scholarly journals Quality and integrity in scientific writing: prerequisites for quality in science communication

2009 ◽  
Vol 08 (02) ◽  
pp. A04 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Claude Roland
Keyword(s):  
Practice Guidelines ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
Scientific Writing ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Explicit Criteria

Standards and Good Practice guidelines provide explicit criteria for maintaining quality and integrity in science. But research practices are now openly questioned. I defend the idea that the tension between norms and practices in scientific writing must be addressed primarily by the scientific community if quality of the sources in the process of science communication is to be guaranteed. This paper provides evidence that scientific writing and researchers’writing practices do not reflect expected quality criteria. Evidence is based on four complementary analyses of: (i) communication manuals, journals’ recommendations to authors and the norms they convey (ii) feedback given by reviewers (ii) interviews and questionnaires (iv) researchers’ written productions and writing practices. I show that researchers’ writing and communication practices are very often in total contradiction with the norms and standards the scientific community has established. Unless researchers can improve and guarantee quality and integrity of the sources, the whole system of science communication will be threatened.

scholarly journals From the ivory tower to the public square: Strategies to restore public trust in science

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Deviri
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Labour Productivity ◽  
Public Trust ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
The Public ◽  
Academic Evaluation ◽  
Public Square

For centuries, the scientific community has played a major part in the progress of humanity. Scientific and technological innovations have boosted labour productivity, enabled important social progress, eradicated diseases, and generally improved the quality of life for most people. However, over the last decades, a worrisome trend of science-skepticism is on the rise. At the level of individuals, it renders citizens non-cooperating with scientifically informed policies, such as vaccination and social distancing policies. At the level of communities, which are often organized politically, skepticism may prevent translation of scientific consensus to political consensus and adoption of needed policies, such as reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Here, we consider the mechanisms that may underlie the diminishing trust in the scientific community, and suggest five strategies to regain this trust: (1) Incentivize direct public outreach. (2) Form a nationwide science communication network. (3) Adopt official, agnostic stands in non-scientific debates. (4) Continuously communicate with leaders of wary groups. (5) Strive for unbiased academic evaluation practices. Following these strategies will hopefully increase public trust by adapting science communication to the era of social media, diversifying the scientific community, and facilitating collaboration with wary communities.

scholarly journals The good practice portal in Germany and considerations towards integrating best evidence

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Y Shajanian Zarneh
Keyword(s):  
Good Practice ◽  
Community Setting ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
Evaluation Process ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Socially Disadvantaged ◽  
Potential Disadvantage ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Moment

Abstract The good practice portal of the Federal Centre for Health Education / BZgA consists of a nationwide collection of projects and interventions to promote the health of socially disadvantaged groups at the community/setting level. Currently the portal includes 3067 practices, out of them 124 fulfil the good practice criteria and have been identified as such. The portal aims to disseminate (good) practice in Germany, promote its translation into action, create transparency in terms of quality criteria and make the diversity of practice more visible. A secondary aim is to promote regional networking and the exchange of experience. To this end, an exchange platform (inforo) is also offered via the operating agency, which however is still limited in use. The portal does not intend to identify the most effective practices, but to be a database of well-described interventions that were feasible to implement in Germany. Therefore, the evaluation process was designed as a mutual advisory process: Standardized description of project owners according to 12 good practice criteria- review by experts from the responsible coordinating offices of Equity in Health - peer evaluation by another coordinating body in another federal state - and finally evaluation by an expert from the nationwide working group at the BZgA. Thus, the evaluation process is also set up to promote mutual learning with the goal of in turn increasing quality of the practice nationwide, with the advantage of being close to the implementation needs and the potential disadvantage of lacking objectivity. At the moment, BZgA is assessing different possibilities to integrate evidence as criteria into its good practice portal. Therefore, this presentation will end with a discussion on possibilities to integrate the identification and selection of evidence-based/evidence-informed preventive interventions, including the use of evidence criteria and quality of evidence.

scholarly journals Hedges and Boosters in Indonesian Scientific Articles

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-82
Author(s):  
Hanung Triyoko ◽  
I Dewa Putu Wijana ◽  
I Praptomo Baryadi
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Community ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Scientific Communication ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Scientific Writing ◽  
Scientific Journals ◽  
Lexical Meaning ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
The Social ◽  
Problem Formulations

Hedging and boosting or ‘pembentengan’ (Indonesian) is the act of scientific writers in maintaining the smooth scientific communication. This paper answers two problem formulations, i.e. what are the linguistic manifestations of hedges and boosters  in Indonesian scientific articles, and how their meaning reveal the writer's level of confidence in the information conveyed. This study aims to enrich the description of scientific writing practices in Indonesia to support the development of scientific writing skills in general. This research uses descriptive qualitative methods. This research data is in the form of sentences containing hedges and boosters from various scientific journals published in Indonesia through the note-taking technique. The main theory to analyze the data is the theory on hedges and boosters. The data were analyzed semantically, syntactically, and pragmatically. The results show that hedges and boosters in the form of adverbs are the most commonly used in Indonesian Scientific writing. The meaning of hedges and boosters cannot always be determined by their lexical meaning because each hedge and booster has to be seen in its use in the sentence. The Indonesian scientific community has its own agreement in the social interaction of scientific articles. Keywords: Scientific writing, hedges and boosters, confidence, doubt, function, interaction.

scholarly journals Audit on monitoring physical health of patients on mood stabilisers following NICE guidelines

BJPsych Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (S1) ◽  
pp. S104-S105
Author(s):  
Sathyan Soundararajan ◽  
Asha Dhandapani ◽  
Claire Jones
Keyword(s):  
Physical Health ◽  
Practice Guidelines ◽  
Health Monitoring ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Patient Case ◽  
Nice Guidelines ◽  
Blood Tests ◽  
Retrospective Audit ◽  
Clinical Records

AimsThe aim is to find out if the physical health monitoring is adhered to in accordance with NICE guidelines in individuals with Intellectual disability who are on mood stabilisers and known to LD services.MethodWe sought to explore if the physical health monitoring for prescribing mood stabilisers in a sample of people with ID was consistent with good practice guidelines.We collected the data by reviewing the clinical records of individuals with LD who were under the care of mental health services in the CLDT- Wrexham and prescribed a mood stabiliser drug. We also contacted the patient's carers who came to outpatients and by calling the GP surgery and enquiring about the details. We also assessed the Welsh clinical portal in order to assess the blood tests.Data were collected by trainee doctors in Psychiatry. This was a retrospective audit, looking at data from Learning Disability psychiatry caseload. We identified about 16 patients on mood stabilisers.ResultPhysical health monitoring for prescribing mood stabilisers was almost consistent with good practice guidelines. This has shown that the majority of the monitoring has complied. There are few lacunae, such as Thyroid function not being monitored every 6 months for patients on Lithium, Serum Carbamazepine levels not being monitored as per guidelines with 1 patient not having blood done at all whilst on Carbamazepine. Moreover, the details are not readily available for the Consultant/ team when needed, thus making it very tedious for them to search/ contact the GP, etc.ConclusionMedications such as mood stabilisers can increase the risk further if the patient's physical health is not monitored regularly. This can lead to compromised quality of life for the patient and in some cases increased morbidity. Hence we have come up with a proforma that can be attached to patient case notes. This will serve as a record for us and prompt for physical monitoring. We will keep a database online with reminders set. This is to ensure a continuity of care for the patients.

scholarly journals Submissions Style Guide for the Global Clinical Engineering Journal

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-43
Author(s):  
Yadin David ◽  
Jerome Schultz
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Community ◽  
Scientific Writing ◽  
Clinical Engineering ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
General Scientific ◽  
Clinical Engineers ◽  
Engineering Journal

This paper describes the guidelines for writing effective manuscript that complies with general scientific writing style and in particular with those that are incorporated by the editors and reviewers of the Global Clinical Engineering Journal (www.GlobalCE.org) when they evaluate submission of manuscripts. Readers of this paper will gain understandings of the manuscript preferred writing format and of the submission’s individual sections. Examples are provided for each of individual sections that further explain their purpose and contrast of their various styles. When the guidance provided in this paper is incorporated into a new submission, it is expected to elevate the quality of the writing as well as the desire of young clinical engineers to publish about their work and the interest of the scientific community to read it.

The Vietnamese Version of the Health-related Quality of Life Measure for Children with Epilepsy (CHEQOL-25): Reliability

MedPharmRes ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-14
Author(s):  
Tri Doan ◽  
Tuan Tran ◽  
Han Nguyen ◽  
◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Health Related Quality ◽  
Life Measure ◽  
Related Quality ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Parent Proxy

Purpose: This study aimed to translate and culturally adapt the self-report and parent-proxy Health-Related Quality of Life Measure for Children with Epilepsy (CHEQOL-25) into Vietnamese and to evaluate their reliability. Methods: Both English versions of the self-report and parent-proxy CHEQOL-25 were translated and culturally adapted into Vietnamese by using the Principles of Good Practice for the Translation and Cultural Adaptation Process. The Vietnamese versions were scored by 77 epileptic patients, who aged 8–15 years, and their parents/caregivers at neurology outpatient clinic of Children Hospital No. 2 – Ho Chi Minh City. Reliability of the questionnaires was determined by using Cronbach’s coefficient α and intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC). Results: Both Vietnamese versions of the self-report and parent-proxy CHEQOL-25 were shown to be consistent with the English ones, easy to understand for Vietnamese children and parents. Thus, no further modification was required. Cronbach’s α coefficient for each subscale of the Vietnamese version of the self-report and parent-proxy CHEQOL-25 was 0.65 to 0.86 and 0.83 to 0.86, respectively. The ICC for each subscale of the self-report and parent-proxy CHEQOL-25 was in the range of 0.61 to 0.86 and 0.77 to 0.98, respectively. Conclusion: The Vietnamese version of the self-report and parent-proxy CHEQOL-25 were the first questionnaires about quality of life of epileptic children in Vietnam. This Vietnamese version was shown to be reliable to assess the quality of life of children with epilepsy aged 8–15 years.

Analysis of Reading, Reference and Information Management on the Quality of Scientific Writing

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-69
Author(s):  
Muhammad Zarlis ◽  
Sherly Astuti ◽  
Muhammad Salamuddin
Keyword(s):  
Information Management ◽  
Scientific Writing ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Reference List ◽  
Management Skill ◽  
Library Search ◽  
Important Thing ◽  
Reading Material ◽  
Quality Of Research

In education, for educational instruments scientific writing is a very important thing. It requires an information management skill, information management is a library search, which can be done through a computer and guided by the internet. It can also be through the quality of reading used as a reference for scientific writing. In addition, in producing a paper also must know the management of writing, not only required to pay attention to the rules of standard language, but also must be able to convey ideas and ideas well and meet scientific criteria, such as making a quote or reference list used. This paper was written with the aim of improving the quality of research through reading material, making notes and avoiding plagiarism, references using the Harvard system for journals, books, and articles. Management of citing articles either CD or internet, writing, editing, storing references electronically, writing bibliography, and quotations.

An experience of performing spirometry by trained general practitioners

2020 ◽  
pp. 34-36
Author(s):  
M. A. Pokhaznikova ◽  
E. A. Andreeva ◽  
O. Yu. Kuznetsova
Keyword(s):  
General Practitioners ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Male Gender ◽  
Study Research ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Quality Of Research ◽  
Forced Expiratory Maneuver ◽  
Maximal Effort

The article discusses the experience of teaching and conducting spirometry of general practitioners as part of the RESPECT study (RESearch on the PrEvalence and the diagnosis of COPD and its Tobacco-related aetiology). A total of 33 trained in spirometry general practitioners performed a study of 3119 patients. Quality criteria met 84.1% of spirometric studies. The analysis of the most common mistakes made by doctors during the forced expiratory maneuver is included. The most frequent errors were expiration exhalation of less than 6s (54%), non-maximal effort throughout the test and lack of reproducibility (11.3%). Independent predictors of poor spirogram quality were male gender, obstruction (FEV1 /FVC<0.7), and the center where the study was performed. The number of good-quality spirograms ranged from 96.1% (95% CI 83.2–110.4) to 59.8% (95% CI 49.6–71.4) depending on the center. Subsequently, an analysis of the reasons behind the poor quality of research in individual centers was conducted and the identified shortcomings were eliminated. The poor quality of the spirograms was associated either with the errors of the doctors who undertook the study or with the technical malfunctions of the spirometer.

Developing the culture and discipline of conducting and publishing scientific research: Guiding principles

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Daniel Obeng-Ofori
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Scientific Writing ◽  
Weekly Schedule ◽  
Academic Activities ◽  
Heavy Workload ◽  
Guiding Principles ◽  
Mentoring System ◽  
Critical Constraints

The pressure to publish is a fact of life in academia. Academics are expected to demonstrate that they are active researchersand that their work has been vetted by peers and disseminated in reputable scholarly forums. In practice, however, a numberof critical constraints hamper effective publication of scientific research in most developing countries. These include lackof effective mentoring system, poor facilities and inadequate funding for effective research and heavy workload where toomuch time and effort are spent in teaching, grading, meetings and other non-academic activities. In spite of these seeminglyinsurmountable challenges, with proper planning and commitment, one can still conduct research and publish to advanceones career and exchange of knowledge. The paper discusses the critical guiding principles in scientific writing and publishingin an unfriendly research environment as pertains in most universities in the developing world. The overriding principle isto cultivate the discipline of scientific writing consciously and follow it through religiously. This could be achieved if time isallocated for scientific writing in the scheme of weekly schedule of activities and made to be functional through meticulousplanning and commitment. Equally important is to avoid procedural mistakes in scientific writing. While the quality of theresearch is the single most important factor in determining whether an article will be published, a number of proceduralmistakes can help tip the balance against its publication. It should also be noted that when a manuscript is submitted to ascholarly journal, there are two audiences to satisfy: first the editor and external reviewers, and then the journal’s readers.That first group must be satisfied to create the opportunity to appeal to the second. Thus, familiarity with the style and tone ofthe specific journal is crucial.

Promoting gender equity in sport science

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equity ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
Gender Inequity ◽  
Sport Science ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Exercise Medicine ◽  
Scientific Disciplines ◽  
Individual Ability ◽  
Scientific Awards

Gendered norms, stereotypes and biases implicitly influence our thoughts, attitudes and behaviours. These often lead to gender inequity, a phenomenon inherent in society and reflected in its various contexts. The increasing awareness of this inequity is leading to reflection and changes in society as a whole and its communities, organisations and institutions. In scientific disciplines, gender inequity has been, and still is, a point of discussion and consideration. In many cases, these discussions have led to positive and sustainable changes at both a structural as well as a policy level. This opinion piece discusses gender inequity in the context of sport science and, in particular, sport medicine in Switzerland. Specifically, academic position (professorships), first authorship of peer-reviewed publications in the SEMS-Journal as well as conference participation and scientific awards in two Swiss sport science organisations: Sportwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft der Schweiz (SGS) and Sport & Exercise Medicine Switzerland (SEMS) in terms of frequency are presented and discussed. An under-representation of women is observed in most categories. Finally, recommendations for promoting and supporting equity while maintaining an objective consideration of quality criteria and individual ability are put forward using examples of good practice.

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