Sharing an experience in writing a peer reviewed paper

Starting to write a research paper is always difficult for most of us particularly for writers who are not the English native speakers. Writing the paper needs to be focused, concise and logically order. It is a time consuming with high level of commitment and patience. Generally, a content of the paper consists of Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (IMRAD). However, you can start with whatever part of the paper you feel comfortable to write. From my experience, I always start with the Results. First, you should develop tables and figures from analysis outputs. This will make you easy to further write the rest of the findings. Then you just add few sentences or paragraphs that are not included in the tables. Introduction and Methods, to some extents you already have had developed in your research proposal. Therefore, your task is to modify and revise these parts to fit into your paper. The hardest part is the Discussions. This is where you have to explain what the findings mean and must be guided by your research question. As an outline, you should first summarize your main findings followed by discussing them with references to previous research [1]. A limitation of the study should be discussed such as sampling issue and bias. Finally you should discuss on the program or policy implication based on your results.

Keep in mind that you should feel free to write down whatever you can think of if you do not have any ideas to start with. References must be cited properly. My suggestion is to read few similar published papers to get ideas how other authors structured their papers. The research paper usually goes through several drafts before it is finalized. From my experience, revising a manuscript more than 10 to 15 times with your supervisor and co-authors is common before it is finally submitted to the intended journal.

1. Penerger TV, Hudelson PM. Writing a research article: advice to beginners. Intl J Qual Health Care 2004; 16:191-192

*Next time I will post some useful resources for academic writing. I hope you will find it useful. Please share your ideas and comments.