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							<p>Once you have decided how and where to publish your research, it is time to draft your manuscript and prepare it for submission. When drafting a manuscript, it is important to follow the submission instructions set out in the journal. Format and style vary considerably, even within fields.</p>
							
							<h3>Do's and don'ts when drafting a manuscript</h3>
							
							<p>Even though format and style can vary, there are some common best practices for drafting manuscripts that apply to all scholarly writing. The following activity provides a summary of these best practices, along with corresponding irresponsible practices to avoid.</p>

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									<p><strong>Honorary author:</strong> An author listed on a manuscript who made no substantive contributions to the article and is, therefore, put down as an 'honorary' author.</p>
									<p><strong>Ghost author:</strong> An author who made substantial contributions to the manuscript but is not listed as an author. This practice is used to hide participation by authors with particular interests, such as industry and public action group activities.</p>
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							<instructional-text class="non-interactive-swap-out"><p>The activity below displays three sheets of a paper breaking down the different sections of a typical manuscript. Click on each heading in each sheet to access a pop-up box explaining the 'do's and don'ts' for that specific section. Once you have finished working through the sections on a specific page, click "Next" to access the next page of the document.</p></instructional-text>
							<instructional-text-accessible class="non-interactive-swap-in"><p>The following information breaks down the three different sections of a typical manuscript. Under each heading, the 'do's and don'ts' for that specific section are explained. Continue on until you have worked through all the sections.</p></instructional-text-accessible>
							
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										<p class="label-1"><text-label placement="bottom" content="<strong>You should:</strong> As briefly as possible, and in understandable terms, describe the content of the article. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Mischaracterise the content of the article to enhance the perceived importance of its coverage. You are also not writing a headline for a newspaper &ndash; choose a succinct description of your work rather than a catchy but uninformative title." placement="right">Title</text-label></p>
										<p class="label-2"><text-label placement="bottom" content="<strong>You should:</strong> List all authors and their affiliations, ensuring that all authors meet the criteria for authorship set by the journal. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Include the names of individuals who did not make significant contributions (honorary authors) or leave off the names of individuals who made significant contributions (ghost authors). See the &ldquo;Additional information&rdquo; pod for definitions of these terms." placement="right">Author names and affiliations</text-label></p>
										<p class="label-3"><text-label content="<strong>You should:</strong> Provide a brief and accurate summary of the findings to allow others to assess whether they should read the full article. Be aware of the word limit or expected structure required by the journal. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Make claims in the abstract that are not supported by the research. You should also be careful to avoid 'hyping' (exaggerating) the importance of the findings." placement="right">Abstract</text-label></p>
										<p class="label-4"><text-label placement="top" content="<strong>You should:</strong> Include words or phrases that best characterise the article to allow others to find the publication more easily in electronic databases. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Include words or phrases that do not pertain to the article to make it seem more important." placement="right">Keywords</text-label></p>
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										<p class="paper-heading">Body of the paper</p>
										<p class="label-5"><text-label content="<strong>You should:</strong> Provide information that is essential for understanding the research and issues addressed. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Include information that is irrelevant to understanding your research, or start to describe any of your methods, results or conclusions." placement="right">Introduction</text-label></p>
										<p class="label-6"><text-label content="<strong>You should:</strong> Provide a comprehensive survey of past research, particularly its importance and relevance to your research. Some journals require more detailed background information than others, or combine the introduction and background sections. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Ignore or mischaracterise past research that is relevant to your research, or start to describe any of your methods, results or conclusions." placement="right">Background</text-label></p>
										<p class="label-7"><text-label content="<strong>You should:</strong> Describe your methods in enough detail to allow others to evaluate and, if needed, replicate them. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Leave out key information about your methods, particularly if your intent is to prevent competitors from replicating your work. You should not describe any of your results or conclusions." placement="right">Methods</text-label></p>
										<p class="label-8"><text-label content="<strong>You should:</strong> Include a complete summary of what you discovered. It is best to write this almost like a story describing what you discovered and how/if this then influenced the next part of your experiment(s). <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Leave out findings that are essential for understanding your work or that might contradict the conclusions you are drawing." placement="top">Results/Findings</text-label></p>
										<p class="label-9"><text-label content="<strong>You should:</strong> Explain your results and how these fit into the wider literature that you mentioned in your introduction/background section. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Be biased or try to extrapolate to conclusions or ideas that are not supported by your data (as discussed in the module on interpretation). It is often acceptable to speculate about the wider implications of your work, but you must clearly state what you think can, and cannot, be supported directly by your data." placement="top">Discussion/Interpretation</text-label></p>
										<p class="label-10"><text-label content="<strong>You should:</strong> Openly and honestly review any weaknesses or alternative interpretations of your research and (if appropriate) mention possible future experiments/investigations. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Ignore or cover up weaknesses and alternative interpretations." placement="top">Weaknesses/Further work/Research agenda</text-label></p>
										<p class="label-11"><text-label content="<strong>You should:</strong> Provide one (or more) succinct conclusions that can be drawn from your data. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> State conclusions not supported by your data." placement="top">Conclusion</text-label></p>
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										<p class="paper-heading">Supporting materials and statements</p>
										<p class="label-12"><text-label placement="right" content="<strong>You should:</strong> List all the financial support you received for conducting your research. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Fail to mention how your research was funded, or present the information in a way that hides the true sources of your funding.">Support/Funding</text-label></p>
										<p class="label-13"><text-label placement="right" content="<strong>You should:</strong> List financial and other interests that could be perceived by others as having an impact on the research being reported (e.g. consultancy arrangements, payment for giving a lecture). It is normally best to mention too much rather than too little in these sections. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Fail to mention real and perceived conflicts of interest or list them in a way that hides the source of the conflicts.">Conflicts of interest</text-label></p>
										<p class="label-14"><text-label placement="right" content="<strong>You should:</strong> List others who contributed to the research, but not in a way that deserves authorship. This could include technical support, proofreaders of your manuscript or individuals with whom you have discussed your work but who have not contributed towards conducting the research or writing the paper. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Fail to acknowledge others who contributed to the research but not in a way that deserves authorship.">Acknowledgements</text-label></p>
										<p class="label-15"><text-label placement="top" content="<strong>You should:</strong> Provide additional information on the research that will help the reader understand and put your work in context. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Put essential information in notes that the reader might not read.">Notes</text-label></p>
										<p class="label-16"><text-label placement="top" content="<strong>You should:</strong> Provide all the information a reader needs to understand and critique your research. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Fail to provide information that is essential for understanding and critiquing your research.">Sources/Data</text-label></p>
										<p class="label-17"><text-label placement="top" content="<strong>You should:</strong> Provide access to any additional material that will be useful in understanding your research, either as part of the published articles or as links/references to where the additional material can be found. These could include additional images of results, examples of questionnaires, etc. <br><br> <strong>You should not:</strong> Fail to provide any additional material needed to understand your research.">Appendices/Supplementary information</text-label></p>
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								<h3>Section 1: Introduction</h3>
								<h4>Title</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> As briefly as possible, and in understandable terms, describe the content of the article.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Mischaracterise the content of the article to enhance the perceived importance of its coverage. You are also not writing a headline for a newspaper &ndash; choose a succinct description of your work rather than a catchy but uninformative title.</p>
								<h4>Author names and affiliations</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> List all authors and their affiliations, ensuring that all authors meet the criteria for authorship set by the journal.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Include the names of individuals who did not make significant contributions (honorary authors) or leave off the names of individuals who made significant contributions (ghost authors). See the "Additional information" pod for definitions of these terms.</p>
								<h4>Abstract</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> Provide a brief and accurate summary of the findings to allow others to assess whether they should read the full article. Be aware of the word limit or expected structure required by the journal.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Make claims in the abstract that are not supported by the research. You should also be careful to avoid 'hyping' (exaggerating) the importance of the findings.</p>
								<h4>Keywords</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> Include words or phrases that best characterise the article to allow others to find the publication more easily in electronic databases.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Include words or phrases that do not pertain to the article to make it seem more important.</p>
								<hr>
								<h3>Section 2: Main text</h3>
								<h4>Introduction</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> Provide information that is essential for understanding the research and issues addressed.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Include information that is irrelevant to understanding your research, or start to describe any of your methods, results or conclusions.</p>
								<h4>Background</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> Provide a comprehensive survey of past research, particularly its importance and relevance to your research. Some journals require more detailed background information than others, or combine the introduction and background sections.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Ignore or mischaracterise past research that is relevant to your research, or start to describe any of your methods, results or conclusions.</p>
								<h4>Methods</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> Describe your methods in enough detail to allow others to evaluate and, if needed, replicate them.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Leave out key information about your methods, particularly if your intent is to prevent competitors from replicating your work. You should not describe any of your results or conclusions.</p>
								<h4>Results/Findings</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> Include a complete summary of what you discovered. It is best to write this almost like a story describing what you discovered and how/if this then influenced the next part of your experiment(s).</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Leave out findings that are essential for understanding your work or that might contradict the conclusions you are drawing.</p>
								<h4>Discussion/Interpretation</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> Explain your results and how these fit into the wider literature that you mentioned in your introduction/background section.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Be biased or try to extrapolate to conclusions or ideas that are not supported by your data (as discussed in the module on interpretation). It is often acceptable to speculate about the wider implications of your work, but you must clearly state what you think can, and cannot, be supported directly by your data.</p>
								<h4>Weaknesses/Further work/Research agenda</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> Openly and honestly review any weaknesses or alternative interpretations of your research and (if appropriate) mention possible future experiments/investigations.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Ignore or cover up weaknesses and alternative interpretations.</p>
								<h4>Conclusion</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> Provide one (or more) succinct conclusions that can be drawn from your data.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> State conclusions not supported by your data.</p>
								<hr>
								<h3>Section 3: Supporting materials</h3>
								<h4>Support/Funding</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> List all the financial support you received for conducting your research.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Fail to mention how your research was funded, or present the information in a way that hides the true sources of your funding.</p>
								<h4>Conflicts of interest</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> List financial and other interests that could be perceived by others as having an impact on the research being reported (e.g. consultancy arrangements, payment for giving a lecture). It is normally best to mention too much rather than too little in these sections.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Fail to mention real and perceived conflicts of interest or list them in a way that hides the source of the conflicts.</p>
								<h4>Acknowledgements</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> List others who contributed to the research, but not in a way that deserves authorship. This could include technical support, proofreaders of your manuscript or individuals with whom you have discussed your work but who have not contributed towards conducting the research or writing the paper.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Fail to acknowledge others who contributed to the research but not in a way that deserves authorship.</p>
								<h4>Notes</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> Provide additional information on the research that will help the reader understand and put your work in context.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Put essential information in notes that the reader might not read.</p>
								<h4>Sources/Data</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> Provide all the information a reader needs to understand and critique your research.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Fail to provide information that is essential for understanding and critiquing your research.</p>
								<h4>Appendices/Supplementary information</h4>
								<p><strong>You should:</strong> Provide access to any additional material that will be useful in understanding your research, either as part of the published articles or as links/references to where the additional material can be found. These could include additional images of results, examples of questionnaires, etc.</p>
								<p><strong>You should not:</strong> Fail to provide any additional material needed to understand your research.</p>
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							<p>For best practice in your field, spend time looking through articles in your target journal or book. How are they constructed? How detailed is the methods section? How expansive is the discussion section? If you find the format and style do not fit your goals, you might want to consider another publication.</p>
							
							<h3>Summary</h3>
							
							<p>A well-written, scholarly article has many parts, all of which are important. Some will undoubtedly get more attention than others, starting with the abstract and conclusions. Keep in mind, however, that it can be the parts that seemingly don't matter that contain critical information that other researchers may need for their work. Therefore, you should:</p>
							
							<ul>
								<li>Make sure your abstract accurately reflects what you discovered</li>
								<li>Write your own methods section</li>
								<li>Compose and carefully check your notes and references</li>
								<li>List only those authors who qualify for authorship (and acknowledge others)</li>
								<li>Mention limitations and weaknesses</li>
								<li>Report all real and potential conflicts of interest.</li>
							</ul>
							
							<p>Drafting a scholarly article takes time, but this will be time well spent as long as you set <em>quality</em>, not <em>quantity</em>, as your primary goal.</p>
							
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