Advanced Authorship Metrics for Biomedical Research
Three alternative ways to assign credit for bioscience authors working in collaboratives. By Drea Burbank MD, consultant specializing in disruptive medical technology Science is changing. Trends such as authorship reform and increasing numbers of multidisciplinary studies indicate that scientific authorship may need to evolve. Three alternative authorship structures that could gain traction in future include co-first […]
Medical data cleansing and checking: Save time by planning ahead
I’ve spent quite a bit of time recently analysing clinical datasets for a couple of projects. This has reminded me of the mistakes I have made in the past, and the lessons I have learned to make life SO much easier. I thought I’d share a few thoughts! Planning ahead and following some simple rules […]
Navigating the journal submission process – are you really prepared!
Who remembers the days of mailing your valuable manuscript to a journal’s editorial office, or even faxing through your 20+-page document? Simpler times, maybe. Nowadays, you almost have to take an intensive course to come to grips with the complexities of some of the online manuscript submission and tracking systems used by journals and publishers. […]
Why perform a meta-analysis?
A meta-analysis is a powerful statistical procedure for combining and comparing data from multiple studies that have all tested a particular hypothesis with the objective of identifying patterns among the results. The meta-analysis can then be used for a variety of purposes:Publication of Systematic Reviews: How effective is a particular treatment? Are there differences between 2 […]
New tool helps authors find the right reporting guideline for their manuscript
Reporting guidelines help and guide authors in the preparation and accurate reporting of research studies, e.g., CONSORT for randomized trials, STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews, STARD for diagnostic accuracy studies, and CARE for case reports. Editors of biomedical journals will often ask authors to provide evidence that they used and adhered to […]
Top 10 tips to increase the readership of your research article
Publishing in an open access journal is one of the best strategies an author can employ to increase the readership of an article, and there is now increasing evidence to support the idea that free access to research increases both visibility and citation. However, there are a number of other simple techniques that an author […]
The Chocolate Question: Lies, damned lies, and statistics
I read with interest reports of a recent ‘study’ by a scientist and journalist who managed to get a flawed piece of research published in a (non-refereed) scientific journal from where it was taken up by the popular press (http://io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800). The ‘research’ claimed to demonstrate that chocolate was a beneficial addition to weight reducing diets. […]