URM and IMRAD format

Vancouver group

• 1978, Vancouver, Canada

• Uniform submission

• Make life easier for authors

• No rejection on grounds of style

Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts

Manuscript PreparationPreparing a Manuscipt for Submission to Biomedical

JournalsSending the Manuscript to the Journal

ReferencesPrint References Cited in this Document

Other Sources of Information Related to Biomedical Journals

Parts of an essay

Beginning

Main Body

End

Sir Bradford Hill’s Questions

• Why did you start?

• What did you do?

• What did you find?

and

• What does it all mean?

Parts of a paper: IMRAD

I Introduction

M Methods

R Results

a and

D Discussion

Sir Bradford Hill’s Questions

I Introduction Why did you start?

M Methods What did you do?

R Results What did you find?

A and

D Discussion What does it all mean?

Introduction

Why did you start?

Readers’ expectations

• Sufficient background information

• Understand and evaluate the results

• Without referring to previous publications

Concise, adequate

Not a review

Introduction

• Review pertinent literature

• Define lacunae in current knowledge

• Provide rationale for your study– What gap in knowledge did you try to fill?

– What controversy did you try to resolve?

• State the aim of the study

Introduction

• Brief, clear, to the point

• Written in present tense

• May state the study group, study design and methods used

Introduction

• Key references: to support background information

• Refer to – your previous preliminary work

– your own closely related papers

• Define any specialized terms, definitions or abbreviations you intend to use

Example

We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological importance.

Watson JD, Crick FHC. A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature 1953; 171: 737-8.

Methods

What did you do?

Methods

• What all was done?

• How was it done?

• When was it done?

• Who did it ?

• How were the results analyzed?

• Did you have ethical clearance to do so?

Methods

– Present methods in chronological order– Subheadings should match those in results

‘internal consistency’

– In past tense– Be precise

Methods: checklist

• Does it describe – What questions was being asked?– What was being tested?– How reliable was the measurement?

• Were the parameters recorded and analyzed correctly?

• Would a reader be able to repeat the same experiment?

Results

Answers

What did you find?

Results: Before writing

• Collate data

• Prepare master tables– Re-check accuracy

• Analyse– List all the findings

– Identify the important ones

Results: The components

• Text Story

• Tables Meat

• Figures Drama

Results

• Results of all experiments in natural orderin subsections similar to methods

• Do not duplicate information

text, tables, figures

• Statistical analysis

Results

• Should not include– Any methods

– Data for which methods are not included

– Interpretation of data

– References

Results: Tables

Table I. Parts of a table

Footnote:

Stub Columnheading

Columnheading

Columnheading

Row identifier

Row identifier

BODY

Results: Table or figure

• Prefer tables

• Use figures only for illustrative

• Bar, histogram, pie: ? table

Difference in written and oral communication

Results: Text or Tables

• Number of items

• Few variables: Text

• Many variables: Table

Figure: in place of text

Intraperitoneal inoculation of

1 X 106 DLA cells (day 0)

0 1 2 3 4 30

Group 1 Vehicle

Group 2 Total alkaloid fraction (5 mg/Kg/d)

Group 3 Total alkaloid fraction (10 mg/Kg/d)

Group 4 Total alkaloid fraction (20 mg/Kg/d)

Group 5 Methotrexate (3.4 mg/Kg/d) (Positive control)

Days

Treatment (d 1,2,3)Observation

Study design

Figure: not in place of table

Summary

• URM

• IMRAD–Introduction

–Methods

–Results

and

–Discussion