How to do research and write an article for publication

This is a question. I get many times a year as I do work with residents and medical students across the country.

Here are the key steps;

1. Form a hypothesis

2. Collect data to see if your hypothesis is correct

3. As you go along, collecting the data, you were going to be thinking about writing your introduction, the method section, the results section, and the discussion  

4. As you solidify your hypothesis, you should be doing a literature. Search on PubMed on the different keywords needed for your paper. Hold onto these keywords because every publication asks you to submit keywords. 

5. Start thinking about which publication you’re going to submit the paper too. If it’s a mostly surgical paper, you’re going to want to submit it to a publication that does mostly surgery. 

6. Read similar articles from the pool location that you’re thinking of submitting it to so you can emulate the style of writing for the introduction and discussion. For instance, the journal Ophthalmology tends to have an introduction that has some historical information. The journal of American College of Refractive Surgeons (JCRS) tends to have an introduction that is more to the point and less historical.

7. Make a spreadsheet on Excel or some other spreadsheet where you have the references lined up to use for end note or your favorite reference tracker.  We usually put a spreadsheet together that has the Title of the paper, name of the journal, Date and country it was published in, and a copy of the abstract. This way, as we create the introduction and discussion, we can have references available. If you ever did debate in high school, this is similar to creating index cards to support your points with appropriate citations.

8. As you collect your data, consider hiring a statistician versus doing it yourself. 

9. After you have collected your data start analyzing results. 

10. It can take months to years to get a paper published. The key components are to persist if you are sure your research hypothesis and results are worth publishing. Even negative are worth publishing in some cases.

11. Working with a team that can keep you on track with deadlines is the best way to publish papers.

12. The unfortunate trend of having authors pay for publications is likely a negative for patients and for the medical community. Always try to submit your paper to a journal that does not require authors to pay for publication  

13. If you do get rejected by a publication, keep track Of any edits or recommendations by the editor.

14. 

Below is a great cheat sheet from Dr. Bartley that really does help concisely explain how to write a good paper.

George Bartley- past editor of ophthalmology journal and confirmed by editors of AJO, OPRS, and Orbit. I put together a "how to write a journal article" work shop for ASOPRS. 

Introduction—the Formula

·      The Introduction is made up of four paragraphs:

·      First, present the topic of your research. Present and past tense.  -- MGD/SMGA

·      Second, present a review of prior relevant studies. Past tense. adult correlation between DED and ESU 

·      Third present the rationale for your experiment. Mainly past tense. 

·      Fourth, present the purpose of this study or the hypothesis to be tested. Past tense.

-----------------

Example of First Paragraph

Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is the name given to a group of inherited retinal disorders characterized by a progressive loss of rod and cone photoreceptors and eventual atrophy of the retina. The worldwide prevalence of RP is about 1 in 4000, so that more than 1 million individuals are affected worldwide. RP is genetically heterogeneous; mutations in several photoreceptor-specific and some non-specific genes cause RP. Of these, mutations in the rhodopsin gene are the most prevalent and account for about 25% to 40% of the autosomal dominant RP cases.

Second Paragraph of Introduction                                                                      

• ·      A review of studies relevant to this manuscript, and the key word is relevant.  Not all studies on retinitis pigmentosa or glaucoma, but just those important or relevant to this manuscript.  This should be written in ppm card app  the past tense.

·    

  Example of Second Paragraph

§  The treatment of a myopic CNV by PDT has been found to be more beneficial than placebo therapy at one year. However, the outcome was not significantly better after 2 years. Recent studies have shown that intravitreal injections of avastin was effective against myopic CNV. Thus, Ikuno et al reported an improvement of >3 lines in the BCVA in 40% of the patients; Gharbiya et al reported an improvement of >3 lines in 70%; and Chan et al reported an improvement of 2 lines in 72.4% of the eyes. 

Third paragraph of Introduction                                                   

·      This paragraph presents the rationale for your experiments. Why did you do this experiment.

·      The conflicts, contradictory findings, or lack of information on your subject.  Controversies and differences that your experiments will resolve. 

·      A new instrument or procedure that can resolve some conflict in the literature.

Example of Third Paragraph

§  There has been no objective determination of the changes in macular function after macular translocation. The question arises whether the newly located retina-RPE complex functions as well as the original macula, and does function recover after the acute retinal detachment and relocation to the new site.

Fourth Paragraph   

·      The fourth paragraph presents the purpose of your experiment or the hypothesis you will be testing.

·      Only one sentence is needed.

·      But two addition sentences will make it complete.

·      First Sentence of Fourth Paragraph

o   The purpose of this study was . . .

o   We hypothesize that . . .

·      Two Additional Sentences of Fourth Paragraph

o   First additional sentence: Write how the experiments were performed.

“To test this hypothesis, we recorded ERGs from the patients before and after XXX.”

o   Second additional sentence: write one sentence on what the main finding was. “We shall show that the ERGs were increased after .