Structuring a scientific publication—what authors should pay attention to

This article gives a brief overview on how to prepare a scientific publication. Considerations relevant before preparing the manuscript are presented (i.e., preparation of a bulleted outline), and tips are provided for choosing an appropriate and catchy title. When preparing a manuscript, the introduction section is often too long. Here, authors should directly present the scientific/clinical problem, current knowledge on the topic, and the research question, followed by a clear hypothesis. The methods section should be prepared as a detailed recipe in order to make the study reproducible for others. The results section should focus on the primary and secondary endpoints of the study, with key results highlighted in figures and tables. In the discussion section, these endpoints should be discussed on the basis of current literature after a short summary of the main findings. Importantly, results should be discussed on the basis of scientific and clinical relevance rather than in terms of statistical significance.