HOW

TO WRITE YOUR ASSIGNMENT

Basic skills for a doctor
• English reading and writing
Exhausts your effort to improve your English speaking, reading
and writing
• Computer skills
We are going to the era of the importance of rapid and efficient
getting information is more important than remembering the
information
Intended learning outcomes
•  Review the literature
•  Search for a medical topic
•  Items to be answered when you read a topic
•  Prepare for writing
•  Four draft approach for speed writing
•  Paragraph writing
•  Dishonesty in scientific writing
•  Styling and refrrances
•  Assignment
 Review the literature

•  When you are confronted with an assignment or scientific essay to write

•  We usually search the internet to find relevant information

•  However what you find on the internet is not always correct , most of the
gathered information is commercial funded by drug and pharmaceutical
companies

•  Students , should be aware, where , how to find relevant information

•  What is scientific and what is commercial

•  Otherwise , you are going to write a meaningless essay.

Search for a medical topic?
•  Google scholar
•  EKB.EG
•  E-medicine
•  Up-to-date
•  Pub-med
•  Science-direct
Items to be answered when you read a topic
•  What is the problem ?
•  What is the relevance of this problem ( size and effect)?
•  What is the available information?
•  What do you hope to achieve by your study, search or review?
•  What additional data are needed to meet the objectives ( missing points you want
to answer)?
•  What is the expected outcome and how much it is useful?
•  What are the principal findings Strength and weakness of the study.
•  How does the article compare in relation to other studies, discussing particularly
any differences in results.
•  Possible mechanism and implications for clinicians or policy makers.
•  Unanswered questions and future research.
 Prepare for writing
•  Make an ‘outline’ describing what you want say
•  Decide what objectives you will address and what information you wish to
present.
•  Think about your readers ( Who going to read your article)
•  Decide what materials you will need to have on hand to write the report.
•  You should assemble all necessary information before you start to write.
•  This includes preparation of all of your figures and tables.
•  Now you are ready to start writing!
The “four drafts” approach to speed writing

Do not copy and paste from the internet ( this is the biggest mistake)
Draft 1 –this is the ‘outlining’ stage. In this draft I list down the items ypu are
going to cover , including headings and subheadings if there

Draft 2 – This is the ‘brainstorming’ draft. The idea here is simply to dump all
your thoughts and ideas. Don’t worry about sentence order, grammar,
spelling or punctuation – that will just slow you down and interrupt the
creative flow.
 The “four drafts” approach to speed writing

Draft 3 – this is the ‘sifting and sorting’ stage

•  where the first seeds of paragraphs germinate, grow and flourish.
•  First, go through everything you dumped during the brainstorming session(s) and
collect ‘like’ ideas into groupings.
•  Next, start thinking about topic sentences for these groupings.
•  Then, flesh out the supporting facts into full blown sentences.
•  Organize these supporting sentences into a logical order under their respective topic
sentences.
•  Don’t waste any time trying to get the wording absolutely perfect
The “four drafts” approach to speed writing

Draft 4 the ‘preening, tidying’ draft.

•  Proofing
•  Styling
•  Grammar check
•  spelling and punctuation.
 Paragraph writing
•  Top Sentence + Supporting facts

•  No paragraph consist of one sentence

•  Each paragraph should speak about a separate idea

•  Big ideas may be discussed in more than one paragraph

•  Each paragraph should logically leads to the next, readers should expect
what they are going to see in the next paragraph

•  Each fact or information should be referenced , that means we should

write who said that and when
 Paragraph writing
•  Avoid emotion in scientific papers 'Great importance', 'significant conclusions'
and similar expressions should be restrained.

•  'Instead of announcing that what you are about to tell is interesting, make it
so'.

•  When you write’ we were surprised' or 'unexpected result' admits lack of

knowledge.

•  If you list arguments, causes or consequences as 'first, ... second, ...' don't call
the last 'finally'. You can rarely be certain the subject is closed . Of course we
hope - but privately, not in a scientific paper.

•  Sit-up a time table

Dishonesty in writing scientific research
 Dishonesty in writing scientific research
• Fraud: is a deception, deliberately practiced in order
to secure unfair or unlawful gain. Turning in someone
else's writing as your own; inventing statistics or
s o u r c e s t h a t d o n o t e x i s t ; f a l s i f y i n g
evidence ....... ....,.etc are all considered fraud.

‫ يعتبر الباحث او الطالب مرتكبا لالحتيال االكادميي اذا‬: ‫• االحتيال االكادميي‬

‫ يندرج حتت االحتيال كذلك‬.‫قدم عمل شخص اخر على انه عمله اخلاص‬
‫اختراع بيانات او إحصاءات أو مصادر علمية ال وجود لها او تزوير نتائج‬
.‫بحثية‬
 Dishonesty in writing scientific research
•  Plagiarism is the theft of other people’s words and ideas. Plagiarism
happens when you claim (or appear to claim) that an idea, or the
expression of it, is your own when in fact it is someone else’s. This
either Intentional (deliberate) or unintentional (accidental).

‫ االنتحال يحدث عندما تدعي(أو يبدو انك‬.‫ هو سرقة كلمات اوأفكار اآلخرين‬: ‫االنتحال االكادميي‬
‫هو خاص بك بينما هو في واقع األمر ملك شخص‬، ‫أو التعبير عن هذة الفكرة‬، ‫تدعي) أن فكرة‬
.‫ عرضي‬-‫متعمد أو عن غير قصد‬-‫ هذا إماعن قصد‬.‫آخر‬

 Dishonesty in writing scientific research

•  The word plagiarize actually comes from the Latin plagiare—to
kidnap. When you plagiarize, you’re taking (or kidnapping)
someone else’s work.

•  Plagiarism is also defined as “The use of another author's

language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions, and the
representation of them as one's own original work “(Ref:
From the Oxford English Dictionary)
 Dishonesty in writing scientific research
Causes of plagiarism
•  Many researchers believe that taking whole paragraphs from
different papers and including them in their writing is ok as long as
they mention the references.
•  Poor time management and writing under stress.
•  Immature writing skills.
•  Intentional!!....
 Dishonesty in writing scientific research

Examples of Plagiarism…
—  Copying and pasting text from online encyclopedias
—  Copying and pasting text from any web site
—  Using photographs, video or audio without permission or acknowledgement
—  Using another author’s or your parents’ work and claiming it as your own
even with permission
—  Using your own work without properly citing it!
Dishonesty in writing scientific research

How to Avoid Plagiarism…

1.  Begin the writing process by stating your ideas; then go back to the
author's original work.

2.  To avoid plagiarism, you must give credit (i.e. to mention

references) whenever you use another person’s idea, opinion, or
theory.

3.  You take any facts, statistics, graphs, drawings or any pieces of
information in your own research writing.
 How to Avoid Plagiarism…
4.  If you are going to take the exact words from another source use quotation
marks and then credit the source (author)
5.  If you are going to take a scientific fact from a research article, write it in your
own words not the exact copy of the authors words…this is called “Paraphrasing”.
….of course this should not change the scientific fact.
6.  Even when you paraphrase another author's writings, you must give credit to that
author.

•  Examples of plagiarism detection servers and software
•  http://www.ithenticate.com/
•  http://www.plagscan.com/
•  http://searchenginereports.net/
•  http://www.duplichecker.com/
Style and reffrances
•  The text must be clear. Good grammar and thoughtful writing will make the thesis
easier to read. Scientific writing has to be a little formal
•  Some use : "at this point in time" instead of "now" precisely because it takes longer
to convey the same meaning. THIS IS WRONG !
References
•  Check carefully. Photocopy the first page of
every reference cited.

•  In biomedical sciences, there are two major

styles for citing the references: the Harvard
system and the Vancouver system.

The Vancouver system has been adopted in

the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts
Submitted to Biomedical Journals” by the
International Committee of Medical Journal
Editors
Harvard:
•  ABRAMS, P., CARDOZO, L., FALL, M., GRIFFITHS, D., ROSIER, P., ULMSTEN, U., VAN
KERREBROECK, P., VICTOR, A. & WEIN, A. 2003. The standardization of terminology
in lower urinary tract function: report from the standardization sub-committee of
the International Continence Society. Urology, 61, 37-49.

•  Vancouver:
•  Abrams P, Cardozo L, Fall M, Griffiths D, Rosier P, Ulmsten U, et al. The
standardization of terminology in lower urinary tract function: report from the
standardization sub-committee of the International Continence Society. Urology.
2003 Jan;61(1):37-49.
The Purpose of the
Reference Section
•  The reference section provides details about authorship
and publication for materials cited in the article.
•  The citations lead readers to the information you found.
Reference Styles
•  Follow citation style used by the journal
•  Journals use a variety of styles
•  Journals include their styles in the author’s
guidelines
•  Can also determine style by looking at
articles in journal
Assignment
•  Each group ( 5 students) should prepare two documents and upload them online
through the e-learning system
•  1st- document is a one page essay that discuss on of the bellow topics , no more
than 30 lines consists of at least 3 paragraphs
•  2nd Document: is a power point presentation that summarize one of the bellow
topics in no more than 10 slides , examples will be presented tomorrow and the
whole will be uploaded
•  The above document will be marked as year work
•  Do not forget to write your names on the cover page of the presentation and
essay.
•  Good luck
Assignment
•  Topics :
•  How to study Medicine
•  Competing fatigue during study
•  Fear of public speaking
•  Critical thinking skills
•  Dress code for doctors
•  Use social media as a medical student
•  Time management strategy
•  Fast reading skills
•  Changing the way of thinking
THANK YOU
•  GOOD LUCK

•  Omar M Shaaban (omshaaban2000@aun.edu.eg)

•  Ahmed A Sobh (ahmedabbas@aun.edu.eg)
•  Emad Zaref (Emadzarief@yahoo.com)
•  Huessen Elkhyat(dr_khayat@hotmail.com)