What is research, Types of research, Requisites of good research, Concept in epidemiology, Epidemiologic studies , Literature search, Protocol designing, Ethical issues, Dissertation writing , Research paper writing , Reviewing a research paper,

1. PRESENTED BY:
DR GAYATRI MEHROTRA

2.  What is research
 Types of research
 Requisites of good research
 Concept in epidemiology
 Epidemiologic studies
 Literature search
 Protocol designing
 Ethical issues
 Dissertation writing
 Research paper writing
 Reviewing a research paper

3. SOURCESResearch Contact with
researchers
Grey
literature
Pharma-
ceutical
industry
OPACs
Database
Internet
Direct
contact
Registers
Research
council
Hand
searching
Conference
proceedings
Database
Citation
indexes
Reference
list
ASSIA
MEDLINE

4.  www.biomedcentral.com
 www.openmed.nic.in
 www.medind.nic.in
 www.indmed.nic.in
 www.popline.org

5.  www.freemedicaljournals.com
 www.highwire.stanford.uk
 www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane
 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed

6.  Protocol is the blueprint of the research.
 A protocol is a document that explicitly states the
reasoning behind and structure of a research project.
 Violation of the protocol can discredit the whole
study.

7. 1) Project title
2) Project summary
3) Background and rationale (with supporting
studies and references)
4) Specific objectives (primary and secondary)

8. 5) Methodology
 Patient selection criteria (Inclusion and Exclusion)
 Study population
 Treatment schedules (details)

9.  Methods of patient evaluation (detail study
procedure)
 Trial design, registration and randomization of
patients.
 Patient information and informed consent (in
vernacular language)

10. 6) Forms and data handling
7) Protocol deviation and Amendments (approval
from IEC)
8) Plans for statistical analysis
9) Publication plans
10) References

12.  Ethics is a subject that deals with values, principles,
beliefs and opinions.
 Basic principles of ethics include-
a) Justice
b) Respect for persons
c) Maximize benefits
d) Minimize harms and wrongs
e) Do no harm

14.  Principle no.1: No human being should be exposed
to any form of intervention which is likely to be
hazardous to human health, safety or well being.
 Principle no.2: No human being should be denied a
treatment or such other intervention which is known
to be effective for that particular disease.

15.  Principle no. 3: Confidentiality of participants and
of the information given by them should be
protected.
 Informed consent should be taken from all subject.
 Principle no.4: Any human being should
participate in an epidemiological or medical
research study only after he / she has been clearly
informed of the scope of the research

16.  Principle no.5: No incentives or pressure should be
there to force or lure the subjects into the study.
 Principle no.6: In case of any harm resulting due to
the research, on the health of a subject, there should
be adequate treatment and compensation.

17.  Principle no.7 : The people who are doing the
research should be adequately qualified / competent
to undertake the same and the research should be
executed using sound research methods.
 Principle no.8 : This says that the benefits and
burdens or research and epidemiology should be
distributed fairly.

18.  Principle no.9 : The participants should be
informed of the information which has resulted
from the research, about themselves, as well as
provided guidance regarding the future course of
action they should undertake.
 Principle no.10: Research on animals should be
undertaken only when it is absolutely essential
and the animals should be treated/sacrificed in
humane manner.

19.  It is a mandatory requirement for a post graduate
student pursuing master’s degree to submit
dissertation in order to qualify to appear in the
university examinations in India.

20.  Help PG students to develop scientific attitude.
 Become familiar with statistical concepts.
 Improve verbal communication for presentation in
front of scientific audience.
 Ability to defend before peers.
 Helps to publish a research paper.

21.  Bradford Hill in 1965 put forth four questions-
 Why did you start? (Introduction)
 What did you say? (Methodology)
 What did you find? (Results, Analysis)
 What does it mean? (Discussion)

22.  TITLE : should be short but informative, accurate ,
specific ,attractive and interesting.
 INTRODUCTION: Aim is to awaken interest. It
should be intelligible and not long.
 REVIEW OF LITERATURE: this pertains to
searching and recording salient and pertinent points
from articles written by earlier workers in the
subject that you have chosen.

23.  Review of literature should contain all of the latest
references related to your topic.
 The period to call a reference latest may be 5 or 10
yrs.
 MATERIALS AMD METHODS: most important
part of dissertation from readers point of view.

24.  Include no. of patients studied , techniques adopted
, statistical methods for analysis.
 Inclusion and exclusion criteria.
 While describing a method care should be taken
that only newer methods or less known methods
must be described.
 Permission of ethical committee.

25.  RESULTS/OBSERVATIONS: here the researcher
is telling his story.
 Use active voice and not passive voice.
 The description of the results of your work is the
heart of your dissertation.
 Presenting the same information in form of table
and graph is just wastage of resources.

26.  It is very important to also report negative findings.
 These findings may help other researchers to study
them further or to avoid them in future research.
 DISCUSSION: this section answers the question
“what do the results mean?”.
 State major findings and validity of your methods.

27.  Agreement or disagreement with previously
published research.
 Give reasons for all the conclusions you wish to
draw.
 The last part of this section should be a paragraph
on limitations of your study.
 No one is perfect and so is true for any study.

28.  SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS: this is a
place where the researcher tells the entire story of
his work in nutshell.
 Conclusion drawn should have its origin in your
objective and strong support from your
methodology and observations.

29.  BIBLIOGRAPHY/REFERNCES: bibliography
is listing all the materials that have been consulted
while writing an essay or a book.
 Reference on the other hand are those that have
been referenced in your article or book.
 References are directly included in your actual text
whereas bibliography is not.

30.  Harvard style: when there are 3 or less authors
write all their surnames and yr of publication
 When there are more than 3 authors
write surname of only first author et al and year

31.  Vancouver style: irrespective of the number of
authors, write only the reference number.
 LISTING OF REFERNCES:
 Harvard style: references are listed in alphabetical
order irrespective of the order of their appearances
in the text.
 Vancouver style: references are numbered
according to their appearances in the text and listed
accordingly

32.  Author Surname Initials.Title: subtitle.
Edition (if not the first). Place of publication:
Publisher;Year.
 Author Surname Initials.Title of article.Title
of journal, abbreviated. Date of Publication:
Volume Number(Issue Number): Page
Numbers.

33.  The sentence should have less than 40 words.
 A paragraph should have around 125 words.
 Use active voice while writing.
 Avoid words such as very, quite, rather , fairly,
relatively , several, much etc as they carry different
meaning for different people.

34.  Be careful about grammar and punctuation.
 Follow all the guidelines as regards font, size of
font, margins, paper size, line spacing etc laid down
by the university.

35.  It is a condensed form of dissertation writing
 Changes are made according to the requirements
of the respective journal.

36.  To understand what research is presented
 To be able to decide the strengths and weakness
of the research.
 To know whether design and methods are
appropriate.
 To be able to decide upon whether the research
is replicable and useful in your area of work.

37.  Dixit scale for review of research papers
 It has 2 parts-
PART A
( Context rating)
PART B
(content rating)
Context rating- the aim
is to decide whether to
read the article or not
Content rating- this scale
will be used after the
decision of reading the
article is taken

38.  Part A:To be assessed as per information given
earlier
A. Title :2
B. Abstract: 5
C. Implications:3 SCORE
10-8 = must read
5-7 = should read
3-4 = may avoid
0-2 = may skip

39.  Part B:
A. Design :10
B. Implementation : 10
C. ‘X’ factor: 10
D. Innovation, Implications and Inspiration: 10
E. Take home message :10

40.  Essentials of preventive and community
dentistry- fourth edition- Soben peter.
 Biostatistics for oral health care- Jay S. Kim
and Ronald J. Dailey.
 Textbook of preventive and social medicine-
K. Park.

41.  Principles and practice of Biostatistics- Dr.
J.V. Dixit.
 Principles and practice of Medical Research-
Dr J

42.  Difference between descriptive study and
observational study?
 Define sensitivity and specificity?
 How to determine sample size?
 Positive and negative predictive values?

43.  Rules in ethics?
 Referencing ?
 What is plagiarism?