Tips to Write a Manuscript

Written by Amil Agarwal

Writing manuscripts takes practice. You must find a way to objectively show your results in a clear and engaging way. For those just starting the writing process, this is not as intuitive as it may seem. This general outline helps provide structure to the four major parts of a manuscript: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. 

Introduction 

As the name implies, the purpose of this section is to introduce your findings and “set the stage”. For simplicity, your introduction should be able to answer these three questions: What is your topic? What is missing from the literature? What does your study bring to fill this void? For the first question, start with a review of your general topic, showing why the topic is important to your target audience. Before writing any topic, a literature review is conducted. This first section of the introduction shows the major findings of your literature review. Subsequently, present what is missing from the current literature. At the end of your introduction, have a separate paragraph that clearly states the aim(s) and hypothesis(es) of your study.

Methods

Start this section by describing the type of study you conducted (retrospective, prospective, RCT, etc..). Subsequently, discuss how patients were initially identified and your inclusion/exclusion criteria. For the inclusion/exclusion criteria, visuals are always recommended. Make a flow chart depicting how you got from your initial sample to the final sample of analysis. Next, define all outcomes and variables you assess in your analysis. Last is the statistical analysis section. This section is typically written by the statistician or whoever ran the data. Clearly state how the data went from collection to analysis. In general, for the methods section, more detail is better! Reviewers not only want to see your results but see how you got to them.

Results

This section is typically the easiest to write. There is no single structure for this section because everyone’s results are different. In general, start with demographic information and univariate data and end with the main findings of the multivariable analysis. This section should not be one big paragraph but split into subsections to make it easier for the reader to follow. It is also important that you understand your statistical analysis and clearly write the results of your study. This section should not discuss the interpretation. Only state your statistical findings or, if no statistical findings, state this and report the p-value. Include percentages, odds ratios, risk ratios, confidence intervals, and p-values where appropriate when showing your results, and cite the table or figure the result comes from.

Discussion

It is important to remember that the discussion is not a reiteration of the introduction, an easy mistake for new writers. The discussion contextualizes your results to the reader and provides interpretations that are backed by the literature. Start this section by quickly summarizing the problem/issue discussed in the introduction and why it is important – one paragraph tops. Then, delve into your results and explain why they are important. For each finding of importance, there should be a separate paragraph that starts with a quick summary of your result (with numbers), a discussion on how this compares to prior studies, conclusions from your findings, and interpretations of how this can change practice. After explaining each finding of importance, have a paragraph on the strengths and limitations of your study. At the end of this section, you can add how future literature can expand on your topic. Lastly, if not a separate section itself, is the conclusion paragraph. Briefly, summarize your findings and the interpretations here.

Again, writing manuscripts takes practice. Do not be discouraged if you get the first draft back from your resident/attending and it’s covered in red track changes. Take it as a learning experience to become a better writer!