From The Republic to Nature

A tale of Scientific Writing

Christos Tsagkaris,
Medical Student, University of Crete, Faculty of Medicine
Editor in Chief, European Student Think Tank
 Outline

 Evidence based writing

 Types of journal articles
 IMRaD format
 Referencing basics
 Dos and DON’Ts
Evidence Based Writing

Credibility
The evolution of Scientific Writing

An unspoken
A piece of Drama?
language?
Scientific Writing in Medicine
Evidence Based Writing
 Types of journal articles
Original research Original research including hypothesis, background study,
methods, results, interpretation of findings, and a
discussion of possible implications 3000 to 6000 (words)

Review article Narrative review, Systematic Review, Metanalysis

Clinical case study Cases contributing significantly to the existing knowledge

on the field. The study is expected to discuss the signs,
symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of a disease

Clinical trial Original work studying a large number of pts, control

group, randomization

Perspective, opinion, and Essays that present a personal point of view critiquing
widespread notions pertaining to a field
commentary

Book review, Historical Note Critique on a book, news, historical notes, art
Anatomy of a journal article
 Let’s try to write an article…
Student Initiatives against COVID-19 Pandemic
 Topic
Review of the literature?
 Types of journal articles Observational study? Perspective?

 IMRaD format Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Methods,

Results, Discussion, References
 Referencing basics Use some software! (Mendeley for
example)
 Dos and DON’Ts
 Referencing basics

 Referencing styles (Vancouver, APA, AMA, Chicago)

 Referencing per genre (article, book, website – Who, What,
Where, When,)
 Number of references: Maybe >100 for a review article
 Software: Mendeley, EndNote etc
Referencing basics
 Medical journals

Access: By Subscription, Hybrid Access, Open Access

Indexing: Pubmed, Scopus, Web of Science

Publishing house: Springer, Elsevier, Taylor and Francis,

Wiley etc

Identification: Impact factor, H-index, DOI, ORCID

 Are you an influencer?
Number of times a
journal’s articles were
published during the two
previous years
Impact
Factor
Total number of citable
(IF)
articles during the two
previous years
 Are you an influencer?
The h-index is a factor determining both the quantity
and quality of a scientist's research output
An
The h-index
index is based onof 7ofmeans
a list that
publications this
ranked authororder
in descending hasby
published atofleast
the number 7 these
citations papers that received.
publications have each
The value of h is equal to the number of papers (N) in the list that have N
received
or more at least 7
citations

The h-index can be calculated automatically in Web of Science and

Scopus or manually in other databases that provide citation information
(e.g. SciFinder, PsychINFO, Google Scholar).
 Who
Are youare you?
an influencer?

 Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

 Researcher’s Identification Number (ORCID)

https://orcid.org/signin
 DOs & DON’Ts

 Mentor
 Self research (Author guidelines, courses)
 Teamwork
 Initiative
 Nothing is black and white?

 Social Media (Linkedin, Academia, Research

Gate but also Twitter, Facebook)
 Dare to ask, to network, to try!
 Keep track and balance!
 Nothing is black and white?
 Predatory publishing
 Plagiarism
 Unethical research
practices
(duplication, bias)
Conclusion
Thank