RESEARCH WRITING

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• RESEARCH WRITING

Dr. Joby J Member, Indian Homoeopathic Research
Centre (IHRC), managed by IHMA
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Types of scientific writing

• Thesis
• Research Report
• Review Article
• Journal Article
• Letter/ Short Communication
• Chapter/ Book

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Format of writing manuscript

• Title page
• Introduction - Why
• Review of literature
• Objectives - What
• Methods - How
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusions
• References

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Title page

• Brief but informative title
• Fewest possible words that accurately describe
  the content
• Omit waste words such as
• "A study of...
• "Investigations of ..."
• "Observations on ..."

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Introduction

• Places your work in context
• Gives readers enough information to appreciate
  your objectives
• Should catch the readers attention
• Hypothesis or research question should come at
  the end of introduction

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Review of literature

• Should begin at the time of conceiving the study
• Should go on after your results are ready
• Helps you to formulate your conclusions and
  discussion
• Searching the literature
• Master the Medline search

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Writing the review

• Select the important articles that give valid
  results and conclusions
• String together the main ideas in these papers to
  form the contextual setting for your research
  question

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Objectives

• What you attempt to do in the present exercise
• Primary/ Secondary objectives
• Arise directly from your research question
• In the form of statements with action verbs like
  
• to define to compare... to identify...
  etc.

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Methods

• Design of the study
• Tools used
• Details of methods
• Subjects base population / universe
• Exclusion criteria
• Selection process random / non-random
• Sample size and justification

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Results

• Graphs, tables and descriptions of observations
  in plain text
• Photographs are to be given whenever necessary as
  aids to clinical or pathological descriptions.
• Use only that much tables, figures or pictures as
  is enough to tell your story succinctly
• Do not use a table and a graph to present the
  same data

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Tables Illustrations

• For evidence and emphasis
• Do not use if points can be stated in the text
• One per 1000 words
• Use descriptive headings so that the reader can
  understand without reference to the text.
• All tables should be referred to in the text
• For simple data - use statement

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Figures/Photographs

• Only include if absolutely essential
• Combine several photographs into a composite
  illustration when one or both the
  parameters/features is common
• Simple and self explanatory legends
• For histological photographs, provide stain used
  and magnification

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Discussion

• Logical structure
• Use subheadings
• Discuss ideas according to their importance
• Substantiate your arguments
• Comparisons with previous studies
• A brief critique of your study
• Implication of your research

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Inference/ Conclusion

• Do not go beyond your data

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References

• Cite according to
• As they appear in text (superscripts)
• In alphabetical order (authors last name and year
  of publication placed in parentheses)

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Developing a style

• Be conscious of language and its potential
• Rewrite / revise
• Learn from good work
• Be direct
• Be bold
• Be brief

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Rules of composition

• Make the paragraph the unit of composition

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Use the active voice

• There was a higher mean level of serum
  cholesterol in females when compared to males

• Women had a higher mean serum cholesterol than men

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Put statements positively

• He was not very often on time
• The proportion of obese individuals in the two
  groups were not very much different

• He usually came late
• The two groups had a similar proportion of obese
  subjects

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Use definite, specific, concrete language

• A period of unfavourable weather set in
• Subjects were selected for the study according to
  the criterion of whether they had normal vision

• It rained every day
• We chose for the study subjects with 6/6 vision
  only

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Omit unnecessary words

• The question as to whether
• Used for food purposes
• This is a subject that
• The reason why

• Whether
• Used as food
• This subject
• Why

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Writing for journals

• Always follow guidelines of the journal
• Review manuscript requirements for the journal
  running title, structured abstract, format of
  references, tables, figures, nomenclature of
  drugs, disease names and names of organisms,
  units of measure, abbreviations and
  symbols,number of copies
• Get the manuscript typed in accordance with the
  journals requirements

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Writing for journals

• Be prepared for criticism
• Be ready to modify your writing

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• THANK YOU