Tips for writing paper in epidemiology

这学期参加了一个journal club “tell me something I don’t know about cancer”，获益匪浅。特别是通过交流学习，是我这种小白对epidemiology和cancer有了更深的认识。

通过对每次journal club上文章的critisize, 不仅培养了批判性思维，还同时对该领域的文章结构有了很清晰的认识。很好的东西，必须记下来，好记性不如烂笔头嘛。写文章的时候对照这些问题，就会删了很多bug呢。

同时，主持journal club的Ofure还给我们推荐了 a Series on Evaluation of Scientific Publications ，该书的第一章Critical Appraisal of Scientific Articles 就是告诉我们如何严谨的写作科研文章。经常读读是大有裨益的，该书共21章，每章针对不同的方面都会有专题，特别专业。

以下是在写流行病学方面文章需要的注意事项，从三个方面来总结：

Introduction

Title, Introduction and Purpose

• Does the title adequately reflect the work content? Is it unbiased?
• Does it attract the appropriate readership?
• Is there evidence of a literature review? If so, is it recent (in last five years)?
• Is the problem statement/introduction clearly described?
• Is it relevant to the topic selected and does it show the objectives or aims of the research article?
• Is the research question or hypothesis clear?
• Is it informative, research-based and does it support the purpose/problem?

Methods and Results

Materials, Methods and Results

• What information is there on the sample size and characteristics-selection bias?

• What sampling technique was used to collect the data?

• How were ethical considerations handled/IRBE approval obtained?

• Do the methods match the purpose?

• What statistical methods were utilized - were they appropriate?

• Are the results clearly presented - are they significant?

• Does the data presentation match the described methods?

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Conclusions

Discussion and conclusion

• What conclusions are drawn by the author?
• Are the statements well supported by the literature?
• Are they consistent with the study objectives and limited to the data in the study?
• How does the study contribute to the body of knowledge?

• Is there any implication for clinical practice?

• Can the conclusions be generalized to various settings or populations of people?

• What additional question does this study raise?

• What are the flaws or limitations of the study?

• Is there a need to contact the author?