First Time Authors

How to Write a Paper for Publication in a Medical Journal

TITLE PAGE

• Write the paper's title below
• List the study's authors (1 to a line, including middle initials and highest degrees)
• List the paper's authors' institutions (in the same order as the authors)

INTRODUCTION

• Provide a brief discussion of the general topic: Why is it important?
• Provide a brief discussion of prior work by you and/or others
• Provide an explicit statement of your study question/hypothesis

METHODS

• Describe your study site
• Describe your study population (source, inclusion, and exclusion criteria)
• Describe your recruitment methods in detail
• Describe your intervention (if an interventional study)
• Describe the data that you collected and how you collected them
• Describe your data analysis in detail (dependent variables, independent variables, comparisons, primary and secondary analyses, statistical methods used, P value accepted as significant, etc)

RESULTS

• Describe your subjects: numbers approached, enrolled, excluded, characteristics. (Do not repeat table data -- describe the table data in qualitative terms, where possible)
• Describe main analysis results. (Again, do not repeat table data)
• Describe secondary analysis results. (Again, do not repeat table data)

DISCUSSION

• Write down the most important take-home point that you want the reader to remember. Do not merely repeat the results. Then provide commentary based on what prior relevant studies have found
• Write down the second most important take-home point and discuss it
• Write down the third most important take-home point and discuss it. (Some papers will not have 3 take-home points.)
• List and discuss the study's limitations
• Write down your conclusions (usually a repeat of take-home point #1)
• Give future directions (often the next study you want to do following this one)

Adapted from Bill Tierney, IUPUI, Indianapolis, Indiana

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