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Hello, everyone. My name is Raymond. Well, I'm the national research director for um so Scotland. This year, welcome to the fourth part of our critical appraisal Webinar series. Today's topic will be academic writing every very happy to have professor of your main as our speaker today. Professor Megan currently holds the position of clinical chair in old age medicine at the University of Aberdeen. He oversees a wide range of clinical academic initiatives for undergraduate scholarship programs and provide support to all postgraduate clinical academic training programs, including the Academic Foundation program, Early Career Academic Training Program, etcetera. Please feel free to type in any questions you have at any time. During the presentation, Professor Megan will be addressing your questions in the Q and A session at the N after the Q and A. It would be great if you could fill out the feedback form, which I'll send out the link late in the trap. It's certificate of attendance will be automatically generated for you after completing the form. So without further a do, let's invite Professor Mayan to share his presentation on academic writing. Thank you very much. OK, thank you, Raymond, for introduction. So Hello? Everybody can hear me. Okay. Okay. So what I will do? I will probably switch on my camera and share my screen the bar point slide. So if there's any issue, let me know. Okay? Somebody said yes, which is good. Okay, so now Whoops. What did I could do? Okay, now go back to Okay, that's better. OK, I switch on my camera now and then share the screen. Okay. Um, that's the chats. Sorry. I'm just having trouble with the share in the screen at the moment. I'll try again. Okay, that would do fine. Now, can you all see it now, right? Let me know. If not So I've been asked to talk about getting me writing. So Raymond has introduced, um where I work, who I am, So I will go straight to the slides. And, you know, hopefully we will have time to have question answers at the end. Um, so when we talk about again, we writing They are several, several types of academic writings. Really? So if you on the left hand side of the sly, you will see types of academic writing. I'm focusing here only for medical audience. So obviously different academic principle or special is, um will have their different type of publications, which I'm not familiar. So if you are in a divinity or, you know, agricultural things might be different. But for medical and usually scientific fields, um, these are the kinds of types of writing we may have to do in your academic area, then also are gonna make right in today. I will focus on mainly, um, research related medical related academic writing rather than scholarly activities. Which is more about writing a book on the topic area or writing a sort of, you know, textbook on, you know, methodology for research, for example. So all the other there are different types of academic writings for medical students, Um, and probably in your immediate future area. If you are, you know, um, foundation, doctors or research fellow things you'll be writing, uh, such as case repose. Master's thesis. BSC honors thesis. Be PhD. Uh, there may be issues which is very close to your heart. Therefore, you buy right letter to the edit er, based on the papers publishing the channel or, these days, a lot of blocks, people right blocks and their society web pages or their own social media. Or you can write a commentary about an issue, or you can write a review paper. Or if you've got data to report, then you can report as a research letter or or paper. Or you can decide to do a systematic review. Meta analysis. Or maybe you may be involved in writing guidelines or protocols or book chapters or books or editorials. So there are different style writing for different types of these reports or papers, and also you need to be mindful which audience you're targeting. So if you are publishing, you're want to publish in a generic or stroke. Obviously, the audience you're targeting are stroke physicians or neurologists. Okay, so you probably don't need to tell what stroke is. Most of the people know what stroke is. That's why they subscribe the jar local stroke. Okay, but if you're writing a PhD thesis on a topic related to stroll, you probably by one to start with what stroke is because, you know, PhD thesis our publication by its own right, and they are kept in libraries. British Library. A copy of that will be in British library. Um, obviously, these days, there will be more electronic versions rather than paper copies. And there will be a copy will be with your university. Your two d PhD. Uh, you will have your own copy. So? So? So this can be assessed by laypeople as well. So obviously, you need to consider which audience you are targeted. Okay, so that's some simple rules, Really. I mean, obviously, if you know most of you, our medical students, or all of your medical students So let's say you've been asked to do, uh, put avam flown in one of the patient's nobody just give you a sample on and like, Yeah, go and put it there so you will know what what to do, right? So obviously everything starts with looking at what others do first, you know, exam. So check what other dues, and they teach you how to do it. And then you do it so very similar to that. The writing skills are like manual skills, but it's a cerebral skill is in it. So it's the the brain has to learn how to write. Okay, that makes sense. Hopefully I I don't see anyone because I got my slice shore um So you do need to look at what others do and how do they do it. So if you're writing a case report that you need to know how case reports are written and you need to find out which channel you want to publish, what channel will take you a piece? And then you look at whether they accept the case report and you will look at the case report. They've been published, and you probably just follow their pattern basically, because it's it's simple. It's a bit like driving. It's in that you you you follow the rules and you do the same. Uh, and you got the same results, right? So and then that's why it's quite important to understand what type of academic writing you are doing, what type of steady you're doing and which target audience you're targeting and what channels you're going to publish. Um, so then you need to do some sort of some work around how people right there, because without God, you won't know what to how to start, right? So I think the other thing again we write in has a specific, uh, use of language because it is the academy writing. There are different channels. Have they're slightly different style as well. So you need to look at exactly how they right. So what sort of verbs do they use? What sort of adjectives do they use? You know what sort of things they used to connect sentences and and look at how they structure the paper, which will be touch base here as well. So these are the things you need to start looking into if you are planning to do some academic writing, okay, I hope that makes sense. So there are few general rules you need to follow. Um, it's it's because when when you are writing, you want to use a simple language which is understandable to the person you want to, you know, um, educate or you want to transfer that knowledge. But you are You're not supposed to use lay languages in academic writing, so you need to still use a formal language. But you don't need to use the Florey language or you know the words which are, you know, um, no commonly used. So I normally just write, you know, Table one shows table two shows table three shows because it just show what it is, right? So I just tell Table one showed the characteristics of participants as simple as that, because it's it's it's, you know, you you don't need to write different, you know, word in like I mean, some people, right? Like devil one demonstrate or illustrates whatever. But I I just use the simplest way shows, you know, because it shows ABC. Therefore, I tell them to show this. That's it. So now I just use so alright, which is a lay language. So in in the NDP Academy writing you should not use, so you should use their full because you you need to be formally addressed to the audience, which is the reader. So again, you don't want to use things like but you you you need to use things like however nevertheless, depending on the situation, I think, um, I think a lot of students, right, I think very newspaper language. Sometimes what even more or, you know, that sort of stuff I would rather say in addition or, uh, you know, um, in addition to this, for example, that that's more formal language. Okay, um, and they also writing require some sort of thinking behind that, because every each and every word you use has meaning, and you need to carefully right and carefully choose the words. So my approach I normally talk is about, you know, you can start with a very simple sentence and you can build it up too. I would call it as a bit of dramatization. Okay, so you can start with something like, um, population is aging. Okay, so that's a simple sentence, right? Population is aging, but if you want to dramatize is a bit global population is aging. Which kind of true and it kind of demonstrate the impact. I mean, you can't when you say global globally, population agent that that already put the emphasis. That's not, um, a somebody problem is the global problem, right? Something serious, you know, because you put in global aspect to it, or you can say you can build it up. Um, global population is, um, global agent is rising rapidly. Okay, so so the the same number of words here, but you can see how affect it can produce that that a few words can produce different reaction or different. But it will serve the different purposes. So when you write, you need to think use cleverly of these adjectives and adverts. That's why the previous lie. I I talk about learning how how to use the adjective adverts in a appropriately too to get that you're writing kind of attract people people to understand, um, the extent of the problem. I mean, one of the very basic rue um you should never, you know, break it, never use the same word in the same sentence. And also preferably not in the two consecutive sentences. So this is something you need to check when you right? Okay. And also, as I said before, Aaliyah, every each each and every word have different meeting. So when you say reduce and decrease, you know, you look at the the use of reduce and decrease people use a kind of interchangeably. But when you actually look into dictionary decrease is something happening without any active intervention? Right, because the water level is decreasing, so you should not use water level in reducing. Okay, What you might do is we use the kind of drainage pipes to reduce the water level, which there's an active element to it. So When you talk about an intervention causing the lower level of incidence of the disease, it is not about decrease its it's a reduction in the incidence. So you need to be very mindful of even a single word Jews. So, for example, increasing again has, uh, kind of very, um, you know, it tells you it is get it higher, higher. But there is, uh, you know, there is no urgency in there, but if you put instead of increasing, it is rising. It seems like that there is, uh, the increases almost noticeable. You know, it is rising versus increasing. So what I'm trying to get here is make sure you use the correct terminology as well as simple language, but use them effectively by carefully thinking every each and every what you are going to write, Okay. And ideally, you should write consistently either active or passive voice. But I personally sometime, right, both in different parts of the paper, depending on the flow. But there are some channels like BMJ, for example, would enforce you to write only active, uh, voice. Not best invoice. So yeah, I think I'm kind of focusing a bit more on paper writing here. Um, so I think because it will be helpful for you when you read the paper, try to figure out whether you know what I said. Ria. Do they follow that? And how How would you have write it better? For example, even you don't have a data to write. You could start thinking about looking at the paper after this talk and then see Okay, What bit of them? They could be improved. And how would you actually write? It might be a good exercise a bit. So introduction really need to tell a story because the introduction Well, give the reader, uh, glands about, you know, why should I continue to read it? Right. So it needs to demonstrate three things which are really the key. Why this work need to be published or for the editors. They will look at that whether when they decide whether your work should be published or not. So one is novelty because researches about new knowledge. So there should be something new about it. And you need to demonstrate the importance of the topic area you are covering or specific area you are examining or you are reporting and then relevance to the political, uh, clinical audience. In your case, you know, if you're writing a medical journal, So how do you do that? You you need to tell extent of the problem. And when you talk about the extent of the problem I keep keep reminding my students all the times they sometimes got the value from UK. Usually Oh, in UK, the incident of this is such and such. But at the end of the day, UK population is about 70 million about out of seven billion world population. So I think you need to cite the sort of wider literature you know, you can't. You can't just very sort of, um u k centric about this. So when you try to, um, spell spell it out, they the more relevant that created the problem, it is more, uh, it is better. Basically. So instead of talking about UK, you might want to coat the wall figure. Uh, if there is a specific UK figure you want to go, you can say, even in UK alone, for example. So that's kind of alone. Kind of put the emphasis you're just giving you K as an example But this is a problem which, faced by global community. So you need to say, Why is it important? So it could be, uh, comorbidities, Or it may increase the mortality, or it will reduce the quality of life. Or it will cost a lot of money to healthcare systems. It will have a negative impact on health, economic, etcetera. So you need to tell that importance and relevance of the topic. And you have to bring out the novelty by saying, What do we know about the situation or about this situation at the moment? So you talk about some current situation or current knowledge, and you do that by as having a summary statements rather than coating individual paper. What I mean by that is in the introduction, you don't start saying XX Group said this Y Y and group said that or Z Z and group said that so not nothing like that. You could say something like, You know, there are conflicting views on this situation and just like the three references, so So what you do you provide some summary evidence of what we know in a in a very sort of, um, abstract way so you don't need to go into details, and then you just go straight to what are the gaps in current knowledge and why these gaps are important and relevant to for us to understand. And then finally, just tell what your study is about and how you are going to address the evidence gaps. Uh, hopefully, uh, I'm sorry to interrupt, so I don't think the slide moving full. Uh, so So, yeah, so could you. So which, like, did you see the first line? Just the first little course. I think we got to go back. So about now, you can all see that. Not yet. Yeah, it's okay. Now. Can you see? It's fine now. Yeah, but we are still at the first light. Okay. What I will do it just gives you some moment to look at the second slides. Yeah, Thank you. So, can you all see it now? Yeah. Yep. We could Yep. That this is before writing. I presume you will send the slides to all attendees. So whoever. Well, do you now? It's the generals just spoken about and no introduction. Okay, So to recap that you have to tell a story to the reader or the importance of the topic area you are going to look into and and why it is relevant to the readership. And why do you think it's novel? I There will be a new knowledge. So before you say what I'm going to do, you need to say, What are the current, um, knowledge And what is the current knowledge? And then what are the gaps and which area you are going to fill in your study? Okay, hopefully it makes sense. I mean, methods, obviously methods is something you you did to get this far. So you will just describe it. It's quite important to describe the methods clearly because you know, you if if if data collection methods are not robust, you're steady, results are not going to be reliable. Okay, so describing methods carefully would allow the video to judge how reliable your data is, how trustworthy your data is. So method sessions. You need to describe quite clearly how you collected the data, how you process the data or how you analyze the data, for example. Okay, so for the results, I would say you'll read this paper, which I published a few years ago. I think it was in 2016. And look at the results tables and result tests. Because the point is that tables usually are looked at by people who understand statistics mainly. So reviews were Look at your tables and they will spot the problems immediately. Okay, so they will. They will see that tables and they suddenly at a glance, they will decide this is a rubbish or no rubbish. Okay, because table will tell you exactly what they need to know. But for the tables to be able to do that, you need to be very, um, very careful about when you presented it. Uh, you you kind of put as much details as possible in your footnote and the title and actual the layout of the table. So, I mean, this is a completely different topic area. How do you design your tables? But again, it's not a rocket signs. If you go on some results, you can look at the journals, um, similar papers in a similar type of, you know, work and see. How do they present their table? Do they present table by men and women, or do they present the table by, uh, different groups of age. For example, dataxu of age are three groups of age or by, you know, younger, older, very old etcetera. Or do they present by hemoglobin status, for example? So depends what you are want to demonstrate. Okay, But I would recommend reading that So you will see there is a table. There are few tables which are about my arm length or at least you know, from airboat town words. But with the text accompanying text, which is about three inches long. So So you don't need to repeat all the numbers and figures at the table in the text of the results. But you need to be able to describe the, uh, in a way, you know, in medicine, we we used to say, if you do a good history, take in, um, with the patient, I can actually make the diagnosis from the outside the carton without seeing the patient just by hearing what you say right between the conversation. So very similar to that if you really able to describe the table very well and then they don't need to look at the table, they will understand what the what the finance are without reading the tables, looking at the table and vice versa. People can look at the table and don't need to read the text. They will understand exactly what you've done. And what's your findings? Uh, the other really simple mistake. People make it. They just say, Oh, um age, sex B m I and education associated with mortality outcome. So my usual question is okay. What do you mean by age? Is it older age or younger? Age? When you say mortality outcome, is it reduced mortality or higher mortality or lower or higher mortality? The same thing with sex when you say sex associated with mortality, What do you mean by that? Is it male sex compared to female or female compared to mail? Or is it lower or higher mortality? Now you got a picture, right? So b m i again? Okay. What do you mean by that? Is it lower b m i associated with higher mortality or lower B m I associated with lower mortality, or is it higher bm i associated with higher mortality or higher bm i associated with lower mortality? So just by saying a MBR associated is rubbish, isn't it? Not not no sense at all. So you need to say you can't just say just significantly associated. You need to say here, for example, older ages significantly associated with a higher mortality That gives you a direction of effect and how the association is. So That's what I mean by simple language, right? There's nothing Florey English there, but easy to understand. And people know what you're trying to say. Okay, hopefully that's quite clear. And in terms of discussion, I think you need to be very It's it's it's It's a good practice to be polite and courteous when critically appraise. You can't You can't just say my work is the best Most of the time. It's not anyway, So your work will have some limitations and issues which you can't address, so you need to be balance. So the usual structure for discussion is you know, you. You start talking about summary of the results, the main finance. You can either go through, um, individual major results into different paragraphs. So, for example, we have found that you know, for example, um, lower socioeconomic classes associated with poor adherence to medic medications, So that's one of the five findings, for example, then you start with the you know, when you discuss the context, you kind of pick this up again in our study, Although we find, you know, lower socioeconomic classes associated with, um, lower adherence to medication X y n z work suggested this is primarily due to poor access to health care. For example, So what you're trying to do, you're trying to context to ally your findings with the other research in that area, which may have some explanation why this might be the case. Or sometimes you might have papers which show completely different results. And then you can say we found areas where say that would be. But Raymond and colleagues do not find that association. But Raymond study is small, for example, or only people with heart attack, not the general population. So what you are saying? Yes, we do have differences in finance, but our population we study are different as well. So what you're trying to do, you make a judgment a critical appraisal of your own work as well as others. Then you need to have a limitation paragraph where you you would say these are the limitations. But when you whenever you write limitations, you you need to Also, Ideally, you should tell. How did you limit that? Uh, how do you How did you try to reduce that limitation? So, um, for example, I normally use, uh, epic know for cohort study, which has, uh, response rate about 40% of eligible participants. So I would say, you know, because it's a long term follow up study, the initial response rate to invitation is only 40% because they invited 7 70,000 people and only 30,000 reply to say yes. So you can't obviously recruit people who did not reply, right? So recruitment is 40% of eligible population. But the characteristics of the epic novel sample is similar to representative samples such as health survey for England. So what you're trying to say, Yes, I got this limitation, but this is not a problem here, so try to address that. But obviously there are some limitation. You have no control or nothing you can do about it. So you just have to say yes. These are limitation, and you you need to say what that limitation make, um means to your results in a way. So when you talk about limitation, you can't just list ABC. These are my limitations. The other thing about limitation is I would suggest that you kind of do a comprehensive list of limitation. The most annoying thing for reviews of the papers or any any submission, is if people don't mention their limitation or acknowledge their limitation and pretending as if there's no limitation at all. And obviously there will be strength as well. So you need to really focus on what the steady strengths are and what is the actual implication. What is the meaning of your results and also provide some future direction results? And then you you kind of provide a conclusion. So hopefully this given you that has given you some idea of how you do right academic papers, for example, or if you want to sort of look at the different types of writings as listed in the first light. Uh, you can also steady them first to see what how do they Right? So hopefully that is useful. And I think that the next light is just for a question so I can stop share that, and I probably can come back to the room. Okay, so I think there's some chat going on. Okay, So So slight issues already. So two. So, Dorota, is that right door to house which type of camera writing where we could to start with if I'm so I have to ask your recess director. What do you think, Raymond? Mm. It's really tricky, because it really depends on which type of research are you looking for. And then like and which specialty I do you like? So so a maybe a narrative review that I'm not sure which I which I've done it in the year two of my students elective component. But it's but I've quite a lot of have quite a lot of guidance from my from my teammates as well. So So, yeah, it depends on your background and and sometimes lucky being lucky. So, Well, I mean, you need to make your own luck. Um, so I think it's quite important if you want to write something you you do approach to someone who, right, You know, uh, so that, you know, they so depends what your goal is as well. You know, if you if you are if you just want to. Uh I mean, whether you're writing just because you feel like you need to write or you're writing something because you feel certainly very interested in particular paper they have published. Therefore, you could, you know, one of the easy one. No, not necessarily get accepted. But 11 thing is writing a letter to the edit. Er might be a good start. Uh, letter to the editors. Kind of usually based on a paper published in the channel. You know, um, so you you kind of site them and say, you know, so and so reported this, and you either agree bits of it, and maybe you don't agree some bits of it, or you might find some limitation they haven't mentioned, and you can highlight that. Okay, So you're writing, uh, small piece, which is only about maximum about 300 woods, um, and and And you just directly submit to edit er, usually as a quite quick turnaround. Because edit er will just decide whether this letter should be published. And if you hit the deal, the right spot that it get published letter to edit er, the other one is the, um, case report. You know you can You can write a case report or like Raymond said a review article, which is not no, a systematic review, but just a review article, Um, so you can start right into, um, student channels if you want to try out. Or if you if you have a supervisor who can guide you and involve a research project, then you can obviously use that opportunity to write it again. Make paper. Hopefully that helpful. So any other questions? Uh, so Dorda go another question. How do identify caps in the literature? I I think the the one of the If you read the paper, they will already be telling what should be doing next. OK, so gets are usually there and people acknowledging that so you can just look at other people research recommendations to see. And when you read enough, then you start to realize that Oh, nobody has done that. For example, nobody has looked at it, so usually when you write the other end of the you know, it's my last slide in the conclusion, you will end up with some future direction of research because you know now you have found something which tried to fill the evident gaps. Then you realize that you need to not know another thing as well along this line. So because that were already an opportunity for you for other readers to look at that. Oh, there's a gap there again. Does it make sense? Oh, usually, Supervisor told you in the first space. Uh, okay, let's do that because nobody's done it or no, they've done not a good job. We could do better. For example, any other comments or questions? Or Raymond, Do you have any? Well, if there aren't any questions, so, um, I think that's pretty much it. Um, Thank you very much, Professor. Mine for the session today. Uh, we we have definitely learned a lot. Um, just before you guys leave, we we appreciate it. If you could filled out the feedback form, which I will send it the link in the chat now. Right? So it would be great if you could fill up that to help us improve. It will only take less than three minutes. A certificate of attendance will be generated for you after completing the phone. Our part five of other Webinar series will be held on the 24th of November, which is next Thursday, which we have invited Dr Muda Pollen to speak on systematic review. Please look out for our promotion on our Instagram at, um PSA Dash Scotland. Closer to the time, we hope to see you again very soon. Thank you very much again for joining us today and have a good night. Thank you. Thanks very much. Bye.