Research Writing and

Publication
 Materials used in this presentation
Baker, P. N. (2012). How to write your first paper. Obstetrics, Gynaecology & Reproductive
Medicine, 22(3), 81-82.
Ecarnot F, et al. Writing a scientific article: A step-by-step guide for beginners. European
Geriatric Medicine (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eurger.2015.08.005.
Edwards, M. S., & Leigh, J. S. (2022). Getting published in JME: Top 10 tips from the co-
editors. Journal of Management Education, 46(1), 3-15.
Harris, A., & Tyner-Mullings, A. (2013). Writing for emerging sociologists. Sage.
Ibrahim, A. M., & Dimick, J. B. (2018). Writing for impact: how to prepare a journal article.
In Medical and Scientific Publishing (pp. 81-92). Academic Press.
Rosenfeldt, F. L., Dowling, J. T., Pepe, S., & Fullerton, M. J. (2000). How to write a paper for
publication. Heart, Lung and Circulation, 9(2), 82-87.
Welch H.G. (1999). Preparing manuscripts for submission to medical journals: the paper
trail. Effective Clinical Practice, 2(3):131–7.
Why publish journal articles?

Research reports published in scholarly peer-

reviewed, or refereed, journals are among the
most highly respected types of writing within
academia (Harris & Tyner-Mulling, 2013).
 Why do we publish? (1)
Advancing Knowledge
• Publication in a peer-reviewed journal is the most far-reaching means
to communicate your research.
• “Research is not research until it is published in a refereed journal”
(Rosenfeldt et al., 2000; 83)
Advancing Your Institution
• High-quality publications can advance the prestige, and ultimately the
funding of your department or institution.
Advancing Yourself
• Publication of material in your professional area increases your
promotional opportunities, and sets you apart from other applicants.
 Why do we publish? (2)
Enhancing your Profile
• It raises your profile within and outside your immediate professional
community.
• It enhances your reputation, but more important is the immense
satisfaction that comes from seeing your work quoted by others in the
ongoing literature in your specialty.
Increasing your Research Ability
• Writing about your work makes you a better researcher.
Gaining National and International Recognition
 Selecting the right journal (1)
• When you select a journal, you are also selecting your audience.
• It’s helpful to have a target journal in mind before you start writing your
manuscript.
• The type of journal also dictates the way you write the paper, the
format and content structure, word count, etc. (e.g., medical vs social
science journal).
• Different journals require articles written in particular style, and the
choice of journal will govern the focus of a paper
 Selecting the right journal (2)
• In general, it is easier to get a paper published in a journal of low
readership than one which is widely read.
• Each journal has an ‘impact factor’ which indicates how often papers
published in the journal are cited by others
• Be sensible when selecting a journal; very few people have their first
papers published in Nature or the New England Journal of Medicine, but
there is little to be lost by aiming high.
• If your paper is rejected, you can always resubmit to a journal with a lower
impact factor.
• Once you have made your choice, you should obtain the instructions for
authors that pertain to the journal.
How do you select the appropriate journal?
• Look through your literature review and your reference section
• Do you repeatedly cite papers from the same journal?
• Where do experts in your field publish their research?
• Ask your professors or supervisors for suggestions.
• Impact factor?
• Some universities require their faculty members to submit their
manuscript in journals within a particular tier or ranking.
Beware of predatory journals!
The Anatomy of a Research Manuscript
1. Title
2. Abstract
3. Introduction
4. Literature Review
5. Methods
6. Results
7. Discussion
8. Conclusion
9. References
TITLE
• It should contain keywords to reflect the main issues in your article.
• It should also awaken the potential reader’s interest, and incite in them
the desire to read your work in full.
• Your title must contain the principal terms and keywords so that it can
be easily identified and searched in online databases.
• Be creative. Your title can be a play on words, a famous saying, a
question, or even a quote from a subject.
• A pithy, positive statement of your main finding makes a catchy title.
• Provide a subtitle that clearly explains the project to the reader can be
especially useful if the title is catchy but vague.
ABSTRACT
• Short summary of the article in a few sections (usually background, methods, results,
conclusion).
• It is the most important part of the paper; far more people will read it than the body
of the paper.
• It is used for referencing purposes in online bibliographic databases (such as
PubMed), and therefore should form an independent unit that is comprehensible as a
stand-alone text.
• It is the first item that a potential reviewer will see when being invited to review
your paper.

• Keep it succinct, but informative and attractive to give the potential reader a
foretaste of the main information and incite the desire to read the full paper.
Main points to keep in mind when writing the abstract

Source: Ecarnot et al., 2015, page 5

The three roles of an abstract across the manuscript timeline

Source: Ibrahim et al., 2018, p. 83

INTRODUCTION

1. Give context to the question,

2. Create a knowledge gap
3. Preview your study plan.
The three paragraphs of an effective introduction

Source: Ibrahim et al., 2018, p. 84

 Paragraph 1: Give Context to the Problem
• The first paragraph of the introduction should get the reader to care about the topic and
highlight why the topic is important.
• Common mistakes here are to give context that is too broad or too narrow for your
audience.
• Most people start too broad and tell their audience things they already know.
• Starting off with, “Colorectal cancer is the biggest killer in America” is not good.
• You have to establish the right entry point for your topic. If you start too broad you (A) put
everyone to sleep and (B) will take up too much writing space getting people all the way up
to your knowledge gaps.
• You can set the stage with a striking opening line or a “hook”
• Cite some interesting fact or surprising statistics related to your topic
• “The Philippines is the only country in the world where divorce is not legal.”
• “The HIV prevalence in the Philippines is one of the highest in the Western Pacific
region.”
 Paragraph 2: Create a Knowledge Gap
• The second paragraph needs to get the reader curious by creating a knowledge gap
between what is known and unknown.
• Do not summarize all the literature on the topic here, but highlight the areas that have
tension or uncertainty related to your study question.
• The knowledge gaps you introduce in this paragraph should directly correlate with the
outcomes that your study will address.
• This is the hardest paragraph of the introduction to write for a few reasons.
• First, you have to know exactly what is known and unknown.
• Second, that knowledge gap needs to be exactly what your study is designed to do.
• Third, you need to put these together in a compelling narrative that convinces the
reader it is an important gap in the literature that needs to be addressed.
• Ideally, by the end of this paragraph, the reader should be thinking, “If only there was a
study with longer follow up and a more representative sample, we would understand
this topic so much better.” Bingo—then you tell them (Paragraph 3) that is exactly what
your study will do!
Paragraph 3: Preview Your Work Plan
• Briefly explain how you will close the knowledge gap discussed
in the prior paragraph.
• Save the details for the methods section, but simply state the
database and the outcomes you are going to use.
• Again, the outcomes should directly line up with the
knowledge gaps you just created.
• A common mistake is to highlight too many knowledge gaps,
but you only address one or two of these knowledge gaps.
• Highlight only the gaps that your study will address.
Source: Welch, 1999, p. 133
This provides the global context of the study
Significance of the study

Knowledge gap

How this study addressed this gap

Context of the study

Knowledge gap

How the study

addressed the gap
LITERATURE REVIEW
LITERATURE REVIEW (1)
• Sometimes labelled as “Background”
• Can also be included as part of the Introduction
• Its purpose is to discuss what previous research has said about
your research.
• It describes the literature used to develop your research
hypothesis or questions and explains what literature informed
your argument.
LITERATURE REVIEW (2)
• Incorporating theory is also an important part of the literature
review because it explains to the reader how you developed the
theoretical framework for your study.
• Make sure that you not only understand the theory, but you can
also explain how it relates to your research.
• Given the space limitations of a journal article (around 20 pages
long), the literature review should be focused and straight to the
point.
LITERATURE REVIEW (2)
• Should be the most pertinent literature on your topic and it should
help you organize and justify your research.
• It needs to be well-organized and structured.
• Most research papers use thematic literature reviews i.e. you
organize the literature review section by themes.
• Each theme is discussed separately with effective transition
sentences in between themes.
Points to remember when doing a literature
review (1)
1. Be selective.
• Be thorough and exhaustive but only include the literature that improved
your research.
2. Focus on scholarly journal articles and books.
• These have been peer-reviewed and have been assessed to be important
in your field.
• Refrain from including too many references to webpages, magazines,
newspapers, and encyclopaedia entries, but if you do use these sources,
use them with caution.
• Use the main sources cited by newspapers, and cite the original source
not the newspaper or magazine .
Points to remember when doing a literature
review (2)
3. Check literature review placement.
• The literature review section is in accordance with the journal’s specifications.
• May be incorporated in the introduction or can be labelled as “background” or
“context”.
4. Don’t go article by article; go subtopic by subtopic.
• The literature review should be written as an essay, with an introduction, body
and conclusion.
• Don’t move from one article to another, evaluating each one.
• Do not just list the summaries of each article but discuss the ways the articles
connect to each other
• Present the literature based on the subtopics and analyze the articles found
within those subtopics.
Points to remember when doing a literature
review (3)
5. Focus on recent literature
• Continue to look through research during the entire research and entire research
and writing process; keep looking until you submit the article for review.
• Need to demonstrate that your paper is timely and fits within the current
conversation on the topic.
6. Focus on the top articles in the field.
• Were the studies you chose to include written by the top scholars in the field?
7. Don’t quote too much.
• Rephrase and use your own voice when defining or describing something.
• Researchers want to read your own voice and your interpretation of the readings.
• Someone who quotes too much implies that they did not understand the
materials enough to put it into their own words.
Introduces the literature
Body of the literature organized into themes
Identified the literature gap

How the study addressed the literature gap

METHODOLOGY (1)
• This section is one of the “easiest” to write (Baker, 2012).
• This section explains the what, who, why, when, where, and how of
your data collection process.

• What methodologies were used to collect the data?

• Who is included in the data? Who was spoken to? Observed? Surveyed?
• Why were these data used or these respondents chosen?
• When were the data collected?
• Where were the data collected?
• How were the data collected?
• How did you analyze the data?
METHODOLOGY (2)
• This section should provide enough information that another
researcher following your methodology would find similar results.
This makes your research stand up to a scientific inquiry.
• Manuscripts that begin the review process with sufficient levels of
methods details are more likely to proceed further.
• Include the response rates in your study because it has important
implications for your research findings.
• As a reader, will your interpretations of the research findings change if you
knew that the researcher had initially approached 5000 people and only
100 respondents agreed to participate compared to a research project
where only 120 were approached and 100 chose to participate?
RESULTS (1)
• Also often labelled as “Findings,” it explains the results of your
study that are relevant to your research hypothesis and questions.
• It should be written in a straightforward manner, without
commentary or discussion.
• Begin this section by restating your hypothesis to remind the
readers what you planned to look for and what you expected to
find. You will then proceed to present your findings, but not discuss
or interpret these findings.
• You can also report whether or not your findings support your
hypothesis.
RESULTS (2)
• Remind the readers the statistical tests you performed and report
the results.
• Explain the direction of the results and/or levels of significance.
• Make sure to include your major findings in the results section.
Include any descriptive and/or inferential statistics you may have
found.
• Be sure to word your findings carefully.
• Do not make sweeping generalizations to describe your participants or
results.
• Don’t use phrases such as ‘surprisingly. . .’’ or ‘‘interestingly’’ in this
section
 RESULTS (3)
• Use of tables and figures
• Tables generally contain the most important results, and on their
own, should be sufficient to give the reader a clear idea of your
findings.
• Figures are useful in cases where the source data is either too complex
for presentation or not easily interpretable.
• A figure provides visual impact and thus is often the best way to
communicate the primary finding.
• Do not include too many illustrations, so that they do not lose their
interest, and above all, do not repeat data in the text that already
appears in a table or figure
 DISCUSSION
• This section is the most important section and the most difficult
section to write.
• It gives you the opportunity to enter into the “conversation” and
interpret the results.
• Be cautious when interpreting not to simply repeat the results, or at
the other end of the scale, not to over-interpret.
• You may also speculate and extrapolate in this section.
• Highlight the novel findings of your study
• Underlining how your findings yield new evidence or a new contribution to
the state of knowledge will substantiate the importance of your paper,
and its added value for the literature, as opposed to being ‘‘just another
paper’’ on a ‘‘worn-out’’ topic.
• In this regard, you can discuss whether or not your paper has succeeded
in filling the ‘‘gap in knowledge’’ that you justified in the introduction.
 Elements of a Discussion Section (1)

1. Restate your objectives and/or hypothesis and summarize your

findings
• It’s important to remind again your readers about your
objectives/hypothesis and this repetition helps keep you on track and
focuses on your paper.
2. Connect to the literature
• Tie your findings back to the literature and the theories you discussed
in your literature review.
• Be diplomatic when criticizing others’ work. Instead of pointing out
their weaknesses reformulate your sentence to present the strong
points of your own work.
 Elements of a Discussion Section (2)
3. Identify the strengths and limitations
• Identify the limitations of your study and explain how you
tried to address them in the paper.
• It allows the reviewers to see that you are aware of your own
shortcomings, and it provides an opportunity for you to
defend yourself on these points, and state why the
supposed limitation may not be so negative after all.
4. Larger implications
• Explain the policy, practical and theoretical implications of
your study. Highlight why people should care about your
study.
Four components of a compelling discussion

Source: Ibrahim et al., 2018, p. 87

CONCLUSION
• Start this section by restating your main point and the overall
purpose of your paper.
• Was your hypothesis supported? If so, briefly explain why and
how.
• Remind your reader why your study is important.
• End your paper by answering the question, “So what?”
• This question explains why your research was important and the
contributions it can make, not only to our field of study but to the
larger social picture.
REFERENCES
• Do not neglect this section; you need to ensure that it is free from
errors and omissions.
• An author that you have forgotten to cite, or who you have
misinterpreted, may be a reviewer of your paper.
• Different journals have different preferences for the style and format
of references; the use of a reference manager software package will
facilitate changing this style if your paper is rejected and needs to be
submitted to a different journal.
Summary of basic guidelines regarding the items to include in each section of a scientific manuscript

Source: Ecarnot et al., 2015, page 6

Typical flowchart of the development and refining of a manuscript.

Source: Rosenfeldt et al., 2000; 86

“Watch your language”
Research vs researches
Causation vs correlation
 “Watch your language”
• Use of terms that connote stereotype e.g. elderly , the aged, aging
dependents, old- old, young- old, and similar "othering"
• Authors should put the person first by saying “person with diabetes” instead
of “diabetic patient.”
• Also, avoid descriptions of people as victims or using emotional terms that
suggest helplessness (e.g., “afflicted with,” “suffering from,” “stricken with,”
“maimed”).
• Avoid euphemistic descriptions such as “physically challenged” or “special.”
Steering clear of such labeling supports a person- and family-centered focus
on the whole person and prevents defining an individual based on a disease
or disability

Source: Gerontological Society of America (2023) Reframing Aging Journal Manuscript Guidelines