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The Paper Protocol
Systematic Instructions for Writing a Biomedical Research Paper
Stefan Lang
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eBook - ePub
The Paper Protocol
Systematic Instructions for Writing a Biomedical Research Paper
Stefan Lang
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About This Book
Experimental and study protocols allow scientists to conduct their research efficiently. The Paper Protocol helps them afterwards to put their results on paper. It structures the writing process into defined phases, describing each task required to write a biomedical research paper that convinces both the journal's reviewers and readers.This book is written in global English, making it easier to read and understand for non-native English speaking students and scientists. Scientists who want their work read and cited need to publish in global English, which has become the language of the scientific community.
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Phase 1: Concept & Abstract
The beginning of the writing process
The idea to begin a comprehensive writing project with a concept is everything but new. Authors of fiction and nonfiction books begin their work on a new project with a concept, which they call an exposé. An exposé comprises only one to two pages and represents the basic idea of a book. It presents the entire content in a heavily compressed form. With the exposé, the authors search for a publisher, and on the basis of the exposé, publishing companies usually decide to publish a book or not. Only after the book contract has been signed do professional authors begin to write the manuscript. If they were to write the entire manuscript first, the authors may end up wasting a lot of time and energy if the manuscript is rejected by the publisher.
Scientists cannot afford to waste time, either, so they should start the writing process with an exposé or a concept as well. A concept sketches the story of a research paper. With a few sentences, it describes how the experiments and analyses of a research project led from the research question to its answer, or from a problem to its solution. Basically, such a concept is nothing other than the abstract of a research paper, because both the concept and the abstract summarize the most important points of your story: the scientific background of the research project, the research question, the key results, and the answer or conclusion.
By starting your writing project with a concept (abstract), you will force yourself to focus and to define the scientific story first. Even if there are several aspects that have been addressed in your research project, at the end, these should be condensed into one single research question, hypothesis, or key message. Only that way will the reasoning of your final manuscript follow a reasonable and central idea.
First decisions: three paper categories
The basic structure of the abstract
The abstract is a very condensed summary of a research project, the blueprint of a research paper. As is the entire manuscript, the abstract is structured into the INTRODUCTION, METHODS, RESULTS, and DISCUSSION (IMRAD STRUCTURE). In the abstract, each of these sections is represented by a few sentences â for example, two sentences for the introduction, one for the methods, a few sentences for the results, and about two sentences for the discussion. These sentences are the key points, the most important statements of your paper. Later, these key points will appear at certain positions in the manuscript.
At this point, you may be asking what these key points are and how you can define them. Are there any instructions to write them? There are. In fact, there are three different instructions for the three categories of research projects. Before we turn to the question of how the key points build up the abstract or concept, however, we should take a closer look at those three categories.
The hypothesis-testing paper
In a hypothesis-testing paper, a proposed explanation for an observable phenomenon is either verified or falsified. Most authors formulate the hypothesis as a question asking if the explanation is correct. Such if-questions can only be answered by yes or no. Scientists choose this paper category if they have experimentally influenced biological systems such as cells, laboratory animals, or study participants from the outside, such as by administering medications and other treatments. In this case, the scientists usually want to know if the medication or treatment exerts a specific positive or negative effect.
A treatment might also be the transfection of cells with expression plasmids and the targeted mutation of genes. Even in these cases, a biological system is influenced from the outside to assess if this influence results in a specific effect. Therefore, whenever an if-question seems appropriate for stating the objective of your research project, the hypothesis-testing paper is probably the right choice.
The descriptive paper
In a descriptive paper, in most cases, scientists analyze and describe a biological, chemical, or medical phenomenon without influencing the system itself. A research paper of this category does not examine the effect of an intervention, but describes the actual state of a biological system. This might be, for example, the frequency of a disease, the structure of a protein or chemical compound, the functioning of an organ, or the occurrence of genetic markers.
The methods paper
The third paper category comprises projects that aim at establishing and optimizing a new method. Basically, the methods paper is similar to the descriptive paper. It introduces a new method and describes its functioning, often by comparing the advantages of the new method with those of an older and conventional method.
Key points of the abstract: hypothesis-testing paper
In the following example, you see how the concept (i.e., the abstract) of a hypothesis-testing paper is structured. Even if you are not familiar with the scientific background of this text, you will easily comprehend the structure of the abstract. In the left column, you find the underlying outline, which might serve as a template for your own writing.
ABackground | AIntegrin XY, a transmembrane protein, mediates contact-dependent growth inhibition of adherent cells by the induction of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21. BTo determine whether integrin XY also mediates growth inhibition in non-adherent cells, Cwe ectopically expressed integrin XY in non-adherent rat carcinoma cells lacking the integrin XY gene. DWe found that integrin XY expression reduced the proliferation of these cells by up to 45%, Eand this effect correlated with increased p21 levels. FMoreover, exposure to integrin XY-neutralizing antibodies stimulated proliferation of these cells. GOur results indicate that integrin XY also mediates growth inhibition in non-adherent rat carcinoma cells. HOur data further suggest that integrin XY mediated growth inhibition of both adher... |