One of the hallmarks of scientific journal publication is the peer review system. An editor cannot be knowledgeable about every possible area of research the journal he or she edits receives for consideration. So the paper is sent for review by people with expertise in the area the paper discusses, and the editor then...
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Author Archive
A New Journal on Peer Review and Research Integrity
A New Publication World?
First, a confession. I spent much of my career as a journal editor, and spend time now as a journal editor (Chiropractic Journal of Australia). I mention this because I want to discuss issues around journal publication. In the evidence-based world, journal articles are still seen as the primary means of obtaining important information...
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A Simple Guide to Critical Appraisal
When I review a clinical trial, I ask myself a set of questions to help me understand how well I think the paper makes its case. This is something I have come up with on my own, after many years as a joural editor, educator and teacher of evidence-based practice. Of course, there exist...
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The Post-Factual World: Reconciling It With Evidence-Based Practice
One of the great challenges we face in attempting to live in an evidence-based world and practice in an evidence-based manner is that we now effectively live in a post-fact world. Currently, we see this illuminated in politics, where presidential candidates seem to feel free to simply make up information; fact checking comes too...
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Reporting Guidelines
A great deal of effort has been expended in developing reporting guidelines for different kinds of scientific papers. The idea is to provide a researcher and/or reader with a checklist of items that will help ensure the rigor of the paper they are writing or reading. Below is a list of some of these...
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The TIDieR Checklist (Template for Intervention Description and Replication)
I think we can all be justifiably proud of the clinical trial research we have seen conducted by our own research scientists and from those in related fields. That information has been critical in our growth as a profession and has contributed in some measure to our cultural credibility. But I think if I...
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Video Clips about Evidence-Based Clinical Practice
Herewith are some good clips about the world of evidence-based practice. This is just a start… General Introduction to Evidence-Based Medicine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCfZB5ZZyso Introduction to Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) Definition and 5 As of Evidence-Based Medicine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu_HHmZ5oPY Introduction to PICO for Evidence-Based Medicine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK9H2P_Cpi0 Evidence-Based Practice: Improving Practice, Improving Outcomes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvenUa3Ww8o Literature Searching EBM- Asking an...
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Random Thoughts about Living in an Evidence-Based World
When I first began teaching evidence-based practice, one of the comments I sometimes heard was that all we needed was evidence of subluxation or joint dysfunction. This created a great teaching moment, because if you think about it, identifying the presence of subluxation is actually like diagnosis- that is, you are determining that...
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FDA Hierarchy of Trials
Sometimes when we look up information we may find some research-related terminology that does not make much sense to us. For example, while we do not prescribe drugs we may, in the course of looking up information, come across research papers that describe the process of drug (or device) development, and we should know...
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Journal Impact Factor
The Impact Factor (IF) of a journal is a measure of how often that journal is cited in other journals. It is seen as a proxy measure of journal importance and significance; the higher the IF, the more often work from that journal is cited elsewhere. This suggests that the information published in the...
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