RESEARCH

WORKSHOP

Learn how to write scientific research from start to

finish, a guide to help you publish your first manuscript.

BY: SARA ASSIRI - 2021

 My name is Sara Assiri, in July 2021 I graduated from medical
school at Taif University, Saudi Arabia. While studying in
medical school, I discovered the art of scientific research, and
each year I made it a goal of mine to publish at least one paper.
I participated in multiple scientific conferences and won First
place for three consecutive years at my college's yearly scientific
forum. Along the way, I picked a few tips, this booklet presents
some of them to you.

Contact:
saraassirii.com
saraassiriiii@gmail.com
scholar.google.com/citations?user=l3T45AwAAAAJ&hl=ar
Table of
Contents
Fundamentals Publication
2 How to Start (The idea) 20 Choosing a Journal
3 Strategy & Search 21-22 Indexing
4 Checklists & Guidelines 23 Corresponding Author
5 Plagiarism 24 Authorship & Contributions
6 Frequently asked questions 25 Writing a Cover Letter

26 Journals Guidlines
Implementation
27 Researcher Profiles
8 Ethical Approval

9 Writing the Introduction Services

10-11 Methods
29 Editorial Services
12 Data Collection
30 Plagiarism check
13 Data Analysis
31 Artificial intelligence
14 Writing the Results
32 Graphs
15 Tables & Figures
33 Citation Generators
16 The discussion

17 The Conclusion

18 Organizing the References

FUNDAMENTALS
How to Start (The idea)

Strategy & Search

Checklists & Guidelines

Plagiarism

Frequently asked questions

1
 w to Start (The idea)
Ho

How to generate a good research idea

Go to the field you want to study( hospital, school, clinic,

radiology department ..ect) & Observe!

See what are the available data & how to obtain them?

Ask the consultant & residents, do you have an idea but

that you can't implement due to your busy schedual?

Read Journals to get inspiration (but always go back to

where you will collect the data and see if it's possible
to implement that idea or not?)

Conferences are full of ideas, attend them and get

inspired!

2
Strategy & Search

Write in detail your research strategy:

What is your question \ hypothesis
Inclusion & exclusion criteria
Years of articles to be used
State as key words as many as you can.
Search engine(s) to be used

Most famous search engines

Do your MeSH (Medical Subjects Headings)

Where you write terms in PubMed search engine
e.g : (Hypertension AND Hypernitremia)

3
 ecklists & Guidelines
Ch

If you follow these checklists you will ensure excellent reporting in your study; it helps you
know what's important to mention depending on your study type

4
 Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the representation of another author's language, thoughts,

ideas, or expressions without attribution as one's own original work.

Do not copy and paste the text from the reference paper.
Instead, restate the idea in your own words.

Understand the ideas of the reference source well in

order to paraphrase correctly.

Any words or ideas that are not your own but taken from
another paper need to be cited.

Cite Your Own Material—If you are using content from

your previous paper, you must cite yourself.

5
 uently asked questions
Freq

Can I become a first author as a student?

Yes! If you contributed most to the work, including writing the
manuscript. The sequence of authors should be determined by the relative
overall contributions to the manuscript.

Should I write most of the paper as a student?

All authors must contribute to the work and no one should be
overwhelmed, fair distribution of tasks should take place.

How can I choose my Mentor?

Seek someone with extensive experience in the area of your research who is
willing to help. It's important to ask them specific clear questions.

Can I present my paper in a conference after publication ?

Generally yes! you can present your paper before or after publication as
long as you disclose the status of your manuscript to the organizing
committee.

Who should pay for the publication fees?

If your paper doesn't have funding, authors should split the publication
fees.

6
IMPLEMENTATION
Ethical Approval

Writing the Introduction

Methods

Data Collection

Data Analysis

Writing the Results

Tables & Figures

The discussion

The Conclusion

Organizing the References

7
 Ethical Approval

Each hospital or university must have a Scientific Research Ethics Committee, they
usually have their own templates and rules for obtaining ethical approvals for
sciantific research.

Why Ethical approvals are extremely

important?

Protect both researchers and participants

Allows you to obtain the data legally

Journals might request the ethical approval

Important point:
If the method, research idea, and especially the title of your manuscript
changed during your writing process. Inform the ethical community of all
changes and they can help you update your ethical approval.

8
 iting the Introduction
Wr

The introduction's purpose is to inform the reader about your topic and why it’s
interesting or important.

Write a good background about your topic, assume that the reader doesn't know
anything about it, you can add one or two historical refrences.

Cite a few similar studies and their results ( start by looking for international studies
then local ones and compare their results )

Try to connect the ideas, make it smooth for the reader to understand the goal of
your current paper and what it's going to add to the currently available data.

Specifics of what you intend to find out or express in your research

paper

Write your study aims and why you decided to conduct your study (try to connect
your aims with the available studies you referencedd above

9
 Methods

Describe how your research was done, justify the

experimental design, and explain how the results were
analyzed.
Write the study type : (e.g observational retrospective study).
The time period of the study.
Where was the study was conducted (which hospital)
The population was chosen as participants and why (e.g cirrhosis patients)
Participants' inclusion and exclusion criteria.
The total number of participants included in the study.
What data did you collect? (e.g Age, Gender, chronic illnesses, CBC. TFT.
Liver profile, CT scan, MRI)
Any classifications, indexes, validated questionnaires were used to collect the
data.
Statistical Analysis : (What software did you use, what tests did you apply to
compare between groups? how did you analyze qualitative and quantitative data)

10
 Methods

11
 Data Collection

When you start collecting data try to be as organized as possible,

You can yous the following softwares\services to help in collecting your dara

google forms excel sheets tables on Word

Know exactly what you want to collect, and write down a plan

Example:

12
 Data Analysis

You will need a statistical analysis program & one of the most
important and frequently used is SPSS “Statistical Package for the
Social Sciences”

Learn how to enter your data in SPSS.

Learn the difference between quantitative and qualitative data and
how to analyze each.
Learn correlation analysis
How to use graphs to describe your data.

Scan the following QR codes to reach helpful youtube channels that can
help you learn how to analyze data using SPSPP

13
 Writing the Results

The first paragraph includes the whole number of the sample, then divided into
many small groups depending on the most important variables (Gender, age of
presentations ... ect)
Use Tables figures, charts, photos, maps, tables, etc
Any relationship that can help you in the study (Write the P-Value that confirms
the abnormal relationship).

Example

14
Tables & Figures

15
 The Discussion

The purpose of the discussion is to interpret and describe the

significance of your findings in light of what was already known
about the research problem being investigated

Demonstrates your ability as a researcher to think critically about an

issue, to develop creative solutions to problems based on the findings,
and to formulate a deeper, more profound understanding of the
research problem you are studying.

Example

16
 The Conclusion

Usually, most people and reviewers jump to the conclusion section, it's a
summary of the most important findings in your paper. Write it in the end.

Example:

Highlight the following points

Restate the aims of the study

Summarise main research findings

Make recommendations for further research work

17
 nizing the References
Orga

When you first start citing your references don't organize them numerically, write only the first
author and the year. Then before you send your manuscript to the journal organize them
numerically. This way you will avoid making mistakes if you decided to change or rewrite some
parts of your paper.

During writing Before publication

You can use references management software to help you organize

and manage your references
Mendeley
EndNote
18
PUBLICATION
Choosing a Journal

Indexing

Corresponding Author

Authorship & Contributions

Writing a Cover Letter

Journals Guidlines

Researcher Profiles

19
 Choosing a Journal

Tips that can help you find a suitable Journal :

1 Search for articles similar to yours and see where they

were published 2 Use a Journal Guide service

https://www.journalguide.com/

https://journalsuggester.springer.com/

https://journalfinder.elsevier.com/

3 Ask an expert in the field of your article

20
 Indexing

Make sure to search for your Journal in NLM Catalog and view the indexing status

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals

21
 Indexing

Make sure to search for your Journal in Web of Science and view the indexing status

https://mjl.clarivate.com/search-results

ISI journals are journals indexed in Science Citation

Index (SCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), and
the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI)

22
 Corresponding Author

The corresponding author is the one author who takes primary

responsibility for communication with the journal during the
manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process.

1 Should be available throughout the submission and peer review process.

2Responds to editorial queries in a timely way. Delays may affect the publication.
3Must inform and involve all authors of any modifications before the final publication.

The corresponding author doesn't have to be the first author, any author could be assigned as the
corresponding author. All authors must agree on one corresponding author (some journals allow
for more than one corresponding author)

23
 rship & Contributions
Autho

Authorship should be based on meeting all the following 4 criteria

1
Substantial contributions to the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or
interpretation of data for the work.

2 Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content.

3 Final approval of the version to be published.

4 Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Contributors who meet fewer than all 4 of the above criteria for authorship
should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged.

All authors names' spelling

very MUST match their passport
important and their previous
point publications

24
 riting a Cover Letter
W

Most Journals request a cover letter, it's a message intended to explain in

brief the most important results and conclusions in your paper to the
editorial office in the journal you want to publish in.

Example

25
 Journals Guidlines

Every journal has its own guidelines, if you know the journal you want to publish
in, try to stick to its rules for authors from the start. However, if you didn't decide
yet, try to follow these general rules:
Use Times Neue Roman Font & Font size 12
Leave 2 spaces between each line
The first page should have (Title, Authors names, Authors affiliation,
Corresponding author information, funding & conflict of interest disclosure,
Keywords)
Second page for the abstract (check the journal guidelines)

26
 Researcher Profiles

Establish an official email " from your university"

Register and confirm your identity in the following websites

27
SERVICES
Editorial Services

Plagiarism check

Artificial intelligence

Graphs

Citation Generators

28
 Editorial Services

If you're not a native English writer you can improve your

manuscript by submitting it to an editorial service.
You will be provided with an editing certificate.

American manuscript editors

The University of Manchester created

an academic phrase bank as a resource
for academic writers
https://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/

29
 Plagiarism Check

After you finish your manuscript and before you submit it

to a journal it's advised to use a plagiarism check service to
make sure it is 100% authentic.

Here are some of the websites you can use:

30
 Artificial Intelligence

Genei is an artificial intelligence powered research and note-

taking tool that analyses web pages, documents, and PDF files,
enabling users to work with more efficiency and clarity

31
 Graphs

You can create graphs to illustrate your data using the

following softwares:

32
 Citation Generators

Pubmed citation button:

In any journal look for "cite this article"

Free citation services

Don't Forget
To read the "information for
authors" in the journal you want to
publish in. And to check the
references guidelines requested.

33
RESEARCH
WORKSHOP

BY: SARA ASSIRI - 2021