Eur opean Rev iew for Med ical and Pharmacol ogical Sci ences 2014; 18: 2966-2981 Writing for Publication in Medical Education in High Impact Journals S.A. AZER 1, D.M. DUPRAS 2, S. AZER 3 1Professor of Medical Education, Chair of Curriculum and Research Unit, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 2Associate Professor of Internal Medicine, Division of Primary Care Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA 3Department of Surgery, Urology, Austin Hospital, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Abstract. – BACKGROUND: One of the key Introduction priorities of a scholarly teacher is to demon - strate the ability to contribute to the advance - In a scholarly environment a culture of writing ment of knowledge, and transformation of new for publication is a necessity. Through publica - knowledge into applications that can be of val - ue to the profession and the teaching/learning tion academics have the opportunity to share community. However, successful contribution their work and innovations with other academics to a scholarly activity such as publication is and researchers 1-4 . While publishing fosters the challenging particularly when academics lack advancement of knowledge in related disciplines, confidence in their writing skills. academics publish their work for a number of AIM: The aim of this article is to highlight keys reasons including 5-7 : for successful publication in medical education. • Sharing experience, innovation and lessons METHODS: We reviewed the current literature, recent medical education proceedings, and As - learnt with other professionals and educators. sociation of Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) • Stimulating scholarly debate and suggestions Guides and explored the basic principles for cre - for future development that could prompt new ating a scholarly publication. We have also re - research and further studies. flected on our collective long experience as re - • Improving the standards of students’ education viewers to educational, scientific, and clinical and learning and hence the standards of career journals as well as our roles on editorial boards of medical education and scientific journals. development and the quality of patients’ RESULTS: Using the methods described, we healthcare. have developed the following twelve tips: (1) • Contributing to the advancement of the profes - Start with the end of mind, (2) Sharpen your idea, sion and enhancing the body of theory and un - (3) Select the right journal, (4) Discuss author - derstanding. ship, (5) Adhere to ethical principles, (6) Prepare • Contributing to the improvement of research the manuscript, (7) Avoid common mistakes, (8) quality in the university where researchers See it from the reviewer’s eyes, (9) Prepare a cov - er letter, (10) Respond to the editor’s and review - work, and improving academic standing and ers’ reports, (11) Don’t be discouraged by rejec - their opportunities for research funding and tion, and (12) Reflect on your experience. promotion. CONCLUSIONS: Writing for publication in • Gaining recognition and prestige for their re - medical education, particularly in journals with search/publication contributions. high impact ratings, is a challenging task. How - • Receiving feedback from the peer reviewers ever, becoming passionate about your con - tention, and working on transforming your idea and editors that can help in improving the into a published work necessitates self-regula - work as well as the publication. tion, resilience, visualization of outcomes, and • Establishing a network of academics working implementing scholarly approaches. Overcom - on similar projects and sharing the same area ing challenges and focusing on your goal can of research interests. be reached if these tips are applied. Those who are keen to maintain their contribu - tion to research can help establish a research en - Key Vords: vironment in their workplace and encourage Publishing, Medical education journals, Keys for success, novice researchers to master research skills and Writing skills, Reviewers’ reports, Cover letter, Authorship. write for publication. 2966 Corresponding Author: Professor Samy A. Azer, MD; e-mail: [email protected] Publishing your work Writing for publication is a challenging and following key words, “Writing research”, Writ - demanding job. This could be related to inade - ing publication”, “Writing for publication”, quate knowledge and skills in writing for pub - “Writing paper”, “Writing medical education”, lication, lack of time and commitment to write, “Writing scientific paper”, “Writing skills”, and a lack of confidence and motivation to “Publishing scientific papers”. To enhance the start writing 8. Also some researchers feel de - search outcomes, we examined the abstract jected and not encouraged to resume their writ - books of the Association for Medical Education ing, particularly after receiving a rejection of in Europe (AMEE) conferences from 2006 to their manuscripts from one or more journals 9. 2012 as well as reviewed books and documents Overcoming these situations may necessitate created by AMEE on the topic. We also explored further training on how to write for publica - our collective experiences in medical education tion. Those who are interested in publishing, research as full time academics and researchers not only in peer-reviewed journals but also at universities in Australia, USA, Japan, South high impact publications, may need further East Asia, and the Middle East. The following 12 training 10-12 . tips aim at outlining approaches and keys for There are several resources and a wealth of successful preparation of a manuscript for publi - literature on developing writing skills and writ - cation in high impact medical education journals ing for publication including a series of articles (Table I). by the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology on suc - cessful academic writing 13-16 , textbooks on writ - ing research papers 17 , online resources; includ - Tip 1 ing the Purdue University Online Writing Lab, OWL (https://owl.english.purdue.edu), and the Start with the end of mind Online Research Skills Module by University One of the keys for success of a project is to Graduate College, Cardiff University visualize what you will end with. This should be (http://cardiff.ac.uk /ugc/training/online-re - established from the outset. Explore the different search-skills-modules) and BMJ learning aspects of your idea and visualize how the audi - (http://learning.bmj.com) and crash courses on ence will find it. It may be a good idea to sum - medical writing for health profession 10 . Writing marize the outcomes and possible conclusions of skills can be improved through collaborative your paper in 4-6 lines. Then critically analyze writing groups 18,19 , seminars on writing, peer what you will end with. Think about your re - coaching to support writing development 11,20 , search/paper idea and whether you need to modi - and short courses 12 . However, most of these re - fy it to make the whole idea and outcomes much sources are designed for postgraduate students clearer to the audience 23 . and focus on skills needed for basic science and Remember a good paper is usually triggered biology manuscripts. There are limited re - by an innovative idea or a problem that will be of sources designed to help medical educators interest to other researchers and educators. This write scholarly manuscripts 21,22 . is particularly important if the idea or the chal - While many researchers and educators focus lenge that moved the researchers represents a on the number of papers they can publish, more common phenomenon experienced by other edu - important is the quality of the work and impact on their disciplines. Interestingly, two of the 2013 Nobel Prize laureates in Physiology or Table I. Twelve tips on writing for publication. Medicine, James E Rothman and Randy W 1. Start with the end of mind. Schekman have a publication record as per 2. Sharpen your idea. PubMed of 228 and 23, respectively, and the 3. Select the right journal. number of citations their research have scored 4. Discuss authorship. 5. Adhere to ethical principles. ranged from 2148 to 11 and 366 to 26, respec - 6. Prepare the manuscript. tively. This emphasises that the quality and origi - 7. Avoid common mistakes. nality of publication is vital in achieving your 8. See it from the reviewer’s eyes. scholarly goals (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ 9. Prepare a cover letter. pubmed/?term=schekman+rw). 10. Respond to the editor’s and reviewers’ reports. 11. Don’t be discouraged by rejection To develop these tips, PubMed, MEDLINE 12. Reflect on your experience. and Google Scholar were researched using the 2967 S.A. Azer, D.M. Dupras, S. Azer cators from other countries regardless to their • Examine the related literature and what was culture, educational system or subject matter. Al - published about your idea – what do we know though such problems may be highlighted in the and what do we need to know? literature or there may be a few papers touching • Assess your idea again and examine if it adds on it, your idea explores new approaches and ex - anything new to our knowledge in this area. amines different perspectives not examined be - • Sharpen your research question, write down fore, and could bring a better understanding to the hypotheses behind your work and critically the problem. evaluate what you are trying to prove. Many of us may have similar experience but • Examine the methodology