University of Tasmania, Australia

Writing Manuscripts for Publication in the Biomedical Sciences: A Professional Development Workshop for Researchers instructed by:

This professional development workshop for Faculty of Health Science and Menzies Research Institute Tasmania staff and students provides an opportunity for clinical investigators, other health professionals, academic staff, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows to complete a research manuscript for submission for publication to a scientific journal. The workshop will focus on the structure, organisation and content of the various elements of a research paper in the biomedical sciences. Professor Glew ran a similar workshop in Hobart and Launceston in March 2011, and many of the participants subsequently had their work published in leading journals.

The workshop in Hobart (Medical Science 1) will be from the 13th-16th March and 19th-22nd March 2012, and will involve 3-4 hour daily sessions.

This workshop will be for up to 12 participants. There will be no cost to the participants, but those accepted into the course will be expected to attend for the duration of the workshop.

Workshop participants will be required to bring a minimum of three pieces of data from original research in the form of tables and/or figures. Each participant will use the data as the basis of the manuscript they will write during the workshop such that by the end of the last session they will have produced a manuscript suitable for submission to a peer-reviewed journal in their field. In addition to analysing the various standard elements of a manuscript (e.g. title page, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, references), issues such as the ethics of authorship and strategies for increasing the quality and quantity of one's writing will be discussed throughout the workshop.

Workshop sessions are intended to be highly interactive and participants are expected to discuss their own experiences and training vis-à-vis manuscript writing. Approximately one-half of each session is devoted to reading and critiquing drafts of one's own work and that of fellow participants. Between sessions, participants are expected to draft components of their manuscript. During each session the instructor will also discuss the content and organisation of a particular aspect of a scientific paper.

Professor Glew has taught biochemistry and conducted research in the area of maternal and child health and nutrition in Nigeria, the Republic of Niger, Ghana, Cameroon and other West African countries for 35 years. He has directed the manuscript-writing program for the past 15 years to faculty, graduate students and undergraduate students at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and at various teaching hospitals and universities in sub-Saharan Africa, India, Taiwan, Turkey and other parts of the world. In 2009 he coauthored with Dr Miriam Rosenthal a textbook for medical students entitled Medical Biochemistry: Human Metabolism in Health and Disease. He has served for 17 years as a consultant to the US National Board of Medical Examiners.