HHooww ttoo WWrriittee aann AArrttiiccllee RReeppoorrttiinngg CClliinniiccaall RReesseeaarrcchh Tom Lang, MA Tom Lang Communications 1 Science cannot exist without writing! Writing allows science to be distinct from authority, intuition, and tradition as a way of establishing truth 2 Science, to be science, must be public, objective, predictive, reproducible, systematic, and cumulative The printed article is the only medium that allows these characteristics to exist 3 Publication is the final stage of research If the results are not published, from a scientific standpoint, the research never took place Publication advances both science and scientists 4 Milestones in the Development of the Scientific Article 1658 First scientific journals, Journal des scavans and the Proceedings of the Royal Society 1779 First dedicated medical journal is published in England; Foreign Medical Review 5 1797 First American medical journal, The Medical Repository, is published in New York 1812 The New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery and the Collateral Branches of Science begins publication in Boston; oldest continuously published medical journal in the world 6 1858 Pasteur introduces the methods sections, creating the IMRAD format (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion) 1957 JAMA begins to include abstracts with articles reporting original research 7 1972 American National Standards Institute standard Z39 establishes IMRD as a norm for reporting scientific information 1978 Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals is released by the Vancouver Group: the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) 8 1987 Structured abstracts for reporting clinical trials are introduced by Annals of Internal Medicine 1997 CONSORT Statement for reporting randomized trials adopted by JAMA. 9 What is the most important part of a scientific article? Title Results Abstract Discussion Introduction References Methods 10