2017 Hands-on Writing Workshop: MPH, DrPH, PhD. students

A research-based curriculum
Actively engage yourself early to scientific research writing:

Begin at the destination to start doing things with a clear purpose,
understand the whole process then breaking it into parts to understand interrelationship among them, then you will know what area you want to know insightfully

Date: 1 - 31 August 2017

Venue: DAMASAC Conference Room, Faculty of Public Health, Khon Kaen University

Key of success:

        Work harder to achieve a higher expectation, push yourself to exceed your current limit. One can never possess a higher level of competency without extra efforts. 

Aims: After completion of the course, participants should be able to:  

  • Describe components constituting research processes and connection between them
  • Formulate a research question via writing a publishable mock abstract
  • Prepare a statistical analysis plan (SAP) as a mock manuscript suitable for submision to a journal
  • Perform data analysis based on the mock manuscript
  • Write a manuscript in a format required by a target journal
  • Submit the manuscript to the journal

Course schedule:

Activities for Preparation Workshop:

  • 1 August:  Preparation basic skills needed for the Workshop
    • Organizing scientific writing environments
      • Essential computer skills for academic writing by the DAMASAC Team
        • Advanced Word
        • EndNote
        • Stata
        • SnagIt
        • ODBC for MySQL
  • 2 August:   Numeracy- start to finish for data management and statistical analysis
    • One-day comprehensive course with "Stat Village"
      • Data collection
      • Data entry and data management
      • Data analysis using Stata
  • 3-4 August:  A quick tour of advance topic in statistics [Link]
    • SAP for Continuous outcome
    • SAP for Categorical outcome
    • SAP for Numerical outcome
    • SAP for Survival outcome

 

Activities for Writing Workshop:

A. Introduction

  •  7 August:  Orientation for the Writing Workshop

 

B. Writing mock manuscript

  •  8 August: Writing a mock abstract 
    • Each student prepare a mock abstract assisted by DAMASAC Team
    • Please use  http://tools.cascap.in.th:9001/p/2017
    • Complete the following section of the abstract
      • BACKGROUND
      • OBJECTIVE
      • METHODS
      • RESULTS
      • CONCLUSIONS
      • SSS- Search, Summarize, and Synthesize the literature using "EndNote"
  • 9 August: Research question formulation- focussing on the CONCLUSION of the mock abstract (Student presentation and discussion) 
  • 10 -11 August: 2-day Hands-on writing manuscript 
  • 14 August: Solutions for QE Exam (Jointly discuss by PhD students batch 3 and 4)
    • Time 13.30 - 16.00 pm 
    • Venue DAMASAC Conference Room
    • Materials  [Questions] [Paper] [Data]
  • 15 - 16 August: Presentation 1: Mock Abstract
  • 17 August: Special Topic & Self-directed WRITING
  • 18 August:  Writing Results or Plan for data analysis or design the dummy tables [Click] 
    • 13.00 - 16.00
    • How to generate data set [PDF]
  • 28-29 August: Presentation 2: Final Manuscript

 

C. Summing-up and writing proposal

  • 30 August: Summing-up and arranging a research protocol  [Link] 
  • 31 August:  Wai-Kru Day

 

Milestones:

No.

Minimum outputs (KPI: Key performance index)

Due date

Example

1

Gap of knowledge being clearly identified and research question being formulated

Ø9 August

[Guide]

 

2

Mock abstract presented at http://tools.cascap.in.th:9001/p/2017

15-16 August

[Example]

 

3

Abstract with real "key findings" presented at http://tools.cascap.in.th:9001/p/2017

22 August

[Example]

 

4

Draft 1: Mock manuscript with the following format attached below the abstract at http://tools.cascap.in.th:9001/p/2017

Page 0: Title page
Page 1: Abstract
Page 2: Introduction (copy from the first part of the abstract and expand it to 2- 3 paragraphs)
Page 3: Methods (3 paragraphs of about half a page containing design of the study, 
              outcome measurements, and statistical analysis sections.)
Page 4-6: Results (layout the mock tables and figures with zero "0" 
              labelling number to be presented, number of 0 represents number of digits
Page 7: Discussion (essential topic to be discussed listed under appropriate subheadings) 
Page 8: Reference (must be automatically organized using either Zotero or EndNote)

 

22 August       

[Example]

5

Draft 2: Manuscript with all relevant materials, e.g., EndNote library or Zotero file, 
Stata do file or R scripts, and data file (if not yet ready, submit a mock data file).

25 August

[Example]

 

6

Draft 3: The final draft of manuscript submitted followed by oral presentation

28-29 August

[Example]

 

7

Final Examination (Written exam: Open book, closed room)

15  December

[Example Questions]
 

  Example of Critical Appraisal [ZIP]

 

 

 

 

 

 Key of sucess:

  • Bring the data of your own research or routinely collected data to the class then use it for the writing- the existing data provided at DAMUS is reach enough but might not fit with your area of interest.
  • Talk to your supervisor or preceptor urgently so that a clear research question can be formulated early at the beginning of the class.
  • Learn how people do at DAMUS (http://www.damus.in.th). Then try one for your own.
  • Learn from other topics done by your classmates during discussion sessions.

 

Summary of the publication process:

1. Mock Abstract

2. Mock Manuscript

3. First draft manuscript

4. Final draft that has been formatted as required by the target journal

    - Based on the instruction for the author

5. Materials for journal submission

    - File 1: Covering letter

    - File 2: Main text (usually not include the Tables or Figure)

    - File 3: The Tables(All tables in one file)

    - File 4-n: Figure (one file for each Figure)

6. Submission process

7. Reviewing process

8. Responding to the reviewers and re-submission

9. Acceptance letter

10. Galley proof

11. Published

12. Reprint