Writing and Dissemination

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Writing and Dissemination

• Dr Kathryn Dwan
• ANU Medical School

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Topics

• Practical tips for clarifying your ideas and
  writing well
• Report writing
• Poster presentations
• Writing for medical journals

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Practical tips for clarifying your ideas and
writing well
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Clarify your thinking

• What does your reader need to know?
• What would be helpful for your reader to know?
• What would be nice for you reader to know?

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Dot point approach

• Write your initial draft in dot points
• Rearrange points until the logic of your article
  flows
• Turn those dot points into sentences

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Phone a friend!

• Explain your ideas (or give a draft) to a
  colleague, family member or friend who knows
  nothing about your work
• Note
• what they didnt understand
• at which points they struggled to follow the
  logic of your story
• whether or not they can tell you what the point
  of the article was
• Make the necessary changes to address the issues
  raised

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The highlighter pen!

• Go through a draft of your article as if you were
  studying it for an exam and highlight the main
  points
• Judge for yourself how easy (or difficult) it was
  to pick out the main points
• Rewrite sections/paragraphs/sentences that were
  obscure
• Repeat, until your article is easy to understand

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Report writing

• Reader friendly writing 1325
• (Canadian Health Services Research Foundation)

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1 page Main messages

• The heart of your report
• Your chance to tell decision makers what
  implications your work has for theirs
• Lessons decision makers can take from your
  research
• Use bullets points
• NOT a summary of findings
• tell your audience what findings mean for them

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3 pages Executive summary

• The essence of your research
• Outline the issues
• Sum up the answers
• NOT an academic abstract
• much more like a newspaper story,
• most interesting stuff goes at the top
• background and context next
• less important information further down
• NOT more than 1-2 lines about your approach,
  methods and other technical details

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25 pages The report

• The substance of your report
• Context
• Implications
• Approach
• Results
• Additional Resources
• Further Research
• References or Bibliography

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Poster presentations

• Designing a great poster
• (Canadian Health Services Research Foundation)
• Design present posters for maximum impact
• (PHCRIS)

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Aim for

• Clear and simple
• Easy to read
• Organised with a logical flow
• Content relevant to viewers
• Use graphics well photos, cartoon, figures,
  tables, diagrams
• Present only 1-3 main points
• Clarify your purpose

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Compulsory content

• Authors name/s
• Authors organisation/s
• Organisation logo/s
• Contact details (eg website, email, phone,
  postal)
• Poster publication date

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You judge the quality

• Walking through research Using participatory
  action research to develop research training
• Shawn Wilson, Megan Passey Cathy Powell
• Pharmacist shortage in Northern Rivers area of
  NSW What are the key recruitment and retention
  factors?
• Margaret Hewetson Jeff Fuller
• GPs and Bureaucrats The challenge of
  communication?
• Kathryn Dwan, John Western, John Aloizos, Rob
  Pegram

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Writing for medical journals
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Structured abstract (IMRD)

• Introduction
• What is the problem or issue of interest?
• What do you want to know about it?
• Methods
• What / Who / Where / When?
• Results
• What did you discover?
• Discussion
• What are the implications of these results ?

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Semi structured abstract

• Background
• Outline the relevant work or current thinking
  behind a topic
• Objective
• Explain the purpose of the article
• Discussion
• Outline the major issues raised and their impact
  on general practice

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Make sure you

• Follow the journals advice to authors
• Word limit
• Heading and sub-headings
• Reference style

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Summary

• Practical tips for clarifying your ideas and
  writing well
• Report writing
• Poster presentations
• Writing for medical journals