April 2018 - Cognibrain

How to Get the Best Out of Your Medical Proofreading and Editing Service?

It’s necessary to review your work before submitting to the journal. Now, you can either request your department head or a colleague to review your manuscript or take help of the professional medical editing and proofreading services. For many researchers, such professional medical proofreading services are economical because it enhances the quality of the research document.

But, before you submit your document to the professional editing and proofreading services, look at these suggestions on how to get the best out of their service:

Send your best document:

Professional editors are busy people. They have to pay attention to other’s documents as well and can devote only a part of their time to yours. So, it is good if you fix everything you can in the document before giving it to the editor. For example, missing/extra spaces, heading style, and consistency of the references’ list. This will help the editor stay focused and address the issues you can’t.

Tell your issues in advance:

If you have any issue with the terminology used in the document or the structure of the sentences, inform your editors in advance. This way the editor won’t waste his time looking for the problems but offer you the solution straight away.

Ask questions:

Majority of the medical editing services offer a facility to address the author’s questions regarding the edited document. Use this facility to seek answers to your queries and to learn from the editor. This will help you prepare your future manuscripts.

Provide the necessary information:

Give your editor all the information he needs for an effective edit. For example, the format of the document as per the journal guidelines, the name of your target journal, the recommended word count, and your contribution to the manuscript.

Provide your feedback:

If the editor misunderstood a technical term or has not adhered to certain conventions of your field, write to him about this. The editors welcome the suggestions from the authors. Also, if you do not agree with the changes he made, communicate such concerns to him. This will help him clarify why he made the change and you may agree with his logical explanation.

However, don’t criticise the editor even if you don’t agree with his viewpoint. If you appreciate his work, tell the editor about it. Consequently, he will take extra care to give a consistently good service to you in the future.

Remember, preparing a manuscript is a continuous process. It may not be possible to prepare publication-ready document after just one round of editing. Therefore, view your relationship with the editor as long-term and collaborative rather than a onetime transaction. Cooperate with your editor through multiple rounds of edits to get the best results. Finally, you can also take the help of your editor to answer the comments or the questions of the peer reviewers after submission.

Scientific Communication

A Step-by-step Guide on How to Write an Ideal Medical Thesis

What do you need to write a medical thesis?

Of course, a knowledge about how to conduct a research and how to pen down its results in an appropriate format. Even if you are adept in clinical research, it doesn’t mean writing a thesis comes easily to you. A medical thesis has a structure that is important to follow.

So, here we provide a step-by-step guide on how to write an ideal medical thesis.

Step 1: Start your thesis with a suitable ‘Title’. The title is an intro to the contents of your thesis. An ideal title should be within 65 characters, devoid of all abbreviations and grammatical mistakes, and not contain stop words like ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’, ‘of’, ‘but’, etc.

Step 2: Next, write your thesis ‘Abstract’. An abstract is an introduction that tells the readers why you conducted the particular study. What has already been done in the field, what were the gaps, and how you fill those gaps with your study?

To write an ideal abstract:

Give a brief background information about your topic
State the importance of the problem and what is unknown about it
Tell the readers about the objectives of your study clearly
Give references to the research papers written on your research topic. However, do not cite the well-known facts. For example, “Isaac Newton discovered gravity…”
Include no information other than the problem being examined

Step 3: After the abstract, follow it with the title ‘Method and Material’. Format this section as below:

Setting – the environmental conditions in which you conducted your research
Sample – what materials were used in research and details about the participants in the study
Inclusion and exclusion criteria – what factors were considered to include or exclude any participant in the study
Measurement tools – details about the methods and equipment used to measure the outcomes of the study
Independent and Dependent variables – what were the factors you controlled or changed during the experiment and what you measured as the outcome

Step 4: Write the “Analysis of Data“.

Step 6: Write the ‘Results’ where you will show the conclusion of your study. You can present your results as a text, table, figure, or illustrative graphs, but keep in mind the aim of your study. Include no result that doesn’t satisfy the aim of your study.

Step 7: It is the most crucial step where you include the ‘Discussion’ of your results. An ideal discussion should include:

The principal findings of your study
Strengths and weaknesses of your study in relation to other studies in the field
A take-home message for the clinicians and policymakers
Questions that your study can’t answer to propagate further research

Step 8: Follow the discussion with the ‘Limitations of your study’

Step 9: At the end of your thesis, include your ‘References’. Track all your references so you don’t miss out on anyone.

Finally, the quality of your thesis depends upon the topic you choose, whether you opt for a purely scientific experiment or a clinical trial or a social research study addressing the experiences of the patients, etc.

Seek help from your mentor at every stage of clinical research as well as medical thesis writing. To be ideal, the study should be carried out ethically in compliance with the legal regulations.

Preclinical Research

How to Design a Preclinical Study that makes a Difference?

Many preclinical studies are conducted and thousands of research papers are published every year. However, these publications fail to provide clear information on how the study was designed, conducted, and analysed. They lack the standards of scientific rigour and transparency in their reports. As a result, they lose their value in informing future scientific studies, designing drugs and making policy decisions.

In such a scenario, you can be a role model and increase the potential of your preclinical research by designing robust preclinical studies.

You must plan your experiment before starting. So, here are the tips on how to design a powerful experiment and detect biologically important results.

1) Minimize bias

There’s always the potential for bias when assessing the results of your study, especially if a subjective element is involved.

Therefore, perform the experiment in such a way that the researchers are “blind” to the division of the animals to treatment groups and mouse genotypes.

2) Housing and husbandry considerations

If you use mice with different genotypes in your study, generate similar housing conditions for all. This ensures comparable environment and maternal influences on your animal models.

3) Report your methods and results accurately

Check out Animal Research Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines to report your animal research completely and accurately.

Take these fundamental steps to develop robust preclinical studies that use mouse models of human diseases and make a difference in the world of clinical research.

Scientific Communication

How is Scientific Editing Different from Language Editing?

With a plethora of scientific editing services, you might wonder “What is scientific editing?”

As the name suggests, it is the editing of the scientific documents like research papers and medical manuscripts.

Majority of you hold an opinion that scientific editing means to correct the language errors in your research paper. Once you rectify the spelling mistakes, grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation errors in your research paper, you are done.

But, what if we tell you are wrong? If you think scientific editing is just correcting the language errors in your research paper, you are mistaken.

If you correct only the language errors in your research paper, it is only a part and is referred to as the language editing. Language editing ensures that your written text is grammatically correct. However, scientific editing goes a step further to improve the logic of the written text, sharpen your arguments, and remove any lapses in reasoning.

Scientific editing improves your research paper in a way that communicates your ideas clearly and transparently to your target audience, making them understand your thoughts well.

So, how does scientific editing helps your research paper?

Scientific editing:

Clarifies the purpose of your research paper to the target audience
Removes the language errors
Improves the way you organise the information in the text
Checks the accuracy of the reported facts
Makes your paper easy and interesting to read

With so many benefits in hand, are you still stuck with only language editing of your paper? Think again!

Formulation Research

What are the Secrets to Successful Drug Formulations?

Drug formulation is a process where various chemical substances are combined with the active drug to form a final medicinal product that is easy and safe for human consumption. It plays a pivotal role in the success of any pharmaceutical development program.

From the early stage preclinical studies to the late-stage clinical trials, formulation chemistry is used to design a safe and effective product. However, formulation chemistry is often overlooked during the early stages of drug development. Many companies delay their planning process to the later stages of drug development. This can lead to the costly delays or failure of pharmaceutical development programs.

In such a scenario, how can the commercial drug sponsors ensure a timely and cost-effective drug development program?

Here is the secret:

1) Ensure appropriate phase formulation

Whether you are developing a formulation for a preclinical or a clinical investigation, make sure that the dosage form is appropriate for the particular study phase. Consider the aim of each test and the characteristics of the active pharmaceutical ingredient.

For example, preclinical studies often use formulations in liquids or suspensions and are built for the animal they are being administered to. Since the animal’s gastrointestinal tract conditions can affect the performance of the formulation, it must be taken into account during the formulation development process.

Similarly, for clinical investigations, formulation development has to be more complex and appropriate for the human intake.

2) Have an integrated approach to save time and money

Effective formulations are necessary for all stages of drug development. Therefore, pharmaceutical companies can’t make design decisions on an ad hoc basis. They must centralize their formulation efforts around the needs of the specific phase of the study. Moreover, formulation development process must be supported by a comprehensive understanding of the physicochemical and biochemical properties of the study drug.

In simple words, know your active pharmaceutical ingredient early in the study. Greater your efforts to know the API, easier it will be to predict and plan for the potential development issues. Further, you will spend less time, resources and funding to solve the subsequent problems.

However, to ensure this information is used in the right way, there must be an open communication between the drug development teams. The pharmaceutical companies can increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their projects by following an integrated approach towards formulation development.

A formulation scientist must work closely with the drug discovery teams during API development and ensure that formulation is always an integral part of the development process. In this way, formulation decisions will always be based on what you want to achieve through your study and the program as a whole.

So, the success of drug development programs depends on robust formulation strategies at every stage of the process. By using an early integrated approach to formulation development, pharmaceutical sponsors can reduce risk, maximize efficiency and ensure that the products reach patients in the shortest possible time.

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Monthly Archives: April 2018