Disseminate Your Research
You’ve conducted your research; now it’s time to share it with the world! Scientists traditionally disseminate their work through peer-reviewed journals and at conferences. More recently, podcasts, professionally-hosted webinars, and social media have been leveraged to promote the evidence. Ultimately, the peer-reviewed space remains where your findings gain credibility. As they say, if it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen.
Scientific Writing
Writing for scientific journals has a style all its own. Primarily, peer review publications are a conversation among scientists, although providers, policy makers, academicians, and patients are also stakeholders. When writing for a scientific audience, it’s important to emulate the style of language common to journals (beyond formatting and paper structure). Useful tips include:
- Use language that is clear, concise, accurate, and objective
- Use active voice
- Avoid statements of belief or conjecture
Web resources
- Elements of Style for Writing Scientific Journal Articles (Griffies 2013)
- How to Write Like a Scientist (Ruben 2012)
Preparing for Publication
Writing your research creates an important mechanism for understanding and doing research—not just reporting results. How to Write a Great Research Paper captures an inspiring lecture of simple suggestions for writing up your research.
Web resources
Generating Citations
Bibliographies, also referred to as references or works cited, list citations for sources used during the research and writing process. Bibliographies are important for verifying the quality of research, and useful for learning more about the topic of a research paper. The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) contains excellent resources on common citation styles, including APA Style, MLA Style, and Chicago Manual of Style to format citations. If submitting a research paper for publication, most journals provide author’s instructions on which style citations should be formatted to.
Web resources
Writing a Case Report
Case reports are common entry points for clinicians who wish to engage in scholarly activity. There are several “how to” resources to guide you through the process.
Web resources
- Critical Appraisal of a Case Report (Roever)
- How to Write a Case Report (McCarthy)
- How to write a case report for publication (Green)
- Adaptation of the CARE Guidelines for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork Publications: Efforts To Improve the Impact of Case Reports (Munk)
- RCP insight – How to write a clinical case report (Kirthi)
- Conducting and reporting case series and audits–author guidelines for acupuncture in medicine (White)
Effective Presentations
Presentations are an effective way of disseminating your research findings to a select group of stakeholders. Presentations made at professional conferences (especially juried submissions) are a great resume builder. Most research presentations follow a set format; there are several resources to help you get started.