From Conference Poster to Manuscript: IJMSC Webinar 2

The annual meeting of the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Center alone generates about 150 posters each year, many of them from students and early-career researchers. They are seen by conference attendees during the poster session, but what about other clinicians? In our second webinar, IJMSC editor in chief François Bethoux, MD, and associate editor Elizabeth S. Gromisch, PhD, discuss what it takes to turn that poster into a paper ready for publication.

Not every poster should become a paper. Some are too specific to a single local unit; others rest on a small sample or a single detail of an analysis. Authors need to ask what the findings add to the field, and whether there is a unique angle, such as an assessment examined in a population where it has not been studied.

A poster tells its story through images and bullet points, but it contains the outline of a possible paper. The paper itself relies on text, with tables and figures that complement. It tells the full story of the research from idea to conclusions.

The Introduction contains the pared down specifics. Methods offer far more detail than a poster allows, including demographics, inclusion criteria, and the psychometrics of every measure used. Results should report statistical and clinical significance. Discussion and conclusions answer the question readers are really asking: So what?

Logistics are as much a part of the paper as the research, from authorship, defining each author’s role, the use of artificial intelligence, and how to stay on track to submission.

Webinar 2 follows webinar 1, on moving from the spark of an idea to a paper. Webinar 3 covers the literature review that fills out your introduction and discussion, and webinar 4 closes the series with peer review.