From the Language and Literacy Education program at UBC, some more thoughts and resources on the specific challenge of  graduate and postdoctoral student writing.  Their presentation here discusses rethinking writing as a process and a situated social act, and strategizing not only for better products, but for building better writing process.

Additional link available for  Writing Resources at UBC

Writing a Journal Article

Introduction (from general-specific)
1. Set the context and background – What’s the problem?
2. What is the scientific/clinical/public health importance of this problem?
3. Demonstrate the gap in research to date, i.e. what makes your work unique – no one has done it before.
4. Objectives – State the specific research question you are addressing.

Methods
o Name the study design.
o Describe exposures of interest and primary and secondary outcomes. Justify these.
o State hypotheses.
o Describe inclusion and exclusion criteria.
o Describe study setting
o Include power calculations
o Describe analysis plan. Name variables that you will be evaluating as potential confounders and effect modifers.

Results
o Describe number of subjects in comparison groups, rate of participation among eligible subjects.
o Compare baseline characteristics of comparison groups. This material will be in Table One –give an overview in the text.
o Describe findings – make your primary and secondary outcomes clear.
o Present adjusted and non-adjusted estimates of risk (Table two).
o Findings from subgroup analyses if relevant.

Discussion (from specific  general)
o Summarize your main findings—What is the punch line?
o Explain findings – what was the mechanism linking outcomes to exposure?
o Use Hill’s criteria for causality to explore if this is a causal relationship: biological gradient, temporality, consistency with other findings, strength    of association (size of RR, OR), biological plausibility, coherence with what is known about the subject.
o Discuss study imitations (with a rebuttal). Think one step ahead of the reviewer.
o Conclusion
o Implications for practice, if relevant.
o Recommendations for future research.

Read Journal of the American Medical Association, American Journal of Epidemiology, New England Journal of Medicine, and Lancet as examples of good writing.