Building on our previous BMERG Publishing in Medical Education blogs, in this post Dr Sally Dowling talks about what to think about when you write your article.
In the previous BMERG blog, Writing for publication: getting started, I wrote about getting started on your journal article, and all the important things there are to do before you even begin to write. These include being really clear about what you are writing, who you are writing for (your audience) and the specific requirements of your chosen journal. Some useful guidance on this topic is also available from the publishers Taylor and Francis here ‘How to write and structure a journal article’.
In this blog, I talk about taking the next steps, and moving on to writing your journal article.
Where to start?
Titles, abstracts and keywords are very important in making your article discoverable through database and other searches – and ultimately, in ensuring that your work reaches its intended audience. Writing the title and abstract for your article may be something you write/finalise near the end of the process or you may, like me, like to start with this.
Titles
Titles serve a number of purposes – they need to clearly and concisely articulate what the article is about in order to grab attention and lead to someone reading the whole article. A title which is funny or focused on a pun may be enjoyable to write, but may not do the job so well as one which is a clear description. Generally titles should be short – some journals specify word length, often 12 or 14 words. Some like to see the methodology in the title, others are not specific – check the author guidance and review recent publications to check what you need to do for the submission you are planning. Avoid unnecessary words and make sure that key information about why readers should be interested is included.
Abstracts
Abstracts are also very important. Sometimes, when searching databases, potential readers may search using the ‘title and abstract only’ function. Read the author guidelines for your chosen journal to check word allowance (most are quite strict about this) and whether or not you need to structure your abstract using headings. If you are not sure have a look at articles already published in the journal.
Keywords
Some journals will ask you to select keywords from drop-down lists, others will allow you to add your own – some will do both. Make sure that keywords for your article are repeated both in title and abstract (some maybe only once, some repeated throughout). Again, this will maximise discoverability. Some more useful information, from publisher PLOS, about writing titles and abstracts can be found here, ‘How to Write a Great Title’.
Writing the main body of your article – Top tips
Getting down to actually writing your article can be both exciting and daunting. These are some tips based on my experience:
- Stay organised: If you will be doing this with others, be clear with each other about who is doing what – will one person write the first draft and then others edit? Or will you each write a section and then one person edit for consistency later?
- Be clear about authorship: the journal will usually ask you to confirm each person’s contribution. Read more about the ethics of authorship from the Commission of Publication Ethics (COPE).
- Plan carefully before you start writing: How many words are you allowed by your chosen journal? Does this include references? Plan your content to fit with these requirements and try and stick to the word count as much as you can whilst writing – it’s much harder to edit down when you are very many words over!
- Consider your headings: Does your chosen journal want you to stick to pre-determined headings? Can you add your own sub-headings? Think about what is needed under each heading and plan what you will include.
- Know your referencing style: What is the referencing style used by the journal? If you are unfamiliar with it make sure you follow it exactly. Using a referencing manager will help but you will still need to check carefully.
- Consider your writing style: Write clearly and concisely, include explanations of terms if you think they are needed. Think about your audience – if they are international will they understand the context you are writing about? Is the journal readership a specialist or a generalist one? How does this affect what you say – and how you say it?
- Keep a checklist of key information: Identify important details to include and make sure that you do! These can include ethical approval numbers, information on recruitment and participants, any limitations on what you did, and so on.
- Show your decision making: Your reader needs to clearly understand the background and context to your work and your motivation for undertaking the study. They need to know about the methods you chose and why you chose them. Data collection should be clearly explained and results outlined (the format for these will depend on the methodology of your paper). A discussion should relate your findings to what was already known about the issue, highlighting and discussing what you found in relation to this
Thinking about structure
It might be helpful to think of the earlier parts of the paper, like the introduction and background, as an inverted triangle or funnel – starting out broad, setting the scene and context before narrowing down to your specific focus. The conclusion is the opposite:
Finishing your article
When you have finished your article and you (and co-authors are happy with it), there are still a number of cross-checks to move your manuscript towards submission:
- Double check the journal’s requirements – do you need a separate title page?
- Do you need to anonymise all references to authors in the main text (including to previous publications)?
- Have you followed all style and formatting instructions (have they asked for a specific font, or do you need to add line numbers, for example)?
Finally, write a brief letter to the editor, explaining why your article is a good fit for the journal and why they might be interested in publishing it. Now you are ready to submit! More on this next time.
More about the blog author
Sally is a Lecturer at Bristol Medical School, working both for the Teaching and Learning for Health Professionals programme and the MSc Reproduction and Development (Co-Director). She also runs a series of writing for publication workshops for the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Bristol and helps to facilitate the BMERG ‘Shut Up and Write’ sessions. Sally has experience of publishing journal articles as sole author and with others, publishing with students and writing book chapters. She has co-edited one book and is currently co-authoring a second. She has acted as a peer-reviewer for many submitted papers and worked as an Editorial Team member for two journals.
Watch out for Sally’s next blog in the new year on how to navigate the process of submission, including responding to reviews.