Welcome

A writing workshop to help you publish

your work

IHI National ForumOrlando, FL

December 10, 2017

Objectives

1. Identify improvement-based methods

for effective manuscript preparation

2. Employ SQUIRE 2.0 Publication

Guidelines to craft a strong manuscript

3. Develop strategies to increase the

probability of successful journal

submission

Today’s faculty,

Daisy Goodman, Greg Ogrinc,

and David Stevens,

have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Your healthcare improvement

work is incomplete until it is

published.

Agenda1. Introduction

Who’s in the room?

What do we know about peer review as an improvement process?

2. Exercise I”Using SQUIRE 2.0 as a guide to writing about your Context and Rationale”

3. Break

4. Exercise II“Strategies to increase the probability of successful journal submission”

5. Group Discussion – Improvement techniques for writing more effectively.

6. Journaling: Personal next steps

Who’s in the room?

1. Your name.

2. Your principal work in a typical day.

3. The draft title for the writing proposal or

paper that you want to work on today.

Learning strategy

Extensive work together

as both

author and reader/reviewer

Reader/reviewers

contribute to your paper

throughout its development

from the earliest informal reader,

to coauthors,

to formal journal peer reviewers.

The scientific evidence for how

peer review works is slim

• Three decades of quadrennial

Congresses on the “Contribution of

Peer Review to Scientific Publication”

• Systematic reviews of journal peer

review

The variability in findings of studies of peer review is probably because the research methods

that have been employed do not serve complex social processes

well. -Overbeke and Wager

Peer review is an improvement

process• Your published paper is the product of countless

reader/reviewers’ contributions—criticism, expert

advice, suggestions and counsel from colleagues

along the way to publication.

• It follows a path of classical principles of

improvement—systematic assessments that

ultimately contribute in formal and informal ways to its

progressive improvement.

• There are general rules that apply at each of the

progressive steps in that path.

General rules A reader/reviewer’s shortlist

1. Be specific.

2. Prioritize advice.

3. Systematically read the entire draft segment

4. Summarize explicit strengths and weaknesses.

5. Cite sections where there are opportunities for improvement, accompanied by appropriate, specific suggestions.

6. What’s missing?

Strategies for your successful

journal submission

• Start by identifying your intended reader

• Develop a writing style that speaks directly to your reader

• Use a systematic process to identify early the journal that is likely to find that reader

Develop a writing style that speaks directly

to your reader.

“Forget your generalized audience.In the first place, the nameless,

faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place,

unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist.In writing, your audience is one single reader.

I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person — a real

person you know, or an imagined personand write to that one.”

-John Steinbeck, In a 1962 letter to his friendRobert Wallsten

“Who is your reader?”

• What’s your paper’s message, in a

sentence?

• Who do you want to hear that

message?

• Who were your paper’s subjects?

• Who were the professionals involved

in your work?

Use a systematic process for selecting a journal

• “Why would this journal’s readers want to read my paper?” Is there a fit with their interests?

• Consider several pragmatic issues: editorial idiosyncrasies, would count, publication guidelines, instructions to authors

• Narrow to 3 journals and scan recent issues for current topics, methods, and themes

• Make a decision early before getting too far into the revision process

A strategy for finding your journalStart with your reader

1. Working alone, address in 1 to 5 sentences the question : “Who is my reader?” – 10 minutes

2. Working in pairs, discuss – 15 minutes

3. Working further in pairs: what journal is likely to lead to this reader? – 10 minutes

4. Large groupl discussion – 10 minutes

Questions?