Questions & Answers by Kalai Selvi Arivalagan (read more books txt) 📖

How do I write an article on life sciences

 

To start with, let us know the different subjects that come under life sciences.  Anatomy, Biochemistry, Genetics, Toxicology, Pharmacology, Immunology, Mycology, Physiology, Virology, Zoology, Veterinary sciences and many more.  Life science articles focus on evidences and arguments that support and persuade readers to accept or understand ideas that are discussed.   They are unbiased and impersonal.

The five elements of writing that you need to focus while writing life science articles are:  Thesis statement, structure, style, analysis, and evidences and sources.  If you want to submit a well-organised article, please check if you have presented your arguments clearly and if they have been argued well.  Next, you need to check for transition of ideas.  Transition of ideas and transition of paragraphs are a must to present a well-structured article. 

In addition to these five elements of writing, you need to take care of rules and conventions that normally science articles demand.   The name of a genus and a species help to form a scientific name.  The genus name always starts with a capital letter and the species name never begins with a capital letter. Both words are always written in italics. Names of genus and species, Latin words and their abbreviations must be in italics.  Example:  et al., etc. 

Formatting conventions are also important to follow.  Except the first page, all the pages must be numbered.   Take care to have in-text citations inside end punctuations.   In the reference section, all in-text citation must have a full citation.  Tables and figures or pictures must be numbered in the order they appear in the article.

The most important task before starting to write an article on life sciences is to identify sources for your article.  The best method is to start with your secondary sources.  The secondary sources highlight major works in a particular field of science and they usually have more citations. From those citations, start with main references from primary sources.  The literature cited in these references may have additional information on research papers that are relevant to the topic you are discussing in the article.  

Using primary and secondary sources in a life science article takes a prominent role in presenting your arguments and evidences.  Primary sources are original ideas, experiments and data as shared in research articles.  Secondary sources usually include information on experiments and data from reviews and articles in science magazines.

 

 

What are some of the biggest challenges with setting up and conducting clinical trials

 

 

Clinical trials are planned studies that investigate risks and benefits of a particular medical intervention or treatment. Clinical trials are conducted at many levels to decide if that specific medicine or treatment is effective and safe. Once the preclinical testing process and screening are completed, the clinical trial will be conducted. 

 

The main, important stakeholders in clinical trials include clinical investigators, physicians, patients, research sponsors and others.  They offer their support at different levels for conducting clinical trials successfully.  A clinical research infrastructure involves personnel, money, time, medical supplies, and a definite plan to complete various steps in a clinical trial.

 

One of the biggest challenges in setting up a clinical trial is getting ready with the much needed resources. Every clinical trial needs identifying prominent research queries that will decide the appropriate resources to conduct it successfully.  The next challenge is the widening gap between clinical practice and clinical research.  In addition to the above mentioned challenges, there are hurdles in allocating funds to conduct the clinical trials and also to pay incentives for clinical practitioners who take part in the clinical trial.

 

Another important challenge in conducting a clinical trial is the lack of public awareness regarding the importance of conducting clinical trials that involves the general public.  Still now there are many misconceptions that discourage willing participants from participating in clinical trials.  Clinical trials play a main role in drafting health policies to improve and provide adequate health care to the needy.  It becomes necessary to educate the public the importance of participating in clinical trials. The need of hour is getting patient advocates who can help people to understand the importance of their participation in a clinical trial. Willing participants can take even a clinical trial in its preclinical phase to come out with a successful plan. Patients who are involved in a clinical trial are volunteers. They can opt out of the clinical trial at any point of time.  This may also some time turn into a hindrance in the successful completion of a clinical trial.

 

 

 

 

 

What kind of data is collected in clinical trials

 

Clinical trials generate innumerable kinds of data on safety and efficacy, which can be utilized for different purposes. After analysis of data, they are segregated based on the needs of the research queries.

 

During clinical trials, the data are collected and generated by researchers, investigators, and other supporting staff. The data collected includes direct answers or responses received from patients,   Case Report Forms on paper or electronic case report forms.  Data collected by printed forms are cost effective and they can be used to take copies without much effort.  Now-a-days optical character recognition tool in computers help to read the data on paper and update them directly into a database.  It is also easy to make changes in the input data.  Though paper forms accumulate extra space to store, they can be accessed and checked whenever needed.

 

Using Electronic Case Report Forms has become the need of the day.  Though they follow stringent regulations, most of the researchers prefer this, for it can store data efficiently and require less space.  Technology oriented studies rely much on using computers and people involved in data collection are mostly trained staff who have adequate experience in handling data.  Eliminating the need to update data manually, the computer programmes can be scheduled to maintain data backup regularly and protect the accumulated data from any kind of mishap.  Data captured electronically for a particular product can be accessed anywhere, anytime with ease.

 

Data collection requires stringent effort and strict planning from stakeholders.  Yet, it will not be of use if the clinical trials end up without data of high quality.  Following are the features of high quality data: show accuracy, are complete, need not be verified again, worth to be analysed and evaluated, generate authentic conclusions that can bring good results, show consistency across different areas, locations, and subjects involved in the study.

 

The Direct Data Capture method include questionnaires and diaries maintained for patients, results obtained from magnetic resonance imaging system, data collected from electrocardiograms, and data collected at labs.

 

The data collected directly from patients by filling forms manually or electronically offer reliable data.  The stakeholders who are involved in capturing the data interact directly with the patients.  The answers provided by the patients for questions in the forms are authentic and can help them to verify results of a successful intervention or a treatment during their follow-up studies.

 

How to write a good problem statement in your research proposal?

 

Usually a problem statement explains the scope of a project. It discusses the gap that exists between an existing condition and what is needed to resolve that condition.

 

A problem statement explains a problem more precisely and clearly. The statement uses specific words that will focus on the problem being discussed in the research proposal. In addition it triggers the interest of the reader to read further to understand how the research proposal will be another milestone in that area of research.

 

A problem statement in a research proposal uses 5 ‘Ws’ to get the necessary information needed for the proposal. Who, What, Where, When, Why are the five questions that help to analyse and derive at a solution for the problem discussed.

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Flow of ideas in a problem statement:

 

Topic            Research problem           Justification          Missing evidence          Discussion

 

The topic is the subject of the research. The research problem tells about an issue or a problem or a condition that needs a solution. Justification contains evidence from existing research papers and evidence from the data collected. Missing evidence explains what is missing and what need to be done to fill the gap Discussion addresses the crucial points that can lead researchers, policy makers and educators to proceed further to solve the existing issues.

 

Writing a problem statement:  Begin your problem statement with “why”, “what” or “how”.  Include words such as “relate to” “compare to” to establish the connection between ideas in the statement. Include information where the research is conducted and subjects involved in the study.

 

 

An example:

 

Statement 1: To provide excellent patient care at a minimal cost, General Hospital needs diagnostic procedures that are safe, efficient, and accurate. In addition, the procedures should not be overly painful for the patient.

Statement 2:  At present, General Hospital utilizes diagnostic tools, CAT scans and myelograms. The CAT scan fails to provide clear diagnosis 75% of the time. When the CAT scan fails, doctors resort to myelogram. While the myelograms provide accurate results, the procedure is very painful and risky for the patients.

Statement 3: If the General Hospital continues to offer those two procedures, they will be wasting both time and money. It may affect their overall efficiency and their earning potential. Unnecessary suffering could make patients to choose a hospital with advanced facilities.

Research:  Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), a new diagnostic technique, may provide better results than the CAT scan in accuracy, and reduce the need to utilize myelogram. The research proposal is to find the feasibility of building an NMR lab at the General hospital. The proposal will investigate the accuracy, efficiency, and safety of NMR as well as its implementation issues.