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This course teaches a formula for organizing a report or article. The style taught follows the format of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, which closely resembles that routinely used by most social science and public health journals.[1] The course is organized according to the sections of a journal article, and helps participants understand the purpose and contents of each element—from the article’s title to the references. Other sessions cover authorship, publication ethics, presentation of data, and responding to reviewers’ comments. The lectures, exercises, and materials focus on intervention studies in developing country settings, but the course can be easily adapted to the needs of researchers engaged in secondary analysis, descriptive or correlational research in either developed or developing countries. The material in this course can be taught to social scientists at various career levels—from graduate students to experienced researchers.

Background
The present course is adapted from a World Health Organization course for biomedical scientists developed by the organization’s Department of Reproductive Health Research.[2] The success of the course for biomedical scientists led to the collaboration between WHO and the Population Council’s Frontiers in Reproductive Health Program (FRONTIERS) that resulted in the preparation of this course for social scientists engaged in reproductive health program research.

Course Facilitator’s Guide

The course is designed to be taught over a period of 3-4 days for approximately 4-5 hours per day. The course should be taught by an experienced researcher who has published in refereed journals.

The course is intended to be highly participatory and makes use of brief presentations. The instructor should always keep in mind that many students need encouragement to express their ideas or ask questions.  

The fourteen course sessions are listed below, along with the approximate time for each session. The sessions follow the organization of a report or journal article, and it is important not to alter the session sequence.

1. Course Introduction  (15 minutes)

2. Principles of Authorship (30 minutes)

3. How to Choose a Journal (30 minutes)

4. Selecting a Title (90 minutes)

5. Abstracts - Putting it in a Paragraph (120 minutes)

6. Writing the Introduction (90 minutes)

7. Writing the Methods Section (120 minutes)

8. Presenting Data (90 minutes)

9. Writing the Results Section (90 minutes)

10. Writing the Discussion Section (120 minutes)

11. Preparing References (20 minutes)

12. Publication Ethics (30 minutes)

13. Responding to Reviewers and Editors (30 minutes)

14. Wrap-up and Questions  (45 minutes)

The total recommended time is 16 hours plus breaks, lunch, tests, and evaluation. Facilitators are encouraged to modify the course to suit the needs of their students.

Materials
Materials include an instructor’s guide to each session, PowerPoint slide presentations, exercises, and handouts. Materials can be downloaded from the Population Council website at http://www.popcouncil.org/frontiers or obtained by requesting a CD-Rom version from frontiers@popcouncil.org. Students do not need computers for the course, but the instructor should prepare a set of materials for each student. Instructors will need a computer and projector to display the PowerPoint slides and other materials (Word documents and PDF files).

Instructor’s Guide
Before conducting the session, be sure to read the instructor’s guide. It explains the objectives of the session, gives points to emphasize during the presentation, lists and discusses exercises and handouts, and gives the recommended duration of the session.

PowerPoint Slide Presentations
Presentations have deliberately been kept brief to encourage class participation. The instructor may also want to project some of the exercises (Word documents) to facilitate discussion.

Exercises
Most of the course time should be devoted to exercises. The exercises are intended to reinforce the presentation messages and should not be skipped. Some exercises can be done with the entire class; for others it is best to divide into small groups. The type of group is suggested in the relevant instructor’s guide. Several exercises critique a published article (León et al. 1998). The students are first asked to read the abstract and add a title. The rest of the article is used for various exercises in the subsequent sessions on the abstract, introduction, methods, presenting data, results, and discussion.

Handouts
The handouts are intended to be used as references for the students when preparing their own articles for publication. The instructor should take a little time to review the contents of each handout with the students.