Choosing your Journal

Dr Julian Randall

Retired GP, Dudley, W. Midlands,

Co-editor “The Writer”, journal of the SOMW

Co-founder & late Vice-chair Dudley CCG

Having retired in 2013, after spending the previous decade in GP commissioning rather than research, I realised I would have to quickly update myself on the modern “journal-scape” when given this topic for my talk. Thus I was in much the same position as a new doctor in training who has to orientate to academic writing.

What follows is a combination of my past experiences with what I was able to re-discover using modern internet resources . It is inevitably incomplete and prejudiced by my own curiosity, but it can be taken as an example of what any new medical writer can quickly discover for themselves without too much difficulty.

Foreword

The Literature search:As it was; 1879-2004:

Created by John Shaw Billings (1838-1913), head librarian, Surgeon General's Office, US Army.

became the US National Library of Medicine MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) introduced

by NLM in 1960

1964-1971

MEDLARS(Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System)

Honeywell 800 computer

1958 design

Memory 128 k!

Tape storage of bulk

data

(Meanwhile, ARPANET went

on-line, October 29th 1969)

1971-1996

MedLine (MEDLARS on-line)

-239 initial journals; capacity for up to 25 users simultaneously

(all medical libraries)

- Libraries conducted searches at request of researchers;

it took days to get the print-outs

1975: Upgrade to MEDLARS -II

New IBM 370/168 !

20 databases on tape storage

Home computers increasingly cheap & powerful from 1982 onwards,

WWW proposed by Berners-Lee 1989, went public August 23rd 1991

Michael DeBakey’s other claim to fame: Campaign to put Medline in

the public domain. Hence...

Grand opening to public, 1997 (by Al Gore):

• PubMed (Medline search-engine)

• PubMed Central (database/indexing & archiving

repository)

• (And there’s a PubMed Mobile app)

Based in Bethesda, Maryland, USA; counterparts in UK &

Canada,

pooled data acts as mirror copy/backup

in 2,407 active journals, & 3,200 archived journals

(some 6,000-12,500 others fail PubMed inclusion criteria)

1996 – present:

Today: On-line & open access

- Exponential growth of journal numbers & data, now beyond FEASIBLE hard copy archiving & retrieval.

- Web publishing & archivg essential; facilitates publishing, made fee-for-publication possible, reduces printed data and facilitates rapid dissemination.

- Risks: Plagiarism (theoretical); “data-rot” (loss due to storage media becoming obsolete, data corruption due to repeated copying to newer media)

- See XKCD’s infographic:

https://theoceanofknowledge.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/infographic.jpg

So, what are the differences between journals ?

Not so great as you might think:

Historical IMRaD format for scientific papers descended directly

from structure of Aristotelian rhetorical debates .

Modern globalisation & standardisation:

- International Committee of Medical Journal Editors

(ICMJE)

- Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials

(CONSORT) checklist

http://www.consort-statement.org/about-consort

- Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

ICMJE members:

Annals of Internal Medicine

British Medical Journal

Canadian Medical Association

Journal

Chinese Medical Journal,

Ethiopian Journal of Health

Sciences

JAMA

Nederlands Tijdschrift voor

Geneeskunde (Dutch Medical

Journal)

New England Journal of

Medicine

New Zealand Medical Journal

Revista Médica de Chile,

The Lancet

The U.S. National Library of

Medicine

World Association of Medical

Editors (WAME -

“Whammy”) , represents

>1,000 other journals)

Download from: http://

www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf

(NB: 17 pages; © no unauthorised reproduction or distribution)

Does your journal comply? See:

http://

www.icmje.org/journals-following-the-icmje-recommendations/

(not all compliant journals have requested listing)

ICMJE Standardisation:

1: Identification/registration2: Rationale, hypothesis & objective3: Trial design & Method4: Patient eligibility & location5: Interventions, details for replication6: Pre-specified 1ry & 2ry outcome measures, post hoc changes7: Sample size determination, interim analyses, stop criteria8: Randomisation method9: Randomisation implementation & concealment10: Randomising personnel11: Randomisation-blind personnel, assessors & assessment methods12: Statistical methods.13: Randomisation outcome, exclusions & losses, & reasons

14: Follow period, trial end & reason15: Baseline demographics table16: Numerical n data; changes to grouping17: Numerical outcome data & precision level18:Tertiary analyses & subgroups19: Significant unintended effects & harms20: Limitations, biases, imprecision, multiple analyses21: External “generalisability” & validity22: Consistency between outcomes & analysis23: Registration number24: Location where protocol can be scrutinised25: Funding sources

CONSORT 2010 declaration

AllTrials Campaign:

Which journals does your paper cite? - By definition your subject will interest other

readers (& therefore editors) of the same journals, and you can see the preferred

style & format.

Refer to mission statements of the proposed journals for scope and expectations of

readers. These will link to submission guidelines for preparing your manuscript.

Do your own peer review prior to submission – run your paper by trusted friends &

colleagues to eliminate typos, contradictions & waffle.

Rejection isn’t the end. There are thousands more journals. – but take note of

reasons for rejection & revise your manuscript before submitting elsewhere. You

may have to reformat & re-reference.

Assume everything will take twice as long as you think. (Your professor, however,

will still expect it done yesterday.)

Are You Good to Go?Warwick Checklist

Now pick your JournalThe Obvious; generic considerations for all journals:

Appropriate to your specialty, or Generalist?

Niche interest → specialist journal

Relevance to many specialties → BMJ/Lancet/Nature Medicine; J. Med. Ethics

(GP is a speciality, but consider overlap with social science & mental health)

Relevance extends outside medicine → Nature/PLOS-ONE

Basic science → Cell, Acta Biochimica etc

National or international?

Location & Language (if English is 2nd language, or if migrating/returning to

a homeland, consider whether to publish where you intend to practice)

High impact or niche journal?

Journal Impact factor

Originally proposed by Eugene Garfield in 1955

2 or 5 year average of : Citations_________________________________

Articles published

Data collected by Institute for Scientific

Information* (founded by Garfield in 1960) &

published annually in Journal Citation Reports

- In 2008 *ISI was acquired by Thomson-Reuters;

‒ © enforced since

Alternative ranking systems:• http://www.eigenfactor.org/• http://www.proquest.com/products-services/Ulrichsweb.html• Australian research council (next listing due for publication

Autumn 2015)

• There are many journals, but they are owned

by far fewer publishers.

• A dozen or so publishing houses account for

the majority of high-impact journals.

• So you need only learn about 12 house-styles.

• These are already similar, and converging as

standardisation gathers pace.

BMJ Group: 56 Journals, Incl. BMJ + 12 specialist editions, Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin, Gut, Heart 33 Blogs incl. Postgraduate Medical Journal

Lancet Group: The Lancet + 10 specialist editions, 2 Blogs American Medical Association: JAMA+ 10 specialist editions, 2 Blogs

Massachusetts Medical Society: NEJM, Journal Watch

Public Library of Science: PLOS ONE, PLOS Medicine, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, PLOS Pathogens

Royal Colleges: BJGP, Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons

Oxford UP: 118 journals, Incl. British Journal of Anaesthesia, Brain, British Medical Bulletin, Family Practice

Cambridge UP: 10 journals, Incl. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics

Cogora: Pulse, Nursing in Practice, Management in Practice Haymarket: 12 Journals, Incl. GP Magazine, MIMS, Medeconomics, Commissioning Today

Nature Publishing Group: 109 journals Incl. NATURE+ 26 specialist editions, BDJ, BJ Cancer, Scientific American

Wiley-Blackwell Ltd: 171 health journals,

+ Wiley On-Line Library*: ‒ 16 Medical

specialty sections accessing all the journals.

*Hosts the Cochrane Library

Journal houses:

There are many Style Guides,

but only a few* are relevant to medicine:ACS Style Guide

*AMA Manual of Style

AP Stylebook

*APA style

The ASA Style Guide

Bluebook [for legal citation]

The Business Style Handbook

The Chicago Manual of Style

*Citing Medicine (NLM)

The Elements of Style

The Elements of Typographic Style

Fowler's Modern English Usage

IEEE style [engineering]

*ISO 690:2010[

Manual for Writers of

Research Papers, Theses,

and Dissertations

(“Turabian”)

MHRA Style Guide [social sciences]

Microsoft Manual of Style

MLA Handbook

MLA Style Manual

New York Times Manual

*Oxford Guide to Style/New Hart's

Rules Scientific Style and Format

(CSE style)

The Sense of Style

Wikipedia Manual of Style

House Styles:

All major journals now require on-line submission .

Most require & accept manuscripts in MS *.docx or *.rtf or Adobe *.pdf formats.

Stay within length-limits (Usually 3,000 words & 30 references)

Use prescribed font & size for text (e.g. TNR for serif, Arial for sans-serif)

Direct or third-party submission portals? [ScholarOne ™]

Follow preferences in:

Referencing style – Vancouver or Harvard

Heading styles & hierarchy arrangement

Bulleting & numbering format

Present tabular data clearly & comply with required positioning in text.

Graphs must be validated by providing raw data

Punctuation !

Some House Style Guides:BMJ Group: http://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors/house-

style

BJGP:

http://bjgp.allentrack.net/cgi-bin/main.plex?form_type=display_auth_

Instructions

&j_id=102

Lancet group:

http://download.thelancet.com/pb/assets/raw/Lancet/authors/lancet-

information-for-authors.pdf

Nature Group: http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/gta/

NEJM: https://cdf.nejm.org/misc/authors/

PLOS: http://blogs.plos.org/plos/2015/01/streamlined-formatting-plos-

article/

Wiley-Blackwell:

http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/

House_style_guide_ROW4520101451415.pdf

Avoiding writer’s block :

Pedant [noun]:

1: A person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning.

2: A person who overemphasizes rules or minor details.

3: A person who adheres rigidly to book knowledge without regard to common sense.

—Dictionary.com

- so keep it relevant & sensible, & don’t show off.

Obsessive-Compulsive (Anankastic) Personality Disorder:

Is a disorder, not a virtue: “…characterized by feelings of doubt, perfectionism,

excessive conscientiousness, checking and preoccupation with details, stubbornness,

caution, and rigidity.” —ICD.10

- most doctors are like this to a degree, and if applied wisely it produces meticulous work,

but know when to stop: Optimise, don’t maximise. It is the end that counts, not the means.

- “Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.” (Voltaire) - Perfection is the enemy of the good enough.

It is easy to write badly, hard to write well, but nobody writes a perfect first draft.

It is better to write something, even if it’s a dire first draft, and keep editing until it’s right,

than to attempt immediate perfection & write nothing at all.

Getting past Peer Review

“…the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable,

incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant,

occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.”

—Richard Horton, Editor, The Lancet

Wooing the Reviewers

Ethically compliant

Impeccable data, clearly presented*

Sound rationale & logical progression**

Succinct argument

Unambiguous grammar & syntax

Conclusive message

*Falsifiability principle

**eliminate pseudoscientific arguments

Falsifiability Principle:(Charles Peirce, 1870; Karl Popper 1966)

Criterion of scientific validity: If a hypothesis is false, it can be

shown to be false by designed experiment.

“…for a hypothesis to have credence, it must be inherently

disprovable before it can become accepted as a scientific

hypothesis or theory.”

“…no theory is assumed to be completely correct, but if

experimental observation cannot not falsify it, then it can be

accepted as probably correct.”

Perhaps a better way of looking at it:

If you need to falsify your data to prove your hypothesis, then

your hypothesis is disproved.

Top 10 historical Logical Fallacies in Medicine10: Non sequitur (“Does not follow”):

- “Statins lower cholesterol & reduce thrombotic events, therefore

statins prevent thrombotic events by lowering cholesterol.” (Not

proven)

9: Appeals to Emotion (Emotional Blackmail):

- “It is unethical not to fund Kostzabomimab therapy because dozens

of cancer patients will die without it.” (The resource implications

may kill many more.)

8: Syllogism Fallacies (“Pie-chart” misinterpretations):

- Inferring 2 groups overlap with each other because both overlap with

a third.

-Do not presume how much they overlap; - find out.

7: Post hoc ergo propter hoc (“the former therefore the latter”):

“All autistic children have teddy-bears, therefore teddy-bears cause

autism.”

- Do not infer causation from correlation or coincidence .

6: Argument from Authority (“Pingelhandl et al say it’s so, therefore

it is so…”):

- The paper may pre-date evidence-based medicine, or may

have proposed a hypothesis not yet proven.

Refer instead to the evidence in the paper’s results.

Top 10 historical Logical Fallacies in Medicine5: Tergiversation (“Weasel words”):

- Making an assertion without taking responsibility for it, by

attributing it to anonymous third parties: “It is believed that…”

Quote your sources.

4: Appeal to Common Practice (“You can’t break with tradition) :

- This was the basis of the medico-legal “Bolam” test as a criterion

for acceptable practice; it has been superseded by the “Bolitho”

test, requiring even long-standing practice to have a scientific

rationale to be acceptable.

3: Ad Populum (Appeals to Popularity) : -

- “Everyone else accepts this theory, therefore so must you.”

- Fact is not democratic. Dissenters from dogma have a habit of being

right.

2: Sanctimony:

- “Our institution is more excellent that all the rest. Our

interpretation must be accepted because there is no higher authority

to contradict it.”

- Seniority & authority are irrelevant to the logic of an argument.

1: Cherry Picking:

- “Data that isn’t consistent with the hypothesis is wrong, & can be

ignored.”

- Conclusions must be based on evidence, not the other way round.

Referencing

Bibliography software:

Plenty avaliable

Aigaion

Bebop

BibBase

BibDesk

Biblioscape

BibSonomy

Bibus

Bookends

Citavi

CiteULike

colwiz

Docear

EndNote

JabRef

KBibTeX

Mendeley

Paperpile

Papers

Pybliographer

Qiqqa

ReadCube

refbase

RefDB

Reference Manager

Referencer

RefWorks

SciRef

Sente

Wikindx

WizFolio

Zotero

(But MS Word Footnote/Endnote function works just fine.)

ReferencingVancouver or Harvard?

Rule of thumb:

Physical science journals use numerical (Vancouver based)

citation, therefore so do clinical medical journals ;

Philosophical journals use bracketed in-text citation (Harvard –

based), therefore so do medico-legal, ethical, social science &

mental health journals.

Vancouver-based AMA style or similar is standard in USA

& UK (esp. BMJ), but with idiosyncratic preferences for

positioning references in text (inside/outside sentence,

Sub/superscript, bracketing etc) – check your chosen journal.

ReferencingPunctuating citations

Use ICMJE recommended commonalities in formatting citations:

Format:

Author Surname [space] Initials without spaces/stops) [comma/&/stop]

Title [stop] Italicised ISO690.2010 -approved journal abbreviation [stop]

Date [semicolon] Volume or Edition (Number or chapter) [colon] Page range

[stop] Publisher if book [stop]

Hence:

Randall J, Obeid ML & Blackledge GR. Haemorrhage and perforation of

gastrointestinal neoplasms during chemotherapy. Ann R Coll Surg Engl.

1986 Sep; 68(5): 286–289.

List up to 6 author names; if >6 authors, use first two followed by “et al”.

1) You’re the author; with a free hand. IMRaD format is not

compulsory but still good discipline for structuring your article.

2) Circulate an early draft for self-peer review to confirm you’re

addressing real educational need . Change or add to it if need be,

but make sure you do address it.

3) If working with multiple authors, confer to ensure consensus,

and leadership, but beware GroupThink.

4) Keep it your own article; don’t re-hash past-masters’ prior

works unless a neglected point needs reviving or an unjustified

one needs demolishing.

Reviews, Essays & Book Chapters:

5) Once your goal is identified use Triple Repetition ‒ a writer’s trick across many genres: In the Intro define the scope & what you intend your readers to learn. State it fully in the methods section. Finally reiterate it in the results section. Then, when you lead logically & fluently to your conclusion, your readers will remember your rationale.

6) Write from a fully cited evidence-base. There will be many papers & need for review arises from chaos & contradictions. Your purpose is to impose order, so students & researchers can navigate via your bibliography & needn’t reinvent it in future.

7) Don’t make unsupported assertions, but if positing a new hypothesis to invite comment or recruit colleagues to research it, then say so. Don’t let it become dogma by default.

Reviews, Essays & Book Chapters:

Heading formats:

– Oxford style capitalises major words in main title, not in sub-headings.

– Numbers in text & headings should be as text, not numerals, up to ten.

Check journal house-style for numbering/bulleting formats.

Use heading hierarchies:

E.g. APA style – 5 levels to avoid using large fonts:

1: Centred, Bold, Capitalised [ colon]

2: Aligned left flush, Bold, Capitalised [ colon]

3: Aligned left indented, bold, lower case [stop]

4: Aligned left indented, bold-italic, lower case [stop]

5: Aligned left indented, italic, lower case [stop]

Statistical outcomes: – How does the journal want these expressed?

p-values? Χ2? Confidence intervals? Something else? – Check policy

Include a professional statistician in your pre-submission peer review.

Other considerations

‒ CONSORT-compliant consent & ethical

approval

‒ Anonymisation

‒ Quality

‒ File & pixel size

‒ Copyright & Trade-mark

Medical photography hazards

Burkitt DS & Randall J, Urethral Trauma.

Nursing Times, October 28, Vol 83, No 43, 1987

Our journal, my cover-photo & SOMW copyright:- No permission needed for use in lecture.

↑ My paper but NT copyright, so citation needed. - Dow-Corning objected to use of “Silastic”™, as another brand was inadvertently supplied to medical photography

Editor’s plea:

Sentence & Paragraph breaks: No double spaces, especially after punctuation marks

(use Justify function). Tab/Indent to start new paragraphs, not multiple spaces (easy in

Word) . Hanging paragraphs to segregate list entries.

Minuses, Hyphens & Dashes: In order of size, use hyphens (-) to join or break words (no

spaces), a minus sign (−) for negative numbers in text, an en dash (–) for numerical

ranges & an em dash () in place of parentheses or commas (no spaces). An en-dash

with spaces ( – ) is also acceptable for this & looks better.

Infernal inverted commas: Use double quotation marks (“rhubarb”).

For the sake of your spelling checker don’t use single quotation marks except for

quotes within quotes “He said ‘rhubarb’ for no good reason.”

Ellipsis... I.e. Three dots, no more, no less.

Use italics for emphasis: - Exclamation marks & CAPITALISED TEXT are vulgar &

loud! They have NO place in science, or even prose, & must be exterminated! !!!

Aberrant apostrophes: Unless denoting possession or abbreviation, kill them too.

Unless you’re vigilant they metastasise everywhere. All style guides agree,

keep commas to a minimum. Use them only to separate lists, consecutive

adjectives, and clauses, or in place of parentheses.

Most journals , alas, want the serial (“Oxford”) Comma

“Blood samples were taken for FBC, U&E, LFTS, & ESR.”

“Blood samples were taken for FBC, U&E, LFTS & ESR.”

Fail

Cancerous commas:

In its favour:

“...highlights of his [Peter Ustinov’s] global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector.”

―The Times

“...highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod, and a dildo collector.”

The Oxford comma

“There are people who embrace the Oxford comma and those who don't,

and I'll just say this: never get between these people when drink has been

taken.”

―Lynne Truss, “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to

Punctuation.”

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