It can be difficult to decide which type of publication to write to further your research career and increase your scientific impact. This Knowledge Base article provides an overview of publications for you to consider. Each type is presented with background and other relevant information to facilitate your decision-making process. For more detailed information, including methodology and examples for each type of publication, please see the attached document, “Publication Type Reference Page”.
Editorial
- Can be published in a scientific journal or news media
- Short essay to express your view, often about an article or review that was recently published
- Potential for career advancement:
- Student/early career – not a good fit
- Mid-career – well suited if you are considered an expert in the field
- Established – well suited if you are considered an expert in the field
Letter to the editor
- Can be published in a scientific journal or news media
- Expresses comments, questions, or criticisms about article(s) or topic(s) covered in that source
- Potential for career advancement::
- Student/early career – could be a good fit in a non-peer-reviewed publication to build your CV
- Mid-career – well suited if you want to engage scientific community or specific author
- Established – well suited if you want to engage scientific community or specific author
Case report or case series
- Summary of a single patient case or multiple patient cases
- Designed to educate health professionals about a particular illness and approaches to treating patients with that condition
- Potential for career advancement:
- Student/early career – could be a good fit for a clinically relevant, peer-reviewed publication to build your CV
- Mid-career – well suited if you are a clinical health professional that wants to highlight an important patient case(s) to inform clinical practice
- Established – well suited if you are a clinical health professional that wants to highlight an important patient case(s) to inform clinical practice
Conference abstract
- Abstract written about unpublished original research
- Should be relevant to the theme of the conference
- May be connected to a poster presentation
- Opportunity to present ongoing work to researchers in your field
- Potential for career advancement:
- Student/early career – good fit if you are working on an ongoing original research project and need practice writing an abstract and potentially presenting a poster at a conference (This would be a non-peer-reviewed citation to build your CV)
- Mid-career – well suited if you want to present important ongoing original research at a relevant conference
- Established – well suited if you want to present important ongoing original research at a relevant conference
Original research article
- There are various types of original research papers
- Animal research (investigative, observational, experimental)
- Cross-sectional
- Observational (e.g., cohort, case control)
- Experimental (e.g., crossover, clinical trial)
- Report the results of research on topics ranging from mechanisms to clinical trials
- Potential for career advancement:
- Student/early career – good fit if you want experience or are planning a career in conducting laboratory or clinical research
- Students: Seek out mentors or opportunities to work in a research team to contribute to original research publications
- Early career: may be working with senior members of research team on their projects and related publications
- Mid-career – well suited to develop your research profile and CV
- Contribute new knowledge to the scientific literature
- Become more competitive for grant opportunities
- Become more competitive for promotion and tenure
- Maintain funding to support a research team or lab
- Established – well suited to develop your research profile and CV
- Contribute new knowledge to the scientific literature
- Stay competitive for grant opportunities
- Maintain funding to support a research team or lab
- Student/early career – good fit if you want experience or are planning a career in conducting laboratory or clinical research
Critically appraised topic (CAT)
- Tool for health professionals to make sure their clinical practices are underpinned by evidence-based practice
- Answers specific, patient-oriented questions
- Has a structured methodology
- Short summary of the most up-to-date, high quality available evidence
- Potential for career advancement:
- Student/e arly career – good fit if you want experience or a career in clinical care
- Students: Seek out clinical mentors for opportunities to contribute to a CAT
- Some doctoral students may be required to write a CAT as part of their program
- Early career: may be contributing to CATs of senior clinical mentors or may be writing your own CAT
- Mid-career – good fit if you want to contribute an evidence-based publication to guide clinical care
- Established – good fit if you want to contribute an evidence-based publication to guide clinical care
- Student/e arly career – good fit if you want experience or a career in clinical care
Review
- Numerous types of reviews
- Narrative literature review
- Expert summary of relevant literature for a particular research topic
- Integrative review (evidence synthesis)
- Integration of empirical research studies and concept analysis for a particular research topic
- Scoping review
- Comprehensive review looking to characterize the research conducted on a specific research question and identify: gaps in the literature, what/how variables have been studied, characteristics of population, intervention/exposure or outcome, etc.
- Systematic review
- Comprehensive review looking to find all relevant research studies looking at a particular research question to better understand the summary effect of an intervention on an outcome
- Meta-analysis
- A systematic review where the relevant data published in the included studies is analyzed to determine the true summary effect of the intervention on the specified outcome
- Umbrella review
- An analysis of systematic reviews that focuses on a broad condition or problem for which there are two or more potential interventions and highlights reviews that address these interventions and their results
- Narrative literature review
- Potential for career advancement:
- Student/early career – good fit if you want experience in conducting comprehensive reviews and to develop your CV
- Students: Seek out mentors or opportunities to work in a research team to contribute to these types of reviews
- Early career: may be working with senior members of research team on their review
- Mid-career – well suited to develop your research profile, increase your h-index, and bolster your CV
- Well-conducted reviews can inform clinical practice and policy decisions
- Certain types of reviews are highly cited, especially if they are published in a reputable journal and are methodologically sound
- Established – well suited to develop your research profile, increase your h-Index, and bolster your CV
- Well-conducted reviews can inform clinical practice and policy decisions
- Certain types of reviews are highly cited, especially if they are published in a reputable journal and are methodologically sound
- Student/early career – good fit if you want experience in conducting comprehensive reviews and to develop your CV
Practice guideline
- Establish standards of care backed by strong scientific evidence
- Include recommendations to optimize patient care
- Often created by professional associations (such as the American Heart Association) with their own standards and expected methodology
- Informed by systematic review of evidence and assessment of the benefits and risks of alternative care options
- Potential for career advancement:
- Student/early career – not a good fit.
- Mid-career – well suited if you are considered an expert in the field
- Established – well suited if you are considered an expert in the field
Health policy brief
- A focused discussion of an action to achieve intentional and purposeful movement
- Should include best available evidence to support a devised policy or range of policy options and a narrative analysis that considers the impact of a proposed policy
- See the SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health policymaking
- Analytic in nature; author should remain objective even if evidence is persuasive
- Potential for career advancement:
- Student/early career – could be a good fit for public health student, and may be required as part of coursework to gain experience with this type of publication
- Recommended to have a mentor that is an expert in topic area
- Mid-career – well suited if you are considered an expert in the field
- Established – well suited if you are considered an expert in the field
- Student/early career – could be a good fit for public health student, and may be required as part of coursework to gain experience with this type of publication
References
- Arksey H, O'Malley L. (2005). Scoping studies: Towards a methodological framework. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 8:1, 19-32.
- Callander J, Anstey AV, Ingram JR, Limpens J, Flohr C, Spuls PI. (2019). How to write a critically appraised topic: Evidence to underpin routine clinical practice. British Journal of Dermatology 177(4):1007-1013.
- Daudt, H. M. L., van Mossel, C., & Scott, S. J. (2013). Enhancing the scoping study methodology: A large, inter-professional team's experience with Arksey and O'malley's framework. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 13, 48.
- Graham R, Mancher M, Miller Wolman D, et al. (editors). (2011). Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust. National Academies Press.
- Grant MJ, Booth A. (2009). A typology of reviews: An analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 26(2):91-108.
- Gray, R. (2015). Now hang on a minute: Five rules for writing an editorial. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 22: 559-560.
- Guidelines to writing a clinical case report. (2017). Heart Views: The Official Journal of the Gulf Heart Association, 18(3), 104–105.
- Higgins JPT, Thomas J, Chandler J, Cumpston M, Li T, Page MJ, Welch VA (editors). (2020). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions, version 6.1. Cochrane.
- Knight KL. (2010). Study/experimental/research design: Much more than statistics. Journal of Athletic Training, 45(1), 98–100.
- Levac D, Colquhoun H, O'Brien KK. (2010). Scoping studies: Advancing the methodology. Implementation Science. 5, 69.
- Liberati A, Altman DG, Tetzlaff J, Mulrow C, Gøtzsche PC, et al. (2009) The PRISMA statement for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses of studies that evaluate health care interventions: Explanation and elaboration. PLOS Medicine, 6(7): e1000100.
- Mann CJ. (2003). Observational research methods. Research design II: Cohort, cross sectional, and case-control studies. Emergency Medicine Journal, 20(1), 54–60.
- National Research Council Committee to Update Science, Medicine, and Animals. Science, Medicine, and Animals. (2004). Regulation of Animal Research. National Academies Press.
- Oxman AD, Lavis JN, Lewin S, Fretheim A. (2009). SUPPORT tools for evidence-informed health policymaking (STP) 1: What is evidence-informed policymaking? Health Research Policy and Systems, 7 (Suppl 1), S1.
- PRISMA Protocols website: https://www.prisma-statement.org/
- PRISMA-Scoping Review extension website: https://www.prisma-statement.org/scoping
- Scherer RW, Saldanha JJ. (2019). How should systematic reviewers handle conference abstracts? View from the trenches. Syststematic Reviews, 8:264.
- Stevens LM, Lynm C, Glass RM. (2006). Medical journals. JAMA, 295(15):1860.
- Walsh K. (2005). Writing a letter to a medical journal. BMJ, 331:s169.
- Watson NFS. (2005), Submitting a conference abstract. BMJ, 331:s264.
- Whittemore R, Knafl K. (2005). The integrative review: Updated methodology. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 52(5), 546–553.
- Wong SL, Green LA, Bazemore AW, Miller BF. (2017). How to write a health policy brief. Families, Systems, and Health, 35(1):21-24.