BETH HARKNESS, CNMT
As I write, spring is coming to Michigan. Spring in Michigan can still mean an occasional snowstorm, but in general, the days are getting warmer, the nights less frosty, and the sun is setting later each day. I spend a lot of time this time of year thinking about places where it is always warm and sunny. San Diego is definitely one of those places. Those of us lucky enough to attend the 2006 SNM Annual Meeting there June 3–7 will experience the lovely southern California weather—during our short breaks from the meeting, of course.
However, many of the readers of JNMT are not lucky enough to be able to attend the annual meetings. The only way those who can't be there can get complete information on a presentation is through publication. This issue of JNMT provides a small glimpse of material that will be presented at the meeting—abstracts and a list of educational sessions for technologists. But when presenters publish their work, they reach a much wider audience, and that work enters the world's scientific literature. It endures. I still have people cite scientific papers that I either authored or coauthored at the University of Michigan in the early 1980s. If we had not published it, that work would have faded into obscurity or been published by others who would have gotten the credit. It is not enough to say, “Hey, we did that 10 years ago!” Like radiation safety inspectors are constantly telling us: If you didn't write it down, you didn't do it.
To help presenters who may not have a lot of experience turning their work into scientific papers, we are reprinting two articles that were originally published in the American Journal of Roentgenology. The first, reprinted in the March JNMT, was titled “Writing It Up: A Step-by-Step Guide to Publication for Beginning Investigators.” This excellent article not only describes all of the nuts and bolts that go into a successful paper, it takes you through the process of building each section and then putting them all together. Many potential authors are so intimidated by the entirety of the process that they never get past the abstract. But if you tackle each small section one at a time, they aren't so tough. I was so pleased to see a section titled Wing the First Draft. I couldn't agree more with the author, Mark Kliewer: Just get something down on paper. No one but you has to see the first draft. But once it's there, you've written a paper—and it's always easier to rewrite than to write.
Anyone who reviews scientific papers would benefit from reading the second article, “A Systematic Guide to Reviewing a Manuscript,” reprinted in this issue. I suspect, however, that authors might benefit even more than reviewers from a thorough understanding of the review process. It can be quite discouraging to put a lot of time and effort into an article and then get a review back that seems to be telling you that your paper needs major revisions. But, if you learn how to look at your paper through the eyes of a reviewer, you can anticipate many of those criticisms and improve your paper as well as your chances of getting it accepted. Hopefully, new writers who read this article will also come to understand that the goal of the review is to make the paper the best it can be. Most papers, even those written by experienced authors, benefit greatly from reviewers' suggestions.
A reviewer is, first of all, a reader. Their most essential service is making sure the writer communicates well. Every experienced writer has learned the hard way that they are not necessarily the best judge of their own writing. Because they already know what they mean to say, it can be hard to see that a passage is not clear or that there are gaps in a logical sequence. Good reviewers will catch such problems. They will make sure that articles follow accepted scientific format and include all the elements required to validate the conclusions. That's the kind of article an editor loves to print.
So if you are presenting at SNM 2006, remember—as far as the rest of the world is concerned, if you don't record your work, you didn't do it. Stake your claim! And do it with a full scientific paper, which has far more value to the scientific community and to you as a professional, than a published abstract. Get it done now and then enjoy your summer!
