Author	Whimster, William F. author
Title	Biomedical Research [electronic resource] : How to plan, publish and present it / by William F. Whimster
Imprint	London : Springer London : Imprint: Springer, 1997
Connect to	http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3590-6
Descript	XXVII, 246 p. online resource

It is a distinct pleasure to be invited to prepare a short Foreword to Biomedical Research: How to plan, publish and present it, by William F. Whimster. Ninety years have elapsed since T. Clifford Allbutt, the Regius Professor of Physic at the University of Cambridge, published his c1assic work of 1904 Notes on the Composition of Scientific Papers. Small in size, but deep in wisdom, it remains a remarkably useful, if slightly old-fashioned, book, still weIl worth reading. Since 1904, and particularly in the last 25 years, there has been an avalanche of books on scientific style. Medawar has aptly observed that "most scientists do not know how to write, insofar as style betrays I' homme meme, they write as if they hated writing and wantยญ ed nothing more than to have done with it. " Whimster's book has a broader objective than most of this genre. Unlike Allbutt, who was addressing in the main those who were writing their theses to obtain the MD, Whimster writes for the young medical scientists who are planning and writing up an account of their research, either for pubยญ lication in scientific journals, or for presentation of the scientific material at meetings. Whimster, a scientist and an experienced longยญ term science editor, has written an up-to-date version of an earlier and very successful volume, Research, How to Plan, Speak and Write About It, edited by C. Hawkins and M. Sorgi

A Planning -- 1 Types and design of research -- 2 Literature searching and information retrieval -- 3 The key biomedical data bases -- 4 The search interface and the Internet -- 5 Applying for ethics committee approval and research grants -- B Results -- 6 Data handling and interpretation -- 7 The visual display of data -- C Writing -- 8 Planning the writing -- 9 Original articles -- 10 Rewriting -- 11 Submitting the work -- 12 Other writing, including theses -- 13 Writing by those whose first language is not English -- D The journal office -- 14 The editorial process -- 15 Peer review -- 16 Dealing with acceptance and rejection -- E Presenting research at meetings -- 17 Planning presentations -- 18 โ{128}{156}Conference abstractsโ{128}{157} -- 19 Presenting papers at meetings -- 20 Presenting posters at meetings -- F The final word -- Further reading -- Appendices -- 1 International Committee of Medical Journal Editors -- A Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals -- B Statements of policy -- 3 Declaration of Helsinki -- 4 Applications for ethical approval and for research grants -- 5 A selection of typefaces and sizes -- 6 American and British usage in spelling -- 7 Examples of needless words causing verbosity -- 8 The distraction removal test kit -- 9 Proofreading and proofreadersโ{128}{153} marks