Advanced Authorship Metrics for Biomedical Research

Three alternative ways to assign credit for bioscience authors working in collaboratives. By Drea Burbank MD, consultant specializing in disruptive medical technology  Science is changing.  Trends such as authorship reform and increasing numbers of multidisciplinary studies indicate that scientific authorship may need to evolve.  Three alternative authorship structures that could gain traction in future include co-first […]

Solutions for Authorships

TALKING ABOUT AUTHORSHIP IN BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH Two simple practices to improve the quality of biomedical research and authorship. By Drea Burbank, MD and consultant specializing in disruptive medical technology The reproducibility crisis has made authorship reform a priority for scientists. There is evidence from “meta-research” — a field of researchthat studies research that systematic bias in authorship credit is […]

5 Common Misconceptions About P-Values and What They Really Mean

As we saw in our last post on the Top Ten Reasons Papers Get Rejected, errors in statistical analysis are among the most common grounds for rejection. Errors in the interpretation of the p-value, in particular, have long been acknowledged and unfortunately persist in scientific literature. In this article, we cover 5 of the most widespread misconceptions […]

What are some rules or guidelines for writing academic essays and research papers?

Reporting guidelines help and guide authors in the preparation and accurate reporting of research studies, e.g., CONSORT for randomized trials, STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews, STARD for diagnostic accuracy studies, and CARE for case reports. Editors of biomedical journals will often ask authors to provide evidence that they used and adhered to the […]

What is a good way to write the abstract of a research paper?

Except for the title, the abstract is the most widely read part of your manuscript, and therefore must be both effective and attractive. Your abstract must provide a coherent, concise, and convincing summary of your research objective, methodology, results, and conclusions. For readers and researchers, the abstract acts as a selection tool. Most abstracts are […]

Manuscript Rejection: Top 10 Reasons & How to Avoid Them

When a manuscript is submitted to a scientific journal, it enters an intensive revision process. It has to pass through several checkpoints on the road to publication, and rejection lurks around every corner. If you are in the business of publishing original research articles in medical journals, chances are you’ve had at least one of your papers rejected by a journal. […]

Beyond the Impact Factor – The Rising Popularity of Altmetrics

What Is The Journal Impact Factor The journal impact factor (IF) is the most ubiquitous metric used to evaluate research nowadays. It is a measure of the average number of citations a paper published in a given journal has received over a two-year period. It is calculated by Thomson Reuters, and is published yearly in […]

Six aspects to consider when choosing a bibliographic reference manager.

Fiddling with citations and organizing an ever-growing number of files can be a source of great distress for researchers. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Reference management software, or reference managers (RMs), are intended to facilitate these tasks. Using an RM instead of manually taking care of your citations and references is like […]

Medical data cleansing and checking: Save time by planning ahead

I’ve spent quite a bit of time recently analysing clinical datasets for a couple of projects. This has reminded me of the mistakes I have made in the past, and the lessons I have learned to make life SO much easier. I thought I’d share a few thoughts! Planning ahead and following some simple rules […]

Navigating the journal submission process – are you really prepared!

Who remembers the days of mailing your valuable manuscript to a journal’s editorial office, or even faxing through your 20+-page document? Simpler times, maybe. Nowadays, you almost have to take an intensive course to come to grips with the complexities of some of the online manuscript submission and tracking systems used by journals and publishers. […]