本书从怎样准备论文写作开始，讲解如何确定投稿的杂志，如何提交论文，直到如何校对稿件，对从论文书写到发表的全过程提供了可操作性极强的指导。本版内容通俗易懂、结构合理。详细讨论了图例，特别是图表的使用，部分实例提供了正反两方面的图示比较。

本书可帮助初级写作者，以及有经验的作者更有效地展现其科研成果，特别适合生物学、医学相关学科。本版仍然保留了第1版通俗易懂、结构合理的特点，并且增加了博士论文写作的建议，详述实例报告的写作方法；详细讨论了图例，特别是图表的使用，部分实例提供了正反两方面的图示比较。本书从怎样准备论文写作开始，讲解如何确定投稿的杂志，如何提交论文，直到如何校对稿件，对从论文书写到发表的全过程提供了可操作性极强的指导。

1 Basic rules of writing 写作基础 / 1

Brevity / 2

Logic and clarity / 2

Clean typing / 3

2 Comments on scientific language 科技语言的使用 / 4

English as a foreign language / 5

Follow the “leitmotif” / 7

Verbosity / 8

He/she / 9

Active or passive voice / 10

Tense / 12

Noun clusters and modifiers / 13

Prevalence and incidence / 14

Avoid the use of “respectively” / 15

The “and/or” construction / 15

Unnecessary hedging / 16

How old is young? / 16

Avoid synonyms to achieve elegant variation / 18

The remote verb / 18

3 Drafting the manuscript 草稿 / 20

Write down your thoughts as they arise / 21

Where and when to write? / 21

The other way around / 23

Handwriting or word processing? / 24

4 Choosing a journal 选择发表的杂志 / 25

Instructions to authors / 27

5 Preparing a graph 准备图表 / 28

The line graph / 28

The chart / 32

Before submission / 49

6 Drawings 绘图 / 50

7 Figure legends 图例 / 53

8 How to design tables 设计表格 / 55

The descriptive title / 55

The declarative title / 56

Rounding off / 57

Table or graph? / 58

9 Title 标题 / 62

Whenever possible, use a declarative rather than a neutral title / 62

Titles ending with a question mark / 64

Begin with the keywords / 64

Use verbs instead of abstract nouns / 65

Avoid abbreviations in the title / 65

A title for your thesis / 66

Running title / 67

10 Authors 作者 / 69

Guidelines on authorship / 69

The contributors list / 71

A question of coauthorship / 73

11 Abstract 摘要 / 75

The conventional abstract / 76

The structured abstract / 76

12 Introduction 前言 / 79

13 Methods 方法 / 82

The subjects / 83

Informed consent / 84

Omissions in reporting of randomized controlled trials / 85

14 Results 结果 / 89

Participant flow and follow-up / 89

Study outcome / 94

15  Discussion 讨论 / 96

Evaluate the results-not the authors / 100

Avoid claiming priority / 100

The reference-13 trick / 101

16  Acknowledgments 致谢 / 103

Always give credit for financial support / 104

17 References 参考文献 / 106

Vancouver versus Harvard style? / 107

Accuracy of references and quotations / 112

Your own author name / 114

Chinese names / 114

Anonymous / 115

Record titles in the language of publication / 117

Names of journals / 118

How to refer to World Wide Web / 118

18 Ph.D. and other doctoral theses 博士学位论文 / 120

Compilations: the theses of the future / 121

Contributors / 122

Thesis at a glance / 124

General introduction / 124

Aims / 125

Methods and results / 126

General discussion / 127

Acknowledgments / 128

Cover illustration / 129

A fresh look / 130

The structure of the thesis overview / 131

19 Letters and case reports 快报及事例报告 / 134

The thalidomide letter / 134

Transforming a paper into a letter / 136

Case reports / 136

20 Numbers 数字 / 140

Two numbers side by side / 141

Decimal point / 142

Thousands / 142

Numbers with several zeros / 142

Quotients of units / 143

Percentages / 144

Rounding to two significant digits / 145

Enumeration / 146

What do we mean by“often”? / 146

21 Abbreviations 缩写词 / 147

Units of measure / 148

General principles / 149

22 How to present statistical results 呈现统计结果 / 151

Using mean when median is meant / 152

Using standard error instead of standard deviation / 153

Failure to distinguish between statistical significance

 and biological importance / 153

Selected presentation of multiple statistical testing / 154

Overinterpretation of subgroup effects / 155

Using relative instead of absolute figures / 156

Some further comments / 157

23 Typing 打印 / 159

Do not mimic the journal’s style / 169

The length of the manuscript / 169

The importance of punctuation / 170

24 Dealing with editors and referees 编辑与审稿人 / 172

Do referees delay? / 173

Unpublished work / 174

Shortening the manuscript / 175

Accepted or rejected / 176

25 Correcting proofs 校对 / 178

How to read proof / 178

What to correct / 179

Correction marks / 180

Electronic proof / 181

26 Authors’ responsibilities 作者的职责 / 184

Subjects’ right to privacy / 184

Duplicate submission / 185

Borrowing published material / 186

Saving your original data / 190

Literature needed on your desk 必备参考资料 / 193

On phraseology / 193

On synonyms / 193

On manuscript preparation / 193

On how to abbreviate a journal’s title / 193

Further reading 进一步阅读 / 194

Guides to writing / 194

Punctuation / 195

The English language / 195

Style manuals / 195

Illustrations / 195

Statistics / 195

Literature cited 引用文献 / 196

Index 索引 / 203