Writing a Journal Article

Are you an early-career researcher or postgraduate researcher at the University of Bristol Medical School, preparing to write a journal article? This course will help guide you through the process of planning, writing and editing your journal article for submission.

This internal course is open to University of Bristol Medical School Staff and PGR students, who have completed a piece of work and are ready to write it up. If you are not yet at that stage please consider delaying your booking to another academic year.

Bookings are taken via our online booking system, for which you must register an account. All provisional applicants will be sent an additional information survey, to help us verify that the course is suitable for you to attend.

Dates 20 - 22 May 2025
Fee £440
Format In person at Bristol Medical School
Audience University of Bristol Medical School staff and PGR students only (prerequisites apply)

Course profile

This course aims to help you develop a clear structure for your journal article and the confidence to go and write it.

Please click on the sections below for more information. 

A day of teaching, followed by a day of writing, and a final day of teaching.

[Note: This course is not recorded].

By the end of the course participants should be able to:

  1. plan the message of your journal article;
  2. organise your information;
  3. use a mindmap;
  4. write a plan;
  5. overcome barriers to writing;
  6. edit your first draft;
  7. deal with collaborators;
  8. manage the submission and peer review process; and
  9. disseminate your paper for impact.

The course is suitable for Bristol Medical School early career researchers or postgraduate researchers who have collected data and are in the process of writing or about to write a paper. If you are not yet at that stage please consider delaying your booking to another academic year. This course does not cover scientific language and style. 

This course will cover:

Day 1: Planning your journal article, using interactive exercises and activities
Day 2: Writing your journal article
Day 3: Editing, submitting and disseminating your article

To make sure the course is suitable for you and you will benefit from attending, please ensure you meet the following prerequisites before booking:

Eligibility

This course is only available to University of Bristol Medical School staff and postgraduate researchers. Candidates must be able to fully attend the course, in person, at Bristol Medical School.
Knowledge

Candidates MUST have completed a piece of work and be ready to write it up.

Please note that all provisional applicants will be sent an additional information survey, to help us verify that the course is suitable for you to attend.

Before booking this course, please make sure you read the information provided above about the target audience and prerequisites. It is important that you have completed a piece of work and be ready to write it up. If you are not yet at that stage please consider delaying your booking to another academic year.

Bookings are taken via our online booking system, for which you must register an account. All provisional applicants will be sent an additional information survey to complete, to help us verify that the course will be suitable for you to attend.

To check if you are eligible for free or discounted courses please see our fees and voucher packs page. All bookings are subject to our terms & conditions, which can be read in full here.

For help and support with booking a course refer to our booking information page, FAQs or feel free to contact us directly. For available payment options please see: How to pay your short course fees.

Bookings for in person courses close four weeks before the start of each course. Once all courses have finished for the current academic year we close the booking system for updates, and re-open again in the Autumn. To be notified about our timescales for opening annual registrations and bookings sign up to our mailing list.
 

A course handbook is provided. Please note that there are no recordings for this course and it is not available as a Materials & Recordings (UoB only) option.

100% of attendees recommend this course*.
*Attendee feedback from 2025.

Here is a sample of feedback from the course:

"All 3 days were well planned, structured and varied, meaning we had key take-aways from each day." - Course feedback, May 2025

"All 3 course instructors were great - the tone of the course isn't too formal meaning it felt really open and collaborative. Guest speakers were also really useful. Overall i [sic] left feeling like i [sic] had learnt a huge amount without it feeling too arduous [sic]." - Course feedback, May 2025

"I've learned a lot from how to start writng [sic] the first draft from scratch. The course really motivates me to write. Thank you very much!" - Course feedback, May 2025

"I really liked writing the four keys sentences and writing the message of the paper. It really helped to shape the paper I was writing which was brilliant." - Course feedback, May 2025

"It was really useful to have a structured writing day to put what've learnt in Day 1 into practice and get some writing done." - Course feedback, May 2025

Alternative training

This short course is very popular and is often oversubscribed. You may also be interested in the Medical Education Research online workshops on Writing for Publication & Conferences: Writing for Publication workshops 2024-2025 (PDF, 654kB)

PGR students may also benefit from the following: