The Principles of Biomedical Scientific Writing: Results

International journal of endocrinology and metabolism, 2018

A well-written introduction of a scientific paper provides relevant background knowledge to convince the readers about the rationale, importance, and novelty of the research. The introduction should inform the readers about the "problem", "existing solutions", and "main limitations or gaps of knowledge". The authors' hypothesis and methodological approach used to examine the research hypothesis should also be stated. After reading a good introduction, readers should be guided through "a general context" to "a specific area" and "a research question". Incomplete, inaccurate, or outdated reviews of the literature are the more common pitfalls of an introduction that may lead to rejection. This review focuses on the principles of writing the introduction of an article and provides a quick look at the essential points that should be considered for writing an optimal introduction.

International Journal of Morphology, 2020

Research reporting statements, recommendations, proposals, guidelines, checklists and scales can improve quality of reporting results in biomedical research. The aim of this study was to describe statements, recommendations, proposals, guidelines, checklists and scales available for reporting results and quality of conduct in biomedical research. Systematic review. All types statements, recommendations, proposals, guidelines, checklists and scales generated to improve the quality of the biomedical research results report were included. Data sources: EMBASE, HINARI, MEDLINE and Redalyc; in the libraries BIREME-BVS, SciELO and The Cochrane Library; in the meta-searchers Clinical Evidence and TRIP Database; and on the Websites of EQUATOR Network, BMC Medical Education and EUROPE PMC were used. The recovered documents were grouped as study design related to systematic reviews (SR) meta-analysis and meta-reviews, CT and RCTs and quasi-experimental studies, observational studies, diagnostic accuracy studies, clinical practice guidelines; biological material, animal and preclinical studies; qualitative studies; economic evaluation and decision analysis studies; and methodological quality (MQ) scales). The 93 documents were obtained.

Indian pediatrics, 2016

Problems of Education in the 21st Century, 2020

The presentation of research results is definitely an important part of any scientific article. On the one hand, the findings of the conducted research should be explained in as much detail as possible, whereas on the other, the obtained results must be clear, understandable and relevant. The previous editorials analysed the elements of a scientific article such as the title and summary (Lamanauskas, 2019a), introduction (Lamanauskas, 2019b) and the description of methodology (Lamanauskas, 2020). This editorial briefly discusses the optimal presentation of research results treated as one of the most interesting stages in preparing a scientific article and requires effort, intensive work and creativity. Alternatively, both methodology and research results (empirical research in particular) are considered the most important parts of a manuscript (Fox & Jennings, 2014). As expected, many important points related to the description of research results are given in APA 7th. ed. (2019), and therefore are not intended to be discussed in detail. Although APA standards are widespread, other criteria are also admitted by scientific community and focus in this editorial is more oriented on the practical subjects of academic writing and the most common mistakes.

Statistical methods have become an essential component of all empirical biomedical research. Science requires that these methods are fully reported with complete accuracy so that the evidence base could be fully appraised for validity, reliability, and generalizability. To meet this objective, Statistical Analyses and Methods in Published Literature (SAMPL) guidelines have been prepared for statistical reporting in biomedical publications. This communication proposes substantial improvement of these guidelines to make them more comprehensive, organized, compact, and easier to adopt.

Drug Design, Development and Therapy

Academia Letters, 2022

Statistical methods have become an essential component of all biomedical research publications because these help to understand the significance of the results in the face of omnipresent medical uncertainties. Science requires that these methods are fully reported with complete accuracy so that the results could be appraised for validity, reliability, and generalizability. This letter presents the guidelines to improve the statistical reporting in biomedical publications. The Malaise Ioannidis1 expressed near inevitability of some false conclusions in empirical research and PLoS Medicine editors2 suggested that those involved in publications should make all sincere efforts to reduce the chance of false conclusions. Some of this malaise can be attributed to the inappropriate methodology, and questionable practices3, but some errors occur due to inadequate reporting4. Many errors are statistical in nature such as in design, elicitation of data, their processing and analysis, and interpretation of results5. Altman and Bland6 estimated in 1991 that more than 50% papers at that time had some statistical errors, and Wullschleger et al.7 found 64% articles published in 2012 in three prime cardiovascular journals had inappropriate use of the variability of sample of mean. Such errors can jeopardize life and health of many people in course of time when inadequately substantiated result is used to treat millions of patients8. This is accentuated when the future research is built on the existing inadequately proven results.

Drug Metabolism and Disposition, 2019

The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics has revised the Instructions to Authors for Drug Metabolism and Disposition, Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and Molecular Pharmacology. These revisions relate to data analysis (including statistical analysis) and reporting but do not tell investigators how to design and perform their experiments. Their overall focus is on greater granularity in the description of what has been done and found. Key recommendations include the need to differentiate between preplanned, hypothesis-testing, and exploratory experiments or studies; explanations of whether key elements of study design, such as sample size and choice of specific statistical tests, had been specified before any data were obtained or adapted thereafter; and explanations of whether any outliers (data points or entire experiments) were eliminated and when the rules for doing so had been defined. Variability should be described by S.D. or interquartile range, and precision should be described by confidence intervals; S.E. should not be used. P values should be used sparingly; in most cases, reporting differences or ratios (effect sizes) with their confidence intervals will be preferred. Depiction of data in figures should provide as much granularity as possible, e.g., by replacing bar graphs with scatter plots wherever feasible and violin or box-and-whisker plots when not. This editorial explains the revisions and the underlying scientific rationale. We believe that these revised guidelines will lead to a less biased and more transparent reporting of research findings.

AJP: Advances in Physiology Education, 2007

WE SCIENTISTS rely on statistics. In part, this is because we use statistics to report our own science and to interpret the pub- lished science of others. For some of us, reporting and inter- preting statistics can be like reading an unfamiliar language: it is awkward to do, and it is easy to misinterpret meaning. To facilitate these tasks, in

Indian Pediatrics, 2020

Statistical methods have become an essential component of all empirical biomedical research. Science requires that these methods are fully reported with complete accuracy so that the evidence base could be fully appraised for validity, reliability, and generalizability. To meet this objective, Statistical Analyses and Methods in Published Literature (SAMPL) guidelines have been prepared for statistical reporting in biomedical publications. This communication proposes substantial improvement of these guidelines to make them more comprehensive, organized, compact, and easier to adopt.