EDITORIAL Improving the writing of research papers: IMRAD and beyond

Publishing in peer-reviewed journals is essential to scientific research. ‘‘A scientific experiment, no matter how spectacular the results, is not completed until the results are published’ ’ (Day and Gastel 2006). Advances in science depend on the rigorous process of scientific publishing. Justified or not, journal impact factors and article citations have become the buzz-words in today’s academic world, and have been used increasingly as metrics to evaluate the performance of research projects, journals, scientists, and institutions. As scientific journals and published articles continue to proliferate, we as editors, reviewers, and scientists all are faced with increasing challenges to communi-cate science more effectively and efficiently. In this series of editorials, we focus on the question