How to write a paper?

[Med4ever]

This may seem like a stupid question but I think a good one for people starting from basics. I am charged with writing a paper, yet I never have. How do you write one, are there some good websites that can describe the format and appropriate style?

Thanks

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[MJM - Editor]

This may seem like a stupid question but I think a good one for people starting from basics. I am charged with writing a paper, yet I never have. How do you write one, are there some good websites that can describe the format and appropriate style?

Thanks

Definitely not a stupid question!
Many people find themselves in the same position. Professors all too often assume that all students have "paper-writing" experience, when the modern reality is that med students come from any number of varied undergrad majors, and some (although few) even come directly from high school.

Now, before we attempt to answer the question of how to write a paper, we should probably establish what type of paper it is that you are writing.

Is it a review? A commentary? A critical analysis? A case report? etc...

Perhaps, if there's demand, this could spread into a number of different replies and/or threads for different types of papers/articles.

 

[Med4ever]

Its a paper where we ran an experiment and are reporting the results, I dont know the fancy name for it. I am sooo useless.

Definitely not a stupid question!
Many people find themselves in the same position. Professors all too often assume that all students have "paper-writing" experience, when the modern reality is that med students come from any number of varied undergrad majors, and some (although few) even come directly from high school.

Now, before we attempt to answer the question of how to write a paper, we should probably establish what type of paper it is that you are writing.

Is it a review? A commentary? A critical analysis? A case report? etc...

Perhaps, if there's demand, this could spread into a number of different replies and/or threads for different types of papers/articles.

 

[Adcadet]

To help with figuring out the type of study you ran, I found a few resources. I think this site gives a nice overview. For more information on study designs, you can consult this Emedicine article or this section from the Center for Center for Evidence-Based Medicine.

From what you've said so far, it seems like what you did falls under the experiement category. If you give us more info we can (hopefully) point you in the right direction.

 

[Adcadet]

What format does your mentor/professor/adviser/whoever want the paper in? I took an immunology course where our specifications was the manuscript guidelines in the journal Immunology). Even if your adviser didn't specify, he/she probably has an idea in mind. You can always find the journal that most closely matches up with what you're doing and seeing if you can track down it's instructions for authors. For example, here is JAMA's current instructions for authors.

 

[Faizankhan]

I want to carry out a research project on knowledge of internal medicine residents regarding hepatitis C screening and initial management. What should be the lay out of introduction, methods, results and discussions? How should I start writing the manuscript??

 

[Jacq]

Oooh, can I join this convo too?

I am currently doing my prereqs to apply to med school next year. Last week I had a meeting with a very well known doctor in the field I am interested in. The meeting went very well and he has suggested I do a clinical research project that ill hopefully yield a paper or two by the time I apply next year. He gave me a topic, and I have been researching, but this is my first time doing this so I am clueless as to what to do. I tried getting info from journals, but all of the good info costs money for the full papers (my school doesnt have subscriptions to these journals). So I guess my questions are: where do I begin? how do I gain access to info as a student? Is there a standard format I should be following?

Thanks in advance

 

[ninetynine]

I'm so glad I found this thread! I'm in the exact same place! I'm also writing my first manuscript. I started out by asking a dude in my lab (someone approachable, not your PI for example, someone you relate easily to) how he writes his papers. So he opened up a manuscript he wrote and went step by step through it describing how to do it. There are also great books on the subject. I still feel at a loss though, since I'm just starting out writing my first manuscript... also I'm hoping to read more papers from the journal I will submit to and kind of "absorb" their style and usage, etc. Also, Endnote is a lifesaver. What tips are you guys finding useful?

 

[bkdaniels]

Here is a link to the Colorado State University writing website. It gives you easy to understand guidelines for science writing. Here is a link to The Journal of Young Investigators' website that gives more details. Its a PDF file. Nevertheless, basically, anytime you are writing a scientific paper, you want to use the format given here.

Your audience will most likely be people who are already in the profession and these people are used to reading medical literature all the times. Because they are already adjusted to a certain format, you not not want to try to reinvent the wheel.

For example, once they see the article, they may look at the Title. If the Title is of their interest, they may continue to read the Abstract. Once they read the abstract they will go directly to the conclusion - to view what the results are. They may not go into detail until later. So, whatever you do identify your audience, first. The remainder of the paper will fall in place.

In scientific papers, you do not have to worry about explaining anything but procedures. Definitions only if they are unfamiliar to you audience. You do not want to write the word DNA and write "where all cell's information is kept" to reader who all have PhD's. To them it will be offensive. So, just concentrate on giving you summary, the method of how you come to this conclusion, and the results.

 

[RxnMan]

Just to add to the good discussion already started here, there's a good bit about how papers get written and published in this forum's FAQ (link in my sig and at the top of the forum page).