Tips for Readers, Reviewers, and Authors Advancing Health and Primary Health Care

Communicating Effectively With Words, Pictures, and Tables

The length of articles should be based on the degree to which the paper makes a novel contribution to the field and the nature of the research design and method. (See the revised Instructions for Authors at http://annfammed.org/site/misc/pdfsanddocs/InstructionsForAuthors.pdf). Please use the minimum number of words, figures, and tables needed to effectively and concisely convey information.

• Brief manuscripts provide an opportunity to communicate a single, crisp, powerful idea or new ideas evaluated with small samples or other limitations

• Longer articles convey fully developed, rigorous exposition of a topic

• Many topics are most effectively communicated in article lengths between brief manuscripts and longer articles

Qualitative research, at times, may convey a topic with more words and fewer tables/figures. However, readers are often interested in articles that synthesize themes and quotations to convey their essence, with higher-order interpretive analyses that draw out larger meaning and theory, often including a diagram or table that draws concepts together.

In both qualitative and quantitative papers, tables and figures should convey meaning on their own, separate from the paper. Avoid repeating in words what can be discerned from tables and figures. Additional details that are likely to be relevant for a minority of readers can be included in an appendix.

Conveying Relevant Contextual Factors

Most standards for rigor in research focus on internal validity, which relates primarily to the legitimacy of inferences about the cause-effect or causal relationships among factors assessed within the bounds of a study. Internal validity is important, and there are many guidelines on how to realize it.

External validity, the degree to which findings from one study can be generalized or transported to another setting or situation, is also important and is a key question for readers. Guidelines for research rigor are largely silent on external validity.

We encourage authors to briefly report contextual factors that affect what happened and why in their research. Reporting contextual factors can help readers assess the external validity of research and make informed judgments about how to transport and reinvent the findings in their own settings.

Reporting contextual factors that affect external validity is not easily amenable to a checklist approach. However, by involving multiple stakeholders in paying attention to contextual factors at different points in the research, relevant context can be identified and reported across multiple levels, from the policy environment to the health care system, practice, participant, and research team.¹

• Contextual factors relevant to how the study was done or how the methods changed during the course of the study often are most helpfully reported in the methods

• In most papers, it is highly desirable to include in the discussion section a paragraph on contextual factors relevant to interpreting or using the findings in other settings

• For examples and a “Context Matters” worksheet, see Table 2

Engaging Target Audiences

We ask authors to explicitly consider the diverse audiences for whom their work is relevant and to write in ways that are accessible to those audiences. When we accept a manuscript, we will ask you to provide names and email addresses of people interested in your work, and we will invite them to participate in the Annals’ online discussion.