Many reporting guidelines provide only an essential checklist, with limited guidance on how to create an actual guideline manuscript from that checklist. With this free-to-use and extensive template for transparent and complete reporting of guidelines, drafting guideline manuscripts may become much simpler.
This section should include an attractive hook that captures readers’ attention as well as an overview of your article. Many journals encourage authors to include their main results within this introduction section.
Introduction
No matter the research field, a good article starts with an effective introduction. After all, this section of your paper is what readers and reviewers first encounter; so it’s crucial that it builds upon a solid base. A well-written introduction should demonstrate why your study is necessary while providing essential background details; additionally it should introduce the methods and results of research as well as give
The initial paragraph in your work often serves as its “general background.” However, depending on its approach and target journal this section may take on other names. Usually though it helps situate the work within its broader scientific field while making it accessible to a broader range of researchers rather than just those in your particular subfield.
After an initial introduction, body paragraphs should provide support for your thesis and argument. They should include direct and indirect evidence in the form of citations that clearly link back to your main point. While older style guides recommend keeping key results back for suspense purposes, most journals (with medicine being an exception) encourage presenting results early to keep readers engaged and increase likelihood they’ll continue reading your paper.
Methods
Guideline developers should establish their analytic framework from the outset, choosing questions to address and outcomes to measure for evaluation purposes. Remarks and opinions must also be discussed openly when making decisions and provided in their rationale statement. Transparency is increasingly recognized as essential when developing guidelines, particularly when these elements contradict evidence-based recommendations. Doing so allows clinicians and other users to interpret them in light of their practice or circumstances more appropriately.
Results
Though reporting checklists exist for guideline development and updates, no practical template exists to present a full narrative manuscript for such guidelines. To address this need, the ASH VTE Guidelines Methodology Working Group created a template to compile panel recommendations into summaries suitable for dissemination through peer-reviewed journals based on McMaster GRADE reporting framework and AGREE II. 10 ASH VTE guideline panels used this template to create manuscripts that were well received by journal editors, with only minor challenges reported among guideline authors and reviewers. Overall, guideline authors found the template useful due to its standardized layout and structure; further validation from prospective users will help refine and optimize its utility; COBWEB is an online writing tool which could assist guideline authors when creating these types of documents.
Conclusions
After inviting readers into your study through its introduction and providing them with all of your methodologies, analyses, and results, the conclusion should serve to bring the information back into real-life application or suggest avenues for further research. A strong conclusion can help readers see how your paper’s insights apply directly to their daily lives or suggest new avenues of investigation.
Conclusions provide an opportunity to provide a broader context for your work, connecting its findings with larger issues at play. But beware sentimental or emotive language which could undermine credibility of research findings; be honest about limitations without diminishing importance.
Although many tools and guidelines exist to assist guideline authors, few offer practical guidance on how to compose a manuscript for publication of guideline recommendations in peer-reviewed journals. To meet this need, the ASH VTE Guidelines Methodology Working Group created a free-to-use manuscript template which may simplify writing guideline manuscripts while improving end user comprehension. This template can be found online here