Frequently Asked Questions from New Authors As the official journal of the Infusion Nurses Society, the Journal of Infusion Nursing is committed to advancing the specialty of infusion therapy by publishing quality research articles from diverse sources. Following are some of the most frequently asked questions that we receive from authors who have little or no professional or academic writing experience. Does the Journal of Infusion Nursing have author guidelines? Yes! And authors should always consult a journal s author guidelines before submitting an article for consideration. Many journals will refuse the article unless it is written according to the guidelines. One journal s requirements may be different from another s, but the general tips on good writing apply everywhere. Be sure read the guidelines thoroughly, and contact the journal s editorial offices to clarify anything you don t understand. How long should my manuscript be? Generally speaking, your manuscript should be no more than 10-20 double-spaced pages (using 1-inch margins, left-justified text, 12-point type, in Times New Roman font). A better gauge of length is word count. Your word count (which is under the Tools menu in Microsoft Word) should fall between 2,000 and 5,000 words. Occasionally, longer articles are acceptable, but this will depend on the topic. Remember, the quality of your article is not determined by the word count, it s all about the content. You should also try to limit yourself to no more than five images, figures, or graphs. Any more than this, and the reader will find it tedious (and the editor will probably ask you to delete some of the figures). Use graphs or tables to summarize information that otherwise would take a long time to explain in the body of the paper. Graphs and tables are great for summarizing background information, lists of symptoms, results of a study, etc., and they are a great quick-reference for readers who want to be able to use the article in their practice. Can I scan a photo from a book and use it in my article? You must obtain permission to use photos, graphics, drawings, tables, or other visual elements that appear in print or on the Web. Editors will not proceed with publication until permission has been obtained. Sometimes, the copyright owner of the photo, graphic, or table will require a nominal fee for its use. The only time you do not have to request permission is when the picture, graph, or table appears in a work by the government or a government agency (such as the CDC). These works are in the public domain. However, even the government sometimes uses photographs or other images that belong to someone else, so look for a credit line before copying an image. For information on permissions procedures, contact the journal s editor.
How should I use headings and subheadings? Do I have to use them? Yes. Headings and subheadings are used to organize information and signal to the reader when a new idea is being introduced, and they should accurately describe the information that will be discussed in that section. As a new writer, you should begin the writing process with an outline (remember those high school writing assignments?) to lay out the general flow of the paper. Once you begin to write, you can use some of the headings and subheadings from your outline in your article. How should my references be formatted? The Journal of Infusion Nursing uses the American Medical Association s Manual of Style (10 th ed.). References should be listed at the end of the article, and numbered superscript (Format, Font, Effects, Superscript in MS Word) citations should appear in order within the body of the paper. References should not be cited in random order, nor should they be listed in parenthesis at the end of a sentence. For example, Correct The 1999 IOM report estimated that medical errors kill approximately 44 000 to 98 000 people per year. 1 The reference at the end of the paper looks like this: 1. Institute of Medicine. To Err is Human. Building a Safer Health System. Washington D.C.: National Academy Press; 1999. Incorrect Numbers must be superscript, without parenthesis The 1999 IOM report estimated that medical errors kill approximately 44,000 to 98,000 people per year. (1). Incorrect this is American Psychological Association Style The 1999 IOM report estimated that medical errors kill approximately 44,000 to 98,000 people per year.(institute of Medicine, 1999) All professional articles published in the Journal must contain a list of references from primary and secondary sources most articles contain a minimum of 10 sources, and a maximum of 50. Facts, statistics, clinical methodologies, or other previously published data used in your manuscript must be referenced to a journal article or textbook. Although tempting, it s not enough to assume that something you ve written is common knowledge. Personal communication with colleagues, personal anecdotal information, or Web sites (unless it is a government or professional association Web site) are usually not acceptable as primary sources, but they can still be used as supporting, or secondary, sources. What are Primary and Secondary Sources? A primary source is an original study, data, or information that has not been interpreted by another author; it is any source upon which further studies may be based. When referring to a study, statistic, or data, you must cite the original source. For example, an article in a nursing journal may state that nurses salaries are on the rise, and it references this information from a new report from the US Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS). If you wanted to cite the current salaries for nurses in your article, you would not cite the nursing journal article, you would cite the report by the BLS because it is the primary source of the salary data. Secondary sources are interpretations of the primary source. In the example above, the nursing journal article on nursing salaries is the secondary source. Also bear in mind the relative weight of your sources. Citing an expert s opinion is fine as a secondary source. But if you are making a claim or a generalization ( infusion nurses across the country feel burdened by their general nursing duties ), you must have a study or text to back it up. It is not sufficient to say that a well-known author says so. What style of voice should I write in? Is it okay to write in the first person? Except in certain cases, articles should be written in the third-person objective voice (not first person, or I ). Also note that scholarly articles do not speak directly to the reader ( you ). Some general interest nursing journals have adopted a more casual style, but in general, scholarly articles use the objective voice. If you want to explain to the reader what he or she should be doing (for instance, how to look for signs of phlebitis), explain it this way: the infusion nurse should observe the area for erythema, pain, or swelling at the catheter exit site. Note how this sentence does not directly address the reader, but instead says what the infusion nurse should do from an objective point of view. Maintain this voice throughout the article. I haven t written a paper since college. What are some common writing mistakes for first-time authors? It can be difficult for authors to catch their own mistakes, especially if you don t write often. Some of the most common grammatical pitfalls are: Verb tense agreement there is increasing ways to approach this problem the verb should be are instead of is. Misspelling words that sounds alike if the patient is squirming, this is often a sign that there in pain. The word there sounds like the word you need, but it is spelled wrong. You really want: they re or better yet, spell it out: they are. Apostrophes these are meant to show possession, never plurality: the infusion was administered weekly on Monday s for three months. There should not be an apostrophe in this sentence. There is more than one Monday, so this is plural, not possessive. Acronyms/Abbreviations Good professional writing is clear writing. Clinicians often use acronyms (a group of letters that stand for something, such as CVAD central vascular access device), and the meaning of these acronyms is not always clear to the reader. Always spell out the acronym the first time you mention it in your article, and place the acronym after it in parenthesis. Once you have defined it, you can simply use the acronym thereafter. But be sure to use the
same acronym consistently. Do not refer to a PICC at the beginning of the paragraph and then begin using CVAD later in the paragraph. It may be the same thing in your mind, but the audience (or reviewers) may think that you are talking about something else. Jargon Eliminate clinical jargon from your writing. Professional articles should always use standard terminology. Jargon can also be confusing to readers who are not clinicians, or for whom English is not their first language. Your article may be read by those who are not familiar with the clinical aspects of infusion nursing, so it is important to refer to practices, products, and time intervals by their proper names. The following list contains a few examples of infusionrelated jargon: Avoid Subq or subcu PRN Sticks Hrs LOS Lines Use subcutaneous as needed insertions or venipunctures hours length of stay catheters Also avoid common catch-phrases such as: Avoid Raise the bar In the dark Use raise the standard uninformed I wrote the article, but I d like to thank my colleague for offering guidance on it. Can I list her as an author? Authorship cannot be conferred. If a colleague or professor has offered assistance but has not cowritten the article, he or she should be listed in a short acknowledgment at the end of the article. All persons who are listed as authors must meet the guidelines set forth by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to (1) conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data; and to (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and on (3) final approval of the version to be published. Conditions (1), (2), and (3) must all be met. 1 I copied and pasted a little bit of text from an article and used it in my manuscript. Is this plagiarism? With the widespread use of the internet, it is easy to copy text from an article online, use it in your article, and then forget where it came from. This practice has landed even the most reputable scholars in hot water. Lifting text verbatim from another source without referencing it constitutes plagiarism, and is considered to be academic and
professional dishonesty. Be very careful to track your sources. It is fine to use short passages (four lines or less) from a text or article, just be sure to reference it. Do editors really care about minor spelling mistakes? I ve used spell-check and it didn t find any errors. Proofreading isn t just about checking for spelling mistakes. It s about reading over your article to make sure your reader will understand the purpose and scope of your article. One of the most important aspects of proofreading is making sure you ve said what you need to say in clear, unembellished language, using the least amount of words. Check for run-on sentences, unnecessary words, and potentially contentious or condescending language. For new authors, it is always a good idea to give your article to a colleague for proofreading (especially if he or she has professional publishing experience). Using a spell-check function on the computer will not catch poor grammar, poor word choices, or clinical terminology. The computer also will not tell you if your paper flows well, or if it needs reorganizing but your colleague will! My article just came back from peer review and I m overwhelmed by the amount of comments. Do I have to make all these changes? Peer-reviewed journals require reviewers to provide suggestions for improvement on any article they review. At the Journal of Infusion Nursing, over 90% of articles are sent back to the author for revisions (sometimes more than once) before publication. Don t be surprised or hurt if your article comes back with questions, criticism, or suggestions. This is part of the writing process, and it is why peer-review is the gold standard for professional journals because readers know that the content of each article has undergone a thorough vetting process. Conversely, it is a great thrill when your article goes through revision and is accepted by your peers, because you know that your work has been evaluated by other experts and is good enough to be published. When you receive a reviewer s critique, take a hard look at their suggestions, and then consider which ones you feel will genuinely improve your article. Sometimes, reviewers will make suggestions or ask questions that will require you to write beyond the scope of your paper. It is your prerogative to overlook suggestions that you feel are not relevant to the article, but you should first consider suggestions and decide if they will improve the article. References 1. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. JAMA. 1997;278:68-76. Copyright 2005 Infusion Nurses Society