1. Scientific Writing in Medical Sciences
Payam Kabiri, MD. PhD. Epidemiologist
Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics
School of Public Health
Isfahan University of Medical Sciences

2. Why “Scientific Writing”?
The purpose of scientific writing is to convey ideas and facts about scientific work.
Scientists understand and criticize each other's work through their articles.
Thus, scientific writing should be intelligible to readers at the first reading.

3. Why Publish? Knowledge contributions Ensures scientific rigor
Allows feedback (improves work)
Promotes career
Document productivity
Document impact on field/reputation
Advertises your lab for future trainees
Improves chances of funding
Fulfills an obligation (public monies)

4. Evaluating an Academic Person though his/her CV Papers
Number of papers
Rate of publication
Quality of journals
Length of papers
Position in list of authors
Focus

5. The Art of Scientific Writing
Publish or Perish!

6. Steps in Scientific Writing
Design well
Decide politics
Choose journal
Read instructions to authors/papers
Set framework
Prepare drafts
Distribute
Polish
Submit

7. What is the gestational period for a clinical science publication?
START
STUDIES/
EXPERIMENTS
WRITE AND
SUBMIT
REWRITE AND
RESUBMIT
WAIT
PUBLISHED!
4-24 months
2-4 months
14-44
Months!
PROTOCOL/IRB 2-4 months
BEST GUESS

8. Types of Medical articles
Original Article
Review Article
Case Reports
Editorial
Short Communication (short papers)
Letter to Editor
Personal Views

9. Primary studies
Experiments
Clinical trials
Surveys

10. Secondary studies Reviews (Overviews) Narrative reviews
Systematic reviews & Meta-analyses
Guidelines
Decision analyses
Economic analyses

11. Letter Stick to the point State the problem, issue or hypothesis
Give the context
Outline your comment, solution, viewpoint
Give a strong conclusion
Note limitations

12. Editorial Write for your readership (broad?)
Be controversial and thought provoking
Being subtle is often more powerful

13. Short communication Increasingly common Concise introduction
Present data and discuss it shortly
Only a few tables or figures
Number of words limitations

14. Is your paper a paper, a brief or a research letter?
Easier to get letters & briefs accepted .
They make you indexed easier !
Decide whether you should submit it as a brief or letter firstly.

15. Case Reports Medical history of a single patient in a story form.
Lots of information given which may not be seen in a trial or a survey.
Often written and published fast compared to studies
e.g. Thalidomide

16. Review Articles & Secondary Studies
Secondary Source Summaries of Evidence:
The "primary evidence" from the research studies described above is periodically "Reviewed" by gathering all of the evidence available on a given topic, and comparing and contrasting the various research studies and the results from those studies. Review articles follow acceptable scientific methods which again make use of the common-sense "Criteria for Causality" to compare and contrast the strength of the different studies for supporting (or refuting) a hypothesized cause-and-effect relationship. Generally, Review articles fall into one of 3 broad categories in order of increasing scientific rigor: the narrative review, the systematic review, and meta-analyses, which are briefly described below.
Narrative Reviews are essentially "essays" wherein the researcher/author focuses on a particular clinical topic, and presents in their opinion what they feel are some of the highlights worth noting from the scientific literature they review. Narrative Reviews are the weakest of the "Secondary Source" research literature, since the methods and the reporting are somewhat subjective, and therefore may be more prone to bias. Articles that report original empirical research studies (described as "Primary Source" evidence above) typically also contain good "narrative overviews" of the "existing evidence" as an introduction and background to the article, to explain and justify why the original research study was conducted.
Systematic Reviews are conducted according to scientific methodologies that are explicit, explicitly stated, and reproducible. For instance, the methods section of a systematic review will describe the literature search in enough detail (e.g. what databases were searched, for what years, search terms employed), that the search strategy could be replicated by another researcher and produce essentially the same yield of literature. The "primary evidence" articles are then systematically and explicitly compared and contrasted along a number of important dimensions of research designs that reflect the "Criteria for Causality", which makes for a stronger and more useful "review of the resulting evidence" than do simple narrative reviews. This "attention to detail" in conducting and reporting the systematic review, helps the readers of the review article (i.e. the clinical and scientific communities) to determine how strong the accumulated evidence appears to be, without relying solely on the opinion of the author.
Meta-Analyses take the systematic review to the highest and most rigorous level of integrating "primary evidence" research, by statistically synthesizing the quantitative results across similar studies. Essentially, meta-analyses pool the data and results from a number of original research studies, with the intent of producing a more precise summary of the existing evidence for (or against) a cause-and-effect relationship.  For example, a meta-analysis may collect results from a number of epidemiologic studies, and statistically combine the data to produce a more precise overall "risk estimate" of the relationship between the causative risk factor and the effect (the disease).

17. The Hierarchy of Evidence
Systematic reviews & meta-analyses
Randomised controlled trials
Cohort studies
Case-control studies
Cross sectional surveys
Case reports
Expert opinion
Anecdotal

18. Hierarchy of studies

19. The traditional IMRaD
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion

20. The Basic Structure of an Article
TITLE
(S)Summary (Structured Abstract)
(I) Introduction (What Question was asked?)
(M)Methods (How was it Studied?)
(R)Results (What was Found?)
(A)Analysis (How data was analysed?)
(D)Discussion (What Do the Findings Mean?)
Acknowledgements
References

21. Main Components of an Article
Introduction: Why did you start?
Methods: What did you do?
Results: What did you find?
Discussion: What does it all mean?

22. “Bowtie” Model For a Scientific Paper
Broad Ideas Specific Ideas Broad Ideas

23. A full paper may contain:
Title
Authors and Affiliation
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
Acknowledgments (optional)
References

24. Initial steps
1-Understand the type of manuscript you are writing. 2-Re-evaluate your project. 3-Plan the sections and subsections you need. 4-Match your content to your readers’ knowledge. 5-Keep information specific rather than general. 6-Write in plain language. Keep your sentences short. 7-Use tables, diagrams, flowcharts and graphs.

25. Politics first!

26. Order of writing? Results Methods Introduction Discussion Abstract
References

27. Order of writing? Methods Results Introduction Discussion Abstract
References

28. More reading
Hall GM, ed. How to write a paper. London: BMJ Publishing Group.
Peat J. Scientific Writing Easy when you know how. BMJ Publishing Group
The Vancouver Group. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedial journals

29. Further Readings Scientific Writing Advanced Writing Jennifer Peat BMJ
Floresita V.Bustamante
SAMT
Essentials of Writing Biomedical Research Papers
Zeiger

30. Questions

31. بزنيد ! Email اگر ميل داشتيد