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What's in an abstract...and an introduction... (Basic...

Por: Bruck, Laura, ENT: Ear, Nose & Throat


Journal, 01455613, May1997, Vol. 76, Fascculo 5

Seccin:
ENT WRITER'S Rx
During my previous incarnation as a child life specialist at a Cleveland hospital, one of our
surgical residents burst into my office one day in a panic. After college, medical school,
internship and three years of residency, he was ready to throw in the proverbial towel and
become "a forest ranger or something." Why? One of the staff surgeons had asked him to coauthor an article (translation: do all the work), and he had absolutely no idea what to do or how
to do it. Being very young and, admittedly, a bit naive, I responded to my friend's plight with a
question: "Don't they teach you that stuff in medical school?"
In the end, my friend wrote his article (with a little help from his friend), after pouring over issues
of JAMA to find out what was in an abstract, and a methods section, and so on. Readers (and
editors) are accustomed to seeing research presented in a certain format. While minor deviations
are sometimes necessary, the following are the basic components of the research-based article.
Abstract
Webster's defines an abstract as "a brief statement of the essential thoughts of a book, article..."
(my underlines). In fact, there are medical writers whose sole job is to abstract journal articles.
They read through the entire article, and extract the pertinent pieces of information, creating
what is essentially a one-paragraph version of the article being abstracted.
Your abstract should stand on its own: readers should be able to get all the pertinent information
about your study simply by reading the abstract.
The abstract should include only the "bare bones" of your research: the reasons for conducting
it, the way in which it was conducted and the results. Keep it brief: one paragraph will suffice.
Introduction
As the word implies, the introduction should introduce your readers to the topic at-hand, with
information they need to fully understand the main body of your article: intended goals of the
research, background about the condition being treated, historical information about the
technique/drug/device investigated, other methods employed, a brief review of the pertinent
literature, and a statement about conclusions of the paper.
The introduction is not a reworded abstract nor a discussion section. It introduces, rather than
discusses, the topic. Anything more, and you run the risk of losing your readers before they
reach the main body of the article. Again, brevity is best.
Review of Literature
For more exhaustive coverage of the literature (a major thesis, major report or case report of a
rare (fewer than 200 reports in the literature) condition), a separate "Review of Literature"
section is included after the introduction.
Each reference is cited chronologically with a brief discussion of the findings and number of
cases. Papers on the subject that you feel should not be included in this review should be
mentioned along with a comment as to why they are not acceptable. This ensures that your
literature review is just that, a review, rather than a listing of select articles.

Materials and Methods


This nuts-and-bolts section is the one in which you describe, point by point, what you did, how
you did it and with what (and whom) it was done. It's helpful to think of this section as a timeline
from, for example, patient selection to postoperative follow-up, and to make an outline of those
steps and fill it in with the pertinent material.
While it may be tempting to include them here, save your results and discussion-oriented
material for the appropriate sections. Readers who follow you off on a tangent may have a hard
time finding their way back to the chronology of your research.
Results
Here, an explanation of the methods used to obtain and document your results is followed by the
results themselves. Again, save most of the discussion of the those results for the discussion
section, and present large numbers of data in a table format, with explanatory statements in the
text.
Discussion
This is arguably the most important section of your article, since it is the discussion that gives
you the opportunity to present the analysis of your results and the implications for practice. This
is also the place to include any study limitations, differences between anticipated and actual
results, and between your results and those of other investigators. Your discussion section
demonstrates the importance of your research, and your ability to analyze both the process and
the results objectively.
Summary and Conclusions
If you choose to summarize your article, restate the salient points in a few well-chosen
sentences rather than repeating material verbatim or listing data again. Your conclusions should
also be brief (a few paragraphs at most). Rather than simply restating your results, ask yourself
what those results mean: Would you recommend the technique/drug/device based on your
results? Are further studies needed? In other words, what are the clinical implications of your
research? This is, after all, what your readers want to know.
Acknowledgments and any statements of proprietary interest should follow your conclusions.
References were discussed in the last Writer's Rx.
Not all research-based articles will fit neatly into this format. Don't try to fit a square peg into a
round hole. If you have relevant material that doesn't fit into one of the aforementioned sections,
create a new section or "sub-subhead" under the main subhead. Content should never be
compromised for the sake of form.
~~~~~~~~
By Laura Bruck(a)
(a) Laura Bruck is copy editor for ENT Journal.

Bruck, Laura
Fuente:
ENT: Ear, Nose & Throat Journal. May1997, Vol. 76 Issue 5, p345. 2p.

Tipo de documento:
Article
Descriptores:
*RESEARCH methodology evaluation
ABSTRACTS
Resumen:
Provides information about the basic components of the research-based article being abstracted.
Brief review of the literature; How the study was done; Outcome of the study; Conclusions.
Recuento total de palabras:
926
ISSN:
0145-5613
Nmero de acceso:
9707160518
Base de datos:
Academic Search Complete

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