I hope this article reproduced from Oxford Journals
Int. Journal for Quality in Health Care will be useful.
Basic mistakes made by research authors
The research question is not specified
The stated aim of the paper is tautological (e.g. ‘The aim of this paper is to describe what we did’) or vague (e.g. ‘We explored issues related to X’)
The structure of the paper is chaotic (e.g. methods are described in the Results section)
The manuscripts does not follow the journal’s instructions for authors
The paper much exceeds the maximum number of words allowed
The Introduction is an extensive review of the literature
Methods, interventions and instruments are not described in sufficient detail
Results are reported selectively (e.g. percentages without frequencies, P-values without measures of effect)
The same results appear both in a table and in the text
Detailed tables are provided for results that do not relate to the main research question
In the Introduction and Discussion, key arguments are not backed up by appropriate references
References are out of date or cannot be accessed by most readers
The Discussion does not provide an answer to the research question
The Discussion overstates the implications of the results and does not acknowledge the limitations of the study
The paper is written in poor English
Online ISSN 1464-3677 - Print ISSN 1353-4505
Copyright © 2012
Until next time.