Having work published in an industry-leading journal is a huge achievement in any academic’s career, bringing prestige, recognition, and validity. However, medical writing can be difficult, even for the most skilled writers, and any missteps here could mean a high risk of rejection when submitting to a leading journal. The Journal of the American Medical Association for example, accepts just 4% of the papers it receives.1 Here Neeraj Sanghani, Business Head of Products at Paperpal, offers insight into how artificial intelligence (AI) tools can support medical researchers while they write a manuscript.
According to Editage’s Global Author Survey, 76% of the respondents found manuscript preparation to be a difficult step in the publication process, with English-language proficiency being a huge factor in this challenge.2 The survey also found that due to academics focusing on getting the submission process correct, they often taken around 10 hours to just submit a paper to a journal. Interestingly, while researchers may take their time before hitting that submit button, it is usually the manuscript writing process itself, rather than journal submissions, that is considered the most challenging step in the publishing journey.
In 2020, The Ecological Society of America published a piece by Kathleen E. Grogan that covered why scientific writing is so challenging. She stated, “What makes research exciting is the very thing that makes communicating research hard. The goal of a research publication is communicating what you have discovered, at the very limits of our collective knowledge, to those who were not with you on the journey.”3
Another problem most researchers face when conducting research and preparing a manuscript now is simply sifting through the vast amount of information available. Medical researchers might need to sort through hundreds of sources as part of their literature reviews, which can be a tiring, time-consuming process. This may be worse for those whose first language is not English, as it could take longer to read and understand often technical content in order to determine the correct evidence to include in their work.
Writing for a journal
Peer reviewers may be forced to reject a scientific paper that has ticked all the boxes, if it isn’t written coherently or in the appropriate style. Despite this, PhD students and young academics receive limited formal training on the basics of writing, with most academic training typically focused on research methods and data collection. This inherent gap between their writing skills and the need for high-quality submissions can make researchers anxious and reduce the confidence in their ability to write effectively; this added pressure can increase the likelihood of writer’s block or avoidable errors being missed. In extreme cases, it may even deter researchers from wanting to submit their work altogether.
While there are many online writing tools available to check spelling and grammar, only a small minority are suitable in an academic context, and even fewer are suitable for medical manuscripts. General writing tools cannot understand the academic language and account for it, while AI language and grammar checkers do not offer the kind of technical checks needed to ensure that a manuscript adheres to journal-specific requirements. One solution is to ask a friend or colleague to proofread your work, or even pay a professional editor to offer advice. While this can help during the final stages, the first draft is the most important, and authors aren’t able to access the technical support needed to create the basis of their manuscript when they need it most.
Artificial intelligence to support human effort
We are currently in an era in which machine learning and artificial intelligence tools have the ability to solve many of the challenges that researchers face. The use of an AI writing assistant software means that medical research can be written without the risk of common language mistakes that may often be overlooked by the writer.
Paperpal, for example, offers an MS Word Add-in that provides real-time suggestions on grammar, punctuation, style, and readability. The tool offers real-time language suggestions to improve academic writing, which can speed up the overall process and help instil a sense of confidence in the researcher. In this way, authors are less likely to face rejection purely based on the quality of their writing. Paperpal has been designed basis a continually evolving algorithm that studies millions of pre- and post-submission academic papers, providing researchers access to precise and unbiased editorial corrections that meet the standards of a professional editor or proof reader.
The tool is trusted by several top publishers, including Cambridge University Press, Wolters Kluwer, and the American Association for Cancer Research. Many journals now use Paperpal Preflight, another AI-based tool embedded on their websites, to aid in the submission process. Paperpal Preflight can be used by research authors to upload and check their paper before they submit. Within minutes, this comprehensive pre-submission check alerts the author to grammatical errors, common language issues, typos and other style inconsistencies in the manuscript, giving them a chance to polish their work and further reduce the risk of desk rejection.
Achieving high-quality academic writing remains a challenge for many medical researchers, particularly for those whose first language is not English. Fortunately, the writing revolution is already underway. AI technology can not only help researchers hone their academic writing skills, it can save hours spent on final checks before submission with a two-minute evaluation to ensure that a paper is submission ready.
Ready to explore the smart solution to high-quality academic writing? Check out Paperpal’s AI writing tools.
References
- Fielding, S. The editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association explains how a medical study gets published. Business Insider (2020). Available at https://www.businessinsider.com/how-a-study-gets-published-in-a-medical-journal-2020-5?r=US&IR=T
- Author Perspectives on Academic Publishing: Global Survey Report 2018, Editage. Available at https://campaign.editage.com/global_survey_report_2018/
- Grogan, K. Writing Science: What Makes Scientific Writing Hard and How to Make It Easier. The Ecological Society of America (2020)
