Writing Research Papers

Catherine Walshe is Professor of Palliative Care at the International Observatory on End of Life Care at Lancaster University and Editor in Chief of the journal Palliative Medicine. She became a QNI Fellow in 2012.

Catherine worked as a district nurse and community Macmillan nurse for many years before turning to the academic stage of her career. She started her publishing career with a paper from her undergraduate dissertation, then papers from her palliative care diploma, and master’s degree before really getting going with academic writing, reviewing and editing.

We would like to thank Catherine for writing this blog for us.

Writing research papers is a craft that takes time, practice, and patience. It needs a plan. I am hopefully going to help you with that plan by sharing some of my top tips for those of you embarking on writing your first research papers.

Tip one. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. You need to start at the very beginning with a well-designed and robustly and ethically conducted project if you want to write a great paper. Get a good team around you, ensure you are well supported from the beginning with people with research design expertise, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Research is a team endeavour.

Tip two. Recognise your golden thread. What is the purpose of your paper, and its main message? If you can’t summarise this in a couple of sentences, you will struggle to get the paper to ‘hang together’ in a way that makes sense to the reader. Say it out loud to your colleagues, literally as two sentences. ‘I am doing this work because …’, and ‘The main message of this paper is…’.  Really work on ensuring that all the sections of the paper support an understanding of this purpose and message.

Tip three. Structure. Research papers are structured in particular ways.  Follow reporting guidelines for your study type (see the Equator Network). When I draft a paper, I start with a table with two columns and multiple rows. The first column names the section I am working on, the second key points to be made. Each row addresses a different section of the paper; background, methods (e.g. research question, design, population, setting, sample, recruitment, data collection, data analysis, ethical issues), findings, discussion (including strengths, limitations, and recommendations) and conclusions. In this way I flesh out the paper structure and key messages without worrying about writing style or crafting perfect sentences and paragraphs.

Tip four. Editing. Be ruthless with your writing. If it doesn’t work, re-write it, re-order it, or remove it. Be brave in letting people see early drafts and take their feedback on board. Pay attention to spelling, grammar, and paragraphing because reviewers and editors will. Research is painstaking and pedantic work; your writing is your shop front to demonstrate your care and attention. The key building blocks are paragraphs, understand their form and function before you start writing. There is a great blog about paragraphs here.

Tip five. “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” —Nelson Mandela. Academic writing for journals takes resilience. Many journals decline around 50-80% of submitted papers. Your beautifully crafted paper will get declined, and possibly multiple times. Pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and have a plan. Choose your journal mindfully – check its scope, readership, the type of paper they seek. Every paper of mine has found a home – eventually – but often not the first home I chose for it. Don’t take it personally, the editors don’t. And when you get reviewers comments to ‘revise and resubmit’ take this as a glorious win! It’s a ‘yes – but’, not a no.

And my final tip – find someone to support you in your writing who is willing to give you their time to comment, edit, feedback and be a critical friend. I spend a lot of time supporting students on our PhD in Palliative Care to write.  I am sure they don’t always appreciate my pedantry, but I hope they gain from the time I take supporting and guiding them to publish their work. I certainly gain a huge amount of satisfaction and pleasure from seeing them successfully publish their work. Good luck (but it is not really luck)!

Catherine Walshe

@cewalshe @ioelc @palliativemedj

Nurse researchers, or those who are interested in finding out more about research, are encouraged to join the QNI’s Community Nursing Research Forum. It is completely free to join and offers a wide range of support for those at all stages of their careers.