Tips To Writing Your Research: Introduction

Planning, implementing, and writing your research is a skill that you need to start learning at the beginning of the first year of medical school. Although many medical schools are good at medical research and publishing them, there are few examples out there aiming to teach proper research and writing skills to medical students. Therefore, students mainly gain such skills through interest and hard work.

Why is it important? Why should you know how to do research or write it? There are many good reasons, but I will mention one of them. When you graduate from medical school, you want to have a good CV representing your competencies. One of the components that many residency program directors looking for is research background and published articles if there is any. Having a research portfolio in CV is not only showing you are familiar to the basic concept of how to do research or writing it, but also indicates that you are a team member, collaborator, contributor. They evaluate you as “plus one” person to help the research activities in that department which is something they are always looking for. By the way, doing a scholar activity including research is “a must” for many structured EM residency programs around the globe. So, knowing how to write will give you a lot of comfort through your residency period too.

Emergency Medicine is the most interesting 15 minutes of every other specialty.

Dan Sandberg

Emergency Medicine (EM) provides fantastic opportunities to medical students including medical research. If you know the basics, if you have a good and active team around you or if you are rotating in an academic center, you are in the gold mine to make an incredible contribution to EM literature.

Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.

Albert Einstein

There are many aspects of research such as design, analysis, writing, presenting. Each of them has many details to discuss, but the end point is communication with the readers and making potential improvement in our field.

If we consider our research process from start to end is appropriately done, we will have excellent material to be written.

This series aims to give some useful tips to medical students regarding preparing your manuscript, writing and publishing it. Although we may use some examples related to EM in this series, the tips apply to any area of research

Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.

Matthew Arnold

To start with, here is the topic list we are going to share. We will focus on each title separately. However, if you wish to add titles to this list, please write in comment section below.

Topic List

How to find the right journal?

You have to decide which journals you want to submit your research. This step is extremely important before you start writing your article.
Who is your reader and what they care about?

Knowing your readers is important because it will help you to focus on what is important in your study.
Which section should you start writing?

Most journals define research paper section similarly. These are: Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. There are very useful recommendations that can facilitate your writing pace and save your time.
What is the logical flow in a manuscript?

Because you want to share your findings with high clarity, the manuscript and its sections should be written coherently. This improves the understanding of your manuscript by reviewers, editors, and readers.
The Title

The title is one of the important parts of your manuscript because it helps you to communicate with your readers directly. Having a good title not only helps to attract the editors, reviewers and your readers, it also helps to improve searchability, reachability of your research.
Introduction

This section includes the core information about your research topic and clear explanation about your aim.
Methods

The methods section should reflect your research details with full transparency. Quality of your research directly related to your method and how it has been written.
Results

One of the most challenging parts of the manuscripts is result sections. Most of the readers are facing difficulty to understand this section because of the lack of knowledge of statistical analysis and their interpretation. Therefore, writing results section is critical to communicate with your readers.
Discussion

This section summarizes your findings, and you compare/contrast them with up to date literature. This is the section that you highlights your core findings.
After your first draft, now what?

Writing your first draft is a huge step. However, the manuscripts always need fine-tuning, especially for language and style.
Submission Phase

You wrote your manuscript, and it is time to submit to the previously selected journal. In this phase, you need to think about what journal editors and reviewers want to see in your paper.
Importance of Cover Letter

A cover letter is a tool that helps you to communicate and attract the editor. So, it should be written with care.
How to respond to reviewers?

Responding to reviewers' comments is a critical task that you should take it seriously.
You have done everything, but your paper can still be rejected!

Do not think that it is wasted time; this manuscript can be still valuable for your field.

I suggest to read this twitter feed too.

What is your best (academic) writing tip?
— Dr. Sara A. Hart (@saraannhart) May 8, 2019

If you have topic recommendations, please write down.

Cite this article as: Arif Alper Cevik, "Tips To Writing Your Research: Introduction," in International Emergency Medicine Education Project, May 6, 2019, https://iem-student.org/2019/05/06/tips-to-writing-your-research-introduction/, date accessed: June 1, 2023