This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on Web of Science (2)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Journalology/ Peer Review/ Authorship  • Humanities  • Medicine and the Media  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: Medical researchers have an ethical and scientific obligation to publish, but between one third and two thirds of research may remain unpublished.^1-2 A major reason for nonpublication is lack of time,¹ which may lead researchers to seek medical writing assistance. Guidelines from journal editors³ and medical writers^4-6 encourage authors to acknowledge medical writers. We quantified the proportion of articles from international, peer-reviewed, high-ranking journals that reported medical writing assistance.

Methods

For this descriptive study, which was conducted between November 2004 and January 2005, we reviewed 1000 original research articles from 10 international journals, representing different content areas (Table). Selected journals had to be among the highest ranking journals in their area (based on the 2003 Institute for Scientific Information impact factor), be peer-reviewed, publish acknowledgments, and be available online and in English. Articles were selected in consecutive reverse order, starting with the most recent online edition, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Karen L. Woolley, PhD
kw@proscribe.com.au
ProScribe Medical Communications
Queensland, Australia

Julie A. Ely, PhD
ProScribe Medical Communications
New South Wales, Australia

Mark J. Woolley, PhD; Leigh Findlay, PhD; Felicity A. Lynch, PhD
ProScribe Medical Communications
Queensland, Australia

Yoonah Choi, PhD
ProScribe Medical Communications
New South Wales, Australia

Jane M. McDonald, MBA
ProScribe Medical Communications
Tokyo, Japan

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?