Common Errors in Manuscript Preparation

Below are our current top 10 problems with manuscripts preparation. If you can avoid these issues, the review of your manuscript will be much easier!

1. No mention in abstract of IRB approval, HIPAA compliance (U.S. studies), and/or animal care committee approval, as appropriate (or worse, failure to obtain IRB approval). Prospective studies need written informed consent. If your institution does not require IRB approval (only for studies from outside the United States) for retrospective studies, you will still need a waiver of IRB approval.

2. Discordance between purpose in abstract and purpose in introduction. These should be the same. Your introduction should NOT state what was done in your study.

3. Failure to utilize the STARD guidelines. These guidelines give 25 items that should be addressed in studies on diagnostic accuracy. Common missing items include (but are not limited to) (a) the inclusion and exclusion criteria, (b) specification of whether patients were consecutive or were enrolled in some other fashion, (c) identification of the study as prospective or retrospective, (d) mention in the methods of who performed the review (give initials, if an author) and the expertise of the reviewers, (e) mention if readers of index test were blinded to results of other studies, (f) specification of the start and end dates of the study (and of patient enrollment), and (g) explanation of how indeterminate results, missing data, and data outliers were handled.

4. Failure to specify age range and sex distribution of patient population and mention effect of any significant differences associated with these factors.

6. Lack of correspondence between methods and results. A common problem is that results for portions of the study are given without description of how these results were obtained.

7. Failure to use a statistical test that considers clustering effects when a patient has more than one lesion.

8. Exceeding the 3000-word limit for an original research report (2000 words for Technical Developments). In particular, we frequently see rambling discussions with mention of issues not pertinent to the study

9. No mention of limitations of the study.

10. Failure to consider the amount of overlap that your current study has with prior studies published or submitted by your group. If you have a patient population that overlaps with that in previously published or submitted manuscripts, the extent of overlap should be stated and the other studies should be referenced. Any potential redundant or duplicate manuscript issues should be clearly identified in your cover letter to the editor.