Represent excellent quality research Be of value to health professionals Benefit patients Convince the judges that you can deliver the research Offer value for money (which is not necessarily the…

17.1 General advice Every journal will have its own style and will give guidance on how to write and format a paper for them. Read and follow this carefully. Do…

Ethics Science Information Health, safety and employment Finance and intellectual property Quality research culture The responsibilities of those involved in research Systems to deliver excellence in research Monitoring, inspection and…

14.1 Quantitative research Quantitative research follows a very structured, reproducible and definitive stepwise approach. With quantitative analysis your next steps will be: Data entry Clean and check the data for…

4.1 How to search the literature Performing literature searches is a skill well worth acquiring and honing. A brief overview is provided here to help you get started and further…

5.1 How can it help? Critical appraisal offers a way through the huge volume of material now being published. There are over 6000 journals on the ISI science journal citation…

10.1 The two routes to ethical approval There are two main routes for obtaining ethical approval: the National Research Ethics Service (NRES) and local university ethics committees. You must first…

11.1 What is informed consent? One definition of informed consent is ‘an ongoing agreement by a person to receive treatment, undergo procedures or participate in research, after risks, benefits and…

7.1 Why do I need a research protocol? The research protocol is an essential document for all research projects whatever their size. It should be written before you launch into…

16.1 Submitting an abstract You must first thoroughly read the guidance notes given by the conference organisers. This will tell you what format your abstract must be in, the word…