Step 9: writing up and disseminating your findings

Step 9 of the Research Toolkit.

Once your data analysis is complete, write up and disseminate your findings.

Now that you’ve collected and collated (Step 7) and analysed and interpreted (Step 8) your data, this is your opportunity to think about and set your findings in context with previous research (Step 2).

You’ve already planned how you intend to disseminate your findings (Step 3).

It’s important to be familiar with the breadth and depth expected of your reporting. These specify the minimum set of items necessary for you to write a clear and complete account of your research project.

EQUATOR Network. (2020). Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research –  provide a comprehensive set of reporting guidelines you can follow for most study designs

As part of your dissemination plan you’ll be expected to report whether you received ethical approval (Step 6). This can be as simple as a single sentence stating: “This study received ethical approval from XXX on XXX: Project Number: XXX.”

Research report

A report may be written for a variety of reasons and audiences. This will influence the way it needs to be presented.

If you received funding for your research you’re likely to need to write a formal report. Your funder will have guidance on how to present your report.

A typical report will include:

Book

If you want to share your research as a book you’ll need to negotiate a contract with a publisher. As a minimum, the publisher will expect you to provide:

Each publisher will have their own guidelines so check publisher web sites before you get started. See the Academic Publishers’ Directory for publishers' details.

Research article

If you want to reach a wider readership for your research then you’ll probably want to publish a journal article.

While scientific journals typically structure their content using IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion), a typical KLS research project will usually have a more expansive structure:

Each journal will have their own author guidelines so check their preferred article length and submission process before you get started.

You can usually find a journal’s author guidelines on their web pages or on the inside cover of the journal. The following journals are key sources for KLS research:

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (EBLIP) – quarterly peer-reviewed cross-sectoral open access journal.

Health Information and Libraries Journal (HILJ) – UK quarterly peer-reviewed international health library and knowledge services research journal

Journal of Hospital Librarianship – quarterly peer-reviewed journal on quality improvement, technological challenges and health care library settings.

Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) – US quarterly peer-reviewed journal on health sciences librarianship

Library and Information Research (LIR) – peer-reviewed journal published by CILIP’s Library and Information Research Group.

Library and Information Science Research – quarterly peer-reviewed cross-disciplinary research journal.

LIS Publications Wiki: Research. Write. Publish – a regularly updated wiki listing scholarly journals, maintained by students of the San Jose State University’s iSchool as part of their Publishing for the Profession programme.

Blogs

Blogs are a great way of sharing a short account of your research findings in a more informal, conversational style than a research report or journal article.

Blogs are regularly updated web sites. They can be a great way to link into your local KLS networks. A good example of a KLS blog is the Library Knowledge Services (North) blog.

Presenting at a conference, seminar or within your Trust

Presenting your research face-to-face can be a great way to disseminate your findings or get feedback on your work and to garner support when seeking to put your findings into practice (Step 10).

Here are some tips when preparing your presentation:

Simplify your research: Presentations are typically 20 minutes long including questions. The amount of information you will be able to share is therefore limited. If you’re preparing a PowerPoint presentation, aim for each slide to be on screen for about 2 minutes. Those listening can digest the information before you move on.

Anticipate your audience: At a conference your audience is more likely to be interested in your findings and how they might use them to inform their own practice. A brief overview of your methods is all that’s needed.

Practice: You know your research project better than anyone else, but regularly practising your presentation will help you become more comfortable talking about your work in a formal setting. If you can, practise in front of supportive colleagues who you can rely upon to give you constructive feedback and boost your confidence level.

Key conferences include:

CILIP Conference: This annual conference is a great way to get an overview of the KLS sector.

CILIP Health Libraries Group (HLG) Conference: A UK-based conference held every two years for KLS workers interested in health and social care.

European Association for Health Information and Libraries (EAHIL) Conference: Held every two years, with a programme of workshops organised in the intervening years, EAHIL seeks to unite librarians and information professionals working in medical and health science libraries in Europe.

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (EBLIP) Conference: Held every two years to promote the use of evidence in everyday practice.

International Congress on Medical Librarianship (ICML) Conference: Held every four years to facilitate professional development and networking.

Medical Library Association (MLA) Conference: An annual conference held in the United States of America.

Before you submit your writing

When you’re ready to share your writing, you can increase the visibility of your research, before it is peer-reviewed, by depositing a pre-print in a local repository or dedicated pre-print service:

e-LiS (e-prints in library and information science) – a dedicated open access library and information science repository

Europe PMC – a preprints repository for life science publications including health library research

You may be asked for your ORCID iD a free, unique and universal identifier that distinguishes you from other researchers. You own and control your ORCID iD and, by using an ORCID iD, you ensure that you get recognition for all your affiliations and publications.

Working with a publisher

If your chosen journal is peer reviewed, the editor will invite two or more people to provide an assessment of your work. The intention is to help you give the best possible account of your work. Your work may go back and forth between you and the publisher before it is accepted for publication.

You can submit the accepted version of your writing to a local repository, though access may need to be temporarily restricted:

Sherpa Romeo – summarises publisher copyright and open access archiving policies for publishers around the world

The publisher will copyedit your work, removing typographical errors and reference inaccuracies, and you may be asked to clarify points of ambiguity. Your work will then be formatted in the journal’s house style. You’ll be given an opportunity to confirm the accuracy of the formatted file before it’s published.

When you work is accepted for publication you’ll be asked to sign a copyright licence. Depending on who you’ve chosen to publish with, this may be an open access creative commons  licence where you retain copyright, or a transfer agreement that outlines the publishers’ terms for access and reuse.

Other useful resources

An Introduction to Open Access – produced by JISC, this site provides a good introduction to the variety of open access models available

Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM) – international partnership building infrastructures to enable open access book publishing

Efficiency and Standards for [Open Access] Article Charges Initiative (ESAC) – provides aggregated data on the progress of transitional licence models of major publishers. ESAC charts the development of the scholarly publishing market as it transitions to open access by publisher, country and organisation. @ESACInitiative

OA Book Toolkit – provides links to articles on open access book publishing across the research lifecycle

Open Access Directory (OAD) – is a compendium of open access resources maintained by the open access community. Based on a similar model to Wikipedia, it relies on users to update its resources

Open Access Jargon Buster – developed by Hannah Pyman, Exeter University, based on a poster developed by Sarah Humphreys at the Bodleian Social Science Library, Oxford

Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association – is actively supporting the transition to a predominantly open access model of publishing

Open Scholarly Communication in the European Research Area for Social Science and Humanities (OPERAS) – is the European Research Infrastructure for the development of open scholarly communication in the social sciences and humanities

Peer Review Week – an annual event to shine a light on how the peer review process works and why it helps build trust in research. @PeerRevWeek

University of Manchester Library academic publishing toolkit - The University of Manchester Library has worked with publishers and other scholarly communication experts to compile this academic publishing toolkit, detailing the most important things for you to know and consider as you get ready to submit your work for publication

Writing for publication - FAQs on planning and writing your article, getting it reviewed and promoting it after it has been published.

Suggested reading

Grant, M. J., Munro, W., McIsaac, J., & Hill, S. (2010). Cross-disciplinary writers’ group stimulates fresh approaches to scholarly communication: a reflective case study within a higher education institution in the North West of England. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 16(1), 44-64. A case study of a collaborative writers’ group to support novice writers which you may wish to emulate in your own organisation.

Shelling, J. (2013). Disseminating your project findings. In M. J. Grant, B. Sen, & H. Spring (Eds.), Research, evaluation and audit: key steps in demonstrating your value (pp. 203-214). London: Facet Publishing. A comprehensive introduction to disseminating research.  Provides a wide variety of dissemination strategies.  Encourages you to prepare your dissemination plan early in your research planning.