Guide to

Written and Oral Communication

Professional development and skills training at the Faculty of Pharmacy

(PUFF)

Faculty of Pharmacy 2017

Developed by the work group for PUFF based on “Presenting science” by the Biology Education Centre, 2016

Anja Sandström, Ann-Marie Falk, Lena Bergström, Denny Mahlin, Ruta Dahllöf

Revised 2019 by

Anja Sandström, Ann-Marie Falk, Magnus Bergström, Lisa Fredriksson Carreras, Ina Stuhlmann, Lovisa Olsson

Uppsala Biomedical Centre, Uppsala University

Husargatan 3, 751 23 Uppsala

www.medfarm.uu.se

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ContentsPapers and reports......................................................................................................................... 4

Title...................................................................................................................................................... 5

Table of Contents............................................................................................................................. 5

Abstract............................................................................................................................................... 5

Introduction (“why?”).................................................................................................................... 6

Purpose............................................................................................................................................... 6

Materials and Methods (“how?”)................................................................................................6

Laboratory work/experimental work....................................................................................................... 6

Literature Reviews............................................................................................................................................. 7

Results (“what?”)............................................................................................................................. 7

Laboratory work................................................................................................................................................ 7

All work.................................................................................................................................................................. 7

Discussion (“what does it mean?”)............................................................................................8

Conclusions........................................................................................................................................ 8

Acknowledgements......................................................................................................................... 8

Citing your sources in the text.................................................................................................... 8

Website addresses to databanks and software are listed in the text...........................................9

Reference management software............................................................................................................. 10

Putting together the reference list........................................................................................................... 10

Tables and figures......................................................................................................................... 13

Tables A table has a heading at the top that explains what the table shows. There are different traditions for providing an explanatory text in addition to the heading. You can have an explanatory table text at the top, you can use footnotes or you can have a short descriptive text under the table. Ask your supervisor what applies for your particular paper.................13

Figures.................................................................................................................................................................. 15

Format, grammar and spelling.................................................................................................16

Literature reviews........................................................................................................................ 17

Popular science papers...............................................................................................................18

Posters.............................................................................................................................................. 18

Advice for oral presentations...................................................................................................18

Speaking over slides.................................................................................................................... 19

Suggested reading.........................................................................................................................20

Some tips for peer reviewing....................................................................................................21

Checklist for written reports on advance projects............................................................22

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An important role for the professional pharmacist is communicating with the public, colleagues, health care professionals and others in a way that conveys information and is understandable. This requires good subject knowledge, the ability to express and convey knowledge in Swedish and English, and the ability to adapt how information is presented to the recipient’s knowledge level. Written and oral presentations of laboratory work, memos and other elements of the programme’s courses offer communication practice. This document helps you improve your written and oral presentation skills step-by-step throughout the programme. It provides information and advice on formatting text and reference management, oral presentations, serving as a peer reviewer and writing reports after course laboratory sessions.

A scientific investigation is not complete until the results are made public. This can be done in the form of an article in a scientific journal, but also as scientific and popular science papers/reports, lectures and posters. Investigations within an area also need to be summarised and discussed in a broader perspective so that the knowledge can be used.

All presentations are made to convey a message. This involves presenting information from the recipient’s perspective: How can you spark and maintain the interest of the recipient, and how can you describe the results in an understandable way? This means you will need to adapt the presentation for different target audiences, so it is important to keep in mind the intended target audience when preparing your presentation.

Your presentation must be your own. Describe your results and discuss them in your own words. When you summarise what others have done, for example, in the introduction and discussion, use your own words, stating the source of your information. Copying text without citing the source is considered plagiarism. Even if you cite the source, you may not copy more than a single sentence (in that case, within quotation marks). The rest of the information needs to be expressed in your own words. For a detailed description of using sources, what is considered cheating and plagiarism, and the consequences if you are suspected of cheating, refer to:

https://www.uu.se/en/students/your_rights/cheating/

Papers and reportsThe most important way to spread your scientific findings is to write academic papers and reports. In that respect, there is no difference between scholarly articles and laboratory reports – they both are intended to communicate a message in an interesting way to readers. Papers also become part of your portfolio that you can show when applying for jobs or grants for new research projects.

It is important that you express yourself clearly and in an interesting way. The purpose of the investigation needs to be clearly stated, and the paper needs to be organised logically so that the reader does not have to flip back and forth to follow what you have done. The text is to be thorough enough that the reader can read from beginning to end and understand what you have done, how you have done it, what the

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results are and what the results mean. Finally, keep in mind that it should be possible to repeat your work based on your description.

There are general rules for how to format a paper to meet the requirements for readability noted above. These are described below and you will need to use these when writing papers and laboratory reports while attended the Master of Science Programme in Pharmacy. Your teacher will provide more detailed instructions for each written assignment.

TitleMake the title short, informative and interesting. Do not have abbreviations in titles, other than those generally known. DNA is fine, but not PABA (para-aminobenzoic acid).

In addition to the title, the title page should also include information about you and the context, e.g.:

Author’s name

Name of supervisor(s)

Where the work was done (Department, Section, University)

Course subject, course level

Number of credits (X credits)

The semester the work was conducted

Table of ContentsFor longer papers, such as advanced study projects, include a table of contents. It should refer to the main headings and subheadings with page numbers. Word processors can usually automatically create the table of contents.

AbstractThe summary is a summary of the entire paper, so the introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion. It should explain why you chose the problem, what you did, what the results were, and what they mean. The summary normally does not have references or standalone designations for studied substances. Instead, write the description/name together with the designation/number of the substances. You should not use abbreviations other than those commonly known. There are often guidelines for the length of an abstract, ½–1 A4 is common.

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Introduction (“why?”)In the initial paragraph, present the problem area/background and describe briefly the hypotheses behind the study and what has previously been done in this field (studies by you or other people), with cited sources to the information. Divide the material into subsections (paragraphs), potentially with subheadings. You can also define terms here. It is very important that you are continually evaluating and deciding if the information you are including in the introduction is relevant to the report. The most common mistake is to write too much general background information that is not relevant. You should also write something about why you feel what you investigated is of value.

PurposeThe purpose of the study can either be stated in the last paragraph of the Introduction, with or without subheading, or as a separate section under the “Purpose” heading. The purpose, or goal, needs to be defined as clearly as possible, preferably in the form of the hypotheses you have tested (“to study ...” is not enough). If you have multiple goals with the study, try to order them as logically as possible – this makes it easier both for your own writing and for the reader. It can sometimes be good to state an overall goal followed by specific goals for the study. The purpose, however, should not total more than a couple of sentences.

Materials and Methods (“how?”)There are different traditions in different branches of the natural sciences for how content is divided between Materials and Methods (also called the Experimental section in many chemistry journals) and Results. There are also different traditions for where the Materials and Methods section is to be placed – after the introduction or after the discussion. Ask your supervisor what applies for your particular paper. For experimental work within, for example, clinical toxicology and physiology, the conducted experiments are described in the Material and Methods section. Within the branches of biology and chemistry that focus on laboratory work, however, the Materials and Methods section may only contain materials and methods, while the experiments that use the materials and methods are included in the Results section. Also divide this section into subsections with subheadings. This section is to be detailed. Also use the Materials and Methods section to describe how you processed your data and any statistical analyses. Methods explained in every statistical book (such as the t-test) do not need to be described, but less common methods should be. Also identify the software or database you use for calculations. Tests on humans and animals need to have ethical approval. If only interviews are used, ethical approval is normally not required.

Laboratory work/experimental workBegin describing the test population, biological material, chemical substances or drugs being used. This can be patients, healthy volunteers, bacteria, test animals, viruses, cell cultures and so on. Then describe how these were dealt with or cultured, or chemical reagents and solvents and their chemical quality (% pure). Feel free to use tables for this. The descriptions of methods are to include formulas for all solutions and media, volumes, times, temperatures and so on in easily accessible form. If you

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refer to other work for detailed descriptions of methods, previously performed experiments or similar, you have to provide a short summary so that the reader does not need to go to the library to understand your text. Do not write “Cation concentrations were determined according to NN”. Instead, write “The amount of substitutable cation was determined after extraction with ammonium acetate, in accordance with NN”.

Literature ReviewsIt is not enough to write that you have studied the literature, you should also identify the database used, what search terms were used and the search results. Feel free to use tables for this.

Results (“what?”)In the results section, describe what you did and what the results were. All results are described here; you cannot present additional results in the discussion. Normally, results are presented without assessment and without citing sources (except for literature reviews). Sometimes, the results and discussion are combined. In those cases, the results can be discussed while they are being presented.

Laboratory workFor laboratory work, include a description of the experiments you performed. Organise these logically, so that it creates a story with a beginning and an end. This means that you (in brief) need to explain what you did, and sometimes why, before describing the results. You often also need to include a short conclusion before moving to the next experiment. As a rule, you do not present the experiments in the same order as you actually performed them. You often think of an important control experiment in the middle of your experimentation, and then it is logical to present it at the outset or end of the paper. Sometimes it can be useful to make a diagram showing the methodology of the experiment.

All workYou will normally have calculations, figures and tables to present (see “Tables and figures” section below for how these are formatted). Include all tables and figures related to the results in the Results section, and you have to refer to these in the main text. In the text, explain what the reader sees in the figure/table. It is not enough to write, for example, “the results are shown in Table 1”. You have to choose the most important and clearest results and formulate them into words. Examples of how you can refer to tables and figures: “Substance Y had the strongest enzyme-inhibiting effect with an IC50 = 9.1 nM (Table 1).” “We found a negative correlation between the patient’s age and total clearance (Figure 1).” When you have performed a statistical test, indicate which test you used, the number of observations or the degrees of freedom and p-value (e.g. R2 = 0.89; n = 24; p 0.01).

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Discussion (“what does it mean?”)In the discussion, comment on your results and make relevant comparisons with what others have previously found. It is important to support what you write with citations (sources). You can also speculate about the meaning of your findings. It is common to need to occasionally summarise results in the discussion (so that the reader does not have to flip through the text). These types of summaries are to be as short as possible; the discussion is not supposed to be an embellished summary.

The discussion shows whether you should reject your hypotheses or whether you should keep them, at least for the moment. Try to make your hypotheses more precise or generate new ones based on your findings.

If the results for some reason do not turn out as you expected, identify the source of the error. Do not list generally applicable or “insignificant” sources of error. Focus instead on what you really believe may have affected your results. This is part of critically evaluating your own work and methods that should be done at the end of the discussion. What limitations does the work have? How far-reaching conclusions can you make based on the findings? In this context, do not forget to focus the discussion on what is good in the study, i.e. the strengths of the work.

ConclusionsAt the end of the discussion or under its own heading “Conclusions”, summarise your conclusions or write what you think should continue to be studied to shed more light on what you’ve written about: “To close, the study shows that...”. Do not add any new information or references here. This section should be short (maximum 1/3 of a page).

AcknowledgementsIf there are people who have contributed with constructive criticism or support that have helped your writing, this is the place to thank them. It is also customary to thank any sources of financial support.

Citing your sources in the textIn the paper, particularly in the introduction and discussion, you need to describe what others have written about your topic or about studies/observations that are close to your study. Several of these should come from international, peer-reviewed journals. The sources of methods, experimental organisms, experimental material and so on should always be identified. Citations for these are to be included in the text. Different journals use different standards (Harvard, Oxford, Vancouver, APA, American Chemical Society (ACS)). Each assignment’s instructions should define what type of citation is to be used.

Citations to a text come at the end of the sentence where the source text is referenced. This often means in the first sentence of a paragraph. More details can follow this without having to cite the work again, if it is clear that it comes from the same source.

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If you have more than one citation in the same sentence and need to separate the information on what comes from which citation, a citation can be placed in each part of the sentence. You should not write an entire paragraph and place the citations at the end of the paragraph.

Citations are to be done in one of the following two ways. Only numbers in the text (1, 2, 3, etc.), in the order that they are cited in the text within parentheses (1) or using a superscript1. The reference list shows the citations in numeric order. Another alternative is to provide the citations in the text with the first author followed by et al., which should be written in italics and means “and others”, and the year (Sadée et al. 2013, Svensson et al. 2011). Note that you only write the first author and no initials. Then write the citation in alphabetical order in the reference list. Note that you do write all author names in the reference list (see below). If there are only two authors, write both names (Pond and Tozer, 1984) in both the in-text citation and the reference list. Note that you also need to cite websites that you take information from.

Sometimes only an oral citation available is available. Instead of the year, write (Göran Sahlén, personal communication). This is the only occasion where you use the person’s entire name in a text citation. Your own data or date from others that has not be published can also be cited as (K. Johansson, unpublished observations). Make sure you have understood the information correctly and that the person you cite is really willing to be cited. You must have the person’s permission to cite his or her data. Oral citations may only be used when there are no written citations available; they cannot replace original citations. They should also not be listed in the reference list.

When you refer to a doctoral thesis, for example, remember to only cite the findings resulting from the work, not the background information, such as from the introduction.

Only cite dependable online sources (higher education institutions, public authorities and similar). Cite these in the text in the same way as other sources (name + year) or with citation numbers.

Website addresses to databanks and software are listed in the text.If you have used software, which is common in fields like bioinformatics (not standard software like MS Word), cite these as if they were books. A person, a company or an organisation may own the rights to the software (equivalent to an author), so provide the organisation’s name (if there is one) behind the software, name of place and URL to the software’s website. See below for examples. The citation information is often on the website.

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Reference management softwareUppsala University Library recommends using the software Zotero, which can be downloaded free of charge and freely used. The library at BMC can provide support if you need assistance. You can also attend training courses through the BMC library, but it is so easy to use that this is unnecessary for most people. Good material for beginners is available at:

https://www.zotero.org/support/quick_start_guide (In English. The Swedish guide is unfortunately out of date).https://libguides.ub.uu.se/referensguiden/zotero (in Swedish)https://libguides.ub.uu.se/referensguiden/zotero/introduktion (in Swedish)

Putting together the reference listIf you use reference management software to add citations, it correctly formats your citations both in the text and in the reference list and updates the numbering and sorting of the references when you change, delete or add references. Learn how to import references (Zotero has a web browser plugin that makes this easy), how to add references to your text (Zotero has plugins for MS Word, OpenOffice, LibreOffice and Google Docs for this), and how to choose the style you want to use for your references (for example, the style determines if the references display the author name and year or the number in the text). Zotero comes with several preinstalled styles, but many more can be installed through the program’s settings.

Much of the following text describes things that reference management software can do automatically based on what style you choose for your citations, but which you can also do yourself if you do not use reference management software. But remember that even if you use reference management software, mistakes can occur, so check through your reference list to make sure that everything is formatted correctly.

In the reference list, list all the published publicly available works you cite, no more and no less. Oral citations are not included. For the same author, articles are listed in chronological order. If you want to cite your sources by number instead of name + year, number them in the same order as they appear in the text. If you write the author’s name in parentheses, the reference list is to be in alphabetical order based on author. There are also different systems for how information is ordered. You can choose to use another format for individual works than what is described below if it is more common in journals in your field, as long as all of the information below is included. For articles, include all authors, publication year, title of the work, journal where it was published, volume and pages. For books, include all authors, publication year, title, edition, publisher and place of printing; for individual chapters in anthologies, also include editors, the anthology’s title and the pages of the citated chapter.

For journals that do not have printed editions, indicate volume and e-pages or DOI number (DOI = digital object identifier), but the name of the journal still has to be included. The example in the next section provides more details about how to cite an online article.

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For online sources that are not journal articles, include the name of the person or organisation behind the website, a title to the work, the date it was last updated (if this is given) and the date when you retrieved the information.

Journal articles:

Principle: Surname initial(s) for all authors. Article title. Journal where it was published. Volume: pages (year of publication).

Gillespie U, Alassaad A, Henrohn D, Garmo H, Hammarlund-Udenaes M, Toss H, Kettis-Lindblad A, Melhus H, and Mörlin C. A comprehensive pharmacist intervention to reduce morbidity in patients 80 years or older: a randomized controlled trial. Arch Intern Med 169:894-900 (2009).

Abbott NJ, Patabendige AA, Dolman DE, Yusof SR, and Begley DJ. Structure and function of the blood-brain barrier. Neurobiol Disease 37:13-25 (2010).

Rowland M, Peck C, and Tucker G. Physiologically-based pharmacokinetics in drug development and regulatory science. Ann Rev Pharmacol Toxicol 51:45-73 (2011).

Journal without volume and page numbers (e-journal):

Wilmers CC, Getz WM. 2005. Gray wolves as climate change buffers in Yellowstone. PLOS Biology, DOI 10.1371/journal.pbio.0030092.

Book:

Principle: Surname initial(s). Book’s title. Edition. Publisher: Place of publication, Year published.

Rowland M., Tozer T. N. Clinical Pharmacokinetics, Concepts and Applications. 3rd ed. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (1995)

Begon M, Harper JL, Townsend CR. Ecology. Individuals, populations and communities. 3rd ed. Blackwell Science, Oxford. (1996)

Chapter from book:

Principle: Surname and initial of chapter author. Chapter title. I: Editor’s Surname, Editor’s Initial, editor(s). Book’s title. Place of publication: Publisher; p. page number (Year of publication).

Reidenberg M. M. Therapeutics as a Science. van Boxtel C. J., Santoso B., Edwards I. R. (Eds). Drug Benefits and Risks, International Textbook of Clinical Pharmacology. John Wiley & Sons Ltd: Chippenham, Wiltshire, UK. 1st ed. p 15–25 (2001).

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Doctoral theses, reports etc.:

Johansson A. 2003. Ph.D. Thesis. Design and Synthesis of Hepatitis C Virus NS3 Protease Inhibitors. Uppsala University.

Sandström B. Title of report. Technical report; Number; Publisher: Place of publication, date, pages

Medical Products Agency Sweden. Läkemedelsbehandling för glukoskontroll vid typ 2-diabetes – behandlingsrekommendation. Information from the Medical Products Agency. 2017;28(4):29–48.

The National Swedish Board of Health and Welfare. Nationella riktlinjer för hjärtsjukvård – Stöd för styrning och ledning. Article number: 2018-6-28. 2018. Available from: https://www.socialstyrelsen.se/nationellariktlinjerhjartsjukvard.

Software:

R Core Teams. 2013. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL: http://www.R-project.org.

Web address:

Medical Products Agency Sweden. Interchangeable drugs. https://lakemedelsverket.se/utbytbaralakemedel [2018/07/02], downloaded 2019/06/10.

Mendeley Ltd. 2019. Harvard Format Citation Guide. https://www.mendeley.com/guides/harvard-citation-guide, downloaded 2019/08/16.

Be consistent and use the same format for all citations. Here are some details to think about:

Check carefully where you should use full stop (US: period), comma and colon.

Use abbreviations or the complete name of the journal, but not a mixture. Journal name abbreviations should follow a standard (see PubMed or Scifinder). If you do not know the standard abbreviation for a journal, write the full name.

For journals, you do not write out the word “volume” and do not indicate the issue number. Write “11: 115–121” (not “volume 11(2): 115–121”).

Some reference formats italicise journal names and book titles, and the volume is indicated in bold. If you choose this type of formatting, make sure to be consistent.

The reference list is to use the same language as the rest of the paper. The title of the work, however, is to be given in the original language. For example, you can write “unpublished report from Uppsala University”.

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Any abbreviations in Swedish are also changed to English. Swedish: I: Grace JB, Tilman D (red.). Perspectives on plant competition. English: In: Grace JB, Tilman D (eds.). Perspectives on plant competition.

Appendix

If you have lots of data, interview forms or more detailed results, you can consider adding these to one or more appendixes. Tables and figures in appendixes are numbered as Table A1, Table A2 etc. and NOT in the same number series as other tables and figures.

Tables and figuresHow much data should be reported? You need to report your work so that your reader can see that your claims are justified. You have to present representative data in the form of a summary diagrams and tables. Avoid lengthy tables of raw data. These can be included as appendixes at the end of the work. Data is reported either in table form or in a figure, but never both. Tables are used for numeric data or data that can be described with a few words; everything else is shown as figures. When you have reported data in a table or figure, do not then repeat this data in the main text. In the main text, you present the most important results in words, as described above. The table or figure headings together with the explanatory text are to be detailed and so extensive that the reader can understand what the tables or figures show without having to read through the rest of the report. This means that it must be clear what you have analysed and what type of analysis has been done.

Tables and figures are number with Arabic numerals (Table 1, 2, 3, …; Figure 1, 2, 3…). Refer to all figures and tables in the main text.

Tables A table has a heading at the top that explains what the table shows. There are different traditions for providing an explanatory text in addition to the heading. You can have an explanatory table text at the top, you can use footnotes or you can have a short descriptive text under the table. Ask your supervisor what applies for your particular paper.

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Table 2. Binding affinity and lipophilic lead efficiency (LLE) of C-terminal modified SP1-7 analogues.

Compound IC50

(nM)LLEa

O NH

ONH2

O46.2 5.72

O NH

O HN

O5N

16.5 4.81

O NH

O HN

O6S

CH3

O O60.6 4.09

O NH

O HN

O7OH 4.2 6.47

O NH

O HN

O8NH

O

6.5 2.81

O NH

O

9 N N

O 9.0 2.39

a LLE = pIC50 – cLogP (cLogP derived from QikProp, version 3.3, Schrödinger, LLC, New York, NY. 2010).

The table head contains headings for all columns showing categories and units. The left column lists the categories (Compound 4) for which properties are shown in the following columns (IC50 and LLE). All entries in one row must refer to the category noted in the left most column of that row, and the table is to be organised so that it is read left to right. This means the categories with studied properties (what you would list on the x-axis if it were a graph) are listed vertically in the left most column. Horizontal lines are only used above and below the table head and at the bottom of the table (see the example above). Vertical lines are usually not used in scientific tables and horizontal lines are not used in the table itself. If you lack data at one point, write “ND” for not determined, to distinguish lack of data from data that have a value of zero. In English, decimals are written with decimal points. Make sure to change any data that uses the Swedish decimal comma. Footnotes may be used for explanations referring to single rows or columns in the table.

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FiguresFigures can be different types of diagrams, graphs, maps and drawings. For graphs, both axes are labelled with what is measured and the units. All figures are to have an explanatory text underneath the figure. This explanatory text should be understandable without having to read the paper first.

Here are a couple of examples of figures:

Curves are only used when the relevant variable varies continuously. In other cases, use bar charts (for discrete variables) and histograms (bar charts, for continual variables or material split into classes). Example of a histogram:

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Be conservative with the use of colours and ensure that your figures can be understood if they are printed in grayscale.

Format, grammar and spellingFormat your paper based on how articles in your field are usually formatted. But remember that the target group is fellow students, that is, students having the same basic education that you have but lacking the specialist knowledge you have gained through your project. You need to write so that they understand and include more background than is common in scholarly articles. Explain all special terms and abbreviations that are not known from your shared undergraduate programme. Use as few abbreviations as possible, but when they are used, explain them the first time (except for in the summary). Then you can use the abbreviation without its explanation. An abbreviation is unnecessary if the word occurs less than three times in the text. If you have many abbreviations, you should make an abbreviation list, which is placed between the summary and introduction. Use polished language and avoid informal expressions, slang and jargon. If you write in Swedish, then write in Swedish and not Swenglish. Write complete sentences and make sure your modifiers are not misplaced. Write short sentences. Long sentences can often be misunderstood because modifiers become difficult to link to their subject. Remember that generic names for pharmaceutical and active substances are written in lowercase in sentences.

Avoid beginning sentences with numerals (digits as opposed to written words) – the same applies in Swedish though the rule is more strictly followed in English. Numbers up to and including ten are generally written as words in sentences (e.g. “three drug classes”). Make sure to include a space between a number and its unit (45 mM). Decimals in English are written with the decimal point (11.3) but in Swedish with the decimal comma (11,3). In English, commas are used to separate numerals or “digits” in large numbers (10,500 = ten thousand five hundred), while in Swedish there is no separator or a space is used (10500 or 10 500). Use at most three significant digits when reporting results. This means 0.030142 is written 0.0301 but that 0.030191 is written 0.0302.

The choice of language (Swedish or English) reflects the purpose of the paper and the intended target audience. Your teacher will provide more information.

Be consistent in your use of present and past tense. Describe your own results in the past tense when describing the purpose of your study, in the Materials and Methods section, and in the Results section. Use present tense only when drawing general conclusions from your work in the discussion. Also use the past tense when describing experiments by others but use present tense when describing the conclusions from these experiments.

A common myth is that you may not write in the first person. Exaggerated use of the first person can be distracting, but an occasional “I” or “we” is perfectly fine, particularly in the discussion. This is your work and you have every reason to be proud of it. However, do not write “we” for a paper for which you are the sole author. Another common misunderstanding is that scientific reports do not use the passive. Your paper will be easier to read and you will avoid some linguistic traps if you

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alternate between passive and active forms and avoid nominalisations (turning verbs into nouns). Write “I/we measured...” instead of “measurements were conducted...”. A practical tip is to use your word processor’s search feature to find all the occurrences of “made”, “done”, “carried out”, and “performed”. When you find one of these words, read the sentence and then rewrite it without this word. This will make the text more succinct and clearer and will reduce the number of grammar errors. Use the spelling and grammar checker of your word processor with care. It is intended for general language use and can have incorrect suggestions for scientific papers. Ask someone to proofread your paper specifically for language issues.

Be consistent when formatting your paper. Give all the subheadings the same style and size and choose to use either an extra line between paragraphs or indent paragraphs, but not both.

The following standard can be used if no other instructions are given:

Use Font Times New Roman, 12 point.

Write the title in 14-point bold.

Section headings are in bold.

Explanatory figures and table texts are in 10 point.

The tables, however, are in 12 point.

Page numbers are at the bottom and centred on each page.

All text is left-aligned with 2.5 cm margins around the text.

Versions used for comments by teachers and peers are printed with double line spacing.

Literature reviewsA literature review does not use your own data. Instead, it is an overview of the literature and is organised a bit different from a scientific paper. It includes the summary, introduction, acknowledgements and references sections, but Materials and Methods is not included (normally). Instead of the Results heading, you use headings and subheadings appropriate for the content of the review. The introduction is very short, as a rule at most 1/3 page, and provides only a brief framing of the problem and why this is interesting. In the discussion, you discuss the results you have summarised and place them in a larger context; personal reflections can be appropriate here. References are cited as you write in the same way as described above. Tables, figures and the reference list are also formatted as above.

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Popular science papersThe presentation and style of a popular science paper is different from that of a scientific paper. Write it like a newspaper article: a catchy title conveying the main message and an introductory paragraph that builds on this message and explains why it is so interesting. Always start with the most interesting and the most concrete information. Your writing is competing for the attention of the readers with other articles. If you fail to spark their interest with the title and the introductory paragraph, you risk losing them. So put a real effort into making these as good as possible.

Avoid technical language. You should use simple, everyday language with short sentences. Metaphors, simple figures and illustrations work well. Write from your own perspective, preferably in first person. Also write to hold the reader’s interest. Place the details, methods and complicated arguments at the end of the paper. Save a particularly interesting fact or thought that points forward for the end, like a sentence about future research or possible future developments or solutions. This gives the reader a sense of optimism and satisfaction when having finished reading.

PostersA poster is more an advertisement for your investigation than a complete presentation. It should not take longer than 10 minutes to read and understand the entire poster, preferably less. This means that you need to simplify and emphasise the most important material. It is easiest to prepare your poster using a suitable PowerPoint template. The title is your main message. Use short subheadings to divide your text up and provide a quick overview. Start with what is most important. Use figures rather than text. Attach business cards with your contact information and flyers with additional information. Use landscape format so you avoid having text at knee level. Large text (like on a poster) should be written using a sans serif font, like this (Arial, Helvetica or similar) while small text (like in a printed paper) should use serif fonts (like Times New Roman) to give the eye a line to follow. If the title is limited to only one line, you can use UPPERCASE LETTERS, otherwise (and for all other text) use lowercase. An example of a poster is shown at the end of this booklet.

Advice for oral presentationsPresenting orally requires preparation. Audiences listen eagerly to well-prepared presentations. By preparing, you can capture their interest within a couple of minutes and this will allow you to share your knowledge with them. Some advice for catching and keeping their attention:

Who is your audience? Your talk should be aimed at an appropriate level: Your presentation has to begin where the audience’s knowledge ends, which can be difficult. What is obvious for you is new for them.

Make sure they can hear you well. Use a microphone if available.

Introduce yourself and any colleagues.

Pass out a summary of what you will say, particularly if you will be showing complex

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figures.

Maintain eye contact with the audience and ask questions to get them involved.

Always start with what is most interesting and repeat your main message at the end.

Present necessary background information and the methodology together with your findings and discuss what they mean. The audience can easily lose track if you organise your presentation as if it were a written paper.

Simplify. A short talk can never provide the whole story, but it can provide the highlights.

People like visual aids (the human body, models of molecules, instruments). Just make sure not to give too much time to viewing your props.

Use written keywords. Reading word-for-word in a natural voice is extremely difficult. Watch out for filler words like “uh”, “eh”, “like”, and use ordinary language without slang. Add personal touches and an occasional joke, opinion or thought. It really helps keep the audience involved.

Do not holding a pen in your hand to avoid unconsciously clicking the button.

End on time to allow for questions.

Practice several times and time yourself. Recruit someone to be your audience when practicing.

Make sure not to speak too fast.

Speaking over slidesUse fonts without serifs, at least 22–24 points, at most 5–6 lines of text per slide.

It is better to make several slides than to cram too much information onto each slide. One message per slide is best.

Suggestions

When copying a picture from an electronic publication, it can obtain a sharper image by zooming the PDF on the screen before copying the picture or table to your document or to your PowerPoint presentation.

Check the projector before your presentation.

Lead the audience through the figures; present the axes and explain all the symbols.

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Stand to the side of the screen and face the audience.

Use colour sparingly to highlight text or symbols since it can be tiring for the viewers. Certain colour combinations can be difficult to interpret for people who are colour blind. Max two to three colours per slide.

Use a light and simple background to optimise readability.

Be careful about using premade templates and flashy effects available in presentation software. For many listeners, animations are distracting.

If you copy a published figure, cut away the small print figure text and other details and provide the axes explanation in a larger font than the original. Cite the source under the picture and use the same principles as in the reference list in a paper or report (see above), but leave out the title and shorten the author list (if multiple authors, provide the name of the first author followed by et al.)

Example:

Leggett JE et al. Scand J Infect Dis (Suppl). 1990;74:179-84

Andes D and Craig WA. Int J Antimicrob Agents. 2002 Apr;19(4):261-8.

Suggested readingDay RA, Gastel B. 2012. How to write and publish a scientific paper. 7th ed. Cambridge University Press.

Frasbanken, Karolinska Institutet

Academic writing. MOOC course, Lund University (also available on YouTube)

Pelger S & Santesson S. 2012. Retorik för naturvetare – skrivande som fördjupar lärandet. Studentlitteratur. www.skrivguiden.se.

The Swedish Academy 2015. Svenska akademiens ordlista. 14th ed. Norstedt. http://www.svenskaakademien.se/svenska-spraket/svenska-akademiens-ordlista-saol

The Language Council of Sweden. Institute for Language and Folklore. http://www.sprakochfolkminnen.se

TNC 2017. Skrivregler för svenska och engelska från TNC. Terminologicentrum, http://www.tnc.se/

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Some tips for peer reviewing It’s a talent to be a good peer reviewer. The balance between forcing in details and having a wide-ranging discussion on the consequences of the findings can be difficult, but with some thoughtful preparation, serving as a peer reviewer can be interesting for the entire audience.

Background/Opening/Introduction

The background needs to capture the reader’s interest, be factual, short and address relevant information needed to understand the problem. Has the author succeeded with this? Does the background have a lot of dead weight in the form of side issues and in-depth discussions that do not actually contribute to understanding? How has the author used references? Are they relevant for the field? Are the references selected to fit the author’s purpose or is the represented research outside the author’s focus?

Is there a clear-cut purpose?

Is the purpose of the work meaningful/clinically relevant? The purpose is often a concluding ending to the background/introduction and should be a logical consequence. A vague purpose is sometimes hidden among lots of words that are often also vague. A well-formulated purpose cannot be misunderstood. Clarity is also important for assessing if the used method is relevant.

Can the purpose be achieved using the chosen method?

Or the opposite: is the method appropriate/viable for the chosen framing of the question? The chosen methodology should be accepted and preferably standard within the research field. If it isn’t, it needs to be clearly stated why the author chose not to use a standard method, for example, because it is not sensitive enough in these particular experiments or too expensive. In the worst case, the method measures something other than what was being looked for and that would cause the purpose to be unachieved. Are there weaknesses in the method/implementation that are worth discussing?

Are the findings reasonable?

Are the findings reasonable and in line with previous studies? Significant deviations from expected results can indicate a methodological error or something went wrong in the selection of the test subjects, for example. Did the used test animals turn out to be different than the regular test animals? What statistical tests were performed and are they relevant for this comparison? Were there a sufficient number of interviews/patients?

Are the discussion and conclusion in line with the findings?

If not, how does the author deal with this in the Discussion section? Are there other interpretations than what the author presented? Is the discussion based on the findings? Are there things that seem to be left out? How does the author deal with deviating findings? Does the author take up genuine criticisms of the chosen method

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or are the noted limitations simply routine comments without deeper consideration? Are the texts placed under the correct headings?

The most difficult task is perhaps to places the materials and methods, results and discussion in the right places. Has the author succeeded with this?

What about all the spelling errors?

The oral peer review is to take up the report’s content, not is form. If the peer reviewer has opinions about the report’s form, these can be included with the written comments in the draft that the reviewer has read through. The short time available to the peer reviewer, respondent and audience for each paper is too valuable to spend discussing a punctuation issue on page five. It is most important for the oral peer review to discuss the scientific work and not get caught up on the language or layout of the report.

Checklist for written reports on advance projectsHere’s a checklist of details that need fixing before the report is submitted:

Structure of the report

I have a first page with Title My name Subject for the report My programme (including Uppsala University) Number of credits The department The semester the project began (e.g. autumn semester 2015) Supervisor’s name Where the work was done The examiner’s name

The report has a table of contents.

I have written an abstract that summarises the entire paper and that is no longer than the instructions allow.

I have written a popular science summary in simple Swedish on the page after the abstract.

My purpose is clear and does not include “to study”, “to describe”. Instead, it uses more active verbs, like “to analyse”, “to assess”, and has a brief overview for why the project has been undertaken.

The purpose and the questions are answered in the report.

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I have the RESULTS in the Results section, not in the Discussion (there are exceptions with references in the Results section, such as for literature reviews).

I have the DISCUSSION in the Discussion section, i.e. I do not present new results in the Discussion section.

At the end if the discussion, I have a critical assessment of my own work (strengths and weaknesses) and a text on what future studies could look at in the same subject.

I have a conclusion at the end that does not present new data.

When referencing something, I have cited the relevant reference at the end of the first sentence on the topic. This can be followed by a discussion about the same topic on a more detailed level without having to cite to it again.

I systematically manage references, i.e. if I choose to number references, they have the same numeric order as they are presented in the work.

If I use numbers, the references appear in the numeric order as they are presented. (They are written as (1, 3, 5-8) [NOT (1) (3) (5) (6) (7) (8)].

I have checked that each paragraph has a thesis with a specific theme that is introduced/presented/discussed. When a new theme begins, I also start a new paragraph, and not before.

I have checked to ensure that there are no paragraphs with only one sentence.

If I have tables and figures in appendixes, they are numbered as Table A1, Figure A1, etc. and not with the same number series continuing from the other tables and figures in the main text.

Some details

I have checked that the basic rules for writing have been followed:

o Each sentence starts with an uppercase letter.

o Sentences are formulated grammatically correct.

o Words are correctly spelled.

o There is a space after full stops, commas and the next word.

o There are no double spaces between words.

o There is no space after the last word of a sentence and before a full stop.

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o There is no space after a word and before a comma.

I have checked that the line spacing is the same between all paragraphs throughout the paper. (If you choose to have a line spacing between two paragraphs, then ALL paragraphs have to be separated by a space. If you only use line breaks and indentations to indicate a new paragraph, then this must be done throughout the paper.)

When I write abbreviations, they are explained at their first use, such as “end-stage renal disease (ESRD)” and then only the abbreviation is used for all future uses. An abbreviation is unnecessary if the word occurs less than three times in the text.

I have checked that ALL drug substance names begin with a lowercase letter, that ALL commercial names begin with an uppercase letter and that all drug names and commercial names are correctly spelled in the language I’m writing (e.g. omeprazol and Losec®).

The name of departments and similar begin in ALL instances with an uppercase letter, and that abbreviations are correctly written (For example, in Swedish: Stockholms läns landsting, Läkemedelsverket, Uppsala universitet and in English: Stockholm County Council, Swedish Medical Products Agency, Uppsala University).

If I’ve written in Swedish, I can have upper- or lowercase letters for tables, appendixes, figures and so on.

I have not written “Figur 5”, “figur 5”, “Figur V” or “figur V” but not “figur fem”.

If I’ve written in English, I have written Table, Figure, Appendix, Group, Equation etc. with an initial uppercase letter. For example, for a figure: “See Figure 3 for a plot of the data.”

If I have written in English, I never start a sentence with a numeral. If a sentence starts with a number, I have written out the words: “Three hundred forty-five patients were included.” But often, it is better to rewrite the sentence as: “The study included 345 patients.”).

If I have written in Swedish, I have tried not to start a sentence with a numeral.

If I have written in Swedish, I have not overused the word “stycken”. For example, I wrote ”Gruppen bestod av 14 diabetespatienter” and not ”Gruppen bestod av 14 stycken diabetespatienter…”.

Have described the content of the headings to figures and tables in the appendixes the same way as they are described in the tables and figures in the main text.

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In English, I’ve written “administered” and not “administrated”.

I have written ”Materials and Methods” in plural form.

I have not overused “see” as in (see Table 5). Instead I’ve written (Table 5).

I have not used unnecessary words in tables or figure text, such as “Table 3. Shows ABC”. It is sufficient to write “Table 3. ABC...”

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