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WRITING FOR MEDICAL JOURNALS

PROFESSORABDULSALAM Y TAHA

School of MedicineUniversity of Sulaimani

Iraq

https://sulaimaniu.academia.edu/AbdulsalamTaha

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Important Note

This presentation is based on an article written by

Mr. Ameen Abbass Ameenentitled:

Writing for Medical JournalsPublished in:

Postgraduate Doctor Middle EastVol 10 Number 5

Pp 306-311

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Introduction

• I do not set myself up as an authority in medical writing and may not be capable of writing fine English.

• I will simply express my own views, point the way for beginners to follow by giving hints and general guidelines which I have found helpful in writing papers.

• Hence, this is a trial to smooth over some of the difficulties, hoping that people will agree with me and finds this article useful.

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• Editors reject badly prepared manuscripts and attempt to improve those accepted so that a journal may retain its high standards.

• Writing, like any other practical art, cannot be learned wholly from books or in the classroom, but requires experience.

• It is believed to be more beneficial for the author than the reader as it widens one's understanding of any clinical condition: it can make boring subjects interesting and it establishes the personality.

• The best teachers are one's own more experienced colleagues.

In the Middle East, as in most of the developing countries, little has been done to improve medical writing as nowhere in our educational system are students taught how to write.

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Introduction…

• For many doctors, writing for medical journals is a tedious duty but you have to get over it as it is an important part of career development for the ambitious in medicine.

• The secret to successful writing is to have something to say, to say it well, to follow the principles of scientific composition and to choose the right journal for the article.

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• After you have decided: the first question to be answered is ( what has been done before?) so, start looking at some papersthat have already covered an aspect of the work you intend to study by going through the relevant journals that deal with yourwork.• Next, consult the Index Medicus of the last three or four years to complete your list of previous works.• The librarian or an expert colleague could help you make use of the index if you are not familiar with it.• The librarian may be able to produce a few more key references or will get you copies of the articles you need either in the availableJournals or as photocopies from the Royal Society of Medicine, BMA or the British Library Lending Division. The National Library of Medicinein the USA also has a computer system of information retrieval basedon the Index Medicus known as (Medlars).• The advice and help from your expert colleagues is invaluable . They may know similar work going on elsewhere and may be able to suggest short cuts or indicate the snags in a particular approach.

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• Next, find a statistician before you do any work that brings in figures.

• It is no good doing the work and then presenting a statistician with a mass of figures and asking him to work out p and x2 if the results are not suitable for valid analysis.

Good styleimplies theuse of

languagewhich conveys

the writersmeaningclearly.

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• The well known rules for writing clear, correct English are: choose the correct word, prefer the single word, use the active rather than the passive voice, and use short, simple sentences. Write with nouns and verbs and not with adjectives and adverbs.

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TABLES AND FIGURES

• FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONGIVEN BY THE JOURNAL YOU INTEND TO SEND YOUR ARTICLE TO.

● FIGURES SHOULD BE USED SPARINGLYAND FOR DEFINITE PURPOSE. MOST GRAPHS AND HISTOGRAMS CAN BE BETTER EXPRESSED AS TABLES.

● Tables should present facts inthe clearest possible way; theyshould not repeat information thatis already in the text. If your paperhas only one table you should notnumber it and should refer to it in

the text as the table. Otherwise eachtable should be numbered. Every

table should be typed on a separatesheet and should have a title.

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References • References must be

relevant and, on the whole, recent. Sometimes you need to quote a reference you have read about in another article but are unable to read the original. Here you should be honest and mention both sources.

● There are two basic stylesfor referring to references. The Harvard style quotes the names and year in the text, as in the following example:Ameen AA and Illingworth R. D., Anti-fibrinolysis in the preoperative management of subarachnoidhaemorrhage due to ruptured intracranial aneurysm. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. 44, 220-26 (1981).

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Which journal?This depends on several factors:1. The general quality of your article and the prestige of the journal in which you intend to publish.

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DO NOT BELIEVE PEOPLE

WHO TELL YOU THAT WRITING

IS EASY!