Research Writing

Peter Heywood
School of Public Health
University of Sydney

Faculty of Public Health

University of Indonesia
Nature of science
• Nature of science
• Why write
• Who writes
• Writing in science
• Why publish
• Choosing a journal

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Types of scientific writing
Original article A new piece of knowledge you can
claim to have done
Case report Single event that could lead to new
knowledge
Review article Knowledge others have laid claim to
(including yourself) – e.g. Cochrane
Syntheses Cross-disciplinary – often large
groups – broad policy implications
Editorial What I think of the knowledge others
have laid claim to
Letter What I think of a knowledge claim in
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your journal
Some dates in the evolution of scientific publishing (1)

1665 First scientific journals in France and UK

1820s First specialist journals
1870s References began to be collected at end of
article
1920s First summaries appeared at end of articles
1930s First papers on use of statistics
1950s Widespread use of IMRAD format
1960s Summaries at end to abstracts at beginning
1970s Databases introduced
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Some dates in the evolution of scientific publishing (2)

1980s First international conference on peer

review
1990s Introduction of electronic journals and
electronic submission
2000s Growing concern about publication
ethics, open access

5
What is a scientific paper
• The first publication of original research results
• Peers of the author can repeat the experiment and test the
conclusions – generally taken to mean pre-publication peer review
• In a document form
• Readily available to the scientific community and beyond
• Peer review - evaluation of work by one or more people of similar
competence to the producers of the work (peers). It constitutes a
form of self-regulation by qualified members of the relevant field. A
way to maintain standards of quality, improve performance, and
credibility (Wikipedia)

6
Identifying a Target Journal
• Decide early (before drafting the paper). Do not write the paper and
then look for a journal.
• Look for journals that have published work similar to yours.
• Consider journals that have published work you cite.

• Instructions to authors

7
Some Questions the Instructions May Answer
• categories of article the journal publish?
• maximum length of articles?
• length of abstracts?
• template? Where?
• structure? guidelines?

8
Doing the Writing
• If this is a serious part of your life, give it serious time

• Schedule specific times to write.

• Start with whatever part you find easiest.

• Don’t interrupt your writing to search for small details.

• often in writing there is no “one right way” but rather a series of problems
with more than one solution.
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The IMRAD Format
for Scientific Papers

• Introduction: What was the question? Why is it important?

Context?
• Methods: How did you try to answer it?
• Results: What did you find?
• And
• Discussion: What does it mean?

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Methods: Basic Information
to Include
• In most cases, overview of study design
• Identification of (if applicable)
• Equipment, reagents, etc used (and sources thereof)
• Ethical approval
• Sampling
• Statistical methods

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The Results Section
• The core of the paper
• Often includes tables, figures, or both
• summarize findings rather than providing data in great detail
• present results but not comment on them
• Use of Supplementary files
• Do the results as presented tell your story?
• Read other papers in the journal

12
Mentioning Tables and Figures:
Some Writing Advice
• In citing tables and figures, emphasize the finding, not the table or
figure.
• Not so good: Table 3 shows that researchers who took the course published
twice as many papers per year.
• Better: Researchers who took the course published twice as many papers per
year (Table 3).

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Results: A Suggestion
• Look at the Results sections of some papers in your target journal.
• Notice items such as the following:
• Length
• Organization
• Inclusion of subheads (or not)
• Number of tables and figures
• Use these Results sections as models.

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Tables: A Few Suggestions
• Use tables sparingly, strategically.
• Design tables to be understandable without the text.
• If a paper includes a series of tables, use the same format for each.
• Be sure to follow the instructions to authors.

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Figures: A Few Suggestions
• Help tell the story
• Avoid too much information in one figure.
• Make sure any lettering will be large enough once published.
• Follow the journal’s instructions.

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A General Suggestion
• Look at tables and figures in journal articles presenting research
similar to yours
• In your target journal
• In other good journals
• Use these tables and figures that you find helpful as models when
designing your own tables and figures.

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Discussion
• Choices of what to say, how to say it
• Brief summary of the main findings
• Answer the question(s) stated in the introduction
• Relationship to previous work
• Implications for future work
• Conclusions
• Strengths
• limitations

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Purposes of the Introduction
• Write it now, or revise what have already written
• To provide background
• In order to help readers understand the paper
• In order to help readers appreciate the importance of the research
• To identify the question(s) the research addressed
• Sometimes stated as a hypothesis or hypotheses

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Revising Your Work
• Note: Good writing is largely a matter of good revising.
• First revise your writing yourself. Then get feedback from others and
revise more.
• Consider having an editor help you.
• Avoid the temptation to keep revising your writing forever.

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Peer Review
• Evaluation by experts in the field
• Purposes:
• To help the editor decide whether to publish the paper
• To help the authors improve the paper, whether or not the journal accepts it

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The Editor’s Decision
• Based on the peer reviewers’ advice, the editor’s own evaluation, the
amount of space in the journal, other factors
• Options:
• Accept as is (rare)
• Accept if suitably revised
• Reconsider if revised
• Reject

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Revising a Paper
• Revise and resubmit promptly.
• Indicate what revisions were made.
• Include a letter saying what revisions were made. If you received a list of
requested revisions, address each in the letter.
• If requested, show revisions in Track Changes.
• If you disagree with a requested revision, explain why in your letter.
Try to find a different way to solve the problem that the editor or
reviewer identified.

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The Essentials
• The essentials are content, organization, and clarity.
• If a paper has excellent content, is well organized, and is clear, it is
likely to be accepted even if the English is so-so.
• If a paper has poor content, is badly organized, or is unclear, it is likely
to be rejected even if the English is excellent.

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Systematic reviews

• Cochrane reviews
• Archie Cochrane
• Specific questions in health sector
• International NGO
• Based in UK, groups in many countries
• Specific process and formats
• Widely used by international and national agencies
• https://consumers.cochrane.org/what-systematic-
review
• Others outside Cochrane network
Syntheses

• Recent approach
• 4 principles
• Inclusive
• Rigorous
• Transparent
• Accessible
• Usually more complex questions
• Teams
• Policy oriented
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Recent articles on syntheses

• Donnelly et al – Four principles to make evidence

synthesis more useful for policy. Nature (2018) 558, 361-
364.
• Sutherland and Wordley – A fresh approach to evidence
synthesis. Nature (2018) 558, 364-366.
Software to aid writing
• Doesn’t do the writing
• Helps assess where some
of the problems are, may
suggest solutiosn
• Eg. Long sentences that
need cutting, splitting
• Punctuation
• Writing software
• Hemingway
• Grammarly
• And many more
• Google “writing software”
• Many are free
• See what serves your
needs
 BUT

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO IS TO

WRITE