Design, implementation, and evaluation of principles of writing biomedical research paper course

Introduction: Graduate (PhD) students in medical sciences, who will formfuture faculties and investigators in Iran’s Universities of Medical Sciences, are not trained on scientific writing during their training. The present study describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of Principles of Writing Biomedical Research Paper course.Methods: The course, prepared based on an extensive search of the literature and books on writing biomedical research papers, was offered as an elective course to PhD students at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in the second semester of 2011-2012 academic year. The structure and function of various sections of a paper and publication ethics were discussed in lecture and practical sessions over a period of 12 weeks. The course was then evaluated using a self-designed questionnaire.Results: The majority of students gave the highest score (20) to the content and implementation of all sessions of the course. Moreover, most of them believed that the allotted time to the course was not enough, and suggested that it should be increased to 32 hours (equal to two credits). Also, almost all the participants believed that overall the materials lectured were comprehensive, the practical sessions were important in learning the lectured materials, and the course wasuseful in advancing their abilities and skills to write papers.Conclusion: The evaluation of the present course showed that it was able to increase the participants’ knowledge of the structure of scientific papers, and enhanced their abilities and skills to write papers. The evaluation was used as a basis to modify the course.Keywords: Design, Evaluation, Biomedical, Principles of writing