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Q: What different types of articles do journals publish and how to identify a specific article type?

What are the different types of articles published in journals? How do I find out if a published article is an original study or a discussion paper?

Asked on 01 Mar, 2019

As a researcher, it is important for you to have an idea about the different types of articles that you can publish in journals. Research articles can be classified into two broad categories: primary literature and secondary literature.

Primary literature refers to articles that require original research. The article types that fall under this category are:

• Original research papers
• Clinical case studies

Secondary literature includes articles that do not involve original research but are based on other published work. Some examples of article types belonging to this category are:

• Review articles: These can be of three different types:
• Literature review
• Systematic review
• Meta-analysis
• Discussion based articles such as perspective/opinion pieces
• Book reviews

We have some excellent resources that will help you understand the characteristic features of some of the common types of articles published in journals:

• 7 Common article types that journals publish
• 6 Article types that journals publish: A guide for early career researchers
• What types of articles do journals publish?
• Are you aware of the different types of articles you can publish?

Identifying the article type of paper that you are reading can take a bit of practice. You'll find it easier to identify as you read more of published literature and familiarize yourself with different article types. Sometimes, the title may be a giveaway; for instance, some review articles mention the phrase "a systematic review" within the title. However, if there is no clear indication of the article type in the title or abstract (discussion article, review article or empirical study), the only way to identify this would be to go through the entire paper. 

An empirical study or an original research paper will follow the IMRaD structure and will include a hypothesis, background of study, methods, results, interpretation of findings, and a discussion of possible implications. On the other hand, a systematic review will not present original data but will address the research question by analyzing data from a selection of existing literature. A discussion article, such as an opinion or perspective piece will present the views of the author on a specific topic through discussion of existing studies or logical reasoning, but will not involve a methods section (since no experiment is conducted and no data is collected). Initially, you might take some time to identify an article type, but as I mentioned earlier, it will come more naturally to you as your familiarity with scientific literature increases.

Related reading:

• Expert advice on reading scientific literature as a habit
• How should I assess scientific literature to prepare myself for writing a paper?

Answered by Editage Insights on 12 Mar, 2019

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Types of journal articles

It is helpful to familiarise yourself with the different types of articles published by journals. Although it may appear there are a large number of types of articles published due to the wide variety of names they are published under, most articles published are one of the following types; Original Research, Review Articles, Short reports or Letters, Case Studies, Methodologies.

Original Research:

This is the most common type of journal manuscript used to publish full reports of data from research. It may be called an  Original Article, Research Article, Research, or just  Article, depending on the journal. The Original Research format is suitable for many different fields and different types of studies. It includes full Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections.

Short reports or Letters:

These papers communicate brief reports of data from original research that editors believe will be interesting to many researchers, and that will likely stimulate further research in the field. As they are relatively short the format is useful for scientists with results that are time sensitive (for example, those in highly competitive or quickly-changing disciplines). This format often has strict length limits, so some experimental details may not be published until the authors write a full Original Research manuscript. These papers are also sometimes called Brief communications .

Review Articles:

Review Articles provide a comprehensive summary of research on a certain topic, and a perspective on the state of the field and where it is heading. They are often written by leaders in a particular discipline after invitation from the editors of a journal. Reviews are often widely read (for example, by researchers looking for a full introduction to a field) and highly cited. Reviews commonly cite approximately 100 primary research articles.

TIP: If you would like to write a Review but have not been invited by a journal, be sure to check the journal website as some journals to not consider unsolicited Reviews. If the website does not mention whether Reviews are commissioned it is wise to send a pre-submission enquiry letter to the journal editor to propose your Review manuscript before you spend time writing it.  

Case Studies:

These articles report specific instances of interesting phenomena. A goal of Case Studies is to make other researchers aware of the possibility that a specific phenomenon might occur. This type of study is often used in medicine to report the occurrence of previously unknown or emerging pathologies.

Methodologies or Methods

These articles present a new experimental method, test or procedure. The method described may either be completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method. The article should describe a demonstrable advance on what is currently available.

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Guide to Scholarly Articles

• What is a Scholarly Article?
• Scholarly vs. Popular vs. Trade Articles

Types of Scholarly Articles

Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods articles, why does this matter.

• Anatomy of Scholarly Articles
• Tips for Reading Scholarly Articles

Scholarly articles come in many different formats each with their own function in the scholarly conversation. The following are a few of the major types of scholarly articles you are likely to encounter as you become a part of the conversation. Identifying the different types of scholarly articles and knowing their function will help you become a better researcher.

Original/Empirical Studies

• Note: Empirical studies can be subdivided into qualitative studies, quantitative studies, or mixed methods studies. See below for more information  
• Usefulness for research:  Empirical studies are useful because they provide current original research on a topic which may contain a hypothesis or interpretation to advance or to disprove. 

Literature Reviews

• Distinguishing characteristic:  Literature reviews survey and analyze a clearly delaminated body of scholarly literature.  
• Usefulness for research: Literature reviews are useful as a way to quickly get up to date on a particular topic of research.

Theoretical Articles

• Distinguishing characteristic:  Theoretical articles draw on existing scholarship to improve upon or offer a new theoretical perspective on a given topic.
• Usefulness for research:  Theoretical articles are useful because they provide a theoretical framework you can apply to your own research.

Methodological Articles

• Distinguishing characteristic:  Methodological articles draw on existing scholarship to improve or offer new methodologies for exploring a given topic.
• Usefulness for research:  Methodological articles are useful because they provide a methodologies you can apply to your own research.

Case Studies

• Distinguishing characteristic:  Case studies focus on individual examples or instances of a phenomenon to illustrate a research problem or a a solution to a research problem.
• Usefulness for research:  Case studies are useful because they provide information about a research problem or data for analysis.

Book Reviews

• Distinguishing characteristic:  Book reviews provide summaries and evaluations of individual books.
• Usefulness for research:  Book reviews are useful because they provide summaries and evaluations of individual books relevant to your research.

Adapted from the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association : the official guide to APA style. (Sixth edition.). (2013). American Psychological Association.

Qualitative articles  ask "why" questions where as  quantitative  articles  ask "how many/how much?" questions. These approaches are are not mutually exclusive. In fact, many articles combine the two in a  mixed-methods  approach. 

We can think of these different kinds of scholarly articles as different tools designed for different tasks. What research task do you need to accomplish? Do you need to get up to date on a give topic? Find a literature review. Do you need to find a hypothesis to test or to extend? Find an empirical study. Do you need to explore methodologies? Find a methodological article.

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• URL: https://researchguides.library.tufts.edu/scholarly-articles

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About The BMJ

• Resources for authors

Article types and preparation

At The BMJ , we offer authors the opportunity to submit a range of article types. You can find out more about preparing and submitting a particular style of article by clicking on the links below. Please take the time to explore these instructions before proceeding with a submission. Further details about each of these individual sections and article types are discussed further down this page.

Article Types at The BMJ

Requirements for all manuscripts.

Please ensure that anything you submit to The BMJ conforms to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals  uniform recommendations for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals.

Before submitting an article, please ensure that you have followed all guidelines below. We recommend learning about our house style and ways to incorporate images into your submission .

Title page and authorship

The title should be informative and, for research papers, a subtitle with the study design (for example, "a phase III clinical trial" or "a systematic review and meta-analysis").

In this page, please provide for each author his or her name, affiliation (job title) at the time the paper was written, email and, for the corresponding author, the best contact address. All authors must fulfill the ICMJE criteria for authorship . If the number of authors is very large we may ask for confirmation that everyone listed met the ICMJE criteria for authorship . We also offer the option of joint first authorship when two authors meet criteria for such a designation. We reserve the right to require that authors form a group whose name will appear in the article byline. MEDLINE guidance explains that group authorship is acceptable, stating "When a group name for a specific consortium, committee, study group, or the like appears in an article byline, the personal names of the members of that group may be published in the article text. Such names are entered as collaborator names for the MEDLINE citation."

Further details about The BMJ 's stance on authorship, contributorship, and group authorship can be found on our Authorship and contributorship page.

Please note that from 30 November 2018 The BMJ is mandating ORCiD iDs for corresponding authors for all research articles if accepted, and this information will be required alongside submitted manuscripts. Co-authors and reviewers are strongly encouraged to also connect their ScholarOne accounts to ORCiD. We firmly believe that the increased use and integration of ORCiD iDs will be beneficial for the whole research community. For those who do not currently have an iD they will be required to register but this is free and takes a matter of seconds - we strongly encourage all authors to register for an ORCiD profile .

To learn more about ORCiD, please visit http://orcid.org/content/initiative

Contributor and guarantor information

Each contributorship statement should make clear who has contributed what to the planning, conduct, and reporting of the work described in the article, and should identify one, or occasionally more, contributor(s) as being responsible for the overall content as guarantor(s). The guarantor accepts full responsibility for the work and/or the conduct of the study, had access to the data, and controlled the decision to publish. The following line should also be included - "The corresponding author attests that all listed authors meet authorship criteria and that no others meeting the criteria have been omitted."

For articles in The BMJ that do not report original research - such as editorials, clinical reviews, and education and debate - please state who had the idea for the article, who performed the literature search, who wrote the article, and who is the guarantor (the contributor who accepts full responsibility for the finished article, had access to any data, and controlled the decision to publish). For non-research articles that include case reports such as lessons of the week, drug points, and interactive case reports, please also state who identified and/or managed the case(s). We encourage authors to fully acknowledge the contribution of patients and the public to their research where appropriate.

Copyright/license for publication

Since January 2000, The BMJ has not asked authors of journal articles to assign us their copyright and authors (or their employers) retain their copyright in the article. All we require from authors is an exclusive licence (or, from government employees who cannot grant this, a non-exclusive licence) that allows us to publish the article in The BMJ (including any derivative products) and any other BMJ products (such as the Student BMJ or overseas editions), and allows us to sublicense such rights and exploit all subsidiary rights.

We ask the corresponding author to grant this exclusive licence (or non-exclusive for government employees) on behalf of all authors by reading our licence and inserting in the manuscript on submission the following statement:

“The Corresponding Author has the right to grant on behalf of all authors and does grant on behalf of all authors, a worldwide licence to the Publishers and its licensees in perpetuity, in all forms, formats and media (whether known now or created in the future), to i) publish, reproduce, distribute, display and store the Contribution, ii) translate the Contribution into other languages, create adaptations, reprints, include within collections and create summaries, extracts and/or, abstracts of the Contribution, iii) create any other derivative work(s) based on the Contribution, iv) to exploit all subsidiary rights in the Contribution, v) the inclusion of electronic links from the Contribution to third party material where-ever it may be located; and, vi) licence any third party to do any or all of the above."

This licence allows authors to use their own articles for their own non-commercial purposes without seeking permission from us. Only if the use is commercial do we need to know about it. In addition, we will pay authors a royalty on certain commercial uses that we negotiate.

Information on permissions for authors and third parties for reuse can be found here .

Manuscripts authored or co-authored by one or more NIH employees must be submitted with a completed and signed NIH Publishing Agreement and Manuscript Cover Sheet according to NIH’s Employee Procedures .

Patient consent (if applicable)

Publication of any personal information about a patient in The BMJ - for example, in a case report or clinical photograph - will normally require the signed consent of the patient. If this is the case, please include a statement that any identifiable patients have provided their signed consent to publication and submit, as a supplemental file, The BMJ 's patient consent form that is available in several languages .

Competing interests declaration

A competing interest - often called a conflict of interest - exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients' welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain, academic promotion, or personal rivalry). It may arise for the authors of an article in The BMJ when they have a financial interest that may influence, probably without their knowing, their interpretation of their results or those of others.

We believe that, to make the best decision on how to deal with an article, we should know about any competing interests that authors may have, and that if we publish the article readers should know about them too. We are not aiming to eradicate such interests across all article types in The BMJ . However, certain articles (see below) fall under a stricter policy announced in 2014 . This means that authors whose financial conflicts of interest are judged to be relevant by the BMJ team are not permitted to write these articles. We also ask our staff and reviewers to declare any competing interests.

A declaration of interests for all authors must be received before an article can be reviewed and accepted for publication. It should take one of two forms, depending on what type of article you are submitting. The links to the relevant forms are provided at the end of this section.

For editorials and education articles (excluding State Of The Art reviews and Therapeutics articles)

Since 2014, The BMJ requires that such articles must be written by authors without relevant financial ties to industry . By "industry" we mean companies producing drugs, medical foods, nutraceuticals, devices, apps or tests; medical education companies; or other companies with a financial or reputational interest in the topic of the article. We consider the following relationships with industry to be relevant, making it unlikely that we would be able to publish your work: employment; ownership of stocks and shares (this excludes mutual funds or other situations in which the person is not in a position to control investment decisions) ; travel and accommodation expenses; paid consultancy or directorship; patent ownership; aid membership of speakers' panels or bureaus and advisory board; acting as an expert witness ; being in receipt of a fellowship, equipment, writing, or administrative support; writing or consulting for a medical education promotional or communications company. If you are in doubt about the relevance of any potential conflict of interest please discuss with the editor of the appropriate section before submission.

All authors must review the updated COI policy and complete The BMJ 's Education Declaration of Interests form . If the article is accepted for publication these completed forms will be stored and made available on request. The corresponding author should insert within their manuscript a summary statement derived from the information provided in the COI forms (link below): " I/We have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: [list them or state that you have none]."

Examples of different sorts of summary statements:

No competing interests : "We have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and declare that we have no competing interests."

Competing interests disclosed: " We have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: AA is an unpaid member of XX group developing guidelines for ZZ."

For Research and RMR papers

We ask authors of research papers to use a revised version of the ICMJE’s unified disclosure form . The unified form can be used for several journals. Each journal, will, however, integrate the form into its processes in different ways.

Authors must disclose three types of information:

Associations with commercial entities that provided support for the work reported in the submitted manuscript (the timeframe for disclosure in this section of the form is the lifespan of the work being reported).

Associations with commercial entities that could be viewed as having an interest in the general area of the submitted manuscript (in the three years before submission of the manuscript).

Non-financial associations that may be relevant or seen as relevant to the submitted manuscript.

All authors must complete the disclosure form and send it to the corresponding author who will use the information in the forms to craft the COI statement for the paper (examples provided below). The statement but not the forms must be included with the submission. and that must be included with the initial submission. If the paper is accepted, these forms will be required and will be published alongside the article.

The statement in the manuscript should take the following format:

"Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at http://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/ and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work [or describe if any]; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years [or describe if any]; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work [or describe if any].”

Examples of statements:

No competing interests: "All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at http://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/ and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work."

Grant funding for research but no other competing interest: "All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at http://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/ and declare: all authors had financial support from ABC Company for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work."

Mixed competing interests: "All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at http://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/ and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; AB has received research grants and honorariums from XYZ company, BF has been paid for developing and delivering educational presentations for BBB foundation, DF does consultancy for HHH and VVV companies; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work."

For all other papers

Complete The BMJ 's Disclosure form . We do not need to receive signed copies of the statements regarding competing interests or the licence to publication: these are for information only. When submitting your article (or a revised version of it) you will be prompted at our online editorial office to tick two boxes , confirming that you have read and complied with our policies on competing interests and licence to publication. Please also ensure that your manuscript, whether in original or revised form, also includes your written statements of competing interests and licence to publication.

Additional requirements by Article Type

In addition to the above, all of our articles have additional requirements which should be fulfilled before submitting. For more information on any of the requirements below, please contact [email protected] .

We have produced a checklist to help authors decide whether The BMJ is the right journal for their research. If the work does not seem to fit in The BMJ , it may be better sent straight to another journal with a more specialist or local readership or a higher acceptance rate.

To learn more about the kind of research articles we give priority to, and what services we offer to authors of research, please read the editorial "Publishing your research study in the BMJ ?" . Please note that we welcome studies - even with "negative" results - as long as their research questions are important, new, and relevant to general readers and their designs are appropriate and robust.

Word count and style

To encourage full and transparent reporting of research we do not set fixed word count limits for research articles. Nonetheless, we ask you to make your article concise and make every word count. You will be prompted to provide the word count for the main text (excluding the abstract, references, tables, boxes, or figures) when you submit your manuscript.

Original research articles should follow the IMRaD style (introduction, methods, results, and discussion) and should include a structured abstract (see below), a structured discussion, and a succinct introduction that focuses - in no more than three paragraphs - on the background to the research question.

For an intervention study, the manuscript should include enough information about the intervention(s) and comparator(s) (even if this was usual care) for reviewers and readers to understand fully what happened in the study. To enable readers to replicate your work or implement the interventions in their own practice, please also provide any relevant detailed descriptions and materials (uploaded as one or more supplemental files, including video and audio files where appropriate). Alternatively, please provide in the manuscript URLs to openly accessible websites where these materials can be found.

Please ensure that the discussion section of your article comprises no more than a page and a half and follows this overall structure, although you do not need to signpost these elements with subheadings:

• Statement of principal findings • Strengths and weaknesses of the study • Strengths and weaknesses in relation to other studies, discussing important differences in results • Meaning of the study: possible explanations and implications for clinicians and policymakers • Unanswered questions and future research

This video gives more detailed advice on writing each section of a research paper for The BMJ .

Structured abstract

Please ensure that the structured abstract is as complete, accurate, and clear as possible and has been approved by all authors. We may screen original research articles by reading only the abstract.

Abstracts should be 250- 300 words long: you may need up to 400 words, however, for a CONSORT or PRISMA style abstract. MEDLINE can now handle up to 600 words. Abstracts should include the following headings, but they may be modified for abstracts of clinical trials or systematic reviews and meta-analyses according to the requirements on the the CONSORT extension for abstracts and the PRISMA extension for abstracts , respectively.

• Objectives - a clear statement of the main aim of the study and the major hypothesis tested or research question posed • Design - including factors such as prospective, randomisation, blinding, placebo control, case control, crossover, criterion standards for diagnostic tests, etc. • Setting - include the level of care, eg primary, secondary; number of participating centres. Be general rather than give the name of the specific centre, but give the geographical location if this is important • Participants (instead of patients or subjects) - numbers entering and completing the study, sex, and ethnic group if appropriate. Give clear definitions of how selected, entry and exclusion criteria. • Interventions - what, how, when and for how long. This heading can be deleted if there were no interventions but should normally be included for randomised controlled trials, crossover trials, and before and after studies. • Main outcome measures - those planned in the protocol, those finally measured (if different, explain why). • Results - main results with (for quantitative studies) 95% confidence intervals and, where appropriate, the exact level of statistical significance and the number need to treat/harm. Whenever possible, state absolute rather than relative risks. • Conclusions - primary conclusions and their implications, suggesting areas for further research if appropriate. Do not go beyond the data in the article. Conclusions are important because this is often the only part that readers look at. • Trial registration - registry and number (for clinical trials and, if available, for observational studies and systematic reviews).

When writing your abstract, use the active voice but avoid "we did" or "we found". Numbers over 10 do not need spelling out at the start of sentences. p-values should always be accompanied by supporting data, and denominators should be given for percentages. Confidence intervals should be written in the format (15 to 27) within parentheses, using the word "to" rather than a hyphen. Abstracts do not need references.

Statistical issues

We want your piece to be easy to read but also as scientifically accurate as possible. We encourage authors to review the "Statistical Analyses and Methods in the Published Literature or The SAMPL Guidelines" while preparing their manuscript.

Whenever possible, state absolute rather than relative risks. Please include in the results section of your structured abstract (and in the article's results section) the following terms, as appropriate:

For a clinical trial:

• Absolute event rates among experimental and control groups. • RRR (relative risk reduction). • NNT or NNH (number needed to treat or harm) and its 95% confidence interval (or, if the trial is of a public health intervention, number helped per 1000 or 100,000).

For a cohort study:

• Absolute event rates over time (eg 10 years) among exposed and non-exposed groups • RRR (relative risk reduction)

For a case control study:

• OR (odds ratio) for strength of association between exposure and outcome

For a study of a diagnostic test:

• Sensitivity and specificity • PPV and NPV (positive and negative predictive values)

The box stating 'what is known' and 'what this study adds' should also reflect accurately the above information. Under what this study adds, please give the one most useful summary statistic eg NNT.

Please do not use the term 'negative' to describe studies that have not found statistically significant differences, perhaps because they were too small. There will always be some uncertainty, and we hope you will be as explicit as possible in reporting what you have found in your study. Using wording such as "our results are compatible with a decrease of this much or an increase of this much" or 'this study found no effect' is more accurate and helpful to readers than "there was no effect/no difference." Please use such wording throughout the article, including the structured abstract and the box stating what the paper adds.

Provide one or more references for the statistical package(s) used to analyse the data - for example, RevMan for a systematic review. There is no need to provide a formal reference for a very widely used package that will be familiar to general readers - for example, Stata - but please say in the text which version you used.

Reporting guidelines

Reporting guidelines promote clear reporting of methods and results to allow critical appraisal of the manuscript. We ask that all manuscripts be written in accordance with the appropriate reporting guideline. Please submit as supplemental material the appropriate reporting guideline checklist showing on which page of your manuscript each checklist item appears. A complete list of guidelines can be found in the website of the Equator Network . Below is the list of most often used checklists but others may apply.

For a clinical trials , use the CONSORT checklist and also include a structured abstract that follows the CONSORT extension for abstract checklist, the CONSORT flowchart and, where applicable, the appropriate CONSORT extension statements (for example, for cluster RCTs, pragmatic trials, etc.). A completed TIDieR checklist is also helpful as this helps to ensure that trial interventions are fully described in ways that are reproducible, usable by other clinicians, and clear enough for systematic reviewers and guideline writers.

For systematic reviews or meta-analysis of randomised trials and other evaluation studies, use the PRISMA checklist and flowchart and use the PRISMA structured abstract checklist when writing the structured abstract.

For studies of diagnostic accuracy , use the STARD checklist and flowchart.

For observational studies , use the STROBE checklist and any appropriate extension STROBE extensions.

For genetic risk prediction studies, use GRIPS .

For economic evaluation studies , use CHEERS .

For studies developing, validating or updating a prediction model , use TRIPOD .

For articles that include explicit statements of the quality of evidence and strength of recommendations, we prefer reporting using the GRADE system.

For studies using data from electronic health records, please use CODE-EHR .

Cover letter

A cover letter is your opportunity to introduce your study to the editor, highlighting the most important findings and novelty. Please also include in the letter the following information:

Mandatory patient and public involvement reporting

The BMJ is encouraging active patient and public involvement in clinical research as part of its patient partnership strategy . This is research which is "co produced" with patients, carers, or members of the public. Patient involvement in this context is not about being a research participant, answering surveys, or being an interviewee. It encompasses setting research priorities, defining research questions and outcome measures, providing input into study design and conduct, dissemination of results, and evaluation.

To support co production of research we request that authors provide a short paragraph as a subsection within the methods section of their papers entitled Patient and Public Involvement detailing how they involved the patients and the public in their research. We request this to both encourage the movement and ensure that BMJ readers can easily see whether, and if so how, patients and the public were involved in the research. If they were not involved in any way this information should be formally documented in the Patient and Public Involvement section.

As co production of research with patients and the public is relatively new we appreciate that not all authors will have involved them in their studies. We also appreciate that patient / public involvement may not be feasible or appropriate for all papers. We therefore continue to consider papers where they were not involved.

The Patient and Public Involvement section should provide a brief response to the following questions, tailored as appropriate for the study design reported:

• At what stage in the research process were patients/public first involved in the research and how? • How were the research question(s) and outcome measures developed and informed by their priorities, experience, and preferences? • How were patients/public involved in the design of this study? • How were they involved in the recruitment to and conduct of the study? • Were they asked to assess the burden of the intervention and time required to participate in the research? • How were (or will) patients and the public be involved in choosing the methods and agreeing plans for dissemination of the study results to participants and wider relevant communities? You may find this link helpful.

In addition to considering the points above we advise authors to look at guidance for best reporting of patient and public involvement as set out in the GRIPP2 reporting checklist.  

If information detailing whether there was patient and public involvement, or not, is missing in the submitted manuscript we will request authors to provide it.

Where they have been involved we consider it good practice for authors to name and thank them in the contributorship statement after seeking their permission to do so; and to clearly identify them as patient/public contributors. When they have contributed substantially and meet authorship criteria they should be invited to coauthor the manuscript.

Links to selected examples of Patient and Public Involvement statements in published BMJ research papers showing patient and carer involvement at various stages of the research process.

Comparison of the two most commonly used treatments for pyoderma gangrenosum: results of the STOP GAP randomised controlled trial

Evidence based community mobilization for dengue prevention in Nicaragua and Mexico

Computerised cognitive behaviour therapy (cCBT) as treatment for depression in primary care (REEACT trial): large scale pragmatic randomised controlled trial .

Real world effectiveness of warfarin among ischemic stroke patients with atrial fibrillation: observational analysis from Patient-Centered Research into Outcomes Stroke Patients Prefer and Effectiveness Research (PROSPER) study.

Example PPI statements to adapt for use in a paper

Examples to guide the wording for PPI statements

Data sharing

We require a data sharing statement for all research papers. Additional requirements differ depending on the type of research.

Clinical Trials submitted on or after 1 May 2024

For reports of clinical trials submitted to The BMJ on or after 1 May 2024, we require that the data underlying the results be available at the time of publication. This encompasses all anonymised data on individual patients on which the analyses, results, and conclusions reported in the paper are based.

Data repositories should: • Have open licences or allow access without unreasonable barriers. • Provide a stable and persistent identifiers for datasets, such as a DOI.

Dryad is a suitable digital repository and allows open deposition and direct linkage by DOI from the dataset to the article and back ( see here for datasets from BMJ journal articles). Other examples of suitable repositories include Vivli , Synapse , and the UK Data Service . Authors should also investigate whether there are institutional, funder, or discipline-specific databases available for data deposition that meet the above standards.

Research that does not report on clinical trials

For papers that do not report a trial, we do not require that the authors share data, but we do require a data sharing statement to be included in the published article. We encourage authors to state that they will share data on reasonable request.

Data requesters should do the following: • Submit a rapid response to the paper and email the corresponding author to request the relevant data. • Be prepared to provide the authors of the paper a detailed protocol for your proposed study, and to supply information about the funding and resources you have to carry out the study. • If appropriate, invite the original authors to participate in the reanalysis. • If a month elapses without a response from the authors, please email the head of research for The BMJ ( [email protected] ) and copy [email protected] . • The BMJ will assess the request and if appropriate we will encourage the authors or their institution to share the data, although we are not in a position to compel data release or broker agreements. Our role is limited to making the request process public, and all correspondence related to the request may be made public through rapid responses to the paper.

Code sharing

For all research papers submitted on or after 1 May 2024, The BMJ requires submission of code used to analyse the data and produce results. We will not have a formal code review process, but code will be available for scrutiny by editors and readers if needed.

The code must be included as a supplemental file and ideally deposited in a perpetual open code database such as Github, Gitlab, OSF, or Zenodo. For Git repositories, please include the commit ID. Analysis code should be machine readable with proper annotation to explain the intention or purpose of the code to a human reader. It should be uploaded in the standard format for the software used, or in a simple text file.

Further expectations for analysis code:

Mandatory disaggregation of research data by sex and gender

The BMJ requires that research data be disaggregated by sex and gender. If that is not possible, please include a detailed explanation of the reasons for this, and mention it as a limitation in the discussion section.

Statements that must be included in Research submissions (Ethics approval, funding, and transparency)

Ethics approval

All research studies published in The BMJ should be morally acceptable, and must follow the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki . To ensure this, we aim to appraise the ethical aspects of any submitted work that involves human participants, whatever descriptive label is given to that work including research, audit, and sometimes debate. This policy also applies on the very rare occasions that we publish work done with animal participants. The manuscript must include a statement that the study obtained ethics approval (or a statement that it was not required), including the name of the ethics committee(s) or institutional review board(s), the number/ID of the approval(s), and a statement that participants gave informed consent before taking part.

Transparency statement

Please include in your manuscript a transparency declaration : a statement that the lead author (the manuscript's guarantor) affirms that the manuscript is an honest, accurate, and transparent account of the study being reported; that no important aspects of the study have been omitted; and that any discrepancies from the study as originally planned (and, if relevant, registered) have been explained.

The BMJ is committed to making the editorial process transparent and ethical. The BMJ ’s transparency policies are accessible from this link .

Role of the funding source

Please include in the manuscript a statement giving the details of all sources of funding for the study. As appropriate, the statement must include a description of the role of the study sponsor(s) or funder(s), if any, in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. In addition, the statement must confirm the independence of researchers from funders and that all authors, external and internal, had full access to all of the data (including statistical reports and tables) in the study and can take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis is also required.

If you are submitting an original article reporting an industry sponsored clinical trial, postmarketing study, or other observational study please follow the guidelines on good publication practice (GPP2) and on properly reporting the role of professional medical writers. Another resource, the Authors' Submission Toolkit: A practical guide to getting your research published summarises general tips and best practices to increase awareness of journals' editorial requirements, how to choose the right journal, submission processes, publication ethics, peer review, and effective communication with editors - much of which has traditionally been seen as mysterious to authors.

The BMJ will not consider for publication any study that is partly or wholly funded by the tobacco industry, as explained in this editorial .

Patient and Public Involvement statement

Within the Methods section of your paper, please state if and how patients and the public were involved in the research you are describing. For more information, please see the specific guidance on mandatory reporting of patient and public involvement above. If patients and the public were not involved this information should be formally documented in the Patient and Public Involvement statement.

Dissemination to participants and related patient and public communities

For accepted papers we will ask you to confirm when and how the results of your study were (or will be) sent to research participants and whether they are also being sent to relevant patient and public communities, as applicable. If you have not disseminated and have no plans to do so, please state why.

Summary boxes

Please produce a box offering a thumbnail sketch of what your article adds to the literature. The box should be divided into two short sections, each with 1-3 short sentences.

Section 1: What is already known on this topic

In two or three single sentence bullet points, please summarise the state of scientific knowledge on this topicbefore you did your study, and why this study needed to be done. Be clear and specific, not vague.

Section 2: What this study adds

In one or two single sentence bullet points, give a simple answer to the question “What do we now know as a result of this study that we did not know before?” Be brief, succinct, specific, and accurate. For example: "Our study suggests that tea drinking has no overall benefit in depression." You might use the last sentence to summarise any implications for practice, research, policy, or public health. For example, your study might have asked and answered a new question (one whose relevance has only recently become clear); contradicted a belief, dogma, or previous evidence provided a new perspective on something that is already known in general; or provided evidence of higher methodological quality for a message that is already known. DO not make statements that are not directly supported by your data.

Additional information that must be included with reports of Clinical Trials

Trial registration

In accordance with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals , The BMJ will not consider reports of clinical trials unless they were registered prospectively before recruitment of any participants. This policy on prospective registration applies to trials that started after 1 July 2005; for older trials retrospective registration will be acceptable, but only if completed before submission of the manuscript to the journal. The trial registration number and name of register should be included as the last line of the structured abstract. The BMJ accepts registration in any registry that is a primary register of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) or in ClinicalTrials.gov , which is a data provider to the WHO ICTRP.

In your submission, please include details about registration: registry, date registered, affirmation that registration was prospective before enrolling the first patient (if applicable) and registry number. The BMJ relies on information contained in trial registries. If authors believe that information in the registry is incorrect they should make their case to registry officials.

Eligible trials have been defined by ICMJE since 1 July 2008 as trials "where human participants are prospectively assigned to one or more health-related interventions (including health services and behavioural interventions) to evaluate the effects on health outcomes," and before that were defined more narrowly as trials "where human participants are prospectively assigned to investigate the cause and effect relationship between a medical intervention and health outcome." The ICMJE further states that, "Some trials assign healthcare providers, rather than patients, to intervention and comparison/control groups. If the purpose of the trial is to examine the effect of the provider intervention on the health outcomes of the providers' patients, then investigators should register the trial. If the purpose is to examine the effect only on the providers (for example, provider knowledge or attitudes), then registration is not necessary." We will take these definitions into account when evaluating if trials were adequately registered.

The BMJ does not consider posting of protocols and results in clinical trial registries to be prior publication. We also will consider research articles that have been posted on preprint servers, provided this is clearly disclosed on submission of the paper.

The BMJ encourages but does not require registration of protocols and posting of results in publicly accessible registries for studies that are not clinical trials if they involve human participants, particularly observational studies . If the study was registered, please provide the registration details, explaining whether the study was registered before data acquisition or analysis began.

The BMJ expects authors of clinical trials to report their findings in accordance with the outcomes listed in the trial registry. Outcomes that were not pre-specified in the registration should be identified as such in the text of the paper and in any tables. All registered outcomes should be described in the BMJ paper. If results for any outcomes will be or have been reported in another publication this should be made clear to readers. The timing and reasons for any changes in registered outcomes should also be disclosed.

The BMJ requires authors of clinical trials to upload a protocol for their study. This protocol will be published alongside other materials if the article is accepted. Any discrepancies between the protocol-specified outcomes and those listed in the trial registry or reported in the paper should be explained in the paper. In cases where pre-specified outcomes differ between the trial registration and the protocol, our policy is to consider the outcomes listed in the registry as pre-specified. Outcomes listed in the protocol but not the trial registry can be reported in the paper, but should be identified as post-hoc outcomes. Protocols vary in completeness and content. There are often multiple versions of a protocol and the timing of decisions about outcomes in relation to the onset of a trial cannot easily be determined. This is in contrast to trial registries, where date stamps are reliable and can be easily verified by readers.Trial registry entries should be updated if new outcomes are added or existing ones deleted, promoted, or demoted.

The BMJ requires authors of clinical trials to upload a statistical analysis plan (SAP) for their study. The SAP will be published alongside other materials if the article is accepted. A SAP provides more detailed information about statistical analysis than a protocol, including detailed descriptions of procedures used to execute the analyses. Please follow the guidance on producing a SAP contained in the table of this document: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2666509

Open access

Research papers in The BMJ are published with open access. Moreover, The BMJ immediately fulfils the requirements of the US National Institutes of Health, the UK Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and other funding bodies by making the full text of publicly funded research freely available to all on bmj.com and sending it directly to PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine's full text archive. The BMJ occasionally publishes as open access other types of (non-research) articles arising from work funded by a funder who mandates open access publication.

Open access articles may be reused according to the relevant Creative Commons licence. The BMJ 's default licence for open access publication of research is the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) . But where the funder requires it the author can select the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence during the submission process (funders who mandate CC BY include the Wellcome Trust, RCUK, and MRC).

To support this, we ask authors to pay an open access article processing charge - you can find our author charges for open access here . We can offer discounts and waivers for authors who cannot pay. Consideration of the paper is not related to whether authors can or cannot pay the fee. We will ask for the fee only once we have accepted a paper, and we will send an invoice only once authors tell us (via [email protected] ) they can claim the fee. Seeking and processing fees will not delay editing or publication. Please do not contact editors about open access fees: neither editors nor reviewers will know whether a fee is payable, and administrative staff will handle payments and all associated correspondence. For non-research articles published with open access we will ask authors to pay the open access fee. We do not offer refunds for Open Access once articles have been published. For further information, contact [email protected] .

A number of institutions have open access institutional memberships with BMJ (the publishing group), which either cover the whole cost of open access publishing for authors at participating institutions or allow authors to receive a discount on the article processing charge. For a list of member institutions and their policies on how to receive a discount or to publish free of charge, please visit http://journals.bmj.com/site/authors/openaccess.xhtml

For articles not published with open access, The BMJ 's publication licence allows each author to post their article's URL (provided above) on either their own or their employer's website, thereby giving users free access to the full text of the article on bmj.com. Authors will need to use the toll free link to ensure visitors have free access to the article. Alternatively, authors can post the full text of their published article on their own website or their employer's website.

For additional information, please see the section of instructions to authors on copyright, open access, and permission to reuse .

Living systematic reviews

The BMJ will pilot a small number of living systematic reviews

Duration : We will typically host a living systematic review which is live for up to 2 years after initial publication. The triggers for updates, and their frequency, will be decided with authors on a case by case basis. Communication : The title will reflect the living nature of the review and the most recent update will become the default publication on bmj.com. Reviews will have a single digital object identifier (DOI) to keep the information in one place. However, previous versions will remain available as data supplements. An updates table will be included in the review to make tracking the history of the review easier and to signal planned changes. Updates will be flagged on bmj.com, including in rapid responses. They will also be communicated to third parties including PubMed and PubMedCentral. Updates : Updates should be submitted as a “track changes” version of the final MIcrosoft Word version of the previous iteration of the review. A clean version should also be submitted via the ScholarOne manuscript system. Subsequent internal or external peer review reports will be added to the pre-publication history tab on bmj.com with each version of the paper. The approach to any authorship changes should be negotiated before the first version of the paper is published. Resources : The usual BMJ article open access processing fee will be charged for the initial version of the review and an additional fee will be added to cover the cost of up to three updates per year (£2000 per update). After the first year the price may be revised based on the scope of the revisions and the work done on each one.

Preliminary reporting guidance for living reviews

COVER LETTER: This should explain and defend the need for the review to be “living.” Briefly describe other extant reviews, in particular any other living systematic reviews that have recently been published. The cover letter should acknowledge the authors’ acceptance of the following special conditions that apply to living reviews: 1) the need to provide current conflict of interest declarations or updates for all authors at each revision; 2) the single DOI for the paper and updates; agreement that open access fees cannot be waived for living reviews and that additional fees apply to cover the extra work of producing and maintaining living reviews.

TITLE: The phrase “living systematic review” should appear in the title. If additional terms apply, those may be included as appropriate (e.g. “network meta-analysis,” “meta-analysis,” “critical appraisal,” etc.).

ABSTRACT: The abstract should include: 1) A statement of the research question or objective, including a statement that one objective is to provide regular updates and keep the review live. 2) The rationale for a living systematic review should be described, e.g. rapidly evolving evidence base, anticipated impact on policy or practice, etc. 3) A “Readers’ note” at the end of the abstract that provides information about the version of the paper, the date it went live, and gives notice of planned updates. For example: “Readers’ note: This article is a living systematic review that will be updated periodically over the next 2 years to reflect emerging evidence. This version is update XXX of the original article published XXXXXX (give BMJ DOI), and previous updates can be found as data supplements (give link). When citing this paper please consider adding the version number and date of access for clarity.”

MAIN PAPER: Please address the following matters in the appropriate section of the paper: Introduction: -- Include the information required in the abstract (see above paragraph) at the end of the introduction section. -- In updates, consider including a short paragraph that describes how the living review has evolved. For example, what are the key developments since the previous version of the review, and what developments might be expected? Methods -- Mention and include a reference to any published or publicly available protocol for this review. If not registered, consider registering the review. -- Describe the methods that will be used to keep the review living, including the processes that will be used to search for new evidence, anticipated triggers for updates, and the circumstances under which the review might end before the 2 year time limit for BMJ Living Reviews. -- In updated versions of the review, make clear when and why any methods have evolved over time. If these descriptions are lengthy or complex, consider doing this in a table that can be included in an appendix or supplemental file. Such a table will ideally describe important changes to the review protocol, statistical analyses, or other aspects of the review, along with the dates of these changes. -- A table at the end of the discussion section might be used to highlight new evidence that was not included in the review. Results -- Clearly state the updated dates of the search. Discussion -- Consider additional subheadings to separate, e.g. What remain the important findings so far? Versus what are the main new findings to highlight? -- Consider additional table updates to this article. This will make clear historical and anticipated change. Columns trigger, date and action. Declaration of competing interests -- All authors must complete the ICMJE Competing Interests form with the initial submission. At each revision, we will ask the corresponding author to state whether there have been any changes to competing interests among any of the existing authors. If there are changes or if new authors have been added, the corresponding author is responsible for ensuring the this information is up to date. Otherwise there will be no change to the declaration of interests. Supplementary files -- Previous versions of the paper

Please contact Dr. Elizabeth Loder ( [email protected] ) with any questions.

Supplemental material, video

You may submit the following materials as supplemental files if you think they will help the authors and reviewers make a decision or readers better understand your study:

Original raw data if you think they will help our reviewers (and maybe readers), or if we specifically request them. Please note our policy on data sharing, explained above.

Video and audio files that will add educational value to your article, for example by explaining the intervention in a trial.

A video abstract that summarizes your findings and that will be posted on bmj.com with your paper. You can find additional information about video abstracts here and here .

Public and patient involvement materials used in your research.

Copies of any non-standard questionnaires and assessment schedules used in the research.

Copies of patient information sheets used to obtain informed consent for the study or to comprise or deliver the intervention in a clinical trial.

Copies of closely related articles you have published (this is particularly important when details of the study methods are published elsewhere).

Copies of any previous reviewers' reports on this article . We appreciate that authors may have tried other journals before sending their work to The BMJ , and find it helpful if you let us know how you have responded to previous reviewers' comments.

Research Methods and Reporting (RMR)

We are willing to consider papers that present new or updated research reporting guidelines, but only if the guideline pertains to a study type that we publish in The BMJ. The checklist itself must be included as part of the paper. We prefer to be the only journal publishing the guideline, but under some circumstances we will consider co-publication with up to two other journals. For an example of how to format a reporting guideline to appear in our research methods and reporting section, see http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f1049.full.pdf+html .

Preparing a RMR article

Word count We do not set fixed word count limits for RMR articles. Nonetheless, we ask you to make your article concise and make every word count. For some submissions this might be published in full on bmj.com with a shorter version in the print BMJ 

Overall structure Research Methods and Reporting should have the following elements:

Title and standfirst A short title is followed by an 100-150 word italicised single sentence (the standfirst) which encapsulates the article’s central message.

Introduction Articles should begin with a brief paragraph that captures readers’ attention and explains the aim of the piece.

Text The body of the text should be broken up under subheadings that provide a logical narrative structure. Avoid acronyms and abbreviations unless they are universally recognised e.g. DNA. The evidence on which key statements are based should be explicit and referenced, and the strength of the evidence (published trials, systematic reviews, observational studies, expert opinion etc.) addressed.

Boxes, tables and figures Include tables, boxes, or illustrations (clinical photographs, imaging, line drawings, and figures) to enhance the text and add to or substantiate key points made in the body of the article. Figures may be in color. Worked out examples that use specific methods under discussion can be included as additional boxes. If appropriate, include a box of linked information such as website urls for those who want to pursue the subject in more depth.

Web extras We may be able to publish on bmj.com some additional boxes, figures, and references (in a separate reference list numbered w1, w2,w3, etc. and marked as such in the main text of the article). Also may include suggestions for linked podcasts or video clips, as appropriate.

Contributors and sources We ask for a 100-150 word supplementary paragraph (excluded from word count) to explain the article’s provenance. It should include the relevant experience and expertise of each author, his or her contribution to the paper, and the sources of information used to prepare it. One author must be nominated as the guarantor of the article. Include a statement of sources and selection criteria.

Summary points Include up to four sentences, in the form of bullet points, highlighting the article's main points.

References Must be in Vancouver style and should be kept to a minimum; ideally no more than 20.

“Analysis” is a distinct article type at The BMJ , and differs from other sections such as research, education, editorials, and opinion. A great analysis article makes an argument and supports it with data. It has academic heft yet is a journalistic read. Academic heft means the argument is scholarly, evidence-based, and supported by data. Journalistic read means the article is written in clear, active language, avoids technical jargon, and is pitched to our international audience of general medical readers.

We receive many manuscripts that are not a good fit for the analysis section. We generally do not consider:

• Case studies or articles mostly concerning the author’s writing about their own work • Manuscripts containing primary research data (such papers should be submitted as research) • Narrative reviews • Articles presenting a new hypothesis

If you are unsure if your work is suitable for The BMJ 's analysis section we are willing to consider succinct pre-submission inquiries, please complete the form in this link and await a response from Jocalyn Clark, Head of Scholarly Comment, or one of the analysis editors.

Preparing an Analysis article

We recommend looking at this Analysis article template and using it as a basis for your work before considering submission.

Word count and style The BMJ has an international readership that includes policy makers, health professionals, and doctors of all disciplines. Authors are advised to keep this readership in mind and to write their article for the non-expert. It’s important to avoid jargon. Specialised terminology and references to organisations or practices that are specific to one country need to be explained. Clear writing and active language are essential. Analysis papers should be 2000 words with 20 references and up to 3 non-text items (box, figure, or table).

Overall structure The manuscript should have the following elements:

Title and standfirst A short title is followed by an italicised single sentence (the standfirst), which encapsulates the article’s central message.

Introduction Articles should begin with a brief paragraph that captures readers’ attention and explains the aim of the piece and “why now”.

Text The body of the text should be broken up under sub-headings that provide a logical narrative structure. Avoid acronyms and abbreviations unless they are universally recognised e.g. DNA. The evidence on which key statements are based should be explicit and referenced, and the strength of the evidence (published trials, systematic reviews, observational studies, expert opinion, etc.) made clear. Articles should present a balanced, even-handed look at the evidence rather than selectively citing evidence that supports a particular view.

Boxes, tables and figures These should extend and substantiate points made in the body of the paper. Words in boxes and tables are excluded from the word count of the body of the text but the additional material should be concise.

Key messages box This should be at the end of the article and include 3-4 points summing up the main conclusions. When submitting your article please enter your key messages when prompted to enter the abstract.

Contributors and sources We ask for a 100-150 word supplementary paragraph (excluded from word count) to explain the article’s provenance. It should include the relevant experience and expertise of each author, his or her contribution to the paper, and the sources of information used to prepare it. One author must be nominated as the guarantor of the article.You are welcome to invite co-authors to work with you on the article. We suggest including 2-3 co-authors with different locations and perspectives to help ensure articles are international in scope and accessible to our broad readership online and in print, and we encourage diversity in co-authorship including gender balance and the inclusion of colleagues from low and middle income countries.

Report of patient involvement As The BMJ is seeking to advance partnership with patients, we also ask authors to seek their input into articles wherever relevant, and document their involvement as patient contributors or coauthors.

Conflicts of Interest All authors should read our competing interests policy and include relevant declarations for all authors in their manuscript. We seek to publish independent Scholarly Comment and require competing interests to be declared upon submission. Where a competing interest exists that you think might disqualify an author from contributing, please discuss it with a BMJ editor before writing the article.

Licence We require the manuscript to include the following statement:

Peer review The BMJ has fully open peer review for analysis articles. This means that every accepted analysis article submitted from February 2016 onwards will have its prepublication history posted alongside it on thebmj.com. This prepublication history comprises all previous versions of the manuscript, the report from the manuscript committee meeting, the reviewers’ signed comments, and the authors’ responses to all the comments from reviewers and editors. Authors are welcome to suggest names of suitable reviewers, including patient reviewers.

What happens after submission

Analysis articles progress through several stages:

• All submissions are read in full by one or more members of the editorial team. • Articles that pass the initial editorial screen are sent for external peer review. • Articles are then discussed at a regular analysis committee meeting where editors make one of three decisions: reject; major revision; or minor revision with aim to accept.

What happens after publication

In most cases we will publish the prepublication history alongside an accepted analysis article. This prepublication history comprises all previous versions of the manuscript, the report from the manuscript committee meeting, the reviewers’ comments, and the authors’ responses to all the comments from reviewers and editors. In rare instances we may determine after careful consideration that we should not make certain portions of the prepublication record publicly available. For example, in cases of stigmatised illnesses we seek to protect the confidentiality of reviewers who have these illnesses. In other instances there may be legal or regulatory considerations that make it inadvisable or impermissible to make available certain parts of the prepublication record. In all instances in which we have determined that elements of the prepublication record should not be made publicly available, we expect that authors will respect these decisions and also will not share this information.

Rapid responses are electronic letters to the editor and offer readers a way to interact with our content. Sometimes responses may be critical of an article. We believe that authors have an academic duty to respond to substantive criticism of their work and we expect authors to post their own rapid responses on bmj.com in reply to any such substantive comments. Editors may send reminders about this.

Education (inc. Minerva Pictures and Endgames)

The BMJ publishes different types of educational articles to engage and challenge a range of postgraduate doctors and clinical researchers internationally. We strive to publish articles that are original in their content and/or presentation, and cannot be found elsewhere or in textbooks. We prioritise topics and situations that are common or have serious consequences, have international appeal, and that interest a variety of doctors, including GPs and specialists.

We encourage authors to write in teams, including those from other specialties, professions, and countries. We ask that one author is routed in the clinical environment of the intended reader. We encourage authors to write in plain English, to be clear about where there is uncertainty, and to include numbers and phrases where possible that will help doctors in conversation with their patients.

Our educational articles are shaped by two initiatives:

• We believe that financial interests can distort education articles and we minimise or exclude authors who we judge have such a conflict.

• We believe that patient involvement strengthens content. We encourage authors to seek input from patients either to inform the scope, develop the content, contribute to, or co-author articles. For help with this, please read our guidance on what we mean by patient involvement and co-production . Author guidance for Education articles can be found here.

Submission process and presubmission enquiries

We receive more articles and suggestions than we can publish. We require all authors to contact us before submitting a manuscript to us. Send us your proposal using our Education Article Proposal Form , together with your completed Declaration of Financial Interests .

The proposal form will guide you through the following questions:

• What is your idea? • Can you sum up the aim of your article in a sentence? • Why is the topic important to The BMJ 's readers? • What is the prevalence of the symptom/condition/situation you wish to write about? • Why cover it now? Has something new happened? • What has The BMJ 's Education section covered on this topic in the last five years? What will your contribution add? • Can you provide the key evidence/references you might use? • Why are your writing team well placed to cover the topic? • Have you thought about what a patient would say about your idea?

Policies for Education articles

Authorship Education articles can have can have up to four authors. One author should be from the relevant specialty or setting, unless agreed otherwise. For example, if the article discusses presentation to the emergency department one author should be an emergency care doctor. All authors should meet authorship criteria . We welcome authors or contributions from allied health professions and patient authors, and actively encourage authors from a primary care background.

Competing interests The BMJ will not consider authors with financial interests when writing Education articles. It is important that we understand the financial interests of every author, and can judge to what extent we believe that they may be relevant to the article that you propose. We do not publish content from authors who we judge have relevant financial ties to the industry (excluding State of the Art reviews, Therapeutics articles, and Summaries of NICE Guidelines). The relevance of declared interests are judged by the BMJ team. This applies to every author. Any additional authors and their financial interests must be discussed and agreed with the commissioning editor before the article is submitted.

Patient involvement As part of our drive to co-produce our content with patients we ask that you seek patient input into articles at the planning stage. We believe that their experience and perspectives will make articles more useful for doctors in their quest to help improve patients well being and outcomes.

We ask all authors to what extent patients have been involved in their article and how their involvement changed the article. We ask that all writing encourages honesty and partnership with patients. Where uncertainty exists, share it. Where data exists present the numbers in a way that can be shared with the patient (use absolute numbers, natural frequencies, and graphics where you can). Use language that empowers patients to make the right choices for them in their situation (write that a doctor should/could offer a test, rather than should do a test).

When patients are involved in the manuscript, we ask for their consent. We have two types of consent forms for BMJ education articles:

• A patient consent form is required if any anonymised patient information is included in the review. Consent is needed for images even if the patients are not identifiable for example, in X-rays and histology slides, and for patients’ stories/vignettes even if details are anonymised.

• A patient contributor form is required for any patients who are named within the review, for example, patient co-authors, patient contributors or named authors of patient stories.

Preparing your manuscript

We want our readers to have the ability to share decisions with their patients and make clear for them the degree of certainty ( or lack of it) about a potential course of action. We therefore ask that, in addition to the format and instructions detailed below for the specific Education article that you are writing, you follow these recommendations:

• Consider including in your manuscript a box explaining your strategy to search for evidence. It should include a search date, the sources searched, and brief inclusion criteria. • Clearly distinguish suggestions made based on your experience, standard practice, guidelines, and evidence. • Provide specifics about the evidence you discuss. For example, for key statements, please say: "A large, well conducted, randomised controlled trial showed INSERT number [CI] and or p value". "The findings of a small case series suggest...". “A subgroup analysis found…”. etc. • Use absolute numbers or explain why you have not used them. • Consider how these numbers can be communicated by the clinician read to their patient in a clear way. • Where evidence is lacking or of poor quality make this clear. • Write about known and unknown benefits and harms.

"What you need to know" box . No more than three bullet points for practice articles and five for clinical updates encapsulating the specific take home messages from this article.

"How patients were involved in the creation of this article" box. Please include: Which patients were asked (e.g. patient advocates, networked patient communities and organisations, patients in your clinic etc). What they said (e.g. include more practical advice on how to inject insulin.) How you changed your article as a result (e.g. we included a box to address this.)

"Education into practice" box . Include two to three bullet points about how a reader might at an individual or organisational level improve their practice (e.g. do you offer lifestyle advice to all patients with newly diagnosed hypertension?)

At least one other box or table and at least one figure or image that complement the text of the article.

Article types

We accept pitches for the following article types. Once our editors have made a decision to encourage a pitch, we will provde authors will a full, detailed set of instructions on how best to format your content.

Additional requirements for all other article types

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Types of Scholarly Articles

Engl105 - scholarly articles 101: types of scholarly articles.

• Peer Review
• Other Types of Sources

Research Articles

Review articles, tips & practice.

• How to Read a Scholarly Article
• Extend Your Knowledge

Sometimes a professor might ask you to find original research or may ask you to not use literature reviews/systematic reviews as sources, but what do those terms mean? How can we tell if our potential source meets our professor's criteria?

In a research article, an original study is conducted by the authors. They collect and analyze data, sharing their methods and results, and then draw conclusions from their analysis. The kind of study performed can vary (surveys, interviews, experiments, etc.), but in all cases, data is analyzed and a new argument is put forth. Research articles are considered primary sources.

• Note: research articles will often contain a section titled "literature review" - this is a section that looks at other existing research as a foundation for their new idea. Simply seeing the words "literature review" does not automatically mean an article is a review article- it is important to look closer

Below is a screenshot of the abstract of the article Effectiveness of Health Coaching in Diabetes Control and Lifestyle Improvement: A Randomized-Controlled Trial , with some words underlined that let us know that a study was conducted and that this is a research article.

A review article gathers multiple research articles on a certain topic, summarizing and analyzing the arguments made in those articles. A review article might highlight patterns or gaps in the research, might show support for existing theories, or suggest new directions for research, but does not conduct original research on a subject. Review articles can be a great place to get an overview of the existing research on a subject. A review article is a secondary source.

• Looking in the reference section of a literature or systematic review can be a good place to find original research studies.

Below is a screenshot of the abstract of the article The Effect of Dietary Glycaemic Index on Glycaemia in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials , with words underlined that clue us in that this is a review article.

Tips for identifying article type

Start by looking at the abstract to determine if a source might be a research article or a review article. If you're not sure after looking at the abstract, find the methods section for the source - what methods did the authors use? If they mention searching databases, it's most likely a review and if they mention conducting an experiment, survey, interview, etc., it's most likely a research article. If you're still unsure, feel free to reach out to a librarian and ask ! 

Let's Practice

Below are two different scholarly articles. Look at the abstract and the methods section- Which one is an original research study? Which one is a literature review?

• Article 1- Research or Review?
• Article 2- Research or Review?

Research & Instruction Associate

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• Last Updated: Oct 22, 2024 3:51 PM
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Penn State University Libraries

• Find Articles

Comparison of Types of Journals

The information below can help you understand the differences between scholarly journals, professional/trade journals, and popular periodicals. 

• << Previous: Find Articles
• Last Updated: Apr 2, 2024 11:56 AM
• URL: https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/Articles

Read a scholarly article

• Introduction
• Types of Scholarly Articles
• Interactive Article Diagram
• Reading for different purposes

Types of scholarly articles

There are a few different types of scholarly articles:

Original research

Brief communications, review articles, case studies, methods / methodologies, humanities articles.

Most of these article types are structured in the same way ; check out the structure of a scholarly article page for more information about this common structure.

• Most common type of scholarly article
• Often used in social sciences (education, psychology, etc.) & sciences (chemistry, meteorology, etc.)
• Typically includes introduction, literature review, methodology, results, and conclusion

Example: Sogunro, O.A. (2015). Motivating factors for adult learners in higher education. International Journal of Higher Education, 4 (1), 22-37. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1060548.pdf

A.K.A. literature reviews, systematic reviews, or meta-analyses

• Provide a summary of original research on a topic
• May point out limitations or gaps in existing research
• May suggest future directions for research on the topic
• May be organized thematically or chronologically

Example: Mercer-Mapstone, L., Dvorakova, S. L., Matthews, K., Abbot, S., Cheng, B., Felten, P.,...Swaim, K. (2017). A systematic literature review of students as partners in higher education. International Journal for Students As Partners, 1 (1). Retrieved from https://mulpress.mcmaster.ca/ijsap/article/view/3119

A.K.A. letters, reports

• They're like movie trailers for original academic research
• Provide a quick preview of original research
• Useful in competitive subject areas (ex. scientists competing for funding)
• Useful in quickly changing subject areas (ex. medicine)
• Usually formatted like original research articles (introduction, literature review, etc.)

Example: Yuan, C., Wei, G., Dey, L., Karrison, T., Nahlik, L., Maleckar, S., ...Moss, J. (2004). American ginseng reduces warfarin’s effect in healthy patients: A randomized, controlled trial. Annals of Internal Medicine, 141 (1), 23-27. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.696.5919&rep=rep1&type=pdf

• Report on a specific case or instance of something
• Can refer to a thing (ex. a rare medical condition), a place (ex. a specific river), or a group of people (ex. nurses)
• Purpose is not to generalize, but to let others know similar things (ex. medical condition, river pollution, job stress) may occur elsewhere
• Often formatted like original research articles (introduction, literature review, etc.)

Example: Bansal, P., & Kockelman, K. M. (2018). Are we ready to embrace connected and self-driving vehicles? A case study of Texans. Transportation, 45 (2), 641-675. Retrieved from http://www.caee.utexas.edu/prof/kockelman/public_html/TRB17TxOpinionsCAVs.pdf

• Scholarly article focused on new methods, tests, or other measure
• May be a new method or a revision of an existing one; should be an improvement over existing methods

Example: Hurtado, J.C., Mosquera, M.M., de Lazzari, E., Martínez, E., Torner, N., Isanta, R.,...Estape, J.V. (2015). Evaluation of a new, rapid, simple test for the detection of influenza virus. BMC Infectious Diseases, 15 (44), 1-4. Retrieved from https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-015-0775-5

• Includes subjects like English, philosophy, history, and the arts (fine art, theatre, music, etc.)
• Often begins with an introduction that contains the thesis and a brief overview of the arguments that will be presented
• Literature and history articles often examine primary sources (though they approach them in different ways)
• Philosophy articles focus on ideas and arguments  
• Articles in these areas tend to have a more narrative structure (they're telling a story)
• May have some features of other article types (esp. abstracts and references) 

Example: Fazel, V., & Geddes, L. (2016). "Give me your hands if we be friends": collaborative authority in Shakespeare fan fiction. Shakespeare, 12 (3), 274-286. Retrieved from https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/mla:673/

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• Last Updated: Oct 15, 2024 12:32 PM
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