My presentation slides during the 1st National Symposium in Emergency and Acute Care (S.E.M.A.C). I presented some of the obstacles and challenges in scientific writing in emergency medicine within the Malaysia context as academic emergency medicine is still progressing in Malaysia,

1. Scientific Writing In Emergency
Medicine ‐ The Malaysian
Context
Dr. KS Chew
School of Medical Sciences
Universiti Sains Malaysia

5. PERSISTENCE
There is no giant step that
does it.
It is a LOTS of LITTLE STEPS
‐ Peter A. Cohen

6. Anyone who has written enough papers would
have had their manuscript rejected some time
or another. After getting over the initial (and
natural!) phase of dejection, it is worthwhile for
the author to analyse the reason(s) for rejection
and to make the best of the situation.
‐Wilfred CG Peh
Chief Editor, Singapore Medical Journal
4th National Scientific Writing Workshop,
Universiti Sains Malaysia

9. Common Reasons Why Papers Are
Rejected For Publication
• Your study did not examine an issue
considered important by the journal’s
editor/reviewers.
• Your study was not original
Murray R. Writing for Academic Journals. 1st ed. Berkshire:
Open University Press; 2005.

10. Common Reasons Why Papers Are
Rejected For Publication
• Your study did not test your hypothesis, or
you did not make the connection between the
two sufficiently clear, strong or explicit
• You should have conducted your study in a
different way
Murray R. Writing for Academic Journals. 1st ed. Berkshire:
Open University Press; 2005.

11. Common Reasons Why Papers Are
Rejected For Publication
• You compromised on your research design
• If your sample size was judged too small,
should you be presenting and analyzing your
data in different terms: as a pilot study, or a
case study?
Murray R. Writing for Academic Journals. 1st ed. Berkshire:
Open University Press; 2005.

12. Common Reasons Why Papers Are
Rejected For Publication
• Your statistical analysis is found to be
incorrect
• The conclusions you drew from your data
were not justified
Murray R. Writing for Academic Journals. 1st ed. Berkshire:
Open University Press; 2005.

13. Common Reasons Why Papers Are
Rejected For Publication
• The reviewers judged that you had a conflict
of interest
• Your paper was badly written that it was
difficult or impossible to understand
Murray R. Writing for Academic Journals. 1st ed. Berkshire:
Open University Press; 2005.

14. Writing an Abstract – Brown’s 8 Questions
1. Who are the intended readers?
2. What did you do?
3. Why did you do it?
4. What happened [when you did that]?
5. What do the results mean in theory?
6. What do the results mean in practice?
7. What is the key benefit for the readers?
8. What remains unresolved?
Murray R. Writing for Academic Journals. 1st ed. Berkshire:
Open University Press; 2005.

19. Murray’s 10 Prompts in Outlining a Paper
1. This work needed to be done because…
2. Those who will benefit from this include…
3. What I did was…
Murray R. Writing for Academic Journals. 1st ed. Berkshire:
Open University Press; 2005.

20. Murray’s 10 Prompts in Outlining a Paper
4. How I did that was by…
5. When I did that what happened was…
6. I worked out what that meant by…
Murray R. Writing for Academic Journals. 1st ed. Berkshire:
Open University Press; 2005.

21. Murray’s 10 Prompts in Outlining a Paper
7. I did what I set out do to the extent that…
8. The implications for research are…
9. The implications for practice are…
10.What still needs to be done is…
Murray R. Writing for Academic Journals. 1st ed. Berkshire:
Open University Press; 2005.

22. Becoming a Reviewer Helps Me
To Write Better

23. How Does Becoming a Reviewer Helps
To Improve Your Writing Skill?
• By becoming a reviewer, you are more aware
of what the editors are looking for
• By becoming a reviewer, you are putting
yourself into the shoes of a reader, and thus,
you are more aware of how to improve the
readability of the manuscript

24. How Does Becoming a Reviewer Helps
To Improve Your Writing Skill?
• By becoming a reviewer, you are more aware
of the common mistakes authors made.
• By becoming a reviewer, you get to interact
with the editors/other reviewers and learn
from each other through the comments
posted.

25. Stead LG, Decker WW.
The International
Journal of Emergency
Medicine: successes of
the first year. Int J
Emerg Med 2009; 2
(1):1‐2.

28. Extending the breadth
…..and/or the depth of
your scope
Exploring New Frontier

29. EP International Vol 2, 2010

31. Red Ocean vs Blue Ocean
Red Ocean Strategy Blue Ocean Strategy
Compete in existing market Create uncontested market
space space
Beat the competition Make the competition
irrelevant
Exploit existing demand Create and capture new
demand
Make the value/cost trade‐off Break the value/cost trade‐off
Align the whole system of a Align the whole system of a
company’s activities with its company’s activities in pursuit
strategic choice of of differentiation and low cost
differentiation or low cost

32. “Historically, authors from countries outside of the USA
have had difficulty getting their work published. Indeed,
fewer than 8% of published articles in the major EM
journals are from authors outside the USA. IJEM,
however, recognizes the need for international EM work
to be disseminated, and this first year underscores the
wealth of information that needs to be brought to light.”
Stead LG, Decker WW. The International
Journal of Emergency Medicine: successes
of the first year. Int J Emerg Med 2009; 2
(1):1‐2.

37. Research Ideas
• Influences of economic recession e.g. on
Malaysian patients’ preferences of emergency
medical treatment
• Studies on the effectiveness of empowering
patients and family in partnership of patient
management. E.g., mild head injury advice on
discharge – does it reduce the rate of
admission without compromising on care?

38. Research Ideas
• Bystander CPR, bystander first aid measures
(e.g. bleeding control) in your community
• Giving existing study a “tweak” to formulate
new study designs
• Repeating an almost similar study in your
setting and patient population

39. Research Ideas
• “Why should treatment X better than
treatment Y?”
• If treatment A works in one group of patient,
try postulating whether the treatment will
work well in another group e.g. adults vs
pediatrics, prehospital vs hospital settings,
etc.

40. Summary
1. There is no short‐cut in research writing but
it pays to be persistence
2. It helps to be a journal reviewer. It sharpens
your writing skills.
3. Expand the horizon of your research scope.

41. The journey of a thousand
miles begin with the first
step ‐ Lao Tsu