SCIENTIFIC WRITING AND PUBLICATIONS: WRITING AND GETTING YOUR ABSTRACT ACCEPTED

UMLTA CPD SERIES

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By Otaala Timothy

Chief Scientific editor – UMLTA/Peer reviewer with ASLM/Board member Uganda Society Of Health Scientists/Lab Services Advisor –AIC SORP​

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Some of the accepted Abstracts

• Abstracts at the International Conference for AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA)
• International Federation for Biomedical Laboratory sciences (IFBLS)
• International Conference on HIV Treatment, Pathogenesis, and Prevention Research (INTEREST)
• African Society for Laboratory Medicine(ASLM)
• United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief(PEPFAR) summit
• East Africa Health Sciences Research forum (EAHSR)
• Uganda Society of Health Scientists (USHS)
• Uganda Pediatric Association (UPA)
• Uganda Adolescents and Pediatric Association (UAPA)
• CQI conference

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

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Basic concepts

Why do people write, Why don’t people write, How to get started, What to think about before you write

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General structure of a Manuscript - Focus on abstracts

Getting your abstract accepted

WHY PEOPLE WRITE

REASONS PEOPLE DO NOT WRITE

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They do not believe they can succeed.

Fear of rejection.

They have no support for writing .

They do not have the discipline to write.

They do not know where to start from.

HOW TO GET STARTED

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Identify what you want to communicate

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Do background research on what is important to communicate and how others have done the communication

Determine purpose of communication

Conference

Manuscript

THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS BEFORE YOU WRITE

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Think about why you want to publish your work – and whether it's publishable; (Tips)

• Have I done something new
• challenging
• Interesting
• Answers a topic that has discordant findings
• Is my work related directly to a current hot topic?
• Have I provided solutions to some difficult problems

General structure of a manuscript�The general structure of a full article follows the IMRAD format, introduced as a standard by the American National Standards Institute in 1979, which responds to the questions below:�

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• Introduction:
• What did you/others do?
• Why did you do it?

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• Methods:
• How did you do it?

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• Results:
• What did you find?

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• And

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• Discussion:
• What does it all mean?

Steps in writing manuscript

1. Prepare the figures and tables
2. Write the Results
3. Write up the Methods.
4. Write the Discussion
5. Write a clear Conclusion
6. Introduction
• Finalize the Results and Discussion before writing the introduction

7. Write the other sections

• Abstract
• Compose a concise and descriptive Title
• Select Keywords for indexing
• Write the Acknowledgements
• Include the References

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Order of sections will be very different than the order of items on you checklist

The abstract

• Tells readers
• what you did
• what the important findings in your research are
• It is also among the last sections to be written BUT a very important part of a paper because;
• It is usually the first to be read
• Readers use the information contained in it to decide whether to read the whole article or not
• Together with the title, it's the advertisement of your article

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The abstract – Continued

• It briefly summarizes the
• Background (introduction, problem, justification in 3-4 sentences/1 paragraph)
• Methods (only key components)
• Results (Main findings)
• Conclusion: advance in knowledge
• Should be:
• a concise summary of the manuscript
• no longer than specified in the instructions to authors
• Usually, does not contain references, abbreviations and acronyms

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4 Cs of Abstracts

• Complete
• Has major parts of project (IMRC)
• Concise
• No excess wordiness or unnecessary information

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• Clear
• Readable,
• well organised
• No jargon
• Cohesive
• Flows smoothly between parts

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TITLE

• The Part most often read, some times the only part read

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• It should tell us the what, where, who and how

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• Your title should be short, specific, representative and informative

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• The title is your mini – advertisement

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• Summarize your study in 20 words

Other components in a title

• Article title

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• Author names

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• Author affiliations

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• Corresponding author

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• Occasionally
• Headers – Running title, First Author name
• Footnotes – Grant support, Conflict of Interest, Keywords
• List of Abbreviations
• Miscellaneous (Word count, article type)

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Things to avoid in a title

• Avoid using dashes or periods to separate parts of a title
• Avoid using abbreviations
• If a drug name is mentioned in the title, the generic name should be used
• Omit nonspecific openings such as “Studies of…”

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INTRODUCTION

• The goal of your introduction is to let your reader know what he or she can expect from your paper.
• Introduction should answer the question ‘Why:’
• why you choose that topic for research;
• why it is important;
• why you adopted a particular method or approach etc

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• As a rule this section is about10% of the total word count of the body of a typical research paper

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• OR about 400 words spread over three paragraphs

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Introduction

1. Provide background information to set the context
• The first couple of sentences are typically broad
• The next sentence can point to the specific area within that broad field

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2. Introduce the specific topic of your research and explain why it is important.

• Can point to the specific area within that broad field
• Bring in some statistics to show the importance of the topic or the seriousness of the problem

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3. Mention the problem and past attempts to solve it

4. Conclude the Introduction by mentioning the specific objectives of your research

Methods

• Should provide enough detail that the experiment can be repeated

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• Is structured in a set of subsections
• Study design
• Study setting
• Selection of participants – selection criteria and selection methods;
• Data collection – variables, methods and instruments and
• Data analysis.

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RESULTS

• The Results section is to objectively present your key findings, without interpretation

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• They should be:
• Orderly
• Using both text and illustrative materials (Tables & Figures)
• One paper shouldn’t have more than 3 key messages (becomes too much)

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• Always begins with text, reporting the key findings and referring to your figures and tables as you proceed

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• The Results section should be organized around Tables and/or Figures that should be sequenced to present your key findings

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RESULTS – Continued

• Describe your study population
• Often includes the socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender and education level)
• Only characteristics important for your study
• Avoid including outcomes in this section
• Best presented as a table (Often table/paragraph 1)
• Results of the primary outcome (Key message you want to communicate for this paper)
• Will often include effect estimates (relative risk or odds ratio)
• Will also include the 95% confidence intervals
• Best presented as a table too (Table 2)
• Results of secondary outcome (add/strengthen primary outcome)

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Conclusion

• Interpretations:
• What do the results mean?(say 30% means every three in ten people)
• What it means with respect to what is already known (high, low Literature)

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• Implications:
• Why do the results matter?
• Importance of your results (how your results move your field forward)
• Emphasize how your results support or refute the current hypotheses in the field, if any

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How to get your abstract accepted

• Prepare early - Nothing beats early preparation. The “science” itself isn’t enough . Early preparation is key. You cannot fatten a cow on the market day. First and most important step: read and adhere to conference guidelines for submission
• Seek a mentor who has experience writing abstracts.
• Allow yourself enough time to prepare a first-rate submission; waiting until the last minute rarely results in quality content.
• The topic should be relevant to the conference themes/sub themes
• The topics should be meaningful and valuable to the audience. Timely and relevant topics with fresh ideas and takeaways are a great way to start, and they include:
• New research or clinical guidelines
• Topics that highlight your area of expertise
• Topics that are relevant to conference attendees

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How to get your abstract accepted

• Abstract Titles
• The title is the first thing abstract scorers and conference attendees will see, so it is worth spending some time trying a few variations to see what conveys the main point of your abstract and entices the audience to read further:
• Abstract Content
• A high-quality abstract address the problem or question, the evidence and the solutions. Abstracts should be concise but also informative. After the title, the first sentence should be a hook that grabs the reader’s attention and entices them to continue reading.
• The second sentence should be a focused problem statement supported by evidence.
• The next few sentences provide the solution to the problem.
• The conclusion should reiterate the purpose of your presentation in one or two sentences.

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How to get your abstract accepted

• Editing Your Abstract
• The final draft should be clear and easy to read and understand.
• If there is more than one author, each author should review and edit the draft.
• Ask a colleague who is a good editor to critique your work.
• Great content that is written poorly will not be accepted.
• Follow word and character count instructions, abstract style and formatting guidelines.
• After you finish writing your abstract, put it aside and return later with a fresh mind before submitting it.

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How to get your abstract accepted

• Grammar
• Avoid ampersands (&) and abbreviations such as, etc.
• Contractions are not used in scholarly writing. Using contractions in academic writing is usually not encouraged, because it can make your writing sound informal.
• Examples of contractions and full words:
• I’m = I am
• They’re = They are
• Avoid quotations.
• Do not be redundant or use more words than necessary.

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THANK YOU FOR LISTENING

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QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/ADDITIONS