Medical publishing
Executive Editor, InnovAiT
E-mail: chantal.simon{at}oxfordjournals.org
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Abstract |
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 TOP Abstract Local initiativesReviewingWriting letters to be...Writing articles for journals...Writing booksWriting material for electronic...Medical editingPayment and feesCopyright and authors' personal...Summary |
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Although the core function of general practice is patient care, there are many opportunities for GPs to get involved in other educational and academic activities. Most GPs find academic activities a useful adjunct to their clinical work. As well as being educational and broadening horizons, such activities stimulate GPs to think and reappraise their own clinical work and the work of their practice. This article aims to give an overview of the range of opportunities available within medical publishing and some tips on how to access those opportunities.
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Local initiatives |
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TOPAbstractLocal initiativesReviewingWriting letters to be...Writing articles for journals...Writing booksWriting material for electronic...Medical editingPayment and feesCopyright and authors' personal...Summary |
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If you want to try your hand at writing educational material, there may be opportunities already within your own practice. If your practice produces a newsletter for patients, consider writing a self-help article to be published in it. Alternatively, many practices have journal clubs or regular education sessions. Volunteer to lead one of these sessions and write some supporting educational material for your colleagues.
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Reviewing |
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TOPAbstractLocal initiativesReviewingWriting letters to be...Writing articles for journals...Writing booksWriting material for electronic...Medical editingPayment and feesCopyright and authors' personal...Summary |
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Peer reviewing articles for journals, whether research-oriented journals or educational journals, is a good way to find out how other people write. You will soon pick up style points that you think are effective and others that you find annoying. It is also useful to review other people's articles if you are intending to submit an article of your own to a journal as it helps you to become familiar with the style and the level at which articles are pitched for that particular journal.
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Writing letters to be published in journals |
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TOPAbstractLocal initiativesReviewingWriting letters to be...Writing articles for journals...Writing booksWriting material for electronic...Medical editingPayment and feesCopyright and authors' personal...Summary |
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If you have strong feelings about information that is published in a newspaper or academic journal, consider writing a letter to express your views. This is a much smaller undertaking than writing a whole article, but gives you insights into the way that publications are put together and practice in getting your point across in a succinct and interesting way.
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Writing articles for journals and other medical publications |
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TOPAbstractLocal initiativesReviewingWriting letters to be...Writing articles for journals...Writing booksWriting material for electronic...Medical editingPayment and feesCopyright and authors' personal...Summary |
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Writing an article for a journal is a good way to test out your writing skills. First pick your journal. Choice of journal will depend on the type of article that you want to write. For example, the British Medical Journal contains reports on original research as well as review articles on topics of broad interest to doctors. InnovAiT contains educational articles linked to the GP Curriculum and is aimed at GPs in training.
Once you have chosen your journal and before writing your article, read a few back issues to get a feel for the journal style. Go to the journal website to find out how to submit an article and download the authors’ instructions. Make sure when you write your article that you stick to the authors’ instructions. Many journals will send your article straight back to you without considering it further if it is not formatted correctly. If you have any questions, then contact the editorial office of the journal and ask.
Choice of topic is important. Good topics are ones that interest you, are small enough to tackle within a single article and are clearly defined. Decide the scope of your article before you start writing and stick to your remit.
There is no right or wrong way to write an article but I find the formula outlined in Box 1 helpful.
Box 1. Step-by-step guide to writing a medical article
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Most respectable journals have a peer review process. They send your submitted article to other people interested in the field. The peer review process can be harsh and, in my experience, reviews are frequently destructive rather than constructive—particularly, if you have submitted an article to some of the bigger, more selective journals. It is important not to take reviewers’ comments personally. Some journals have a huge volume of submissions and reject a large proportion, so do not be disheartened if this happens to you. Try to extract the valid points that the reviewers have made in their reviews, use them to improve your article and then either resubmit your article to the same journal (if it has not been rejected) or revise its format to that of another journal style and submit it elsewhere.
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Writing books |
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TOPAbstractLocal initiativesReviewingWriting letters to be...Writing articles for journals...Writing booksWriting material for electronic...Medical editingPayment and feesCopyright and authors' personal...Summary |
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Writing a book is a major undertaking but can be very rewarding. If you want to write a book, the first step is to decide on a topic. Producing a book is an expensive process. Publishers will not take a book proposal forward unless the project is commercially viable. Therefore, there must be an obvious market for a book on the topic that you have chosen and also a gap in the literature already available on that topic.
When you have chosen your topic, you need to put together a book proposal and prepare some sample material. When building the contents list of a book, the contents of an individual chapter within a book or even just the structure of a specific topic within a chapter, I use the same basic principles, outlined in Box 1, that I use when writing an article.
Most publishers now have pro formas for book proposals, so contact the medical commissioning editor of the publisher that you are aiming to submit your proposal to, and if they do not have a pro forma, ask what they would like to be included in any proposal. Box 2 lists the information usually required.
Box 2. Information to include in a book proposal
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Medical book publishers send book proposals out for peer review in much the same way as articles are sent out for review by journals. Be prepared to answer the comments made by the reviewers.
If your proposal is accepted, then the hard work starts. It is very easy to get bogged down writing a book and takes a great deal of self-motivation to complete the task. Stick to your original remit, break the task down into manageable chunks and set yourself realistic targets to complete each task within a given time frame. When you are happy with the finished product, draw a line underneath the project and submit it as it is possible to tweak the contents forever and still find more to change. If you have made any errors, then there will be chances to correct them at later stages in the production process.
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Writing material for electronic platforms |
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TOPAbstractLocal initiativesReviewingWriting letters to be...Writing articles for journals...Writing booksWriting material for electronic...Medical editingPayment and feesCopyright and authors' personal...Summary |
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Electronic publishing (e-publishing) is emerging as a major player in the medical publishing world. Although there are new techniques that can be applied to electronic formats, the general principles of medical publishing apply. If you are interested in producing material for this exciting new platform, contact the commissioning editors running e-publishing projects to obtain more details of how to become involved.
The RCGP is currently developing a comprehensive e-learning programme called e-GP. e-GP is a website that provides doctors with free access to online e-learning modules covering a range of GP topics. The e-learning is intended to support GP training and preparation for the nMRCGP. If you would be interested in becoming an author for e-GP, please visit the website, www.e-GP.org and click on ‘Get Involved’.
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Medical editing |
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TOPAbstractLocal initiativesReviewingWriting letters to be...Writing articles for journals...Writing booksWriting material for electronic...Medical editingPayment and feesCopyright and authors' personal...Summary |
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Medical editors are managers who co-ordinate the production of written or electronic material for publication. In general, it helps to have done at least some medical writing before taking on an editing project. An editor's job is to have an overview of the whole task and to ensure that everything produced by the people working on or submitting material to the project is in line with the overall aims and objectives of that project.
In the case of periodicals, this will involve determining the structure of the whole journal or section of the journal that you are responsible for. It will involve deciding what goes into each issue of the journal and the order in which that material will be presented. For books, the editing process involves formatting the book to give the material within it an identity and cutting material and/or moving it around to give the overall effect that is envisaged for the book.
You can make your own opportunities for medical editing, for example by submitting a book proposal with yourself as the editor of the book. Alternatively, you can apply for an advertised medical editor's post. Opportunities exist at all levels and often, for junior editor posts, no prior experience of editing is necessary.
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Payment and fees |
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TOPAbstractLocal initiativesReviewingWriting letters to be...Writing articles for journals...Writing booksWriting material for electronic...Medical editingPayment and feesCopyright and authors' personal...Summary |
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Payments and fees vary widely. Most respected academic journals published on behalf of or by academic institutions do not pay their authors for their articles nor do they pay the reviewers of those articles. Commercial publications may pay fees. If you are unsure whether a fee is payable, ask before you write your article. Editors of journals do get paid but fees are extremely variable and often only amount to a small honorarium plus expenses.
Authors and editors of books are either paid a fee by the publisher on completion of the project or a percentage of the profits from the sale of the publication (royalties). If you agree to a flat fee payment, then you are guaranteed some financial return for your efforts. If a percentage of profits is paid, then you may not see any profit from the hard work that you have put in to producing your book for up to a year after publication—and then only if the book sells. On the other hand, if you happen to write a best-seller, the financial rewards may be considerably higher.
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Copyright and authors' personal rights |
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TOPAbstractLocal initiativesReviewingWriting letters to be...Writing articles for journals...Writing booksWriting material for electronic...Medical editingPayment and feesCopyright and authors' personal...Summary |
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Copyright issues are a minefield. In the UK, whenever a person writes a journal article, letter, online article or any other form of written material, that material is known as a ‘work’. The author automatically owns the copyright for that work until it is formally assigned to another person or organization.
In order to publish a work, a publisher must seek permission to reproduce it from the author. Publishers do this in one of two ways:
- Assignment of copyright—the author assigns the copyrights of the work to the publisher, usually for the whole duration of copyright (although the author still retains moral rights). The publisher often grants certain rights back to the author, such as the right to reproduce their own work for non-commercial purposes.
- Licence to publish—the author retains the copyright but signs a licence agreement that grants exclusive rights to the publisher. These rights are usually exhaustive and may include the right for the publisher to reproduce the work in all formats throughout the world for the full duration of copyright.
For the majority of medical publications, there is little practical difference for the author between these two methods. However, copyright law is complex and you would be wise to seek professional advice before committing to any assignment of copyright, or licence to publish agreement, for a major work.
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988) also protects the personal rights of authors over their work. These rights are known as ‘moral rights’. Because moral rights are personal, they cannot be transferred to a publisher. The moral rights include the author's right to be credited as the author of a work (attribution right) and ‘integrity right’ or the author's right to object to derogatory treatment of their work. Derogatory treatment includes modification of a work that distorts it or affects the author's reputation. Further advice on copyright and on personal (moral) rights can be obtained from the UK Intellectual Property Office (www.ipo.gov.uk).
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Summary |
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TOPAbstractLocal initiativesReviewingWriting letters to be...Writing articles for journals...Writing booksWriting material for electronic...Medical editingPayment and feesCopyright and authors' personal...Summary |
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Medical publishing is a huge and varied field. Getting involved with medical publishing can be both educational and stimulating. It is a flexible adjunct to clinical general practice with which anyone can become involved at any level—from preparing a newsletter for the patients of the practice to editing a major textbook. I hope that reading this article will encourage you to have a go. Further information about getting involved with writing or reviewing for InnovAiT can be obtained by e-mail from: innovait.editorialoffice{at}oxfordjournals.org.
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