URM and IMRAD format

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URM and IMRAD format
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Vancouver group

• 1978, Vancouver, Canada
• Uniform submission
• Make life easier for authors
• No rejection on grounds of style

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Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Manuscript
Preparation Preparing a Manuscipt for Submission
to Biomedical Journals Sending the Manuscript to
the Journal References Print References Cited in
this Document Other Sources of Information
Related to Biomedical Journals
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Parts of an essay

• Beginning
• Main Body
• End

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Sir Bradford Hills Questions

• Why did you start?
• What did you do?
• What did you find?
• and
• What does it all mean?

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Parts of a paper IMRAD

• I Introduction
• M Methods
• R Results
• a and
• D Discussion

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Sir Bradford Hills Questions

• I Introduction Why did you start?
• M Methods What did you do?
• R Results What did you find?
• A and
• D Discussion What does it all mean?

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Introduction

• Why did you start?
• Readers expectations
• Sufficient background information
• Understand and evaluate the results
• Without referring to previous publications
• Concise, adequate
• Not a review

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Introduction

• Review pertinent literature
• Define lacunae in current knowledge
• Provide rationale for your study
• What gap in knowledge did you try to fill?
• What controversy did you try to resolve?
• State the aim of the study

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Introduction

• Brief, clear, to the point
• Written in present tense
• May state the study group, study design and
  methods used

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Introduction

• Key references to support background information
• Refer to
• your previous preliminary work
• your own closely related papers
• Define any specialized terms, definitions or
  abbreviations you intend to use

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Example

• We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of
  deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure
  has novel features which are of considerable
  biological importance.
• Watson JD, Crick FHC. A structure for deoxyribose
  nucleic acid. Nature 1953 171 737-8.

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Methods
What did you do?
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Methods

• What all was done?
• How was it done?
• When was it done?
• Who did it ?
• How were the results analyzed?
• Did you have ethical clearance to do so?

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Methods

• Present methods in chronological order
• Subheadings should match those in results
• internal consistency
• In past tense
• Be precise

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Methods checklist

• Does it describe
• What questions was being asked?
• What was being tested?
• How reliable was the measurement?
• Were the parameters recorded and analyzed
  correctly?
• Would a reader be able to repeat the same
  experiment?

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Results
What did you find?

• Answers

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Results Before writing

• Collate data
• Prepare master tables
• Re-check accuracy
• Analyse
• List all the findings
• Identify the important ones

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Results The components

• Text Story
• Tables Meat
• Figures Drama

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Results

• Results of all experiments in natural
  order in subsections similar to methods
• Do not duplicate information
• text, tables, figures
• Statistical analysis

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Results

• Should not include
• Any methods
• Data for which methods are not included
• Interpretation of data
• References

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Results Tables

• Table I. Parts of a table
• Footnote

BODY
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Results Table or figure

• Prefer tables
• Use figures only for illustrative
• Bar, histogram, pie ? table
• Difference in written and oral communication

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Results Text or Tables

• Number of items
• Few variables Text
• Many variables Table

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Figure in place of text
Study design
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Figure not in place of table
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Summary

• URM
• IMRAD
• Introduction
• Methods
• Results
• and
• Discussion