Doctors: Library Resources & Services

Authorship considerations

When publishing your work it is vital to discuss and agree the team members who will be listed as authors. 

Guidance is available from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on Defining the Roles of Authors and Contributors.

Further commentary is available from the LSE Impact Blog on this topic: First among equals? Recommendations and guidelines for deciding who gets authorship credit.

Set up an ORCID iD

Authors can set up an ORCID iD which is a unique, persistent identifier and is free to set up. The ORCID iD forms a persistent digital identifier that you own and control, and that distinguishes you from every other author.

You can connect your ORCID iD with your professional information — affiliations, grants, publications, peer review, and more. Using an ORCID iD ensures you receive appropriate recognition for all of your scholarly output.

The EQUATOR Network contains a comprehensive searchable database of reporting guidelines for many different study types, including Randomised trials, Observational studies, Systematic Reviews and Case Reports.

It also features a variety of Toolkits, including: How to write a great research paper using reporting guidelines.

BMJ Case Reports is a journal which provides cases in all disciplines and particularly around aspects of differential diagnosis, decision making, management, clinical guidelines and pathology. 

Our Library service is an Institutional Fellow of BMJ Case Reports. This enables staff and students within our institution to submit cases for publication without any additional charges being incurred. Please note that this does not include Open Access publication of a Case, which may incur an additional cost.  

Contact your Local Library for the fellowship code required for submission.

Reference management systems are software packages designed to take much of the hard work out of compiling and formatting references and bibliographies. Using a reference management system allows you to:

• Gather and store your references in a single location
• Format them according to different citation style
• Compile bibliographies and reference lists
• Insert references directly into your research

Learn more about how to use tools such as Endnote and Rayyan by registering to attend one of our online training sessions.

Open Access is an academic publishing model which makes research freely available to read, avoiding subscriptions or paywalls.

We have created a dedicated Guide on the topic of Open Access Research Publishing.

Tools, such as JANE (Journal Author Name Estimator), can help you to identify relevant journals.

There are many considerations when selecting a journal within which to publish your research, including:

• Scope of the journal
• Types of articles the journal will accept
• Readership of the journal
• Open access options
• Costs/fees (including Article Processing Costs levied by some Gold Open Access journals to offset their publishing costs)
• Retention of copyright
• Indexing of the journal in core databases, such as Medline
• Metrics, such as Impact Factor

We recommend that you carefully read the author instruction sections of your preferred journals, so that you fully understand all potential cost and copyright implications.

Rayyan is a free, web-based tool that is highly recommended for screening at both the title/abstract and full-text level. Keep in mind:

• It offers a blinding option when shared with other reviewers. 
• The deduplication feature is still under development, so first remove duplicates using other software (eg Endnote) before importing results. 
• Once the title/abstract screening is complete, you will need to copy your included abstracts into a new review, where you will upload PDFs of the full text for the next round of screening. 

A variety of tools are available to support authors to improve their writing and increase their chances of having their publication accepted, including: