How to write an original research article?

[Airul]

Hey everyone,

I took on MJM-editor's advice from the previous thread "How to write a paper?" and started up this new thread.

Med4ever, it sounds like you need to write an original research article since you will be reporting the results of your experiment. These types of articles are usually separated into 4 broad sections:

1) Introduction - where you lay out the background of the topic of your research and explain what hypothesis your experiments aim at verifying and why it is important.

2) Methods - where you describe in detail the type of experiments you performed (e.g. what kind of assay, which solutions, how many ML's, how many mice, etc), so that anyone reading your paper will be able to replicate your experiments.

3) Results - this is where you describe the results of your experiments along with the tables, figures, statistical analyses.

4) Discussion - where you interpret the results of your experiments, i.e. what exactly do they mean, do they support or refute the hypothesis, do they generate any new, interesting hypotheses that could be tested in the future?

To get a feel of what a good original article should look like, you can always randomly pick one out from the NEJM or the Lancet, or any other journals of the sort with crazy impact factors...

Hope this helped! And if anyone else has things to add, please do! I personally find writing original articles extremely challenging, and I know I still have lots of learn, so I would love to hear other people's take on this topic. Also, does anyone know of any good articles that specifically tackles the subject of how to write a good original paper? I came across one in Cell Biology not long ago, but I can't find it anymore...

Airul

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[Med4ever]

Awesome. I just needed somewhere to start really. As I work on it I am sure to generate more specific questions. Research rules.

Hey everyone,

I took on MJM-editor's advice from the previous thread "How to write a paper?" and started up this new thread.

Med4ever, it sounds like you need to write an original research article since you will be reporting the results of your experiment. These types of articles are usually separated into 4 broad sections:

1) Introduction - where you lay out the background of the topic of your research and explain what hypothesis your experiments aim at verifying and why it is important.

2) Methods - where you describe in detail the type of experiments you performed (e.g. what kind of assay, which solutions, how many ML's, how many mice, etc), so that anyone reading your paper will be able to replicate your experiments.

3) Results - this is where you describe the results of your experiments along with the tables, figures, statistical analyses.

4) Discussion - where you interpret the results of your experiments, i.e. what exactly do they mean, do they support or refute the hypothesis, do they generate any new, interesting hypotheses that could be tested in the future?

To get a feel of what a good original article should look like, you can always randomly pick one out from the NEJM or the Lancet, or any other journals of the sort with crazy impact factors...

Hope this helped! And if anyone else has things to add, please do! I personally find writing original articles extremely challenging, and I know I still have lots of learn, so I would love to hear other people's take on this topic. Also, does anyone know of any good articles that specifically tackles the subject of how to write a good original paper? I came across one in Cell Biology not long ago, but I can't find it anymore...

Airul

 

[whispers]

Also if you have a journal in mind see what their guideline submissions are like.
Do you have an article you read that you really like? If so you can use that as an outline. It doesn't have to be in the area you are working in.

 

[fantasty]

I do clinical research, and I follow the above guidelines the same way (both for the structure, and by checking out journals that are consistent with the research we're doing).

But as for a starting place, I usually start with methods. It has the most structure so it's not as overwhelming. Plus, if you did most / all the work, you are probably the most comfortable with that section. A lot of it is just describing what you did.

The results are next for me. And, I usually start with the tables & figures, and then figure out what to say in the text to support the findings.

If you worked on a proposal prior to doing the project, you may be able to use a lot of that in the introduction. Depending on the journal, the intros may have a structure apparent. For my work, I almost always start with the significance / importance for the first paragraph. In the 2nd (and 3rd, if needed), I talk about the new hypothesis being testing and what the supporting research suggests (either biological or clinical research, depending on what has been previous done). Then, the final paragraph drives home why this study is important and new and will change medicine as we know it, and leads into the methods.

I HATE writing discussions (probably because I'm to stupid to). They tend to have a structure, too, but I'm not good at maintaining it. Generally, they start with re-iterating the main findings and the interpretation of how this fits with your hypothesis. Then, they contextualize it with the other known research. My mentor insists that the 2nd to last paragraph be the limitations of the current study, and the last be the future directions / implications.

 

[Airul]

Hey Dante,

I think the advice you gave are very pertinent and useful. I also always start with methods and results and then tackle intro and conclusion.

I agree with you. Conclusions are extremely hard to write, especially when you start working in a new field, which happens quite often for medical students who usually devote only a summer to a certain research topic.


What area of research do you work on?

I do clinical research, and I follow the above guidelines the same way (both for the structure, and by checking out journals that are consistent with the research we're doing).

But as for a starting place, I usually start with methods. It has the most structure so it's not as overwhelming. Plus, if you did most / all the work, you are probably the most comfortable with that section. A lot of it is just describing what you did.

The results are next for me. And, I usually start with the tables & figures, and then figure out what to say in the text to support the findings.

If you worked on a proposal prior to doing the project, you may be able to use a lot of that in the introduction. Depending on the journal, the intros may have a structure apparent. For my work, I almost always start with the significance / importance for the first paragraph. In the 2nd (and 3rd, if needed), I talk about the new hypothesis being testing and what the supporting research suggests (either biological or clinical research, depending on what has been previous done). Then, the final paragraph drives home why this study is important and new and will change medicine as we know it, and leads into the methods.

I HATE writing discussions (probably because I'm to stupid to). They tend to have a structure, too, but I'm not good at maintaining it. Generally, they start with re-iterating the main findings and the interpretation of how this fits with your hypothesis. Then, they contextualize it with the other known research. My mentor insists that the 2nd to last paragraph be the limitations of the current study, and the last be the future directions / implications.

 

[fantasty]

Hey Dante,

I think the advice you gave are very pertinent and useful. I also always start with methods and results and then tackle intro and conclusion.

I agree with you. Conclusions are extremely hard to write, especially when you start working in a new field, which happens quite often for medical students who usually devote only a summer to a certain research topic.


What area of research do you work on?

I work on a variety stuff - I'd call all of it clinical epidemiology, though. I'm in an md/phd program, and my dissertation will be on a pharmacoepidemiology project (I'm having troubles with that right now, though). I've done a couple of projects as secondary analysis from clinical trials looking at new outcomes (in hormone replacement trials). I'm also trying to do a small pilot study on a nutritional biomarker, and the rest is just descriptive epi on factors related to health status among the aging (stuff like functional limitations, pain syndromes, medication use).

 

[nev]

Hey everyone,

I took on MJM-editor's advice from the previous thread "How to write a paper?" and started up this new thread.

Med4ever, it sounds like you need to write an original research article since you will be reporting the results of your experiment. These types of articles are usually separated into 4 broad sections:

1) Introduction - where you lay out the background of the topic of your research and explain what hypothesis your experiments aim at verifying and why it is important.

2) Methods - where you describe in detail the type of experiments you performed (e.g. what kind of assay, which solutions, how many ML's, how many mice, etc), so that anyone reading your paper will be able to replicate your experiments.

3) Results - this is where you describe the results of your experiments along with the tables, figures, statistical analyses.

4) Discussion - where you interpret the results of your experiments, i.e. what exactly do they mean, do they support or refute the hypothesis, do they generate any new, interesting hypotheses that could be tested in the future?

To get a feel of what a good original article should look like, you can always randomly pick one out from the NEJM or the Lancet, or any other journals of the sort with crazy impact factors...

Hope this helped! And if anyone else has things to add, please do! I personally find writing original articles extremely challenging, and I know I still have lots of learn, so I would love to hear other people's take on this topic. Also, does anyone know of any good articles that specifically tackles the subject of how to write a good original paper? I came across one in Cell Biology not long ago, but I can't find it anymore...

Airul

Thanks Airul