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Playing the Publishing Game:
Advice for Would-be Authors
Dr Stephanie Dancer
Editor
Journal of Hospital Infection
Have you completed a study which you think
deserves to be published?
How do you evaluate how useful it might be to others?
Who could give you advice?
Should it be published locally, nationally or
internationally?
Choosing the right journal
How many journals are there dealing with medical
microbiology with or without infection control?
Antimicrobial Agents & Chemotherapy; American Journal of Infection Control;
British Journal of Infection Control; Clinical Microbiology and Infection;
Clinical Microbiology Reviews; Emerging Infectious Diseases;
FEMS Microbiology; Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology; Infection &
Immunity; International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents;
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy; Journal of Hospital Infection; Journal of
Infection; Journal of Clinical Microbiology; Journal of Medical Microbiology;
Lancet Infectious Diseases; Microbiology; Microbial Pathogenesis; Trends in
Microbiology; etc.
Don’t forget: Lancet; BMJ; Nature Medicine; New England Journal of Medicine
SO WHICH ONE???
JHI
Impact factor trends
AJIC
3
ICHE
Impact factor
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
2002
2003
2004
Year
2005
2006
Data courtesy of Elsevier
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/3
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/1
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/3
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/1
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/3
/2
/1
/4
/3
/2
/1
/4
/3
/2
/1
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/3
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/1
number of weeks
Total publication time
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
volume and issue
Data courtesy of JHI Editorial Office
Journal of Hospital Infection
Instructions for Authors
Manuscripts must be accompanied by a signed letter
indicating that all named authors have seen and agreed
to the submitted version of the paper;
all who are included in the acknowledgements section,
or as providers of personal communications, have
agreed to those inclusions;
the material is original, unpublished and has not been
submitted elsewhere;
any previous or pending publication of the material must
be declared;
all authors must declare whether there are any potential
conflicts of interest and any sources of funding.
Do people really copy other people’s work?
Papers that are submitted with
references or other features that
do not comply with these
instructions will be returned to
their authors. They will not be
considered for publication until
they have been resubmitted.
They may even be rejected
without review!
Language Editing Services
Language Editing Services provide
language and copy editing services
globally to authors who wish to publish
in scientific, technical and medical peerreviewed journals and would like
assistance either before they submit an
article for peer review or before it is
accepted for publication.
Fine-tune your grammar and correct
your conjugations…
Arrangement and format of original articles
Title Page
Summary/Abstract
Introduction
Methods incl. statistical methods
Results
Discussion
Acknowledgement
References
What’s in a title?
A. Faecal transplants for C.difficile
B. Bottom’s Up! Bug buster drug for superbug!
C. Managing Clostridium difficile with faecal transplants
D. A new treatment for antibiotic-associated diarrhoea
E. Eradicating Clostridium difficile from patients using
faecal transplantation; the importance of family donors
and systematic monitoring.
F. Antibiotic-associated diarrhea and faecal transplants
G. A Do-It-Yourself method for hospital-acquired infection
Title page: this should show the title, names of all authors and the
department where the work was done, as well as the contact details
of the author for correspondence. A running title not exceeding 40
characters and spaces should also be provided.
Summary: this should explain briefly what was done, what was
observed and what was ‘concluded'. Summaries should not exceed
250 words. WHY?!
The summary is the most important part of a paper to write well, since
it is seen by far more people than the paper itself. It must therefore be
concise, clear and accurately reflect the contents of the paper.
Introduction: A brief statement outlining the purpose
and context of the paper, but leaving discussion for the
final section. This is the hard bit!
Methods: MIC’s of Pestiococcus to wundermycin, etc.
New method; old (may need a reference); established.
Results: A statement of results, without discussion of
their significance or relationship to those of others.
Information may be conveyed by text or in figures or
tables but not in both. Editors will count figures and
tables in the word count.
Discussion: please, please, do not discuss the meaning
of life!
Acknowledgements: Authors should acknowledge help
received in carrying out the work reported, e.g. supply of
bacterial strains, permission to study patients, molecular
or biotyping of strains, and so on. When the work included
in a paper has been supported by a grant from any source
this must also be indicated.
Any previous oral, poster or published material
originating from the data in this paper? Make sure you
provide full details.
Any potential conflicts of interest must be declared; some
journals request a separate signed letter.
References
References should comply with the ‘Vancouver’ style.
For a full explanation of this see the Br Med J 1988;
286: 401–405.
Fallon RJ. Nosocomial infections with Legionella
pneumophila. J Hosp Infect 1980; 1: 299–305.
Some journals stipulate that www addresses must not be
used as references. Put them into the text or use an
annotation for a footnote.
The best way to check the reference style is to get hold of
a copy of the journal to which you want to submit.
Bacterial nomenclature:
Organisms should be referred to by their scientific
names according to the binomial system. When
first mentioned the name should be spelt in full and
written in italics. Afterwards the genus should be
abbreviated to its initial letter, e.g. ‘S. aureus' not
‘Staph. aureus‘; you can use ‘staphylococci’ as a
generic term, but not ‘Staphylococci’.
Treat the abstract and the main body of the test as
separate!
Doctors’ style of writing is nothing more than
‘decorated municipal gothic’…….
Michael O’Donnell
And it is!
‘It is full of wind and pomposity and designed to make the
author look important, rather than let the reader
understand. Journals also tend to look awful, with pages
and pages of unbroken prose.’
Richard Smith
Writing and Editing
‘Throughout the study period, there was no obvious change in
nosocomial pathogens, except for Candida spp. in 2003.’
‘Throughout the study period, there was no obvious change in
the isolation rate of nosocomial pathogens, except for Candida
spp. in 2003.’
‘UTIs were the most frequent NIs in the authors’ hospital over the fiveyear study period and similar findings have been reported by others.2-4’
‘In common with previous reports, UTIs were the most frequent
NIs in the authors’ hospital over the five-year study period. 2-4’
‘National health authorities consider the typing of multidrug-resistant
bacteria using molecular techniques a high priority. In 2005 we started
routinely to type meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). ’
‘Typing multiply-resistant bacteria using molecular techniques is
high priority for national health authorities. Routine typing of
meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was initiated in
2005 and was ….’
Write it as it is; write it as if you were explaining it to a friend
Then, put it away in a drawer and read it through carefully at
least one week later before submitting
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Figure 1: Five-year changes in antimicrobial susceptibility patterns in
nosocomial strains of Escherichia coli. SAM, sulbactam-ampicillin.
Electronic submission – time to pull out your hair?
‘Manuscripts should be submitted to the journal
online via the Editorial Manager website.’
What is ‘open access’, and is it the right way
forward for 21st century scientific publishing?
‘Quick and dirty’ vs the traditional……..
Check out the future of medical publishing using
Google and Wikipedia!
Editorial decision making: how much is pure luck?
Revise and resubmit
Accept after revision
Reject……what can you do?
Accept as is
Resubmit as a brief
report/letter
Remove submission
Remove after acceptance!
The ‘black box’ of peer review…………
The Trouble with Medical Journals
by Richard Smith
What does everyone want?
‘Authors want longer papers with more data, more
references, more explanation and more reflection on what
the study might mean (often nothing in reality but the
moon to the authors). Readers, in contrast, want papers
that are shorter and sweeter. One of the important talents
of the editor is to balance the needs of both authors and
readers, but the arrival of the electronic world potentially
means that both can be fully satisfied.’
Richard Smith
‘Write, write, write! Read, read, read! Rewrite,
rewrite, rewrite! Share it with a few people you
trust, who can give feedback you'll respect. Send it
out. Don't be afraid of rejection. Everyone gets
rejected and will be rejected throughout their lives
at one time or another. Do it because you must,
because you want to, need to, couldn't live with
yourself otherwise. If you do it for the fame and
glory, you may fall hard on your face.’
Ana Castillo
And finally….
‘Please don't be one of those people who just
talk about writing an article... BE an author.
Write something! And never give up --never, never, never, never.’
Laurie Halse Anderson