professional medical writers
Guarantors (one or more) who accept full responsibility for the work and/or the conduct of the study, had access to the data, and controlled the decision to publish
The precise nature of each contribution must be decided by the “team” and preferably before commencing the study

12. Who did what?
Helen C Eborall, post-doctoral research fellow1, Simon J Griffin,
programme leader2, A Toby Prevost, medical statistician1, Ann-Louise
Kinmonth, professor of general practice1, David P French, reader in
health behaviour interventions3, Stephen Sutton, professor of
Behavioural science1
Contributors: SS, DPF, ATP, A-LK, and SJG conceived and designed the original
protocol. All authors were involved in amending the protocol. HCE coordinated the
study throughout. Data entry was carried out by Wyman Dillon Ltd, Lewis Moore,
and HCE. HCE cleaned the data and ran preliminary analysis with input from Tom
Fanshawe. ATP analysed the data. ADDITION trial data were supplied by Lincoln
Sargeant and Kate Williams. HCE wrote the first draft of the manuscript with ATP
and SS. All authors contributed to subsequent and final drafts. HCE is guarantor of
the paper.

13. Make a declaration of any competing interest.
Competing interests
Any attribute of an author which affects his/her judgement and or conviction
Especially if this may not be obvious to editors/readers
Be aware of possible competing interests, especially if these could cause embarrassment to co-authors.
Make a declaration of any competing interest.

14. Misconduct
Fabrication: making up data or results and recording or reporting them Falsification: manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record Plagiarism: the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit

15. Plagiarism
US Office of Research Integrity
The Council of Science Editors defines plagiarism as "a form of piracy that involves the use of text or other items (figures, images, tables) without permission or acknowledgment of the source of these materials."

16. Getting approval of editors and peer reviewers
A clear and precise message in the Title, Abstract and Aims
Courteously & promptly answer all letters from Editors, with precision.

17. Avoid poor research questions
A “so what” question that no one cares about.
1. Sifting through routine clinical data and devising a question
the records may be biased and confounded
they may lack the information needed to answer the question reliably, because they were collected for another reason
2. Study scouring – gathering lots of information and hoping a question will emerge
statistical analysis of many outcomes post-hoc may yield false positives (type I errors) or false negatives owing to lack of power (type II errors)

18. Not transparent (sponsors’ roles, competing interests)
Biased studies
Not transparent (sponsors’ roles, competing interests)
Compares intervention with one known to be inferior
with ineffective dose of competitor intervention
with so much of competitor intervention that ADRs likely
Uses multiple endpoints and reports selectively
Reports results only from favourable centres
Reports only favourable subgroup analyses
Presents only most impressive results — eg reduction in
relative rather than absolute risk

19. Biased studies
2006 BMJ paper found that industry supported systematic reviews were of lower quality than Cochrane reviews of the same drugs, were less transparently reported, had fewer reservations about methodological limitations, and always recommended the sponsor’s drug without reservations
2007 BMJ paper found that sponsored meta-analyses on antihypertensive drugs were not associated with favourable results but had overgenerous conclusions

20. 2. A Review article

21. Describe sources of information and methods of selection
A Review article
Describe sources of information and methods of selection
Ideally, cite Cochrane and other systematic reviews
Clarify type and strength of evidence for key statements
"A large well conducted randomised conducted trial finds..."
"The findings of a small case series suggest..."
Declare provenance, funding, and competing interests

22. Reviews commissioned by manufacturers
Primary research
articles create influence
peer review approves the science
journal brand endorses the message
better than drug reps
Secondary articles
spread influence
more likely to be read than research
especially if KOL authors
can alter policy

23. Questions asked by Editors
BMJ asks three questions
of authors submitting
or offering unsolicited
reviews and editorials
on commercial topics
Has anyone prompted or paid you to write this article?
Would/did a professional writer contribute to the article? To what extent?
Would the BMJ article be original, or would it be similar to articles submitted or published elsewhere?

24. If you have been, thanks for listening