Publication based papers

So are you trying to write an abstract for an already published paper, and then a lay summary of it?

For an abstract, there are 7 questions you need to answer:

- Why was the study done?
- Who was studied?
- How many were studied?
- How was it done?
- What was the intervention?
- What were the outcome measures?
- What's the significance of the results of this study?

Most abstracts now use a structured approach (Background/Aims, Methodology, Results, Conclusions), so answer the questions above under those subheadings. You can't use any references and you need to write very concisely - typically you're looking at a word limit of 200-250 words.

As for a lay report, just imagine you're trying to explain the paper to your mum (or other non-medical person if your mum happens to be in healthcare). You need to avoid any medical jargon or explain what each word means.

For an abstract, there are 7 questions you need to answer:

- Why was the study done?
- Who was studied?
- How many were studied?
- How was it done?
- What was the intervention?
- What were the outcome measures?
- What's the significance of the results of this study?

Most abstracts now use a structured approach (Background/Aims, Methodology, Results, Conclusions), so answer the questions above under those subheadings. You can't use any references and you need to write very concisely - typically you're looking at a word limit of 200-250 words.

As for a lay report, just imagine you're trying to explain the paper to your mum (or other non-medical person if your mum happens to be in healthcare). You need to avoid any medical jargon or explain what each word means.

Yes

First experience with this sort of thing.

What exactly do you mean by intervention and outcome measures?

Becca's summary is brilliant (and she's published. OoooOOooh. ), so you can follow that. If you've got a choice of what paper you write about, I'd recommend something clinical, as those are easier to be concise about and summarise than basic science, imo. I've been having to do a bunch of basic science reading recently, and the number of experiments and outcome measures some authors are using does my head in.



"Intervention" is the thing that they did. "Outcome measures" are the things they measured at the end - the things that happened after you gave the intervention. The results, basically!

So suppose you want to study the effects of aspirin on the incidence of strokes in people who've already had heart attacks. Your intervention would be "aspirin (dose, frequency, mode of administration)"; your outcome measure would be "number of strokes".

Ok. We've been given the paper. It's a study on how the excessive consumption of hypotonic fluids is associated with hyponatremia in marathon runners. It's a study where they tested marathon runners blood before and after a race and had them self report their fluid intake.

So is their fluid intake the intervention? Obviously out one measure is prevalence of hyponatremia and how much their sodium levels have dropped after the race right?

Well, technically, what Becca's outlined is what you'd include when writing about a clinical trial or experiment. For an observational study, there isn't an intervention. This sounds like an observational study to me.

Here, my abstract would go along the lines of "Here is important background information on which this paper is built. This is why it's important to study this issue." <---this info's usually in the introduction/background section of a paper. Then I'd go on to say "We studied [population] - measuring plasma sodium levels before and after a race, and collected self-reported (how exactly?) data on hypotonic fluid intake." <-- in the methodology section "we found ___" (<--results). Then I'd discuss why the results are important, or what they show. (<--conclusion/discussion section). But you obviously do all that with much fancier and better flowing wording.

But yeah, you're right. The outcome measures are the plasma sodium levels, and presence of hyponatraemia. Link to paper, plz?

Well, technically, what Becca's outlined is what you'd include when writing about a clinical trial or experiment. For an observational study, there isn't an intervention. This sounds like an observational study to me.

Here, my abstract would go along the lines of "Here is important background information on which this paper is built. This is why it's important to study this issue." <---this info's usually in the introduction/background section of a paper. Then I'd go on to say "We studied [population] - measuring plasma sodium levels before and after a race, and collected self-reported (how exactly?) data on hypotonic fluid intake." <-- in the methodology section "we found ___" (<--results). Then I'd discuss why the results are important, or what they show. (<--conclusion/discussion section). But you obviously do all that with much fancier and better flowing wording.

But yeah, you're right. The outcome measures are the plasma sodium levels, and presence of hyponatraemia. Link to paper, plz?

x

Do you guys do this as a sit-down exam or have they now seen sense and changed it to more of an open-book format?

I get to do it in my own time but there are strict checks for collusion and plagiarism.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa043901

This came up on google and actually has an abstract. Have to be very careful I don't get done for plagiarism though!

Any advice for writing them? Writing a scientific abstract and a lay report of a research publication?

Cheers

Becca's summary is brilliant (and she's published. OoooOOooh. )

So are you trying to write an abstract for an already published paper, and then a lay summary of it?

For an abstract, there are 7 questions you need to answer:

- Why was the study done?
- Who was studied?
- How many were studied?
- How was it done?
- What was the intervention?
- What were the outcome measures?
- What's the significance of the results of this study?

Most abstracts now use a structured approach (Background/Aims, Methodology, Results, Conclusions), so answer the questions above under those subheadings. You can't use any references and you need to write very concisely - typically you're looking at a word limit of 200-250 words.

As for a lay report, just imagine you're trying to explain the paper to your mum (or other non-medical person if your mum happens to be in healthcare). You need to avoid any medical jargon or explain what each word means.

Hello again!

I'm now doing my actual summative PBP!

Could you answer a few more questions?

What should the first line of the abstract be? What should it tell the reader?