Why and What Do I Want to Publish? What Do Journals Publish- Types of Articles?

1. Why and What Do I Want to Publish? What Do Journals Publish- Types of Articles? COSECSA Preconference WorkshopMombasa, Kenya 7 December 2016 John L. Tarpley, MD, FWACS, FACSAIC Kijabe Hospital, KenyaVanderbilt Department of Surgery and Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health, USA

2. Disclosures and Conflicts of Interests No financial conflicts of interest I am not a publisher of a journal. I have close friends and colleagues who are publishers of surgical journals. I am a frequent reviewer for multiple USA-based journals.

3. Melina Kibbe, MDEditor, JAMA Surgery We want to publish the best science!  It really does come down to that.  Our journal is smaller than most, thus we limit our manuscripts to mostly clinical research articles. Since our readership is mostly general surgery, we limit….. to topics that are of broad appeal to a general surgical audience.  We also publish Clinical Challenges (unusual presentations of common pathology), Viewpoints, Review articles, and articles on surgical innovation

4. Julie Freischlag, MDFormer Editor, JAMA Surgery Why to publish? Educate Others -advance knowledge for new ideas or confirm old ones Teach trainees to publish What do we choose to publish? Prospective randomized trials Large registry data with multi centers New types of procedures / Interesting case reports

5. Douglas S. Smink, MD, MPHEditor, The Journal of Surgical Education Our journal is focused specifically on education. We are looking to publish good science, and on topics that will advance the field of surgical education.  We are looking for original research with good methodology, which is sometimes lacking in the education literature, but seems to be improving.   I try to think of whether or not a paper will be interesting to our readership. We do publish a little more broadly in ortho and urology and even gyn as long as it is education and could be adapted to other surgical disciplines.  

6. Michael Sarr, MDCo-Editor, Surgery Why do I want to publish?   Most of the goals of publishing are: Recognition—locally, nationally, or internationallyCareer Advancement New, great innovative idea that may change clinical practice Networking with others working on the same topic   

7. Michael Sarr, MD, Surgery, continuedWhat do I want to publish? A new technique My/our experience with a unique disease A challenge to others to address the same topic To bring to light other considerations in many aspects of medicine    A letter to the editor to ask a question about a prior paper or to question the results, methods, interpretation, etc. or to add another similar patient             An interesting case report that is pertinent to current practice ( hard to get published!) NOT JUST A WEIRD CASE!-unless it is relevant!

8. Keith Lillemoe, MDEditor, Annals of Surgery We look to publish the best papers across the broad area of surgery. We consider Annals to be a "Surgery " journal with broad interest and impact.   We do publish education, global surgery,  certainly health services/outcomes, clinical and translational research and frankly only either high impact or clinically relevant basic science papers. We do have a series of short Op-Ed papers that are designed to stimulate interest and opinions and not much science Our goal is to choose papers that people want to read and cite.

9. JAMA Edward H. Livingston, MD Deputy Editor, JAMA

10. What we are looking for at JAMA? Importance: Will the finding change clinical practice? Does the paper describe a novel or new important finding? Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trials Innovative, Large Observational StudiesMeta analysesReviews Variations, Failure to Rescue, Readmissions Publishing Research findings: Writing and Submitting Manuscripts Edward H. Livingston, MD, Deputy Editor, JAMA

11. Important = Follow the instructions! Article type – original, review, etc. Cover page – title, word count Length – critical issue (less is more) Abstract – single most important page Speak with editor(s) first – although often generates a standard response Publishing Research findings: Writing and Submitting Manuscripts Edward H. Livingston, MD, Deputy Editor, JAMA

12. TYPES OF ARTICLES-1 • Original research --clinical or basic science • Cohort studies- usually retrospective reviews of clinical experience • Clinical trials • Systematic reviews ( the current currency is a true SYSTEMATIC REVIEW following the PRISMA* guidelines) • Meta-analyses (again following all the PRISMA guidelines) • Health Sciences Outcomes Research (often using large national databases) • Technique papers (difficult to get published without at least some preliminary data ) *Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyseshttp://prisma-statement.org/

13. TYPES OF ARTICLES-2 • Historical papers ( be certain to reference the original work) • Case reports –note not just a “weird case”, but rather one that has clinicalrelevance) • Editorials ( most often these are solicited and not an editorial submitted spontaneously by the writer) • Letter to the editor • Papers on Ethics • “Images” – an interesting photograph, X-ray, CT, etc. relevant to current practice • NOTE: an interesting idea, hypothesis, your opinion, your professor’s way of doing things, etc., while maybe interesting to you but without supportive data showing that this idea is better than current practice, will be hard to get published!

14. Approach to Scientific WritingCommon Problems Failure to follow journal instructions Excessively long papers Unnecessary “data dumps” Lack of objectivity Overly enthusiastic; not circumspect Overlap with previous work Publishing Research findings: Writing and Submitting Manuscripts Edward H. Livingston, MD, Deputy Editor, JAMA

15. Writer’s Workshop* 46th World Congress of Surgery Bangkok, Thailand. August 25‐27, 2015 World Journal of Surgery International Society of Surgery / Société Internationale de Chirurgie Springer Science+Business Media *Courtesy of Michael Sarr, Co-Editor, Surgery

16. Reference Articles from ISS Writer’s Workshop Nine-nine pages with eleven articles including: CONSORT-Transparent Reporting of Trials, <ClinicalTrials.gov>, the World Journal of Surgery Instructions for Authors, a PP presentation by John Hunter entitled “Academic Surgery: The Scalpel and the Pen”, and a sample manuscript. Articles in order: Sosa JA, Meht P, Thomas DC, Berland G, Gross C, McNamara RL, Rosenthal R, Udelsmam R., Bravata DM, Roman SA. “Evaluating the Surgery Literature—Can Standardizing Peer-Review Today Predict Manuscript Impact Tomorrow? Ann Surg 250:152-158, 2009

17. Reference Articles from ISS Writer’s Workshop, continued. Thomas RJS. “Understanding the Peer Review Process”. World J Surg 30:1366-1367, 2006 Curtis WF, Hunter JG. “What the Impact Factor Means for Surgery Journals”. World J Surg 30:1368-1370, 2006 Benfield JR, Feak CB. “Burden of English as an International Language”. Chest 129:1728-30, 2006 Benos DJ, Kirk KL, Hall JE. “How to Review a Paper”. Adv Physiol Educ 27:47-52, 2003 Matthews JB. “2013 SSAT Presidential Address: Peer Review”.J Gastrointest Surg 18:1-6, 2014

18. Reference Articles from ISS Writer’s Workshop, continued. Pushparaja K, Qureshi SA. “How to write a good scientific research paper and get it published”. Indian J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 29:10-13, 2013 Kibbe MR. “Practical Non-Clinical Skills for Surgeons: How to write a paper”. ANZJ Surg 83:90-92, 2013 Sarr MG, Warshaw AL. “Ethical Misconduct in Publishing: the Editors’ Perspective”. World J Surg 30:1374-1376, 2006 Morris PJ. “Biomedical Industrial Sponsorship and Its Impact on the Medical Literature”. World J Surg 30:1371-1373, 2006 Mariette C, Piessen G, Robb WR. “Publishing n surgery: how and why?” Langenbecks Arch Surg 398:587-593, 2013

19. Why and What Do I Want to Publish? What Do Journals Publish- Types of Articles? COSECSA Preconference WorkshopMombasa, Kenya 7 December 2016 john.tarpley@vanderbilt.edu margaret.tarpley@vanderbilt.edu