The Pathway to Publishing: A Guide to Quantitative Writing in the Health Sciences

ISBN-13: 9783030981747 / Angielski / Twarda / 2022

Dorothy L. Southern

Opis

Writing manuscripts is central to the advance of scientific knowledge. For an early career aspiring scientist, writing first author manuscripts is an opportunity to develop critical skills and to credential their expertise. Writing manuscripts, however, is difficult, doubly so for scientists who use English as a second language. Many science students intentionally avoid a writing-intensive curriculum. Careful, thorough reviews of draft manuscripts are difficult to secure, and experienced scientific supervisors face more demands on their time than they have time available. Weak draft manuscripts discourage supervising scientists investing the time to coach revisions. It is easier for experienced scientists to ignore the request, or to simply rewrite the article. Early career scientists are motivated to address these barriers but specific advice is difficult to find, and much of this advice is behind a pay wall. 

This essential, open access text presents writing lessons organized as common errors, providing students and early-career researchers with an efficient way to learn, and mentors with a quick-reference guide to reviewing. Error descriptions include specific examples drawn from real-world experiences of other early-career writers, and suggestions for how to successfully address and avoid these in the future. Versions of this book have been used by Stanford University, UC Davis, Johns Hopkins, and numerous international institutions and organizations for over a decade. 

Spis treści

1. Introduction

1.1 The pathway to publishing

1.2 Think before you write approach

1.2.1 Develop a framing document

1.2.2 Focus on the high level outline (HLO)

1.2.3 Use the ‘most common errors’

1.2.4 Understand authorship and mentoring responsibilities

1.2.5 Structure the writing and feedback process

1.3 The scientific writing style

1.4     Converting preliminary work into manuscripts

1.4.1 Converting reports into manuscripts

1.4.2 Converting posters and verbal presentations into manuscripts

1.5 The process of peer review

2. Most common errors

A. General research and writing practices

A1. Insufficient knowledge of the literature

A2. Not referencing statements

A3. Weak citations

A3a. Citing a secondary source

A3b. Presenting conclusions rather than data from references

A3c. Arguing from authority

A4. Endnotes not in standard style

A4a. Varying endnote notation

A5. Not using standard draft manuscript form

A6. Repeating information

A7. Labelling a scientific document as ‘final’

A8. Characterizing an observation as ‘the first’

A9. Errors in reasoning

A9a. Casual assertion of causality

A9b. Assuming association is causality

A9c. Assuming reported behavior reflects actual behavior

A9d. Confusing imperfect recall with recall bias

A9e. Confusing absence of recognition with absence

A9f. Asserting seasonality with a single year of data

A9g. Drawing conclusions using confirmation bias

A10. Constructing a multivariate model using only statistical criteria

A11. Plagiarism

B. Content of quantitative papers

B1. Improper focus or format of title and abstract

B2. Confusing the role of Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion

B3. Not writing the Methods section in chronological order

B4. Not emphasizing steps taken to protect human subjects

B5. Listing interpretations, but not defending one in the Discussion

B6. Not fully explaining limitations

B7. Writing generic recommendations

B8. Presenting new data in the Discussion

B9. Reporting the number of enrolled subjects in the Methods

B10. Specifying the contents of a questionnaire

B11. Naïve theories of change

B11a. Recommending a massive increase in funding

B11b. Ignoring incentives and barriers

B11c. Assuming weak states can implement

B12. An insufficiently focused Introduction

B13. Failure to clarify key sample size assumptions

B14. A high level outline that is not high level

B15. Specifying software used for routine data analysis

B16. Presenting rationale in the last sentence of the Introduction

C. Mechanics of writing

C1. Using non-standard abbreviations

C2. Using non-standard spaces

C3. Improper spelling

C4. Capitalization problems

C4a. USING ALL CAPITAL LETTERS

C4b. Capitalizing non-proper nouns

C5. Failure to spell out an isolated numeral < 10

C6. Starting a sentence with a numeral

C7. Not indenting paragraphs

C8. Not aligning text to the left

C9. Problems with parentheses

C10. Not recognizing when an abbreviation has become a name

C11. Misplaced commas in large numbers

C12. Varying fonts within the narrative

C13. Using bulleted lists rather than sentences

C14. Uninformative document names

D. Grammatical structures and stylistic strategies

D1. Using present rather than past tense

D2. Failure to use definite and indefinite articles

D3. Excessive use of passive voice

D4. Improper use of “we”

D5. Writing from a psychological perspective

D6. Using excessive sub-headings in the discussion section

D7. Misplaced modifiers

D8. Using nouns with awkward syntax in place of verbs

D9. Using different terms for the same object or the same idea

E. Achieving clarity and conciseness

E1. Labelling rather than explaining

E2. Using weak opening phrases for sentences

E3. Using adjectives and qualifiers

E4. Overusing studies or authors as sentence subjects

E5. Using non-descriptive numeric or alphabetical labels

E6. Using respectively

E7. Using the word etcetera

E8. Using foreign words

E9. Using local words, expressions or monetary figures

E10. Using the term ‘developing country’

E11. Using the term ‘socio-economic status’ as a synonym for wealth

E12. Using a technical term in its non-technical sense

E12a. Using the term ‘random’ in its non-technical sense

E12b. Using the term ‘reliable’ in its non-technical sense

E12c. Using the term ‘significant’ in its non-technical sense

E12d. Using the term ‘valid’ in its non-technical sense

E12e. Using the term ‘incidence’ incorrectly

E12f. Using the term ‘correlated’ incorrectly

E13. Using the verb ‘documented’

E14. Framing an argument in terms of need

E15. Using the term ‘illiterate’ as a synonym for ‘no formal education’

E16. Using the word ‘challenging’ as a synonym for ‘difficult’

E17. Describing a laboratory test result as positive

E18. Using increase or decrease in the absence of a time trend

E19. Describing a test as a gold standard

F.   Recording scientific data

F1. Using statistics in place of the study question to frame results

F1a. Framing narrative results around p-values

F2. Not presenting the core data

F3. Using too many decimal places

F4. Using too few decimal places

F5. Using incomplete headings for tables and figures

F6. Imbalance between table and narrative presentation of the results

F7. Pointing too explicitly to tables and figures

F8. Using inappropriate figures

F9. Using the wrong symbol to designate degree

F10. Using non-standard footnote symbols in tables

F11. Comparing to a varying baseline

F12. Generic data tables that lack a clear message

F13. Table layout that impairs comparisons*

F14. Maps with irrelevant details

F15. Numbering figures or tables out of sequence

F16. Listing results in a paragraph that are more clear in a table

F17. Using less informative denominators in a table

F18. p-value in a baseline table of a randomized controlled trial

F19. Emailing draft manuscripts with figures that are not compressed

G. Approaching publication

G1. Failure to respond to reviewers’ comments

G2. Incomplete response to reviews

G3. Invalid authorship line

G4. Missing acknowledgement section

G5. Choosing an inappropriate journal

G6. Not following a specific journal’s details of style

G7. Not using a checklist to review your paper before submission

G8. Exceeding the journal word limit

G9. Asking your senior author to recommend reviewers

G10. Responding to journal reviewers using the first person singular

G11. Retaining comments in subsequent drafts

G12. Not finding a description of the error code

G13. Requesting an unprofessionally short turnaround time

G14. Sending blank forms for co-authors to complete

G15. Not providing co-authors a copy of the submitted manuscript

G16. Not keeping co-authors informed of journal discussions

G17. Re-using an email thread when circulating a revised manuscript

G18. Not proofreading references prior to submission

G19. Not including text of the manuscript changes in response to reviewers

G20. Not including readability statistics

H. Slide and poster presentations

H1. Bullets on the wall

H2. Chart junk

H3. Copying a manuscript figure instead of developing a custom figure

H4. Photos with an unnatural aspect ratio

H5. Too many photographs on a single slide

H6. Field workers as the dominant subject of photographs

H7. Using bullets without hanging indents

H8. Using a pie chart

H9.   Using vertical bars when horizontal bars would communicate better

H10.   Including a final “Thank you” slide

H11.   Using sentences for bullet points

H12.   Too much space between bullets

H13.   Failure to separate ideas in a multi-lined title

H14.   Using 3 dimensional chart features as decorations

Appendix 1: Flowchart for reviewing scientific documents

Appendix 2: Concept note outline

Appendix 3: Critical questions for protocol development

Appendix 4: Framing document

Appendix 5: Conference/scientific meeting abstracts

Appendix 6: Quantitative manuscript high level outline (HLO)

Appendix 7: Example of quantitative manuscript HLO

Appendix 8:Authorship Scorecard

Appendix 9:JANE (Journal/Author Name Estimator)

Appendix 10: STROBE Statement

Appendix 11: CONSORT Statement

Appendix 12: List of common errors

Appendix 13: Concept note example

References

O autorze

Stephen Luby, Professor of Medicine, Director of Research at Center of Innovation in Global Health, Stanford University

Dorothy Southern, Independent Scientific Writing Advisor

Blurb

Writing manuscripts is central to the advance of scientific knowledge. For an early career aspiring scientist, writing first author manuscripts is an opportunity to develop critical skills and to credential their expertise. Writing manuscripts, however, is difficult, doubly so for scientists who use English as a second language. Many science students intentionally avoid a writing-intensive curriculum. Careful, thorough reviews of draft manuscripts are difficult to secure, and experienced scientific supervisors face more demands on their time than they have time available. Weak draft manuscripts discourage supervising scientists investing the time to coach revisions. It is easier for experienced scientists to ignore the request, or to simply rewrite the article. Early career scientists are motivated to address these barriers but specific advice is difficult to find, and much of this advice is behind a pay wall. 

This essential, open access text presents writing lessons organized as common errors, providing students and early-career researchers with an efficient way to learn, and mentors with a quick-reference guide to reviewing. Error descriptions include specific examples drawn from real-world experiences of other early-career writers, and suggestions for how to successfully address and avoid these in the future. Versions of this book have been used by Stanford University, UC Davis, Johns Hopkins, and numerous international institutions and organizations for over a decade. 

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