Tops tips on writing for conferences

Last week we were delighted to welcome John Houghton, Clinical Research Fellow from the George Davies Research Team, to present on the subject of writing for conferences. He led a brilliant interactive session, where we got to evaluate and discuss what makes the difference in conference writing.

To summarise, here are some top tips from John:

Abstract writing

• Your title is the most important part of your abstract – make it short, sharp and attention-grabbing
• Keep the background brief. One sentence for the problem/existing knowledge/research and one for the aim of the study/audit should be enough
• Structure your methods around your PICO question (if applicable) with a sentence for each. For audit/QI projects one sentence each for setting, standard, intervention/change and outcome measure
• You should only have one primary outcome measure
• Use acronyms/abbreviations sparingly – lots of acronyms make your abstract very difficult to read
• Spend most of your words on your results section
• Reporting your statistical tests with the results can save words e.g. x was associated with y (p<.001; chi-squared test)
• Keep your conclusions short – two sentences max
• Don’t repeat your results in the conclusions
• Try to avoid talking about future research in your conclusions – if you have to, be specific about what future research should be done e.g. multi-centred randomised trials are needed to confirm these findings

Poster writing

• Design your poster to visually articulate your main messages, the less writing the better!
• Mike Morrison’s video “How to create a better research poster in less time” provides some great ideas on keeping your poster simple and maximising interaction at a conference. There are templates available in the video description, and you can also check out #betterposter on Twitter.

 

And finally: Don’t be afraid to submit your work to conferences – it’s very likely to be accepted!

 

Thank you to John for sharing your wisdom and experience in such an informative session!

Writing for Conferences – our next Writing Club topic on 14th November

What not to ask an editor

Before submitting an article to a publisher, you may have specific questions for which you wish to email the editor(s). This can be a great way to find your answers, but this recent publication in the Journal of Advanced Nursing by two editors (Roger Watson & Chen Xue), gives some great tips on what not to ask. In this short editorial, Watson and Xue give a succinct account of which types of questions rile them most as journal editors.

In summary, don’t:

• Ask for recommendations of papers or other reading, or for the methods of your research.
• Send them your manuscript directly.
• Ask for advice on which designs they’ll publish, or how to increase your likelihood of being published.
• Email them to say that whilst they rejected you, another journal has accepted you – they don’t need to know!
• Pressure them to speed up the process, due to your own deadlines.

Their full editorial is available, open-access, here.

How to “peer-review” yourself before submitting to a journal

On 7^th March, we were delighted to welcome Dr Carolyn Tarrant from the University of Leicester to talk us through what journal editors look for.

During the session, she shared her top-tip to “peer-review” yourself prior to submitting your article to a journal. This way, you can recognise and address any areas for improvement yourself before the article goes through the real thing!

The Equator Network site in particular was recommended to self-review (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research). The site, which aims to improve the quality of health research reporting, has links to many reporting guidelines, which you can use as checklists in your self-critique.

To find relevant guidelines, you simply select your study type from the home page. The key guidelines will be shown in green at the top of the list, which makes it much easier to choose! You can then also limit results by your specific clinical area if you wish.

The library is always here to help if you find a guideline they haven’t already linked to – you can request the full-text through us for free.

Thank you, Carolyn, for highlighting this excellent resource.

10 top tips for writing a cover letter

Writing a cover letter is an essential part of submitting an article to a journal. On the 15^th November, we were pleased to welcome Dr Jatinder Minhas to speak at the Writing Club.

Here is some of the advice he shared about writing a successful cover letter:

1. Make sure the letter is appropriately headed

2. Address it to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal

3. If you’re responding to a call for papers, state this clearly at the start

4. Make sure you include the name of the paper!

In your introduction…

5. Provide the context for your paper

6. Describe the work’s novelty

7. Define the expected increment knowledge for readers

Finally…

8. Reinforce the expected impact

9. Be clear and succinct

10. Be positive – make sure you sell the good points!