biomedical science essay writing

School of Biological Sciences

University of Manchester

Tutorial – Appendix 2: A Practical Guide to Writing Essays – Level 1

Appendix 2: a practical guide to writing essays.

Writing an essay is a big task that will be easier to manage if you break it down into five main tasks as shown below:

An essay-writing Model in 5 steps

• Analyse the question

What is the topic?

What are the key verbs?

Question the question—brainstorm and probe

What information do you need?

How are you going to find information?

Find the information

Make notes and/or mind maps

• Plan and sort

Arrange information in a logical structure

Plan sections and paragraphs

Introduction and conclusion

• Edit (and proofread)

For sense and logical flow

For grammar and spelling

My Learning Essentials offers a number of online resources and workshops that will help you to, understand the importance of referencing your sources, use appropriate language and style in your writing, write and proofread your essays. For more information visit the writing skills My Learning Essentials pages: http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/services-and-support/students/support-for-your-studies/my-learning-essentials/

1. Analyse the question

Many students write great essays — but not on the topic they were asked about. First, look at the main idea or topic in the question. What are you going to be writing about? Next, look at the verb in the question — the action word. This verb, or action word, is asking you to do something with the topic.

Here are some common verbs or action words and explanations:

2. Research

Once you have analysed the question, start thinking about what you need to find out. It’s better and more efficient to have a clear focus for your research than to go straight to the library and look through lots of books that may not be relevant.

Start by asking yourself, ‘What do I need to find out?’ Put your ideas down on paper. A mind map is a good way to do this. Useful questions to start focusing your research are: What? Why? When? How? Where? Who?

My Learning Essentials offer a number of online resources and workshops to help you to plan your research. Visit the My Learning Essentials page: http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/services-and-support/students/support-for-your-studies/my-learning-essentials/workshops-and-online-resources/

3. Plan and sort

First, scan through your source . Find out if there’s any relevant information in what you are reading. If you’re reading a book, look at the contents page, any headings, and the index. Stick a Post-It note on useful pages.

Next, read for detail . Read the text to get the information you want. Start by skimming your eyes over the page to pick our relevant headings, summaries, words. If it’s useful, make notes.

Making notes

There are two rules when you are making notes:

• page reference
• date of publication
• publisher’s name (book)
• place where it was published (book or journal)
• the journal number, volume and date (journal)
• Make brief notes rather than copy text, but if you feel an extract is very valuable put it in quotation marks so that when you write your essay, you’ll know that you have to put it in your own words. Failing to rewrite the text in your own words would be plagiarism.

For more information on plagiarism, refer to the semester 1 section of this handbook, the First Level Handbook, and the My Learning Essentials Plagiarism Resource http://libassets.manchester.ac.uk/mle/avoiding-plagiarism/

Everyone will make notes differently and as it suits them. However, the aim of making notes when you are researching an essay is to use them when you write the essay. It is therefore important that you can:

• Read your notes
• Find their source
• Determine what the topics and main points are on each note (highlight the main ideas, key points or headings).
• Compose your notes so you can move bits of information around later when you have to sort your notes into an essay.

For example:

• Write/type in chunks (one topic for one chunk) with a space between them so you can cut your notes up later, or
• write the main topics or questions you want to answer on separate pieces of paper before you start making notes. As you find relevant information, write it on the appropriate page. (This takes longer as you have to write the source down a number of times, but it does mean you have ordered your notes into headings.)

Sort information into essay plans

You’ve got lots of information now: how do you put it all together to make an essay that makes sense? As there are many ways to sort out a huge heap of clothes (type of clothes, colour, size, fabric…), there are many ways of sorting information. Whichever method you use, you are looking for ways to arrange the information into groups and to order the groups into a logical sequence . You need to play around with your notes until you find a pattern that seems right and will answer the question.

• Find the main points in your notes, put them on a separate page – a mind map is a good way to do this – and see if your main points form any patterns or groups.
• Is there a logical order? Does one thing have to come after another? Do points relate to one another somehow? Think about how you could link the points.
• Using the information above, draw your essay plan. You could draw a picture, a mind map, a flow chart or whatever you want. Or you could build a structure by using bits of card that you can move around.
• Select and put the relevant notes into the appropriate group so you are ready to start writing your first draft.

  The essay has four main parts:

• introduction
• references.

People usually write the introduction and conclusion after they have written the main body of the essay, so we have covered the essay components in that order below.

For more information on essay writing visit the My Learning Essentials web pages:

http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/services-and-support/students/support-for-your-studies/my-learning-essentials/workshops-and-online-resources/?level=3&level1Link=3&level2Links=writing

Structure . The main body should have a clear structure. Depending on the length of the essay, you may have just a series of paragraphs, or sections with headings, or possibly even subsections. In the latter case, make sure that the hierarchy of headings is obvious so that the reader doesn’t get lost.

Flow . The main body of the essay answers the question and flows logically from one key point to another (each point needs to be backed up by evidence [experiments, research, texts, interviews, etc …] that must be referenced). You should normally write one main idea per paragraph and the main ideas in your essay should be linked or ‘signposted’. Signposts show readers where they are going, so they don’t get lost. This lets the reader know how you are going to tackle the idea, or how one idea is linked with the one before it or after it.

Some signpost words and phrases are:

• ‘These changes . . . “
• ‘Such developments
• ‘This
• ‘In the first few paragraphs . . . “
• ‘I will look in turn at. . . ‘
• ‘However, . . . “
• ‘Similarly’
• ‘But’.

Figures: purpose . You should try to include tables, diagrams, and perhaps photographs in your essay. Tables are valuable for summarising information, and are most likely to impress if they show the results of relevant experimental data. Diagrams enable the reader to visualise things, replacing the need for lengthy descriptions. Photographs must be selected with care, to show something meaningful. Nobody will be impressed by a picture of a giraffe – we all know what one looks like, so the picture would be mere decoration. But a detailed picture of a giraffe’s markings might be useful if it illustrates a key point.

Figures: labelling, legends and acknowledgment . Whenever you use a table, diagram or image in your essay you must:

• cite the source
• write a legend (a small box of text that describes the content of the figure).
• make sure that the legend and explanation are adapted to your purpose.

For example: Figure 1. The pathway of synthesis of the amino acid alanine, showing… From Bloggs (1989). [When using a figure originally produced by someone else, never use the original legend, because it is likely to have a different Figure number and to have information that is not relevant for your purposes. Also, make sure that you explain any abbreviations or other symbols that your reader needs to know about the Figure, including details of different colours if they are used to highlight certain aspects of the Figure].

  Checklist for the main body of text

• Does your text have a clear structure?
• Does the text follow a logical sequence so that the argument flows?
• Does your text have both breadth and depth – i.e. general coverage of the major issues with in-depth treatment of particularly important points?
• Does your text include some illustrative experimental results?
• Have you chosen the diagrams or photographs carefully to provide information and understanding, or are the illustrations merely decorative?
• Are your figures acknowledged properly? Did you label them and include legend and explanation?

  Introduction

The introduction comes at the start of the essay and sets the scene for the reader. It usually defines clearly the subject you will address (e.g. the adaptations of organisms to cold environments), how you will address this subject (e.g. by using examples drawn principally from the Arctic zone) and what you will show or argue (e.g. that all types of organism, from microbes through to mammals, have specific adaptations that fit them for life in cold environments). The length of an introduction depends on the length of your essay, but is usually between 50 to 200 words.

Remember that reading the introduction constitutes the first impression on your reader (i.e. your assessor). Therefore, it should be the last section that you revise at the editing stage, making sure that it leads the reader clearly into the details of the subject you have covered and that it is completely free of typos and spelling mistakes.

  Check-list for the Introduction

• Does your introduction start logically by telling the reader what the essay is about – for example, the various adaptations to habitat in the bear family?
• Does your introduction outline how you will address this topic – for example, by an overview of the habitats of bears, followed by in-depth treatment of some specific adaptations?
• Is it free of typos and spelling mistakes?

  Conclusion

An essay needs a conclusion. Like the introduction, this need not be long: 50 to 200 words is sufficient, depending on the length of the essay. It should draw the information together and, ideally, place it in a broader context by personalising the findings, stating an opinion or supporting a further direction which may follow on from the topic. The conclusion should not introduce facts in addition to those in the main body.

  Check-list for the Conclusion  

• Does your conclusion sum up what was said in the main body?
• If the title of the essay was a question, did you give a clear answer in the conclusion?
• Does your conclusion state your personal opinion on the topic or its future development or further work that needs to be done? Does it show that you are thinking further?

In all scientific writing you are expected to cite your main sources of information. Scientific journals have their own preferred (usually obligatory) method of doing this. The piece of text below shows how you can cite work in an essay, dissertation or thesis. Then you supply an alphabetical list of references at the end of the essay. The Harvard style of referencing adopted at the University of Manchester will be covered in the Writing and Referencing Skills unit in semester 2. For more information refer to the Referencing Guide from the University Library (http://subjects.library.manchester.ac.uk/referencing/referencing-harvard).

Citations in the text

Jones and Smith (1999) showed that the ribosomal RNA of fungi differs from that of slime moulds. This challenged the previous assumption that slime moulds are part of the fungal kingdom (Toby and Dean, 1987). However, according to Bloggs et al . (1999) the slime moulds can still be accommodated in the fungal kingdom for convenience. Slime moulds are considered part of the Eucarya domain by Todar (2012).

Reference list at the end of the essay:

List the references in alphabetical order and if you have several publications written by the same author(s) in the same year, add a letter (a,b,c…) after the year to distinguish between them.

Bloggs, A.E., Biggles, N.H. and Bow, R.T. (1999). The Slime Moulds . 2 nd edn. London and New York: Academic Press.

[ Guidance: this reference is to a book. We give the names of all authors, the publication date, title, name of publisher and place of publication. Note that we referred to Bloggs et al .(1999) in the text. The term “ et al .” is an abbreviation of the Latin et alia (meaning “and others”). Note also that within the text “Bloggs et al .” is part of a sentence, so we put only the date in parentheses for the citation in the text. If you wish to cite the entire book, then no page numbers are listed. To cite a specific portion of a book, page numbers are added following the book title in the reference list (see Toby and Dean below).

Todar K. (2012) Overview Of Bacteriology. Available at: http://textbookofbacteriology.net, [Accessed 15 November 2013].

Jones, B.B. and Smith, J.O.E. (1999). Ribosomal RNA of slime moulds, Journal of Ribosomal RNA 12, 33-38.

Toby F.S. and Dean P.L. (1987). Slime moulds are part of the fungal kingdom, in Edwards A.E. and Kane Y. (eds.) The Fungal Kingdom. Luton: Osbert Publishing Co., pp. 154-180 .

EndNote: This is an electronic system for storing and retrieving references. It is very powerful and simple to use, but you must always check that the output is consistent with the instructions given in this section. EndNote will be covered (and assessed) in the Writing and Referencing Skills online unit in Semester 2 to help you research and reference your written work.

Visit the My Learning Essentials online resource for a guide to using EndNote: https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/learning-objects/mle/endnote-guide/ (we recommend EndNote online if you wish to use your own computer).

Note that journals have their own house style so there will be minor differences between them, particularly in their use of punctuation, but all reference lists for the same journal will be in the same format.

First Draft

When you write your first draft, keep two things in mind:

• Length: you may lose marks if your essay is too long. Ensure therefore that your essay is within the page limit that has been set.
• Expression: don’t worry about such matters as punctuation, spelling or grammar at this stage. You can get this right at the editing stage. If you put too much time into getting these things right at the drafting stage, you will have less time to spend on thinking about the content, and you will be less willing to change it when you edit for sense and flow at the editing stage.

  Writing style

The style of your essay should fit the task or the questions asked and be targeted to your reader. Just as you are careful to use the correct tone of voice and language in different situations so you must take care with your writing. Generally writing should be:

• Make sure that you write exactly what you mean in a simple way.
• Write briefly and keep to the point. Use short sentences. Make sure that the meaning of your sentences is obvious.
• Check that you would feel comfortable reading your essay if you were actually the reader.
• Make sure that you have included everything of importance. Take care to explain or define any abbreviations or specialised jargon in full before using a shortened version later. Do not use slang, colloquialisms or cliches in formal written work.

When you are editing your essay, you will need to bear in mind a number of things. The best way to do this, without forgetting something, is to edit in ‘layers’, using a check-list to make sure you have not forgotten anything.

Check-list for Style

• Tone – is it right for the purpose and the receiver?
• Clarity – is it simple, clear and easy to understand?
• Complete – have you included everything of importance?

  Check-list for Sense

• Does your essay make sense?
• Does it flow logically?
• Have you got all the main points in?
• Are there bits of information that aren’t useful and need to be deleted?
• Are your main ideas in paragraphs?
• Are the paragraphs linked to one another so that the essay flows rather than jumps from one thing to another?
• Is the essay within the page limit?

Check-list for Proofreading

• Are the punctuation, grammar, spelling and format correct?
• If you have written your essay on a word-processor, run the spell check over it.
• Have you referenced all quotes and names correctly?
• Is the essay written in the correct format? (one and a half line spacing, margins at least 2.5cm all around the text, minimum font size 10 point).

School Writer in Residence

The School has three ‘Writers in Residence’ who are funded by The Royal Literary Fund.

Susan Barker – Monday and Friday

Tania Hershman – Tuesday

Katherine Clements – Wednesday and Thursday

The Writers in Residence are based in the Simon Building. Please see the BIOL10000 Blackboard site for further information about the writers’ expertise and instructions for appointment booking.

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Writing a strong scientific paper in medicine and the biomedical sciences: a checklist and recommendations for early career researchers

• Open access
• Published: 28 July 2021
• Volume 72 , pages 395–407, ( 2021 )

Cite this article

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• Payam Behzadi 1 &
• Márió Gajdács   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1270-0365 2 , 3  

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Scientific writing is an important skill in both academia and clinical practice. The skills for writing a strong scientific paper are necessary for researchers (comprising academic staff and health-care professionals). The process of a scientific research will be completed by reporting the obtained results in the form of a strong scholarly publication. Therefore, an insufficiency in scientific writing skills may lead to consequential rejections. This feature results in undesirable impact for their academic careers, promotions and credits. Although there are different types of papers, the original article is normally the outcome of experimental/epidemiological research. On the one hand, scientific writing is part of the curricula for many medical programs. On the other hand, not every physician may have adequate knowledge on formulating research results for publication adequately. Hence, the present review aimed to introduce the details of creating a strong original article for publication (especially for novice or early career researchers).

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A Practical Guide to Writing (and Understanding) a Scientific Paper: Clinical Studies

Writing a Scientific Article

A brief guide to the science and art of writing manuscripts in biomedicine

Diego A. Forero, Sandra Lopez-Leon & George Perry

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

The writing and editing of scientific papers should be done in parallel with the collection and analysis of epidemiological data or during the performance of laboratory experiments, as it is an integral step of practical research. Indeed, a scholar paper is the figurative product of scientific investigations (Behzadi and Behzadi 2011 ; Singh and Mayer 2014 ). Moreover, the publication of scholarly papers is important from the standpoint of providing relevant information—both locally and internationally—that may influence clinical practice, while in academia, national and international academic metrics (in which the number and quality of papers determine the score and rank of the scientists) are relevant to fulfill employment criteria and to apply for scientific grants (Grech and Cuschieri 2018 ; Singer and Hollander 2009 ). Thus, scientific writing and the publication of quality peer-reviewed papers in prestigious academic journals are an important challenge for medical professionals and biomedical scientists (Ahlstrom 2017 ). Writing a strong scholarly paper is a multi-procedure task, which may be achieved in a right manner by using a balanced and well-designed framework or blueprint (Gemayel 2016 ; Tóth et al. 2020 ). All in all, time needs to be spent of writing a well-designed and thoughtful scientific proposal to support the research, which will subsequently end in the publication of a paper in a prestigious, peer-reviewed, indexed and scholarly journal with an impact factor (IF). A well-designed scientific project encompasses well-supported and strong hypotheses and up-to-date methodology, which may lead to the collection of remarkable (and reproducible!) data. When a study is based on a strong hypothesis, suitable methodology and our studies result in usable data, the next step is the analysis and interpretation of the said data to present a valuable conclusion at the end of our studies. These criteria give you an influent confidence to prepare a robust and prestigious scholarly paper (Ahlstrom 2017 ; Behzadi 2021 ; Kallet 2004 ; Stenson et al. 2019 ). The aim of this review is to highlight all the necessary details for publication of a strong scientific writing of original article, which may especially be useful for novice or early career researchers.

Approaches for writing and formatting manuscripts before submission

In the presence of effective and appropriate items for writing a strong scientific paper, the author must know the key points and the main core of the study. Thus, preparing a blueprint for the paper will be much easier. The blueprint enables you to draft your work in a logical order (Gemayel 2016 ). In this regard, employment of a mass of charge, free or pay-per-use online and offline software tools can be particularly useful (Gemayel 2016 ; Behzadi and Gajdács 2020 ; Behzadi et al. 2021 ; Ebrahim 2018 ; Issakhanian and Behzadi 2019 ; O'Connor and Holmquist 2009 ; Petkau et al. 2012 ; Singh and Mayer 2014 ; Tomasello et al. 2020 ). Today, there are a wide range of diverse software tools which can be used for design and organization of different parts of your manuscript in the correct form and order. Although traditionally, many scientist do not use these softwares to help formulate their paper and deliver their message in the manuscript, they can indeed facilitate some stages of the manuscript preparation process. Some of these online and offline software facilities are shown in Table 1 .

The first step of writing any scientific manuscript is the writing of the first draft. When writing the first draft, the authors do not need to push themselves to write it in it’s determined order (Behzadi and Gajdács 2020 ; Gemayel 2016 ); however, the finalized manuscript should be organized and structured, according to the publisher’s expectations (Berman et al. 2000 ; Behzadi et al. 2016 ). Based on the contents of the manuscripts, there are different types of papers including original articles, review articles, systematic reviews, short communications, case reports, comments and letters to the editor (Behzadi and Gajdács 2020 ; Gemayel 2016 ), but the present paper will only focus on the original articles structured in the IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion) structure. Materials and methods, results, discussion or introduction sections are all suitable target sections to begin writing the primary draft of the manuscript, although in most cases, the methods section is the one written first, as authors already have a clear sense and grasp on the methodologies utilized during their studies (Ebrahim 2018 ). The final sections of IMRAD papers which should be completed are the abstract (which is basically the mini-version of the paper) and conclusion (Liumbruno et al. 2013 ; Paróczai et al. 2021 ; Ranjbar et al. 2016 ). The authors should be aware that the final draft of the manuscript should clearly express: the reason of performing the study, the individuality (novelty and uniqueness) of the work, the methodology of the study, the specific outcomes examined in this work, the importance, meaning and worth of the study. The lack of any of the items in the manuscript will usually lead to the direct rejection of the manuscript from the journals. During the composition of the manuscript (which corresponds to any and all sections of the IMRAD), some basics of scientific writing should be taken into consideration: scientific language is characterized by short, crisp sentences, as the goal of the publication is to deliver the main message concisely and without confusion. It is a common misconception that scientific writing needs to be “colorful” and “artistic,” which may have the opposite effect on the clarity of the message. As the main goal of publishing is to deliver the message (i.e., the results) of our study, it is preferred that scientific or technical terms (once defined) are used uniformly, with avoiding synonyms. If young scientists have linguistic difficulties (i.e., English is not their first language), it is desirable to seek the help of professional proofreading services to ensure the correct grammar use and clarity. Traditionally, the passive voice was expected to be used in scientific communication, which was intended to strengthen the sense of generalization and universality of research; however, nowadays the active voice is preferred (symbolizing that authors take ownership and accountability of their work) and sentences in passive voice should take up < 10% of the paper (Berman et al. 2000 ; Behzadi et al. 2016 ).

Every scientist should be able to present and discuss their results in their own words, without copy–pasting sentences from other scientists or without referring to the work of others, if it was used in our paper. If an author copies or represents another authors’ intellectual property or words as their own (accidentally or more commonly on purpose) is called plagiarism. Scientific journals use plagiarism checker softwares to cross-check the level of similarity between the submitted works and scientific papers or other materials already published; over a certain threshold of similarity, journals take action to address this issue. Plagiarism is highly unethical and frowned upon in the scientific community, and it is strictly forbidden by all relevant scientific publishers, and if one is caught with plagiarism, the scientific paper is usually rejected immediately (if this occurs during the submission process) or is retracted. There are some freely available online software tools (e.g., iThenticate® ( http://www.ithenticate.com/ ) and SMALL SEO TOOLS ( https://smallseotoolz.net/plagiarism-checker ) for authors to screen their works for similarities with other sources; nevertheless, it is also unethical to use these tools to determine the “acceptable” level of similarity (i.e., cheating) before submitting a paper.

The structure of an IMRAD article includes the title, author’s(s’) name(s), author’s(s’) affiliation(s), author’s(s’) ORCID iD(s) ( https://orcid.org/ ), abstract, keywords, introduction, methods (or materials and methods), results, discussion, conclusion, acknowledgements, conflict of interest and references (Behzadi and Behzadi 2011 ; Singh and Mayer 2014 ). The acronym of ORCID (with a hard pronunciation of C ( https://orcid.org/blog/2013/01/07/how-should-orcid-be-pronounced )) (abbreviation of Open Researcher & Contributor ID) is considered as unique international identifier for researchers (Haak et al. 2012 ; Hoogenboom and Manske 2012 ). The ORCID iD is composed of 16 digits and introduced in the format of https URI ( https://support.orcid.org/hc/en-us/articles/360006897674 ). It is recommended for the authors to register their ORCID iD. The ORCID is important for manuscript submissions, manuscript citations, looking at the works of other researchers among other things (Haak et al. 2012 ; Hoogenboom and Manske 2012 ).

The contents of the IMRAD-structured manuscripts

Although the IMRAD format seems to be a cul-de-sac structure, it can be a suitable mold for both beginners and professional writers and authors. Each manuscript should contain a title page which includes the main and running (shortened) titles, authors’ names, authors’ affiliations (such as research place, e-mail, and academic degree), authors’ ORCID iDs, fund and financial supports (if any), conflicts of interest, corresponding author’s(s’) information, manuscript’s word count and number of figures, tables and graphs (Behzadi and Gajdács 2020 ).

As the title is the first section of your paper which is seen by the readers, it is important for the authors to take time on appropriately formulating it. The nature of title may attract or dismiss the readers (Tullu and Karande 2017 ). In this regard, a title should be the mirror of the paper’s content; hence, a proper title should be attractive, tempting, specific, relevant, simple, readable, clear, brief, concise and comprehensive. Avoid jargons, acronyms, opinions and the introduction of bias . Short and single-sentenced titles have a “magic power” on the readers. Additionally, the use of important and influent keywords could affect the readers and could be easy searchable by the search engines (Cuschieri et al. 2019 ). This can help to increase the citation of a paper. Due to this fact, it is recommended to consider a number of titles for your manuscript and finally select the most appropriate one, which reflects the contents of the paper the best. The number of titles’ and running titles’ characters is limited in a wide range of journals (Cuschieri et al. 2019 ).

The abstract is the vitrine of a manuscript, which should be sequential, arranged, structured and summarized with great effort and special care. This section is the second most important part of a manuscript after title (Behzadi and Gajdács 2020 ). The abstract should be written very carefully, deliberately and comprehensively in perfect English, because a well-written abstract invites the readers (the editors, reviewers, and readers who may cite the paper in the future) to read the paper entirely from A to Z and a rough one discourages readers (the editors and reviewers) from even handling the manuscript (Cuschieri et al. 2019 ). Whether we like it or not, the abstract is the only part of the manuscript that will be read for the most part; thus, the authors should make an effort to show the impressiveness and quality of the paper in this section.

The abstract as an independent structured section of a manuscript stands alone and is the appetizer of your work (Jirge 2017 ). So as mentioned, this part of paper should be written accurately, briefly, clearly, and to be facile and informative. For this section, the word count is often limited (150 to 250/300 words) and includes a format of introduction/background/, aim/goal/objective, methods, results and conclusions. The introduction or background refers to primary observations and the importance of the work, goal/aim/objective should represent the hypothesis of the study (i.e., why did you do what you did?), the methods should cover the experimental procedures (how did you do what you did?), the results should consider the significant and original findings, and finally, the clear message should be reported as the conclusion. It is recommended to use verbs in third person (unless specified by the Journal’s instructions). Moreover, the verbs depicting the facts which already have been recognized should be used in present tense while those verbs describing the outcomes gained by the current work should be used in past tense. For beginners in scientific publishing, it is a common mistake to start the writing of the manuscript with the abstract (which—in fact—should be the finalizing step, after the full text of the paper has already been finished and revised). In fact, abstract ideally is the copy-pasted version of the main messages of the manuscript, until the word limit (defined by the journal) has been reached. Another common mistake by inexperienced authors is forgetting to include/integrate changes in the abstract to reflect the amendments made in the bulk text of the paper. All in all, even a paper with very good contents and significant results may could be rejected because of a poor and weak abstract (Behzadi and Gajdács 2020 ).

Keywords are the key point words and terms of the manuscript which come right after abstract section. The keywords are used for searching papers in the related fields by internet search engines. It is recommended to employ 3 to 10 keywords in this section. The keywords should be selected from the MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) service, NCBI ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/ ). An appropriate title should involve the most number of keywords (Behzadi and Gajdács 2020 ; Jirge 2017 ).

Introduction section should be framed up to four paragraphs (up to 15% of the paper’s content). This section should be progressed gradually from general to specific information and gaps (in a funnel-formed fashion). In another words, the current condition of the problem and the previous studies should be briefly presented in the first paragraph. More explanation should be brought in discussion section, where the results of the paper should be discussed in light of the other findings in the literature (Ahlstrom 2017 ; Behzadi 2021 ). In this regard, the original articles and some key references should be cited to have a clarified description. The second paragraph should clarify the lack of knowledge regarding the problem at present, the current status of the scientific issue and explain shortly the necessity and the importance of the present investigation. Subsequently, the relevance of this work should be described to fill the current gaps relating to the problem. The questions (hypothesis/purpose) of the study comprising “Why did you do?/What did you do?/So What?” should be clarified as the main goal in the last paragraph (Ahlstrom 2017 ; Behzadi 2021 ; Burian et al. 2010 ; Lilleyman 1995 ; Tahaei et al. 2021 ). A concise and focused introduction lets the readers to have an influent understanding and evaluation for the performance of the study. The importance of the work presented should never be exaggerated, if the readers feel that they have been misled in some form that may damage the credibility of the authors’ reputation. It is recommended to use standard abbreviations in this section by writing the complete word, expression or phrase for the first time and mentioning the related abbreviation within parenthesis in this section. Obviously, the abbreviations will be used in the following sentences throughout the manuscript. The authors should also adhere to international conventions related to writing certain concepts, e.g., taxonomic names or chemical formulas. In brief, the introduction section contains four key points including: previous studies, importance of the subject, the presence of serious gap(s) in current knowledge regarding the subject, the hypothesis of the work (Ahlstrom 2017 ; Behzadi 2021 ; Lilleyman 1995 ; Tahaei et al. 2021 ). Previously, it was recommended by majority of journals to use verbs in past tense and their passive forms; however, this shows a changing trend, as more and more journals recommend the use of the active voice.

Materials and methods

As the materials and methods section constitutes the skeleton of a paper (being indicative of the quality of the data), this section is known as the keystone of the research. A poor, flawed or incorrect methodology may result in the direct rejection of manuscripts, especially in high IF journals, because it cannot link the introduction section into the results section (Haralambides 2018 ; Meo 2018 ). In other words, the methods are used to test the study’s hypothesis and the readers judge the validity of a research by the released information in this section. This part of manuscript belongs to specialists and researchers; thus, the application of subheadings in a determined and relevant manner will support the readers to follow information in a right order at the earliest. The presentation of the methodologies in a correct and logical order in this section clarifies the direction of the methods used, which can be useful for those who want to replicate these procedures (Haralambides 2018 ; Juhász et al. 2021 ; Meo 2018 ). An effective, accurate, comprehensive and sufficient description guarantees the clarity and transparency of the work and satisfies the skeptical reviewers and readers regarding the basis of the research. The following questions should be answered in this section: “What was done?” and “How was it done?” and “Why was it done?”

The cornerstones of the methods section including defining the type of study, materials (e.g., concentration, dose, generic and manufacturer names of chemicals, antibiotics), participants (e.g., humans, animals, microorganisms), demographic data (e.g., age, gender, race, time, duration, place), the need for and the existence of an ethical approval or waiver (in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and its revisions) for humans and animals, experimental designs (e.g., sampling methods, time and duration of the study, place), protocols, procedures, rationale, criteria, devices/tools/techniques (together with their manufacturers and country of origin), calibration plots, measurement parameters, calculations, statistical methods, tests and analyses, statistical software tools and version among many other things should be described here in methods section (Haralambides 2016 ; Stájer et al. 2020 ). If the details of protocols make this section extremely long, mention them in brief and cite the related papers (if they are already published). If the applied protocol was modified by the researcher, the protocol should be mentioned as modified protocol with the related address. Moreover, it is recommended to use flow charts (preferably standard flow charts) and tables to shorten this section, because “a picture paints a thousand words” (Ahlstrom 2017 ; Behzadi 2021 ; Lilleyman 1995 ; Tahaei et al. 2021 ).

The used online guidelines in accordance with the type of study should be mentioned in the methods section. In this regard, some of these online check lists, including the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) statement ( http://www.consort-statement.org/ ) (to improve the reporting randomized trials), the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) statement ( http://www.prisma-statement.org/ ) (to improve the reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses), the STARD (Standards for Reporting Diagnostic accuracy studies) statement ( http://www.equator-network.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/STARD-2015-checklist.pdf ) (to improve the reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies), the STORBE (STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology) statement ( https://www.strobe-statement.org/index.php?id=strobe-home ) (to improve the reporting of observational studies in Epidemiology), should be mentioned and highlighted in medical articles. Normally, the methods section begins with mentioning of exclusion (depicting safe selection) and inclusion (depicting no bias has happened) criteria (regarding the populations studied) and continues by the description of procedures and data collection. This section usually ends by the description of statistical data analyses. As mentioned in a previous section, older recommendations in “Instructions for authors” suggested the use of verbs in past tense, in 3rd person and passive forms, whereas novel guidelines suggest more text written in the active voice (Ahlstrom 2017 ; Behzadi 2021 ; Lilleyman 1995 ; Tahaei et al. 2021 ).

The results including negative and positive outcomes should be reported clearly in this section with no interpretation (Audisio et al. 2009 ; Behzadi et al. 2013 ). The most original information of an IMRAD paper originates from the results section. Indeed, the reported findings are the main core of the study which answers to the research question (hypothesis) “what was found?” The results section should answer all points brought up in the methods section. Categorization of findings by subheadings from the major to minor results, chronologically or by any logical order, facilitates readers to comprehend the results in an effective and influent manner (Ahlstrom 2017 ; Behzadi 2021 ; Lilleyman 1995 ; Tahaei et al. 2021 ).

Representing the motive of experiments, the related experimental setups, and the gained outcomes supports the quality and clarity of your results, because these components create logical and influent communications between obtained data, observations and measurements. The results section should represent all types of data (major to minor), variables (dependent and independent), variables effects and even accidental findings. The statistical analyses should be represented at the end of results section. The statistical significance should be represented by an exact amount of p value ( p  < 0.05 is usually recognized and set as the threshold for statistical significance, while p  > 0.05 depicts no statistical significance). Moreover, the mentioning of the 95% confidence intervals and related statistical parameters is also needed, especially in epidemiological studies (Mišak et al. 2005 ).

It is recommended to use tables, figures, graphs and charts in this section to give an influent representation of results to the readers. Using well-structured tables deeply impresses the readers. Usually the limitation of the number of figures, graphs, tables and charts is represented in the section of instructions for authors of the journal. Remember that well-designed tables and figures act as clean mirrors which transfer a clear and sharp illustration of your work and your efforts in preparing the manuscript. Thus, a well-designed graph, table, charts or figure should be understood easily; in other words, they should be represented as self-explanatory compartments. Avoid repeating the represented data in figures, tables, charts and graphs within the text. Citing figures, graphs, charts and tables in right positions within the text increases the impact and quality of your manuscript (Ahlstrom 2017 ; Behzadi 2021 ; Lilleyman 1995 ; Tahaei et al. 2021 ). Showing the highest and lowest amounts in tables by bolding or highlighting them is very effective. Normally, the legends are placed under graphs and figures and above the tables. It is recommended to begin the figure legends with conclusion and finish it by important technical key points.

Discussion and conclusion

This section represents the interpretations of results. In other words, discussion describes what these results do mean by the help of mechanistic interpretations of causes and effects. This argument should be achieved sharp and strong in a logical manner (Gajdács 2020 ; Rasko et al. 2016 ). The interpretations should be supported by relevant references and evidences. Usually, the first paragraph of discussion involves the key points of results. The represented data in results section should not be repeated within the discussion section. Magnification and exaggeration of data should never occur! “A good wine needs no bush.” Care about the quality of discussion section, because this part of the manuscript is determinative item for the acceptance of the paper (Ahlstrom 2017 ; Behzadi 2021 ).

Avoid representing new data in discussion, which were not mentioned in the results section. The following paragraphs should represent the novelty, differences and/or similarities of the obtained findings. Unusual and findings not predicted should be highlighted (Gajdács 2020 ; Rasko et al. 2016 ). It is important to interpret the obtained results by the strong references and evidences. Remember that citation of strong and relevant references enforces your evaluations and increases the quality of your points of view (Mack 2018 ; Shakeel et al. 2021 ). The probable weaknesses or strengths of the project should be discussed. This critical view of the results supports the discussion of the manuscript. The discussion section is finished by the final paragraph of conclusion. A critical paragraph in which the potential significance of obtained findings should be represented in brief (Ahlstrom 2017 ; Behzadi 2021 ). The bring/take-home message of the study in conclusion section should be highlighted. For writing a conclusion, it is recommended to use non-technical language in perfect English as it should be done in abstract section (Alexandrov 2004 ). It is suggested to use verbs in present tense and passive forms, if not otherwise mandated by the journal’s instructions. In accordance with policy of journals, the conclusion section could be the last part of discussion or presented within a separate section after discussion section (Ahlstrom 2017 ; Behzadi 2021 ).

Acknowledgements

This section is placed right after discussion and/or conclusion section. The unsaid contributors with pale activities who cannot be recognized as the manuscripts’ authors should be mentioned in acknowledgement section. Financial sponsors, coordinators, colleagues, laboratory staff and technical supporters, scientific writing proof readers, institutions and organizations should be appreciated in this section. The names listed in acknowledgements section will be indexed by some databases like US National Library Medicine (NLM) ( https://www.nlm.nih.gov/ ) (Ahlstrom 2017 ).

Conflict of interest

If the authors have any concerns regarding moral or financial interests, they should declare it unambiguously, because the related interests may lead to biases and suspicions of misconducts (Ahlstrom 2017 ; Behzadi 2021 ; Lilleyman 1995 ; Tahaei et al. 2021 ). This section usually comes right after acknowledgements and before references.

Application of relevant and pertinent references supports the manuscript’s scientific documentary. Moreover, utilization of related references with high citation helps the quality of the manuscript. For searching references, it is recommended to use search engines like Google Scholar ( https://scholar.google.com/ ), databases such as MEDLINE ( https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/medline.html ) and NCBI ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ ) and Web sites including SCOPUS ( https://www.scopus.com/ ), etc.; in this regard, the keywords are used for a successful and effective search. Each journal has its own bibliographic system; hence, it is recommended to use reference management software tools, e.g., EndNote®. The most common bibliographic styles are APA American Psychological Association, Harvard and Vancouver. Nevertheless, the authors should aware of retracted articles and making sure not to use them as references (Ahlstrom 2017 ; Behzadi 2021 ; Lilleyman 1995 ; Tahaei et al. 2021 ). Depending on the journal, there are different limitations for the number of references. It is recommended to read carefully the instructions for authors section of the journal.

Conclusions for future biology

From the societal standpoint, the publication of scientific results may lead to important advances in technology and innovation. In medicine, patient care—and the biomedical sciences in general—the publication of scientific research may also lead to substantial benefits to advancing the medical practice, as evidence-based medicine (EBM) is based on the available scientific data at the present time. Additionally, academic institutions and many academic centers require young medical professionals to be active in the scientific scene for promotions and many employment prospects. Although scientific writing is part of the curricula for many medical programs, not every physician may have adequate knowledge on formulating research results for publication adequately. The present review aimed to briefly and concisely summarize the details of creating a favorable original article to aid early career researchers in the submission to peer-reviewed journal and subsequent publication. Although not all concepts have been discussed in detail, the paper allows for current and future authors to grasp the basic ideas regarding scientific writing and the authors hope to encourage everyone to take the “leap of faith” into scientific research in medicine and to submit their first article to international journals.

Data accessibility

Not applicable.

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Payam Behzadi would like to thank the Islamic Azad University, Shahr-e-Qods Branch, Tehran, Iran, for approving the organization of the workshop on “How to write a scientific paper?” Márió Gajdács would also like to acknowledge the support of ESCMID’s “30 under 30” Award.

Open access funding provided by University of Szeged. Márió Gajdács was supported by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship (BO/00144/20/5) of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the New National Excellence Programme (ÚNKP-20-5-SZTE-330) of the Ministry of Human Resources.

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Department of Microbiology, College of Basic Sciences, Shahr-e-Qods Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, 37541-374, Iran

Payam Behzadi

Institute of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Nagyvárad tér 4, 1089, Hungary

Márió Gajdács

Department of Pharmacodynamics and Biopharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Szeged, Szeged, Eötvös utca 6., 6720, Hungary

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Behzadi, P., Gajdács, M. Writing a strong scientific paper in medicine and the biomedical sciences: a checklist and recommendations for early career researchers. BIOLOGIA FUTURA 72 , 395–407 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42977-021-00095-z

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A brief guide to the science and art of writing manuscripts in biomedicine

• Diego A. Forero 1 , 2 ,
• Sandra Lopez-Leon   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7504-3441 3 &
• George Perry 4  

Journal of Translational Medicine volume  18 , Article number:  425 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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Publishing articles in international scientific journals is the primary method for the communication of validated research findings and ideas. Journal articles are commonly used as a major input for evaluations of researchers and institutions. Few articles have been published previously about the different aspects needed for writing high-quality articles. In this manuscript, we provide an updated and brief guide for the multiple dimensions needed for writing manuscripts in the health and biological sciences, from current, international and interdisciplinary perspectives and from our expertise as authors, peer reviewers and editors. We provide key suggestions for writing major sections of the manuscript (e.g. title, abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion), for submitting the manuscript and bring an overview of the peer review process and  of the post-publication impact of the articles.

Introduction

Publishing articles in international scientific journals is the current primary approach for the communication of validated research findings and ideas. Scientific papers are commonly used as a major input for evaluations of researchers and institutions [ 1 , 2 ]. However, taking into account the evolving and multidimensional landscape of the publishing process, there is a need for additional updated training in the science and art of writing manuscripts for scientific journals.

Few articles have been published previously about the different aspects needed for writing high-quality articles [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ]. In this article, we provide an updated and brief guide for the multiple dimensions needed for writing manuscripts in the health and biological sciences, from current, international and interdisciplinary perspectives and from our expertise as authors, peer reviewers and editors, extending and complementing previous publications about this topic. The writing of manuscripts in biomedicine has its own standards, including the availability of multiple guidelines for reporting different types of studies, which are discussed in this article.

General recommendations

One of the first steps before starting to write an article should be to read the main papers that have been previously published on the subject. The first search might be focused on the available literature reviews and meta-analyses, and key for a scientist, the technique of performing a proper literature review [ 7 ]. Science advances by building on what it is known and there is no point in re-inventing the wheel [ 8 ].

It has been suggested, when writing scientific papers, to keep it short, compact and simple, avoiding the excessive use of adjectives and adverbs [ 9 ]. If you read a word or sentence and it does not add anything, delete it.

The success of an article depends on the quality of primary data and their analyses, on the way it is written and on the clearness of the tables and figures. It is fundamental to follow the current standards of research integrity (such as avoiding plagiarism and data manipulation) [ 10 ]. Both negative and positive results should be published, to avoid publication bias [ 11 ].

Authors should keep in mind that scientific writing is a process that involves multiple steps, takes time, dedication and inspiration, and involves patience, motivation, analytical thinking and adherence to high-quality standards [ 86 ]. Table 1 provides an important number of online resources that facilitate the writing of scientific manuscripts.

Following international recommendations for the authorship of articles in the biomedical sciences, such as the ones from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), is a fundamental topic in scientific publications, in order to avoid ghost and gift authorship practices [ 12 , 13 ]. In general, authors should have a significant involvement in these 4 points: (1) study concept/design, data collection or data analysis/interpretation (2) drafting/revising the manuscript, (3) approving the final version and (4) holding responsibility for accuracy and integrity of all aspects of the reported research [ 14 ].

There is a trend for the increase of the number of authors over the years [ 15 ], which is a reflection of globalization and the increasing complexity of medical research [ 16 ]. In the last two decades, there has been an increased use of consortia authorship with very long lists of authors, usually derived from international mega-collaborations. Authors from non-English speaking countries might have to take into account the current standards for names (two first names and one last name), to avoid confusion in the indexing processes in databases. Authors with two last names can hyphen their two last names to avoid confusing their first last name with a middle name, although the use of ORCID identifiers facilitates the disambiguation of author profiles.

The meaning of the order of the listed authors varies between fields. In many disciplines, the author order indicates the magnitude of the contribution, with the last author usually representing the principal investigator [ 17 ]. It is possible to have an equal co-authorship, either for the first or corresponding authors [ 18 ].

Title and abstract

The Title [ 19 ] and the Abstract [ 20 ] are the two most visible items of the article [ 21 ], as they are the main sections indexed in bibliographic databases. These two elements compete for the reader’s attention; therefore both should be informative, accurate, attractive, concise, clear and specific [ 19 , 20 ]. It is advisable that the title of the manuscript reflects the actual findings of the work and be concise.

The Abstract section should provide a brief description of the main sections of the manuscript, describing key methods, findings and conclusions. It is recommended that the abstract be specific, clear, unbiased, honest, concise, precise, stand-alone, complete, and scholarly [ 22 ]. An important number of medical journals ask for structured abstracts. Usually, keywords are provided at the end of the Abstract section and the use of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) as keywords is quite helpful.

Introduction section

Although the standards of the length of the Introduction vary between scientific fields (for example, they are longer in psychology journals), it is recommended that the introduction section should be concise, avoiding long reviews about the topics of the article. It has been proposed that the introduction section be designed as a cone or funnel, starting with the main points of the general topic, followed by a highlight of the existing knowledge gap, the hypothesis or main question of the article and ending with a brief overview of the approach of the current work [ 23 ].

Another recommendation is to keep it simple, including three main paragraphs: the first paragraph explaining what is known, the second what is not known and the third what the objective of the study is and explain what it will add to the scientific knowledge. When stating what is known, it should not be a full review of the literature, but it should be the essential information needed to understand the background. Information from the introduction should not overlap with the discussion. The paragraph explaining what is unknown should be focused on helping the reader understand why the research is being performed. The last paragraph should state the research question or hypothesis [ 24 ]. It is important to cite key articles (both recent reviews and related primary works) and to highlight the novelty of the current work.

Methods section

This section is essential and should be written to facilitate other researchers enabling them to replicate the study. This section has been compared to a recipe, which includes all the ingredients and how they need to be combined [ 25 ].

Key details of methods employed, such as overall design of the study, inclusion and exclusion criteria, sample sizes and statistical power, should be described [ 26 ]. Another way to subdivide it is with subheadings that might include: study design, setting, subjects, data collection and data analysis [ 25 ]. The incorporation of data about the origins of samples and validated criteria for diagnoses is indispensable, including key references to validated instruments and methodologies. Description of approval by institutional ethics committees and use of informed consent, when needed, is fundamental. In the case of the use of equipment and reagents, details of the respective manufacturers are needed. Statistical and bioinformatic analyses should be described clearly, including the details of statistical tests and the software used [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ]. It is fundamental that all the results described in the Results section correlate with the procedures described in the Methods section.

Results section

The Results section should provide an adequate and complete description of the main findings of the work carried out. It is suggested to avoid the repetition of the same exact content of the Tables or Figures and to leave the interpretation of the results of the findings to the Discussion section [ 31 ]. The main messages and details of the Results section should be provided in the Figures and Tables. No interpretation should be provided in this section.

The results section should be seen as a mirror of the methods: for every method provided, there should be a corresponding result. Subheadings can be included and some suggestions might be: recruitment/response, characteristics of the sample, findings from primary analyses, secondary analyses and additional findings [ 32 ]. Exact p values should be presented and must always be shown together with the estimates and confidence intervals. There should be a consistency with the number of decimal places presented in the results section and in the tables. It is common to present one or two decimals places. Always present the absolute number of cases, in addition to relative measures (e.g. percentage was 22% -33/150-) [ 32 ].

Tables and figures

Tables facilitate the detailed presentation of the results and they should be constructed adequately. Abbreviations are useful for avoiding repetitions of phrases and should be explained in the footnotes [ 33 ]. Each table or figure should be self-explanatory, and there should be no need to read the text to be able to understand it. They have to be presented in the same chronological order, following how they are presented in the text [ 34 ].

For tables where a lot of information is presented, the p values that are statistically significant can be presented in bold. In case of long or complex tables, it is helpful to provide them as supplementary files, leaving the key data in the tables of the main text. It is important to provide details of statistical significance in the table, in order to avoid going back and forth between the tables and the text to read key data.

The creation of figures for scientific articles involves data visualization. A major element in the creation of figures is their focus on the representation of key findings without biases, avoiding the generation of overly complex figures. In addition, it is important to remove the repetition of the same data that is also presented as tables in the main manuscript. Description of key conventions should be provided in detail in the figure legends and it is important to avoid the misrepresentation of data [ 35 ], particularly digital enhancement. As the large majority of journals are published and distributed in digital formats, there are no actual restrictions for the adequate use of colors in scientific images. In case of photographs, it is important to follow the guidelines of the journals regarding image size and resolution. In addition, other recommendations are related to the use of adequate tools and parameters for the generation of figures [ 36 ].

Discussion section

It has been proposed that the general outline of the discussion can be seen as an inverted funnel. Thus, it has been suggested that the configurations of the introduction and discussion sections can have, together, the form of an hourglass [ 37 ] (Fig.  1 ). The first paragraph is usually a summary of the important results, focused on answering the research question. The next paragraphs should focus on integrating the findings with what is known in the literature. If there are different findings, each should have a separate paragraph. The discussion of each result should follow the same order of the methods and results. A balanced contextualization of findings of the current study should be provided by citing the key previous original articles and related reviews that put the results in perspective [ 38 ]. If there are differences between the findings and previously published studies, the differences and similarities of the results and studies should be stated.

A graphical overview of the general structure of research articles

It is important to list the strengths and the limitations of the study. An explanation of the implications of those limitations should be included. An essential point is to include the needs and the perspectives for future studies. It can be stated that the results need replication or to highlight new questions that appeared after the analyses. This point can be of great guidance for future studies and can help the advance of science. It is highly advisable to avoid very long discussion sections and overstatements about the actual findings. The discussion section should not have results that were not described in the Results section. The last paragraph should include a conclusion that clearly states what the study adds to the knowledge.

References section

Although each journal usually has its own citation style, the Vancouver style is quite common in medical journals. There are several freely and commercially available programs (such as EndNote, Zotero or Mendeley) that facilitate the citations process and the generation of the bibliography, including the details for multiple citation styles. They can help to organize, store, download -and most importantly- format the references to the style requirements of the journal you want to submit to. By having the references in these programs, it is easy to reformat the style for any other journal in a matter of seconds.

Always try to cite the original source behind a key statement, making sure that the reference you mention is not only mentioning another source. If you need to choose among several references, take into consideration the level of evidence, the year of publication and the quality of the work [ 39 ].

It is important to verify that the bibliography includes all the publications cited and to check issues with names of authors or journals. Several journals have limitations in the number of citations for certain types of publications.

Acknowledgments and other sections

Usually, the authors thank their funding agencies for their economical support for the studies carried out. In addition, it is possible to include acknowledgements to people who helped with the development of the work (technical support, for example) or in the writing of the manuscript (such as corrections of use of the English language) [ 40 ]. In several cases, the journals ask for declarations about ethical considerations and declarations of the roles of individual authors (such as the design of the study and/or the collection or analysis of the data) [ 41 ]. Declarations of potential conflicts of interest is fundamental for the transparency of scientific activities [ 12 , 42 ].

Supplementary data

With modern high-throughput methods, the size of the analyzed datasets is becoming larger and larger. This means that there is a growing need to provide access to the large datasets as supplementary files (such as spreadsheets or pdf files) or to include them in publicly available repositories (such as OSF or figshare) [ 43 ]. In addition, certain fields have specific guidelines asking authors to submit their data to specific online repositories (such as the NCBI GEO database for whole genome expression data) [ 44 ].

Review articles and other types of publications

There are two main types of review articles: systematic reviews and narrative reviews. In the case of systematic reviews and meta-analyses there are important standards to follow, including the need for well-defined search strategies [ 45 ]. For the writing of narrative reviews [ 46 , 47 ], it is essential to define its scope and current needs and it is highly advisable to construct tables and figures to consolidate and visualize the key information. Articles for case reports follow a different structure and there are recommendations about their development [ 48 ].

Reporting guidelines

It is important to follow published guidelines for the reporting of studies in clinical research, such as STROBE for observational studies [ 49 ], STROBE-ME for molecular epidemiology studies [ 50 ], STREGA for genetic association studies [ 51 ], PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses [ 52 ], TRIPOD for prediction models of diagnosis or prognosis [ 53 ], CONSORT for clinical trials [ 54 ], CARE for case reports [ 55 ] and AGREE II for practice guidelines [ 56 ], in addition to ARRIVE 2.0 for animal research [ 57 ]. For molecular and cellular analyses, there are several important guidelines, such as MIQE for qPCR [ 58 , 59 ], flow cytometry [ 60 ], cell death [ 61 ], mutational analyses [ 62 ], simulation experiments [ 63 ] and gene nomenclatures [ 64 , 65 ].

Find the best candidate journals

There are several aspects that the authors should take into account in the selection of a journal, such as local standards of publications, the visibility or impact of the journals and their affinities with the topics of the manuscripts. It is highly advisable to verify the indexing of the journals in key databases, such as PubMed, Scopus/Scimago (quartiles) and Journal Citation Reports (impact factor) [ 66 , 67 ]. Finally, authors should be careful with the growing number of predatory journals [ 68 ], which commonly mention spurious impact factors [ 69 ]. Another way to determine which journal is suitable is to see the list of the references in your study. Before selecting the journal, read all the instructions and make sure the scope of the journal and editor preference fits your manuscript. Make a list of 3 to 5 journals, and rank them [ 70 ]. In several cases, sending a pre-submission enquiry to the editor of the journal is helpful [ 71 ]. There is a growing trend for the initial divulgation of manuscripts as preprints, in repositories such as bioRxiv and medRxiv [ 72 ].

Submission and peer review

It is fundamental to follow the guidelines for authors of the selected journal. In addition to manuscript files, tables, figures and supplementary data, it is common that the authors provide a cover letter (highlighting the main contributions of the work) in their submissions. In the cover letter it is recommended to include: (1) Your request to submit your work (mentioning the title). (2) 2–3 sentences summarizing the significance of the work (importance, main finding, message) (3) A statement of the relevance to the journal audience (eg. A related work published in the journal) (4) Any statement required from the journal, such as that the material has not been submitted/published elsewhere [ 73 ].

There are differences in peer review practices between journals. In many cases, there are two or more peer reviewers in a single-blind approach (the authors do not know the identities of the reviewers). In other cases, there is an approach based in double-blind, in which the reviewers also do not know the identities of the authors. In recent years, there has been an increase in the implementation of open peer review, in which the identities and concepts of the reviewers are publicly available.

Answer to peer reviewers

When addressing the comments and questions of the peer reviewers do it in a new document. Copy/paste all comments and number them. For each comment briefly respond and indicate where the change was made in the manuscript. The response should be in present tense or past present (e.g. We now present; we have added to the first paragraph).

Make the changes in the paper with “track changes” or highlighting the change in another color. Be thankful and respectful to each reviewer and editor and take each comment very seriously. If you disagree with the comment, add solid evidence, adding references or key data [ 74 ].

The process of providing adequate answers to peer reviewers and editors and of the incorporation of their suggestions into the revised manuscript is an important challenge [ 75 ] in the publishing of an article.

Open science

Interest in Open Science practices has been growing in recent years, considering their advantages to facilitate the access to information and their potential to increase the reproducibility and the quality of research findings [ 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 ]. It has been shown that open access articles [ 81 ] have advantages in terms of the amount of citations [ 82 ] and that articles that provide links to repositories with primary data have also have a higher citation count [ 43 ]. Open Science, in addition to open peer review, also involves open protocols, materials [ 8 , 83 ] and data (Fig.  2 ).

An overview of the different dimensions and components of Open Science

Post-publication impact

Citation counts are one of the main ways to measure the scientific impact of publications, allowing the development of multiple metrics, such as the H index [ 84 ], to measure the influence and visibility of scientists and research groups [ 1 ]. Recently, there is a growing use of alternative metrics [ 85 ], which measure other types of article mentions (such as social networks, blogs and news, recorded by Altmetric) or downloads. There are platforms (such as PubPeer and Retraction Watch) that allow comments on published articles, facilitating divulgation of possible issues on reported findings (among others) and to visualize information about retracted articles.

Conclusions

The quality of scientific publications is directly related to the careful revision by peer reviewers of the manuscript, in order to improve the submitted manuscript. This process means that receiving feedback is a constant process and that authors should have the resilience to receive rejections and recommendations for major changes [ 2 ]. In addition, authors can have feedback from collaborators before submitting the manuscript (including revision of the use of the English language) and they can benefit themselves from the experience of being peer reviewers [ 86 ]. In the current scientific environment, publishing an article is not the end of a process; it is the beginning: the article is beginning its journey of being read and analyzed by people around the world.

The writing of a scientific article is a work of art that is honed with experience. The more publications you have, the easier it is to write a manuscript. The collaboration between authors can be very enriching and give rise to new projects and new learnings. The contribution to science and to following generations comes with every single article one publishes. Therefore, one should always strive for the best.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

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Acknowledgements

DAF has been previously supported by research grants from MinCiencias. GP is supported by the NIH and the Alzheimer´s Association. The authors thank Leon Ruiter Lopez for his help in the creation of Fig.  1 .

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DAF wrote an initial draft of the manuscript; DAF, SLL and GP contributed to different sections of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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DAF does not report conflicts of interest. SLL is employee of Novartis Pharmaceutical Company; the statements presented in the paper do not necessarily represent the position of the company. GP is on the boards of Neurotrope and Neurotez. DAF, SL-L and GP are members of the editorial boards of several scientific journals.

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Forero, D.A., Lopez-Leon, S. & Perry, G. A brief guide to the science and art of writing manuscripts in biomedicine. J Transl Med 18 , 425 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12967-020-02596-2

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• Imaging Speed in Biomedical Engineering A substitute for this in achieve the high speed requirement involves the use of a video rate laser scanner which would have an added advantage of being able to control the size of the aperture […]
• Importance and Role of Biomedicine By studying a model of the natural history of the disease, the primary function is to identify the stages of prepathogenesis, pathogenesis, and prevention methods.
• Biomedical Theories and Models in Healthcare Delivery The genetic basis of cancer theory is one of these paradigms, and it focuses on the genesis of the disease. A combination of factors leads to the occurrence and proliferation of cancer cells.
• Principles of Ethics Among Biomedical Practitioners It shows a situation whereby medical professionals have to take care of people, who are not fully aware of the moral principles that govern them.
• The Analysis of the Results of the Biomedical Research The article is devoted to the analysis of the results of the biomedical research carried out in Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates.
• Health Care Disparity and Principles of Biomedical Ethics Healthcare disparities can be explained as the differences or the inequalities that exist in the provision of medical care to various groups of people. The most significant theories in the US have been the theory […]
• Nanotechnology and Bio-Electrospray: In the Context of Biomedical Applications In recent years one of the most promising applications is the use of electrospraying to manipulate cells and transport them without compromising the integrity of the cell. One can just imagine the extreme minuteness of […]
• Bioethical Position on Medical Futility Nursing Advocates for the withdrawal of treatment for severely deformed infants base their arguments on the fact that treatment for severely deformed infants is futile.
• Ethical Issues on Protection of Human Subjects in Biomedical Research First, ethical issues surrounding the protection of human subjects can be solved through assessing the risks and benefits of the medical experiment beforehand.
• Biomedical Informatics and Pharmacovigilance The analysis of the study makes it possible to assess the measures taken to enhance the role of biomedical informatics in healthcare.
• The Relation Between Patients and Biomedicine I think nothing could be done with the growth of a number of online health communities and patients’ deep concern in biomedicine; the challenge is to deal with these phenomena to minimize their negative effects.
• Electric Field Array Micro-System Lab-On-Chip and Biomedical Analysis The differential voltage Vdiff is equal to the product of the applied E and the distance between the split gates Viff=Vin-Vin2=Ed. When E is produced, then the applied E is a function of d.
• Biomedical Researches: Ethics vs. Morals Especially in the researches, dealing with other, poorer nations and people of countries where the respect for human rights is not that high.
• Biomedical Mechanical Engineering and Mechanical Prosthetics One of the first references to the use of prosthetics is observed in the works of the French surgeon, Ambroise Pare, in 1579 where he described the methods of producing prosthetics used by him in […]
• Psychology of Biomedical Fiction The chances of giving a more correct description of hospital incidents and the weaving of crimes into medical life cater to the fancies of the public.
• The Moral Case Against Cloning-for-Biomedical-Research In my view then it is a vain hope that researchers will be able to determine when a human person comes into existence simply by inspecting the biological and genetic evidence about the development of […]
• Biomedical Discovery of DNA Structure The first parts of the book comprised of the opening of Sir Lawrence Bragg, who gave an overview of the entire book and talked about the significance of Francis Crick and James Watson’s discovery with […]
• Biomedical Researcher Career at Immunobiology Ltd. John collaborates with different stakeholders to identify the best opportunities for ImmBio. The respondent was ready to answer my questions.
• Ethics in Biomedical and Nursing Internet Research There is a need to ensure that the Code of Professional Ethics being implemented best suits the protection of human subjects in the context of biomedical research. It is vital to ensure that the Code […]
• Autophagy Mechanisms: Biology and Medicine Breakthrough Prior to Ohsumi’s research, the 1960s saw the discovery of the cell’s capacity to transfer its contents in the enclosed membranes to the lysosome, where the contents are recycled.
• Biomedical Ethical Theories and Principles In general, ethics1 encompasses the theories and principles of particular values as well as the justifications and perceptions of these values.
• Bioanthropology: Culture and Medicine The importance of social and ethnic diversity in the United States today is very high, the awareness of this diversity is widely promoted, yet some culture-specific researches in the American medicine led to racial division […]
• Career in Biomedical Sciences: Opportunities & Prospects For one to qualify as a biomedical scientist, one is usually required to have a degree in Biomedical Science with the prospects of upgrading through graduate school.
• Approaches to Human Illness From a Biomedical Anthropology Perspective In a sense, the biocultural view fronted by Stanford and company can be used to explain the article’s main theme of inequality and human illness as it recognize the fact that both our evolutionary and […]
• The Biomedical Model of Health in Medicine How human beings respond to illness is essential and understanding the concepts of every healing system is vital in combating diseases.
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• The Limits of Biomedicine Among the Dagomba of Northern Ghana
• AIDS Stigma and Its Effects Upon the Gay Community and Biomedicine
• Bioethical Governance and Basic Stem Cell Science: Global Biomedicine Economy
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• Does Alternative Medicine Present a Challenge to Biomedicine
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• Exploring the Boundaries Between Alternative Medicine and Biomedicine
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• Biomedicine and Prevention: A Public Health Perspective
• Examining Western Biomedicine and Shamanism
• Credibility, Replicability, and Reproducibility in Simulation for Biomedicine and Clinical Applications
• Ancient Greek Medical System as the Basis of Biomedicine
• Concerns of a Health Professional in Biomedical Science
• China and the Globalization of Biomedicine
• Combining Hard Sciences With Biomedicine
• The Influence of IT in the Field of Biomedicine
• Career Critique: Comparing Urban Planners and Biomedical Engineers
• Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine
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IvyPanda. (2024, March 2). 74 Biomedicine Essay Topic Ideas & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/biomedicine-essay-topics/

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "74 Biomedicine Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/biomedicine-essay-topics/.

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Review Essays for the Biological sciences

A review essay for the biological sciences serves to discuss and synthesize key findings on a particular subject. Review papers are helpful to the writer and their colleagues in gaining critical awareness in specialized fields that may or may not be their own.

This guide explains what a review essay is and identifies several approaches to writing a review essay. Although much of the information is geared directly to the biological sciences, it is generally applicable to review essays in all fields.

What is a Review Essay?

A review essay is a synthesis of primary sources (mainly research papers presented in academic journals) on a given topic. A biological review essay demonstrates that the writer has thorough understanding of the literature and can formulate a useful analysis. While no new research is presented by the writer, the field benefits from the review by recieving a new perspective. There are several approaches one may take when writing a biological review:

A State of the art review

A state of the art review considers mainly the most current research in a given area. The review may offer new perspectives on an issue or point out an area in need of further research.

A Historical review

A historical review is a survey of the development of a particular field of study. It may examine the early stages of the field, key findings to present, key theoretical models and their evolution, etc.

A Comparison of perspectives review

A comparison of perspectives review contrasts various ways of looking at a certain topic. If in fact there is a debate over some process or idea, a comparison of perspectives review may illustrate the research that supports both sides. A comparison of perspectives review may introduce a new perspective by way of comparing it to another.

A Synthesis of two fields review

Many times researchers in different fields may be working on similar problems. A synthesis of two fields review provides insights into a given topic based on a review of the literature from two or more disciplines.

A Theoretical model building review

A theoretical model building review examines the literature within a given area with the intention of developing new theoretical assumptions.

Key Considerations for Writing a Biological Review Essay

This guide will inform you of certain things not to miss when writing a review essay. It will also give you some information about using and documenting your sources.

Keep your focus narrow.

When writing a review essay it is important to keep the scope of the topic narrow enough so that you can discuss it thoroughly. For example a topic such as air quality in factories could be narrowed significantly to something like carbon dioxide levels in auto manufacturing plants .

A good way to narrow your focus is to start with a broad topic that is of some interest to you, then read some of the literature in the field. Look for a thread of the discussion that points to a more specific topic.

Analyze, synthesize, and interpret.

A review essay is not a pure summary of the information you read for your review. You are required to analyze, synthesize, and interpret the information you read in some meaningful way.

It is not enough to simply present the material you have found, you must go beyond that and explain its relevance and significance to the topic at hand.

Establish a clear thesis from the onset of your writing and examine which pieces of your reading help you in developing and supporting the ideas in your thesis.

Use only academic sources.

A review essay reviews the academic body of literature—articles and research presented in academic journals. Lay periodicals such as, Discover , Scientific America , or Popular Science , are not adequate sources for an academic review essay.

If you are having trouble finding the academic journals in your field, ask one of your professors or a reference librarian.

Document your sources.

The material that you discuss in a review essay is obviously not your own, therefore it is crucial to document your sources properly. Proper documentation is crucial for two reasons: 1. It prevents the writer from being accused of plagiarism and 2. It gives the reader the opportunity to locate the sources the writer has reviewed because they may find them valuable in their own academic pursuits. Proper documentation depends on which style guide you are following.

Quote sparingly and properly.

No one wants to read a paper that is simply a string of quotes; reserve direct quotations for when you want to create a big impact. Often times the way a quote is written will not fit with the language or the style of your paper so paraphrase the authors words carefully and verbage as necessary to create a well formed paragraph.

Choose an informative title.

The title you choose for your review essay should give some indication of what lies ahead for the reader. You might consider the process you took in narrowing your topic to help you with your title—think of the title as something specific rather than a vague representation of your paper's topic. For example the title Wastewater Treatment might be more informative if rewritten as The Removal of Cloroform Bacteria as Practiced by California's Municipal Water Treatment Facilities .

Consider your audience.

More than likely your audience will be your academic peers, therefore you can make a couple assumptions and choose a writing style that suits the audience. Though your audience may lack the detailed knowledge you have about your topic, they do have similar background knowledge to you. You can assume that you audience understands much of the technical language you have to use to write about your topic and you do not have to go into great detail about background information.

Elements of a Review Essay

This guide explains each section of a review essay and gives specific information about what should be included in each.

On the title page include the title, your name, and the date. Your instructor may have additional requirements (such as the course number, etc.) so be sure to follow the guidelines on the assignment sheet. Professional journals may also have more specific requirements for the title page.

An abstract is a brief summary of your review. The abstract should include only the main points of your review. Think of the abstract as a chance for the reader to preview your paper and decide if they want to read on for the details.

Introduction

The introduction of your review should accomplish three things:

• It may sound redundant to "introduce" your topic in the introduction, but often times writer's fail to do so. Let the reader in on background information specific to the topic, define terms that may be unfamiliar to them, explain the scope of the discussion, and your purpose for writing the review.
• Think of your review essay as a statement in the larger conversation of your academic community. Your review is your way of entering into that conversation and it is important to briefly address why your review is relevant to the discussion. You may feel the relevance is obvious because you are so familiar with the topic, but your readers have not yet established that familiarity.
• The thesis is the main idea that you want to get across to your reader. your thesis should be a clear statement of what you intend to prove or illustrate by your review. By revealing your thesis in the introduction the reader knows what to expect in the rest of the paper.

The discussion section is the body of your paper. The discussion section contains information that develops and supports your thesis. While there is no particular form that a discussion section must take there are several considerations that a writer must follow when building a discussion.

• A review essay is not simply a summary of literature you have reviewed. Be careful not to leave out your own analysis of the ideas presented in the literature. Synthesize the material from all the works—what are the connections you see, or the connections you are trying to illustrate, among your readings.

A review essay is not a pure summary of the information you read for your review. You are required to analyze, synthesize, and interpret the information you read in some meaningful way. It is not enough to simply present the material you have found, you must go beyond that and explain its relevance and significance to the topic at hand. Establish a clear thesis from the onset of your writing and examine which pieces of your reading help you in developing and supporting the ideas in your thesis.

• Keep your discussion focused on your topic and more importantly your thesis. Don't let tangents or extraneous material get in the way of a concise, coherent discussion. A well focused paper is crucial in getting your message across to your reader.
• Keeping your points organized makes it easier for the reader to follow along and make sense of your review. Start each paragraph with a topic sentence that relates back to your thesis. The headings used for this guide give you some idea of how to organize the overall paper, but as far as the discussion section goes use meaningful subheadings that relate to your content to organize your points.
• Your thesis should illustrate your objectives in writing the review and your discussion should serve to accomplish your objectives. Make sure your keep your discussion related to the thesis in order to meet your objectives. If you find that your discussion does not relate so much to your thesis, don't panic, you might want to revise your thesis instead of reworking the discussion.

Conclusions

Because the conclusions section often gets left for last it is often the weakest part of a student review essay. It is as crucial a part of the paper as any and should be treated as such.

A good conclusion should illustrate the key connections between your major points and your thesis as well as they key connections between your thesis and the broader discussion—what is the significance of your paper in a larger context? Make some conclusions —where have you arrived as a result of writing this paper?

Be careful not to present any new information in the conclusion section.

Here you report all the works you have cited in your paper. The format for a references page varies by discipline as does how you should cite your references within the paper.

Bastek, Neal. (1999). Review Essays for the Biological Sciences. Writing@CSU . Colorado State University. https://writing.colostate.edu/guides/guide.cfm?guideid=79

How to Write a Biomedical Science Personal Statement

Tips for starting your biomedical science personal statement.

Writing your personal statement can feel like a mammoth task and knowing where to start can be really tricky. It is important, however, to not get too wrapped up in what a perfect biomedical sciences personal statement should be and instead think about what will make you and your passion for the subject stand out .

Everyone’s personal statement will be different as there is no one way to write it, but there are some essential components that your biomed personal statement should include. Committing to a three or four year degree course at a top university is no walk in the park; you need to be invested in pursuing what you are applying to for at least the next 3/4 years, therefore showing your passion for biomedical sciences is one of the most important components of your personal statement.

But what does this mean and how do you portray this on one side of A4? Mention specific topics/ themes that you like about biomedical sciences , showcase some subject knowledge, highlight super-curriculars that you have engaged with as well as writing about any extracurriculars, personal interests and skills that you have that will make you a fantastic candidate to study biomedical sciences at a top uni.

Showing My Passion for Biomedical Science?: The Importance of Super-Curriculars

Most top unis, including Oxbridge, will be less interested in your extracurricular activities and more interested in how you can prove your passion for biomedical sciences. Super-curriculars are the best pieces of evidence you can provide – they show that you have gone above and beyond your school syllabus and taken initiative to broaden your knowledge.

These may include things like reading books related to the subject, listening to podcasts, reading magazine and newspaper articles, completing MOOCs (massive online open courses), watching documentaries, attending taster days or any relevant work experience you have undertaken . By no means do you need to do all of these but having a couple of examples will be an excellent way to make your biomedical science statement standout.

Having said this, it is most important to engage with what you’re genuinely interested in rather than what you feel you should be reading, watching, listening to and so on – this way your pure interest will shine through naturally without it feeling forced. If invited to interview as well, this will make it much easier for you to talk about your personal statement as it will all be things you enjoyed.

Need to boost your super-curriculars?

Our co-curricular division, Minds Underground, was built out to support top students approaching university/ Oxbridge applications and looking to stretch beyond the curriculum. You could try:

Our University Prep Virtual Summer Schools (e.g. Medicine, Biology) - Each is hosted by 2 Oxbridge graduates and will provide loads of exciting content for personal statements and interviews

Online Research Experiences e.g. Research Projects with a PhD Researcher in Pharmacology & Biotechnology; AstraZeneca/ Cambridge

Medical/ STEM Extension Sessions : We run a weekly Medical and STEM Club, designed to give students exposure to exciting ‘beyond the syllabus’ topics they could mention in their personal statement

Book recommendations for Biomedical Sciences

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot – this book tells the story of a woman who died in 1951 from cervical cancer whose legacy continues to this day with the HeLa cell line. Taken from Henrietta’s tumour while she was still alive, it was cultured in a lab and found to be immortal. Having been used in an array of biomedical research since then, the ethical issues and dilemmas raised in this book provide insight into some of the arguments and discussions that are dominant within the field of bioethics.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks – this book by the neurologist Oliver Sacks provides a series of case studies of some of the most notable patients of Sacks’ career; despite this book being particularly fascinating to those interested in neuroscience and psychology, this is an interesting read for anyone entering the field of biomedical science.

The Epigenetic Revolution by Nessa Carey – epigenetics is the study of differences between genetically identical organisms which have non-identical phenotypes; this book provides a detailed and fascinating insight into the relatively new discipline of epigenetics.

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre – an engaging analysis of the current state of science; particularly recommended if you are interested in research and how science can often be “lost” behind money, media and business.

Podcast Recommendations for Biomedical Sciences

New Scientist Weekly

Instant Genius

What about my extra-curriculars?

When it comes to extra-curriculars, it can be tempting to write a list of everything you’ve done to show how well-rounded you are, however, it is better to only mention a couple and relate it back to why you should be offered a place to study biomedical sciences. For example, being a prefect equips you with leadership and teamwork skills which would be useful during group project and practical classes; completing a Duke of Edinburgh award would provide you with problem solving skills, again important during practical classes and also when critically appraising primary papers.

Addressing the universities’ selection criteria

To make your whole personal statement shine even brighter you should address specific selection criteria from the course webpage on the universities’ websites. The University of Oxford’s Medical Sciences Division website says they are looking for biomed candidates who show “intellectual curiosity and enthusiasm” , as illustrated by your examples of seeking out super-curriculars for instance. Similarly, communication skills can be shown through jobs that you may have had – “I have worked in my local charity shop for 2 years, talking with customers and colleagues helped me to develop my interpersonal skills.”

How Do I Start Drafting and Structuring My Biomed Personal Statement?

You can never have too many drafts of your personal statement. It is best to start early so you have time to edit and adapt and improve. Often when you think you have a final copy you can go back and make even more improvements. Having a break and coming back with a fresh pair of eyes can help you spot gaps or errors or can even help you reduce the character count (as UCAS has a strict limit on characters so it is important to keep your paragraphs concise and to the point). Make sure to create links between each section/ paragraph to make the whole personal statement flow as one, instead of it reading like a list of what you’ve done and why you should be given a place to study biomedical sciences.

If you are struggling with the structure of the statement it is a good idea to simply write whichever paragraph you can and then come back at the end to order your paragraphs and create links. You may want to write your ending before you’ve written your introduction – there is no right or wrong way to do this, it just has to be yours.

How Do I End My Personal Statement?

Concluding your personal statement for biomedicine can feel just as hard as starting it but at this point you are almost there! If you can, it is good to conclude with a punchy sentence, something that nicely rounds up what you have been saying throughout: that you are a passionate biomedical scientist who is excited to pursue a biomedical sciences degree. You could refer back to what makes you the ideal biomed candidate and use keywords from the degree course webpages to help.

Here is an example:

In conclusion, my unwavering passion for biomedical science, coupled with my commitment to ongoing learning and contributing meaningfully to the field, drives my aspiration to embark on this transformative journey of academic growth, making me eager to bring my unique perspective, dedication, and skills to the vibrant and innovative community of biomedical researchers.

Applying to Oxford Biomed? Here's What You Should Also Do

Oxbridge and other top universities will use your personal statement as a component of their short-listing procedure. Oxford will use your personal statement to generate questions for the interview to which you may be invited. For biomed, these questions relating to your biomedical science personal statement are likely to be ice breakers as the interviewers will expect you to be comfortable talking about your personal statement and anything that you have mentioned within it. Therefore, it is important that you write your statement with the expectation that you will be asked to expand upon and explain every single sentence.

Biomedical Personal Statement Example

My fascination with the intricacies of life has propelled my journey towards understanding the complexities of the human body. The captivating narratives of Oliver Sacks' "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" ignited my interest in neuroscience, prompting me to explore the underlying mechanisms of neurological disorders. This curiosity laid the foundation for my journey into the field of biomedical science. As I delved into the world of biomedical science, Nessa Carey's "The Epigenetic Revolution" provided a profound insight into the dynamic interplay between genetics and the environment. This exploration sparked my curiosity about epigenetic modifications and their implications for human health. It served as a thematic link, bridging my interest in neuroscience to the broader realm of genetics and molecular biology. Eager to complement my theoretical knowledge with practical insights, I actively sought diverse experiences. I love the New Scientist weekly podcast, which offers a dynamic platform for me to stay abreast of cutting-edge discoveries and emerging trends in biomedical research. An episode titled "Decoding the Brain: Unravelling the Mysteries of Neurodegenerative Diseases" particularly resonated with me, connecting seamlessly with my earlier fascination with neuroscience and serving as a catalyst for my interest in the molecular underpinnings of neurodegenerative disorders. This exposure not only expanded my knowledge but also honed my ability to critically evaluate scientific discourse, a skill integral to navigating the ever-evolving landscape of biomedical sciences. My research experience in Dr. Smith's lab, underscored the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in unravelling the complexities of biomedical challenges. The laboratory work, focusing on cellular signalling pathways, provided a tangible link between theoretical concepts and practical applications discussed in the podcast episode. Recognising the importance of staying at the forefront of scientific advancements, I undertook a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) on advanced techniques in molecular biology. This experience not only deepened my understanding of molecular techniques but also acquainted me with the global community of aspiring scientists and researchers. The collaborative spirit within the online cohort mirrored the interdisciplinary approach I envision for my future in biomedical sciences, reinforcing the theme of collaboration and its pivotal role in scientific progress. Exploring topics through podcasts like "The Biomedical Odyssey" has been instrumental in contextualising classroom learning within the broader scope of real-world applications. For instance, I found a podcast episode on "CRISPR: Gene Editing and the Future of Medicine" particularly fascinating. The prospect of precise gene editing raises questions that extend beyond the laboratory into the realm of bioethics. Exploring the ethical considerations associated with CRISPR prompted me to grapple with fundamental questions about the balance between scientific progress and moral responsibility. In addition to my academic pursuits, I have actively sought opportunities to engage with the broader scientific community. Attending conferences, such as the International Conference on Biomedical Sciences, allowed me to interact with eminent researchers and gain insights into the multifaceted nature of contemporary biomedical challenges. These experiences have not only broadened my perspective but have also reinforced my commitment to contributing meaningfully to the field, connecting my academic endeavors to the broader scientific community. In conclusion, my journey in biomedical science has been marked by a relentless pursuit of knowledge, a commitment to hands-on learning, and an unwavering curiosity about the frontiers of scientific discovery. Armed with a solid foundation, a critical mindset, and an eagerness to contribute to the ever-evolving field, I am poised to embark on the next chapter of my academic journey in biomedical sciences.

The best biomedical personal statements are original and personal to you, showcasing your passion for pursuing a degree in biomedical sciences and encompassing what you are genuinely interested in.

By Evie (Biomedical Science, University of Oxford)

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Looking for a BioMed Personal Statement Tutor or Support For Your Wider Biomedical Science Application?

Biomed personal statement tutoring.

U2’s Oxbridge-educated mentors have a close insight into what admissions tutors like to see in a Biomedical personal statement, and can help students to convey their skills, motivations, and long term goals, in order to stand out from other applicants. The statement should be the candidates own work, but our mentors will provide direction and guide you through the process of content building and writing. We offer offline drafting as well as tuition sessions.

Oxford BioMed Tutoring

We also offer tutoring for students looking for support throughout the Oxford application process (book a free consultation to discuss options). We have a large team of Oxford Biomedical Science tutors including 1st Class, Master’s and PhD level graduates.

The Process:

1) We suggest an Oxford Biomed tutor and send their full CV for review. Our mentors are deeply familiar with the admissions process to study Biomed at the University of Oxford and are well-placed to guide students through biomed personal statement curation, the BMAT and the interview process. We may suggest a range of application tutors to choose from with slightly differing rates depending on qualifications and level of experience.

2) We typically suggest beginning with a 1.5 hour diagnostic session , where the tutor will informally assess the student’s current performance level for application. Following this, we issue a report with feedback, and structure a plan to best prepare.

3) U2’s approach for regular Biomedical Science application sessions: The main focus of tutorial sessions will be to explore material that can be discussed in the personal statement and at interview - this may sometimes stretch from A-Level standard to First Year Undergraduate. Mentors ensure each student refines their interests within Biomedical Science, and is exposed to a range of key themes and topics. Together, we build a case for the student, solidifying the stance and direction they will take during interview. We also provide extensive admissions test and interview preparation support.

Frequency of sessions can be decided between student and tutor. Students can take either ad hoc sessions, or we structure a full programme for preparation, which may include further co-curricular opportunities such as our research projects , Medicine or Biology Summer School and Oxbridge mock interview days . Honing the skills necessary to succeed for Oxbridge ideally requires long-term preparation and mentoring presents a wonderful opportunity to learn from some of the very best Oxbridge has produced.

Sessions from £75/h + VAT.

How to Write a Biology Personal Statement Worthy of Oxbridge!

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Prepared essay example titles

• Postgraduate Study

Students are required to write a prepared essay of not more than 3000 words in length selected from titles proposed by the examiners. The topics offered for the prepared essay will concern ‘Science that affects Society’ and the Examiners will announce titles to students in the Michaelmas Term.   Examples of previous essay titles are included below.

• What are the prospects for extending human lifespan?  Discuss the molecular basis for how this might be achieved, and the implications for society?
• Should statins be prescribed more widely?
• Could the UK be self-sufficient in food crop production?  Discuss the biological parameters that might set limits on what could be achieved.
• Discuss current scientific theories of the origin of life.
• Is the mouse a good model for studying human disease?
• There was a major outbreak of Zika virus infections in 2016.  How might a biological understanding of the virus and its transmission help in preventing or containing future outbreaks?
• Neonicotinoids are used as insecticidal dressing for crop seeds.  What are the associated risks, and should we be using such chemicals?
• Is it feasible and desirable to enforce regulations to control applications of genome editing?
• Should there be a 'sugar tax' and if so, which sugars should be taxed and why?

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• v.17(4); 2019 Oct

The Principles of Biomedical Scientific Writing: Title

Zahra bahadoran.

1 Nutrition and Endocrine Research Center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Parvin Mirmiran

2 Department of Clinical Nutrition and Human Dietetics, National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute, Faculty of Nutrition Sciences and Food Technology, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Khosrow Kashfi

3 Department of Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, City University of New York School of Medicine, New York, United States

Asghar Ghasemi

4 Endocrine Physiology Research Center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

The title of a paper is “like a hat on a head or the front door to a house” and its initial impression. Writing a good and effective title makes the paper more retrievable by search engines and maximizes its impact in the scientific community. The paper’s title presents what has been studied, how it has been done, and what are the major results. A well-written title is balanced for being informative and concise, as well as attractively conveying the main topic, highlighting the importance of the study. For writing a good title, it should be drafted correctly, accurately, carefully, and meticulously by the main study keywords. By removing extra and unspecific words, the final title should be unambiguous, memorable, captivating, and informative. Here, we provided an overview of the importance and function of the title as well as different types of titles in scientific medical writing. We also focused on the content and organization of the title of a hypothesis-testing paper. In addition, the features of a good title were discussed.

The title is the “single most important line of a publication” ( 1 ). Although the title is a very small part of a research paper, it plays an important role in connecting the writer with potential readers. It also determines whether the paper is read or not ( 2 ). The title of a paper acts as a billboard, a descriptor, an advertisement ( 3 ), or a trailer for the movie ( 4 ). For every person who reads the whole paper, about 500 people only read the title, indicating that the majority of the papers are read by title alone ( 5 ). The title can influence the first impression of the work during the pre-publication process that occurs in the peer-review, as well as the post-publication process, which affects both dissemination and citations ( 3 , 6 ). Therefore, writing an effective title is an important step in scientific writing.

A good title provides a reconciliation between being attractive and being informative ( 4 ); it means that the title should motivate the readers to read an article, give them a summary of the contents, and provide an overview of the topics and findings ( 7 ). A well-written title will help other researchers to find the paper more easily ( 8 ), whereas a poorly written one may make a paper difficult to be retrieved by search engines, discourage readers to go through the text, and reduce an article’s impact ( 9 ). There are examples where journals have withdrawn a published paper because of it having a wrong title ( 10 ), a misleading or an inaccurate title ( 11 , 12 ), or for misuse of words within the title ( 13 ).

Following our previous reports on how to write and construct an introduction ( 14 ), materials and methods ( 15 ), results ( 16 ), and discussion ( 17 ) as sections of a scientific paper, here, we provided an overview of the importance and function of the title. We also focused on different types of titles that are commonly used in scientific and biomedical writings, in particular highlighting the function, content, and organization of the title in a hypothesis-testing paper.

2. Functions of the Title

The title of a biomedical scientific paper has two main functions ( 18 , 19 ): (1) to present the main topic or the message of the paper (the answer to the question) and (2) to attract potential readers and evoke their interest to read the paper. In fact, the title tells the readers what the paper is all about ( 6 , 19 ). The title also provides some keywords for further search ( 19 ) and facilitates the retrieval of the paper from bibliographic databases as this is used by the abstracting and documentation services in order to classify and index the paper ( 20 ).

3. Content of the Title

The main elements of a title include intervention, end-point or outcome, study population, and its specific conditions, design, and setting, which refers to a situation or a place that study was conducted at ( 21 ). The main elements in a hypothesis-testing paper, are (1) the independent variable(s) (X), (2) dependent variable(s) (Y), and (3) the study subjects (i.e. animal, population) or materials (i.e. culture media, cell line, tissue) (Z).

If important, the experimental approach and the condition of the animals/subjects during the study can also be included in the title ( 18 ). The specific organism or the biological system studied (e.g. animals, bacteria, cell culture) must always be included in the title ( 3 , 18 ). In case of humans, they are often removed from the title ( 3 , 18 ). It means that in biomedical journals, it is assumed that the species studied is human unless otherwise stated ( 3 ) and no population in the title indicates that the population is humans ( 18 ). However, if a subpopulation of humans was studied (e.g. patients who have asthma), that should be included in the title ( 18 ). Indication of the study setting (e.g. community-based, home-based, school-based, hospital-based, rural or urban setting) in the title is only important if the results are not generalizable to other settings, or if the setting reflects the magnitude of the research ( 21 ).

In descriptive papers, where a new structure is described, an important element of the title is to name that structure and its key function ( 18 ). In method papers, the name of the method (apparatus or material), its purpose, and the population where the method is used for are key elements of the title ( 18 ). According to the journal’s style or where appropriate, the study design may also be stated ( 8 ). This is especially true for randomized clinical trials, cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies ( 4 ). What this does is to alert the readers regarding the level of the evidence in the paper ( 4 ). Stating the study design in the title, usually located after a colon or an Em dash, makes the title more complete ( 21 ). Stating what type the review is (narrative, systematic or quantitative systematic) may also be helpful, especially for quantitative systematic reviews (meta-analysis) where a high level of evidence is suggested ( 4 ).

4. Organization of the Title

4.1. descriptive (neutral) titles.

Descriptive titles describe the subject of the paper but do not reveal the main conclusions ( 22 ) and are usually recommended as the best form of titles ( 23 ). Most of these contain all the elements of the research work (e.g. study population, intervention, study outcome, comparison) ( 21 , 23 ). In a hypothesis-testing paper, a descriptive title traditionally states the topic of the paper using its three essential pieces of information (dependent variable, independent variable, study subject or material), the so-called X, Y, and Z ( 18 ); e.g. a common form of such titles are “effect of X on Y in Z” (e.g. Effect of broccoli sprouts on insulin resistance in type 2 diabetic patients: a randomized double-blind clinical trial ( 24 )) or “Y during X in Z” (e.g. change of maternal serum triglycerides during third trimester of pregnancy in obese women). Usually, Z comes at the end of the title ( 18 ). Where there is no independent variable (X), the title would be Y in Z (e.g. dynamics of the chest wall in preterm infants) ( 18 ). If the study has several independent or dependent variables where they cannot be summarized under the general categories, it is advisable to select the most important ones ( 18 ) since these are new findings and should be presented in the title ( 25 ).

4.2. Declarative Titles

Declarative titles present the main conclusions or the actual message of the study ( 26 , 27 ). The message can be stated in a phrase or in a sentence ( 18 ). When the message is expressed in a phrase, an adjective or a noun (based on the verb used in the question and answer) or a combination of both are placed at the beginning of the title before the dependent variable; e.g. “reduced metabolic rate during radio-frequency irradiation in rats”, in which the message is expressed as an adjective, reduced ( 18 ). When the message is expressed in a sentence, a verb in the present tense is used; e.g. continuous positive airway pressure impairs renal function in anesthetized newborn goats ( 18 ). Using a sentence is stronger than using a phrase (because verbs convey an action more powerful than adjectives and nouns); therefore, it is used only when solid evidence supports a clear message ( 18 ). Some believe that using a sentence as a title overemphasize a conclusion and is best to be avoided ( 4 ).

In hypothesis-testing papers, the message of the paper can be stated in the title, where the message is strong and clear, and is supported by strong and solid evidence ( 18 , 23 ). Authors also need to be ensured that the title is true and is supported by the rest of the paper ( 28 ). When the title is a complete sentence, it conveys the impression that the study has reached a definite conclusion ( 19 ). e.g. “endothelium-derived relaxing factor produced and released from artery and vein is nitric oxide” ( 29 ).

Some believe that declarative titles would help authors to select a more appropriate paper during their search ( 27 ). For some types of papers such as commentaries, journals (e.g. obstetrics and gynecology) may push the authors to write a declarative title regarding the commentary’s main argument(s). Declarative titles give the impression that the findings of the study have general validity, which rarely is the case ( 26 ). Editors are, therefore, more cautious in accepting declarative titles due to its possible impact on public health ( 22 ) and some journals do not accept declarative titles (e.g. New England Journal of Medicine) ( 26 ). In addition, in case of choosing a declarative title, authors need to ask themselves will the title kill the curiosity? Will the readers lose motivation and interest to read the full article? ( 23 ).

Generally, the present tense in the title emphasizes the general validity of the results whereas the past tense indicates that the results are not established knowledge yet. To state results of a single investigation past tense and for results of a systematic review present tense should be used ( 27 ).

4.3. Interrogative Titles

To make a title more attractive, an interrogative form, which phrases the subject of the paper in the form of a question, can be used ( 30 ). However, in hypothesis-testing papers, interrogative titles are not recommended ( 31 ), because the reader would appreciate being told the answer from the beginning ( 30 ). An interrogative title may be appropriate for a review article, where the controversial issues are being discussed in response to the study question ( 30 ); e.g. are shorter article titles more attractive for citations? Cross-sectional study of 22 scientific journals ( 32 ). Interrogative titles in general lead to more paper down-loads but may result in fewer citations ( 22 ).

4.4. Compound Titles

Compound titles (or hanging titles) contain the main title and a subtitle ( 23 ) that are separated by a colon (:) ( 18 ). Compound titles can be started with a short question, a subject sentence, or a noun phrase, followed by a colon and a declarative sentence or a question ( 22 ). These types of titles are used to provide additional relevant information (e.g. about the study design, geographic or temporal scope of the research) or to add substance to a provocative area ( 23 ); e.g. developmental origins of type 2 diabetes: focus on epigenetics ( 33 ). They are useful for complex studies ( 19 ) and series papers ( 18 ). Using subtitles is not recommended except for putting an important word first ( 18 ). Papers with subtitles seem to be more attractive and are less likely to be rejected ( 34 ). In a compound title, the main part (main title) should be standalone ( 4 ).

4.5. Other Types of Title

Other styles, less commonly used to organize the title, are “indicating the direction of the author’s opinion”, “emphasizing the methodology used in the research”, “suggesting guidelines”, or “making a comparison” ( 35 ). To get more attention, the use of “effective opening”, “alliteration”, “irony”, “puns”, “humor” or “mystifying” ( 35 ) may also be used. However, the latter styles do help the paper grab readers’ attention, the authors need to ensure they will be understood and appreciated by all readers and are culturally appropriate ( 23 ). One example of referring to a parable in the title is: challenges for measuring oxytocin: the blind men and the elephant? ( 36 ), in which the subtitle refers to the parable of the 6 blind men and the elephant.

5. The Procedure of Writing an Effective Title

Although it is the first section of a paper that is seen ( 3 , 6 , 19 ), title is drawn from other sections of paper ( 3 ) and the final title is usually written as the last part ( 19 ). Good titles are created with care and craft ( 4 ). Writing a good title needs a back-and-forth process by continuous going back to the text with a sharper focus on what the paper is trying to say ( 35 ).

As shown in Figure 1 , a stepwise process is suggested to be followed to draft a title. What the authors need to do in the first step is to consider the manuscript entirely and then try to describe the content of the paper using essential keywords and phrases. Then, they need to make a sentence by the selected keywords and then remove redundant and nonspecific words/adjectives ( 20 ). The keywords used in the title should be the same as that used in the question and answer in the introduction, discussion, and abstract ( 18 ). The initial title must then be reviewed, refined and finally checked for having features of an effective final title. The title should not be hastily finalized; making a consultation with colleagues to get their opinion and possible suggestions can help improve the title ( 23 ). The authors are highly recommended to adhere to the style of the journal that they are submitting to e.g. word count, other instructions such as acceptable types of title (declarative and interrogative ones are unacceptable by some), use of capital letters, hyphens, colon, etc.

6. Features of a Suitable Title

In addition to highlighting the subject matter (be informative), the title of the paper should be eye-catching (be attractive) ( 25 , 37 ). The most important concept should be placed at or near the beginning of the title (where it most readily catches the reader’s eye) ( 25 ). Table 1 describes the features of a good title. In brief, a well-written title should be attractive and engaging ( 4 , 6 , 26 ), comprehensive ( 8 , 37 ), accurate ( 18 ), sufficiently descriptive ( 37 ), complete ( 18 ), informative ( 3 , 4 , 6 , 8 ), and specific ( 4 , 18 , 37 ) as well as be concise ( 3 , 4 , 6 , 8 , 18 , 26 , 37 ), clear (unambiguous) ( 3 , 18 ) and begins with an important term ( 3 , 18 ). The title should not be too general ( 19 , 31 ) or too-detailed ( 31 ), be misleading or unrepresentative ( 26 ), omit major elements ( 19 ), or include unnecessary details ( 19 ).

7. Length of the Title

Although longer titles may provide more information regarding the content, they reduce the interest generated ( 39 ). A short title is easier to understand and can attract a wider readership and increase the influence of the paper ( 40 ). Therefore, the authors are advised to make the title as short as possible without sacrificing accuracy, completeness, specificity, and clarity ( 18 ). High-impact journals usually restrict the length of their papers’ titles ( 40 ).

Try to keep your title shorter than 100 characters (i.e. letters and punctuation marks), including spaces (120 characters are considered the upper limit) ( 18 ). As the rule of thumb, 10 - 12 words may be the ideal length of a paper ( 41 ) and the title should not be more than 12 words ( 31 ).

8. Word Choice in the Title

In addition to being relevant to the target audience ( 3 ), every word (excluding articles e.g. the, a, an, and prepositions e.g. to, about, on) used in the title should add significance ( 28 ). Words in the title need to be checked by Medical Subjects Headings (MeSH) ( 31 ). Using study keywords to formulate a title is highly recommended. Using the most important keywords in the title is essential for appropriate indexing purposes and for retrieval by search engines and available databases ( 38 ). Indexing services (e.g. PubMed) and search engines (e.g. Google) use keywords and terms in the title ( 3 , 6 ). Titles should not start with a numeral, or expressions like “a study of”, “a contribution to”, “investigations on” or “some interesting” ( 20 ). “Influence of” does not evoke much curiosity and if possible should be avoided ( 25 ).

Generally, the use of neutral words (e.g. inquiry, analysis, evaluation, assessment, etc.), that give no information to the readers, is not recommended ( 28 ). However, in some cases, these words may be necessary to inform the scope, intent, or type of a study ( 42 ). Although the use of catchy phrases or non-specific language is not recommended in academic writing, they can be used within the context of the study ( 42 ).

Adjectives (e.g. increased) that modify quantitative words (e.g. metabolic rate) are different from those (e.g. improved) that modify qualitative words (e.g. performance) ( 18 ). Some adjectives such as “novel” or “innovative” need to be replaced by more explicit adjectives to explain to the readers what makes the study novel ( 28 ); e.g. “A noninvasive method of predicting pulmonary-capillary wedge pressure” ( 43 ) or “An ultrasound method for safe and rapid central venous access” ( 44 ). If possible, replace long words with short ones ( 26 ). Try to avoid gerunds (verb forms that end in -ing) in the title as the actor is obscured ( 31 ). Avoid using generic terms such as animal, bacteria, or antibiotic as key terms ( 3 ).

Abbreviations confuse readers and usually are not used by indexing services ( 3 ). In some situations, e.g. long or technical terms in scientific writings, the use of abbreviations can be useful ( 21 ). Using abbreviations that appear as word entries in Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary ( 21 ), are better known than their words (e.g. DNA, AIDS, and FDA) ( 3 , 18 ), or abbreviations for chemicals (e.g. N 2 O 5 ), are acceptable in the title ( 18 ).

9. Word Order in the Title

Paying attention to syntax (word order) in the title is important because it can influence the reader’s interest in the paper ( 3 ). Generally, words at the beginning of the title make the most impact ( 20 ). Put an important word (e.g. independent or dependent variables) first in the title to attract readers ( 3 , 18 , 25 , 26 ). What you want to be emphasized as the primary subject matter i.e. the key concept of the paper needs to appear first and near the beginning of the title ( 3 , 25 ). Because search engines such as Google, typically show only the first 6 - 7 words of a title, most associated terms should, therefore, appear earlier ( 3 ). Using a subtitle (to state-specific topic) following the main title (to state general topic) is a technique for putting an important word or phrase first in the title ( 18 ); e.g. “Holistic review: shaping the medical profession one applicant at a time” ( 45 ) or “Medical school admissions: applicant projections revisited” ( 46 ).

10. Use of Preposition in the Title

A preposition is a word or a group of words used before a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to show direction, time, place, location, spatial relationships, or to introduce an object. Correct use of prepositions in the title makes it more clear and helps the reader to understand how the title elements are related to each other ( 28 ). Typical prepositions used in the title, are by (to indicate how something is done), for (referring to a purpose), from (referring to the origin of something), in (referring to a location), of (belonging to or regrading) ( 28 ).

11. Running Title

To identify the articles in a journal, short phrases called running titles (running heads) appear at the top or bottom of every page or every other page ( 6 , 18 ). Running titles are short versions of the title ( 6 , 18 ) and help readers to keep track of the article throughout its printed pages ( 21 ). As running titles mostly cannot be longer than 50 characters (including the spaces), authors are recommended to use standard abbreviations and omit the study design ( 21 ). In hypothesis-testing papers, the running title usually names independent and dependent variables ( 18 ). The form “X and Y”, which is unspecific for the title can be used for the running title ( 18 ).

12. Title and Paper Citation

A well-organized title is positively associated with paper citation ( 47 ). Some studies have addressed how the feature and structure of a title can affect pre- and post-publication manuscript success ( 9 ). Association of title’s length and citation of the paper has remained inconclusive ( 47 , 48 ), however, papers with shorter titles ( 40 ) especially when presenting study conclusion ( 49 ) receive more citations ( 40 ). Analysis of published papers in the Lancet journal showed that titles with two components separated by a colon were significantly more common in the well-cited papers ( 47 ). Titles emphasizing broader conceptual or comparative issues get more attention than those being more specific (e.g. use of particular genus or species by their taxonomic name in the title) ( 9 ). Some factors such as referring to a specific country or geographical region may also lead to poor citation of the paper ( 47 , 49 ). Other factors such as punctuations and use of acronyms can also affect the citation rate of a paper ( 47 ). Use of “colon”, “hyphen” and “comma” was most frequent whereas “semi-colon”, “dash” and “single quotation marks” were least frequent punctuation marks in top-cited papers ( 50 ).

13. Conclusions

The essence of research is reflected in its title, which acts as a “signpost” for the main topic of the paper ( 31 ). In addition to presenting the message of the paper, the title should evoke interest in reading the paper. Appropriate types of a title (e.g. descriptive, declarative, interrogative) should be selected by the authors and in all cases, the title should be accurate, unambiguous, interesting, concise, precise, unique, and should not be misleading. “The Title” should present the substance of the work in a clear way.

Authors' Contribution: Study concept and design: Zahra Bahadoran and Asghar Ghasemi; drafting of the manuscript: Zahra Bahadoran, Parvin Mirmiran, and Asghar Ghasemi; critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: Khosrow Kashfi and Parvin Mirmiran.

Conflict of Interests: The authors have no conflict of interest.

Funding/Support: This study was supported by the Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.

Here to help: reflective writing

An important part of the Institute’s qualifications and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) scheme is the inclusion of reflective writing.

An important part of the Institute’s qualifications and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) scheme is the inclusion of reflective writing. This is because it can, through thoughtful deliberation, act as a valuable learning experience. The aim of this “here to help” guide is to give you some ideas about the process of reflection.

This is something that we all do, every day, even if only subconsciously. We think about something that took place, how we felt and consequently what we might do differently next time. However, we don’t usually follow a formula for doing this, or write it down (unless we keep a diary!); rather, these emotions, thoughts and subsequent actions appear over time.

Reflective writing is a means of formalising such situations. It can be difficult to reflect when you are caught up in an event, but by standing back shortly afterwards, looking at it and reviewing what happened and thinking carefully about what it meant for you and your ongoing development you can improve your own and possibly others’ professional practice.

When writing a piece of reflection, it is vital to remember that it is much more than just a description of an event, it is instead an explanation and exploration of what happened. In many cases there will be a word limit and you won’t be able to write about everything that happened, so you will need to carefully select what illustrates your point most succinctly and reflect on those aspects.

Effective reflective writing involves an analysis that identifies both strengths and successes, and weaknesses, errors or failures. You need to try to be as objective and honest as possible, which for some may be more challenging than other forms of academic writing. It is much more personal than other forms of academic work, such as essays, and, therefore, it is reasonable to use “I”, “for me” and “we” to explain your thoughts, feelings and actions, but the reflection should also be thoughtful and calm, no matter what you may have felt when the event happened.

Reflective writing should demonstrate an understanding of the possible reasons for anything that didn’t go well, what you learnt or now understand as a result, and how you plan to improve by building on your strengths and developing and implementing mechanisms for reducing your weaknesses. This will help you show what it means for you in your ongoing development as a practising biomedical scientist. You will gain a lot more if you honestly reflect on things that didn’t go well, than if you just reflect on everything that went according to plan.

It is important to follow any specific guidelines on the type of reflection that is required for what you are doing, but whatever they are, the key aspects are the description (what happened or what is being examined), interpretation and critical analysis (what are the key things about the event and what did you learn) and outcome (what does it mean for you in the future).

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104 Biomedicine Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on biomedicine, ✍️ biomedicine essay topics for college, 👍 good biomedicine research topics & essay examples, 🎓 most interesting biomedicine research titles, 💡 simple biomedicine essay ideas, ❓ biomedical research questions.

• Biomedical and Biopsychosocial Models of Health and Illness
• Biomedical and Biopsychosocial Model
• Biomedical View of Health
• Biomedical Model: The Nurses and Midwives Council Code
• Moral Character in “Principles of Biomedical Ethics“ by Beauchamp and Childress
• Application of Bioelectromagnetics in Medicine
• Case Study of Biomedical Ethics in the Christian Narrative
• Biomedical Technology and Innovation Issues Biomedical engineers at WPI have found a way to use spinach leaves to grow functioning human heart muscle, potentially solving a long-standing problem of repairing damaged organs.
• Animal Use in Biomedical Research: Arguments For and Against It is important to check pros and cons of using animal testing in biomedical research before drawing conclusions either about supporting this technique or about its prohibiting.
• Biomedical Ethics and Christianity: Balancing Patient’s Wellbeing and Trust in God This paper examines a case of a family with a diseased child that tries to balance their interest in his well-being and trust in God.
• Biomedical Legislation and Euthanasia Mercy killing can be regarded as an option in various settings as people often have no strength or patience to endure pain. Supporters of the legitimization of euthanasia emphasized this matter.
• Biotechnological Innovations in Medicine Biology has possibilities for developing new technologies in genetic engineering. Biotechnological innovations in medicine bear the separate name of biomedicine.
• Biomedical Ethics: Pfizer’s Legal Trouble in Nigeria The discussion focuses more on the basic principles to apply when making ethically sound medical decisions namely; respect for autonomy, justice, non-maleficence, and beneficence.
• Research Ethics Specifics: Biomedical Research The ethical focus of medical practice and research is completely dependent on the professional competence and morality of the medical staff.
• Biomedical Data in Probabilistic Decision-Making Probabilistic medical reasoning involves a complex process of determining a pre-test probability of outcomes of a certain decision, gathering more data through a test.
• Genetic Engineering Biomedical Ethics Perspectives Diverse perspectives ensure vivisection, bio, and genetic engineering activities, trying to deduce their significance in evolution, medicine, and society.
• Ethical and Bioethical Issues in Medicine As the overview of the ethical considerations behind abortion demonstrates, this life-related procedure involves high-level social and ethical issues.
• Transforming Biomedical Informatics and Literacy The Internet provides health-related information, including generally understandable symptoms, treatment options, and expected outcomes.
• Recovery Model at a Psychological and Biomedical Level The recovery model is a fundamental principle within the nursing realm since it guides decisions focusing on case administration.
• Ethical Issues in Biomedical Research The essay argues that Institutional Review Board should regulate ethical issues associated with research in developing countries.
• Allocation of the Scarce Biomedical Resources This paper aims to analyze the available approaches to solving the problem of the allocation of medical supplies and choose the most morally acceptable one.
• The Use of Animals in Biomedical Research Biomedical research is a wide range of discipline that looks for ways to stop and cure diseases that produces sickness and death in individuals and animals.
• Dynamics of Biomedical Ethics and Autonomy The gradual but stable growth of individual autonomy in the field of biomedical ethics has changed how people react to rule when it comes to matters about the public.
• Biomedical Ethics and Christian Health Beliefs The provision of patient-centered care implies respecting patients’ cultural beliefs and ensuring the best health outcomes for this individual.
• Biomedical Ethics in the Christian Context Biomedical ethics is a field that many practitioners should take seriously. Healthcare providers should liaise with the targeted patients in order to provide competent care.
• Issues of Biomedical Ethics in the Christian Narrative and Christian Vision The given case study describes rather a controversial situation, in which Christian vision comes into conflict with common sense, ethics, and medical science.
• Adolescents Annual Examination: Physical, Psychosocial, and Biomedical Screenings The pivotal goal of physical, psychosocial, and biomedical screenings is to detect potential health problems based on adolescents’ current health indicators.
• Christian Teachings vs. Biomedical Ethics: Illogical Decisions and Treatment Issues This paper shows the situation of James who has exposed his parents to an ethical dilemma as they are torn between following the physician’s directives or exercising their faith.
• Biomedical Ethics: Saving Life vs. Christian Narrative The report analyzes a case that revolves around biomedical ethics in the Christian narrative and examines the principles that apply to the case of Mike based on pre-prepared questions.
• Bioethics: Medical Help or Christian Beliefs? The patient’s parents are facing an ethical quandary that requires them to allow the medical practitioner to intervene or follow their Christian teachings.
• Biomedical Ethics in the Christian Narrative Christians believe that God controls everything including people’s health. He creates diseases and makes people ill in order to reach some purpose and show His power.
• Translational Biomedical Informatics and Public Health The purpose of this paper is to analyze the way various technologies offered through translational biomedical informatics will influence population health.
• Reasons for and Against the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research Animal testing for purposes of facilitating medical and scientific research has elicited heated debates among proponents and opponents.
• Biomedical Ethics in Christian Narrative The case study demonstrates how religious beliefs, in this case, Christian beliefs have a negative influence on the treatment of a patient.
• Biomedical Ethics Study in the Christian Narrative The case study at hand contains several controversial issues that can be called pressing if regarded in the context of the Christian narrative and Christian vision.
• Animal Use in Biomedical Research Much attention of the whole society is paid to the problem of animal testing in the modern world. It is impossible to imagine modern biochemical research without using animals.
• Bioethics: the Use of Marijuana for Medical Purposes Bioethicists should use the best ideas in order to deal with the controversies associated with medical marijuana. Some health practitioners support the use of marijuana for medical purposes.
• Animal Testing: Use of Animal in Biomedical Research The research paper shall attempt to explore the reasons for and against the use of animal testing in biomedical research.
• Bioethical Governance and Basic Stem Cell Science: China and the Global Biomedicine Economy
• Credibility, Replicability, and Reproducibility in Simulation for Biomedicine and Clinical Applications in Neuroscience
• Arguments for and Against Using Stem Cells in Biomedical Research and Medicine
• Biomedicine Globalized and Localized: Western Medical Practices in an Outpatient Clinic of a Mexican Hospital
• Threats Towards Radical Innovation in the Biomedical Industry: From a Pharmaceutical Perspective
• Exploring the Boundaries Between Alternative Medicine and Biomedicine
• Biomedicine: Scientific Medicine Prominent in Western Societies
• Functional Craniology and Brain Evolution: From Paleontology to Biomedicine
• Male Health and Understanding Through Biomedical, Psychological, and Sociological Disciplines
• Connections Matter: How Personal Network Structure Influences Biomedical Scientists’ Engagement in Medical Innovation
• Frankenstein: Playing God Advancements in Biomedical Technology
• The Era of Biomedicine: Science, Medicine, and Public Health in Britain and France After the Second World War
• Medical Evolution: From the Biomedical to the Biopsychosocial Approach
• Biomedical Models and How Social Trends Can Affect It as a Dominant Model of Healthcare
• Small Advances Amount to Big Changes in Biomedical Sciences
• Injections and the Fear of Death: The Limits of Biomedicine Among the Dagomba of Northern Ghana
• Where Excludability Matters: Material Versus Intellectual Property in Academic Biomedical Research
• Discovering Discoveries: Identifying Biomedical Discoveries Using Citation Contexts
• Toward New Models for Innovative Governance of Biomedicine and Health Technologies
• Biomedicine and Prevention: A Public Health Perspective
• Efficient Equipment Management for Biomedical Engineering Department in the Hospital
• Cardiac Biomedicine: Cardiac Hypertrophy and Failure Draft
• Does Alternative Medicine Present a Challenge to Biomedicine?
• Biomedical and Traditional Chinese Medicine Views on Lower Back Pain
• Chinese Traditional Medicine System vs Western Biomedicine
• Biomedical Ethics: Cloning and Sales of Organs
• How Sociological and Lay Ideas About Illness Differ From Those of Biomedicine
• The Sociable and Biomedical Mistreatment of Disabled Women
• Biomedical and Biopsychosocial Models of Care in Mental Health Nursing
• Better Patient Outcomes Through Mining of Biomedical Big Data
• Sleep, Health, and the Dynamics of Biomedicine
• Biomedical and Psychotherapy: Approaches to Treating Psychological Disorders
• Examining Western Biomedicine and Shamanism
• Biomedical and Biopsychosocial Models of Care
• Difference Between Biopsychosocial and Biomedical Models for Dealing With Diseases
• Understanding Eating Disorders Through a Biomedical Model
• Biomedical Nanotechnology Related Grand Challenges and Perspectives
• Exploring the Emerging Biomedical Technology of Cardiac Tissue
• Implications of Breast Cancer Activism for Biomedical Policies and Practices
• Biopsychosocial vs. Biomedical Model in Clinical Practice
• The Ethical Debate Surrounding Biomedical Technologies
• Why Is Biomedicine So Important in Our Society?
• How Does the Biomedical Model View Mental Health?
• What Is the Goal of Biomedicine?
• Can Collaborative Programs Between Biomedical and African Indigenous Health Practitioners Succeed?
• What Is Biomedical Instrumentation Technology?
• Is Biomedicine Related to Medicine?
• What Is the Difference Between Biomedicine and Medicine as Fields of Study?
• Is Biomedicine a Good Option to Study Referring to Job Opportunities?
• What Is the Meaning of Biomedicine in Science?
• Does Biomedicine Have a Future?
• What Are the Benefits of Biomedicine?
• How Does Biomedicine View the Body?
• What Is the Use of Biomedicine?
• Why Is Biomedicine Important for the Healthcare Industry?
• How Has HIV and AIDS Research and Intervention Influenced the Biomedical Paradigm of Research and Ethics?
• What Skills Are Needed for Biomedicine?
• Which Is the Best Method for the Management of Biomedical Waste?
• What Are Some Ethical Issues in Biomedical Research?
• Is There a High Demand for Biomedical Engineers?
• What Is Biomedical Ethics in Healthcare?
• How Many Principles of Biomedical Ethics Are There?
• What Is the Application of Biomedical Engineering?
• Why Is Biomedical Technology Important?
• How Is the Biomedical Model Used in Healthcare?
• What Is the Difference Between Biomedical Model and Biopsychosocial Model?

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StudyCorgi . "104 Biomedicine Essay Topics." July 14, 2022. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/biomedicine-essay-topics/.

StudyCorgi . 2022. "104 Biomedicine Essay Topics." July 14, 2022. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/biomedicine-essay-topics/.

These essay examples and topics on Biomedicine were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on December 27, 2023 .

Biomedical Science: Literature Review

Searching & reviewing the literature.

• Literature Review
• Search Strategy
• Database search tips

A literature review is an evaluation of relevant literature on a topic and is usually the starting point for any undergraduate essay or postgraduate thesis. The focus for a literature review is on scholarly published materials such as books, journal articles and reports.

A search and review of relevant sources may be extensive and form part of a thesis or research project. Postgraduate researchers will normally focus on primary sources such as research studies in journals.

A literature review also provides evidence for an undergraduate assignment. Students new to a discipline may find that starting with an overview or review of relevant research in books and journals, the easiest way to begin researching a topic and obtaining the necessary background information.

Source materials can be categorised as:

Primary source : Original research from journals articles or conference papers, original materials such as historical documents, or creative works.

Secondary source : Evaluations, reviews or syntheses of original work. e.g. review articles in journals.

Tertiary source : Broadly scoped material put together usually from secondary sources to provide an overview, e.g. a book.

The Literature Review Structure : Like a standard academic essay, a literature review is made up of three key components: an introduction, a body and a conclusion. Most literature reviews can follow the following format: • Introduction: Introduce the topic/problem and the context within which it is found. • Body: Examine past research in the area highlighting methodological and/or theoretical developments, areas of agreement, contentious areas, important studies and so forth. Keep the focus on your area of interest and identify gaps in the research that your research/investigation will attempt to fill. State clearly how your work builds on or responds to earlier work. • Conclusion: Summarise what has emerged from the review of literature and reiterate conclusions.

This information has been adapted from the Edith Cowan University Literature review: Academic tip sheet .

Steps in searching and reviewing the literature:

• Define the topic and scope of the assignment. Ensure you understand the question and expectations of the assignment. It's useful to develop a plan and outline, headings, etc.  
• Check terminology. e.g. dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauruses  
• Identify keywords for searching (include English and American spelling and terminology)  
• Identify types of publications. e.g. books, journal articles, reports.  
• Search relevant databases (refer to the relevant subject guide for key databases and sources)  
• Select and evaluate relevant sources  
• Synthesise the information  
• Write the review following the structure outlined.  
• Save references used. e.g. from the databases save, email, print or download references to EndNote.  
• Reference sources (APA 7th) (see Referencing Library Guide )

When you are writing for an academic purpose such as an essay for an assignment, you need to find evidence to support your ideas. The library is a good place to begin your search for the evidence, as it acquires books and journals to support the disciplines within the University. The following outlines a list of steps to follow when starting to write an academic assignment:

Define your topic and scope of the search

• This will provide the search terms when gathering evidence from the literature to support your arguments.
• Sometimes it is a good idea to concept map key themes.

The scope will advise you:

• How much information is required, often identified by the number of words ie 500 or 3000 words
• What sort of writing you are to do eg essay, report, annotated bibliography
• How many marks are assigned. This may indicate the amount of time to allocate to the task.

Gather the information - Before writing about your topic, you will need to find evidence to support your ideas. 

Books provide a useful starting point for an introduction to the subject. Books also provide an in-depth coverage of a topic.

Journal Articles: For current research or information on a very specific topic, journal articles may be the most useful, as they are published on a regular basis. It is normally expected that you will use some journal articles in your assignment. When using journal articles, check whether they are from a magazine or scholalry publication. Scholarly publications are often peer reviewed, which means that the articles are reviewed by expert/s before being accepted for publication.

Reports : useful information can also be found in free web publications from government or research organizations (e.g. reports). Any web publications should be carefully evaluated. You are also required to view the whole publication, not just the abstract, if using the information in your assignment.

Remember to ensure that you note the citation details for references that you collect, at the time of locating the items. It is often time consuming and impossible to track the required data later.

Analyse the information collected

• Have I collected enough information on the topic?

Synthesise your information

Write the report or essay

• Check the ECU Academic tip sheet: the Academic Essay for some useful pointers
• Remember, in most cases you will need an introduction, body and conclusion
• Record details of references used for referencing. Information on referencing can be located on the ECU Referencing Guide.

Database search tips:

1. Identify main concepts and keywords . Search the main concepts first, then limit further as necessary.

2. Find Synonyms (Boolean  OR broadens the search to include alternative keywords or subject thesaurus terms):

• pediatrics  OR children
• teenagers  OR adolescents

3. AND (Boolean AND  joins concepts and narrows the                search):

• occupational therapy  AND children
• stress  AND (occupation OR job)

4. Be aware of differences in American and English spelling and terminology. Most databases use American spelling and terminology as preferred subject terms.

5. Use Truncation (putting * at the end of a word stem will search all forms of the word):

• disab * (disability, disabilities, disabled)
• child * (child, children, childhood, children's)

6. "...." (inverted commas) use for a phrase

• "mental health"
• "occupational therapy"

7. Wildcard ? will search for any single letter in the space. e.g. wom?n will search women, woman, organi?ation will search organisation, organization.

8. Wildcard * can also be used where alternate spelling may contain an extra character. e.g. p*ediatric, will search paediatric or pediatric, behavio*r, will search behaviour or behavior.

• Search strategy planner
• MEDLINE database guide
• CINAHL database guide
• SPORTDiscus database guide
• Web of Science database guide

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