365Heart：Dr. Alexander , I am very happy to interview with you . Just now , lots of physicians asked me the question : When you read the paper ,how to evaluate the paper for its good or bad?
      Dr. Alexander： By that question, do you mean in general ? or from the perspective of a journal editor or a journal reviewer?
      365Heart： From you are the editor, I think 
      Dr. Alexander： So from the perspective of the journal ,there are ,I think, 3 main categories of things that journals look at .The first has to do with , and not necessary in any particular order ,but there are 3 main categories, the first has to do with the quality of the research, and whether the design of the research is adequate to answer the question that is set out to answer. Many studies are not adequate to answer in a clinical meaningful way the question that is set out to answer. So it is the first thing and that’s really a matter of the study design, methods and analysis and the formulation of the research question  and then how the results are discussed in the discussion section of the paper . The second thing that the journal editors and reviewers  look at is the quality of the written presentation and whether it is clear in an understandable and standard format and particularly a standard format for that journal . You know ,obviously ,if a paper is written in a clear and understandable format ,it is easier for the reviewers and the editors to focus on the content of the paper.  And the third thing which is the biggest reason actually why the papers are rejected from journals is that the paper doesn’t fit the journal’s priorities in terms of what is  looking for to publish . So even it is a good study ,well designed and well written, it may not be what the journal is looking for or it just may not be high enough priority even if it is the kind of the thing the journal is looking for to publish. And journals in general, are focus on some subject matter, so the Journal of Medicine journals focus on the Journal of Medicine issues. There are subspecialty  cardiology journals or the interventional cardiology journals that focus on journal cardiology or interventional cardiology. But they are also looking for things that are would be of interest to their readers. So they are novel ,or they are timely ,or they are important clinically now . And really that is why those such issues are really why most papers get rejected from journals , just because journals can’t possibly publish all the manuscripts they gets.
      心血管网： Alexander教授，我非常高兴采访你。刚才有许多医生问我：当你读文章时，怎样评价它的好坏？
      Dr. Alexander：你是说总体评价，还是从杂志编者或杂志评委的角度评价？
      心血管网：假设您是编者。
      Dr. Alexander：从编者的角度出发，我认为杂志主要关注3个方面。这3个方面虽然没有特定的顺序，但首先要考察文章的质量，以及研究的设计方案能否充分回答文章所提出的问题。许多研究不能用临床有意义的方法充分的回答所提出的问题。所以，文章首要的问题是看研究的设计、研究的方法、研究的分析、对所研究问题的归纳，以及在文章讨论部分如何对结果进行讨论。
      杂志的编辑和评委考察的第二方面是文章的表达形式。文章是否清晰易懂，是否合乎标准的格式，尤其是杂志要求的格式。显然，当文章以清晰易懂的格式写时，编辑和评委就更容易关注文章的内容。
第三个方面是从杂志想要刊登的内容看，文章没有得到杂志的优先考虑，实际上这也是许多文章被退回的最主要原因。
      因此，即使文章是一个很好的研究，设计和书写都很好，可能因为不是杂志社想刊登的内容，或即使属于杂志社想刊登的内容，但得不到优先考虑而被拒绝。一般来说，杂志都集中于某些主题。所以，内科杂志关注内科的内容。亚专业的心脏病学和介入性心脏病学杂志关注心脏病学和介入性心脏病学。但它们也需要能吸引读者的文章，那些新颖，适时，有重要临床意义的文章。这就是大多数文章被退的原因，杂志不可能把所有的文章都发表。

      365Heart： Now a lot of Chinese physicians want to publish their paper in English journal , as you know, English is not our native language. So do you have some suggestion how to improve the writing skill for our Chinese physician?
      Dr. Alexander： Yes , I think there are numbers of things that the Chinese physicians could do . Some of them are the same things that the American physicians who want to publish in the English language literature need to do . So one thing is that nobody is born a good writer. People have to learn to write and People have to learn to write scientific writing. There is no better way to do that than to practice. And so writing papers and being involved in reviewing papers are both ways to get better at it and people get better at it and better at it over time. The language issue is something that is unique to Chinese physicians that American or Europe English speaking  physicians don’t have to deal with.  And there are a number of possible ways to get around that as well, we talk about some of them in the course . One of them is to think about writing a paper in Chinese first , and then having it translated into English ,possibly by a professional medical translator. There are also English language editors, copy editors that are available, either through journals, or independent to journals that can edit a manuscript to make it read well in English. And I actually often ,we have a group of such editors, I do ,and I often write a manuscript very quickly not in good English and give it to them ,and they make it sound good and there is a group does nothing but write papers or edit papers. So again this is an area where US physicians can use help as well and do use help in taking advantage of editorial support that help them to write in medical journal English , which is not the same as standard English . It is really a unique , just like writing poetry is unique or writing for newspaper is unique ,writing for the scientific literature is a unique skill . The other thing I think the Chinese physicians could do which is not specifically related to the writing style is to cooperate . so clinical research is inherently cooperative activity with modern communication and globalization of everything .There are lots of opportunities for Chinese physicians to programs like those ones  and others to collaborate with English-speaking physicians and scientists and other scientists around the world and those relationships will also serve to help to get more Chinese physicians to be able to  publish in English language literature. I think one other important comment is we’ve been talking the last 2 days about the English language literature. And there is nothing special about English , other than it is right now been accepted as the global language of clinical research and much of research. There was a time many years ago when English wasn’t the global language of research , actually much of the research was done in German . There is nothing special about English or the English language literature , and other than it is the language that right now most clinical research is presented and published .  And as we think about the disseminating  again with the globalization , we think about more about the disseminating information around the world , and one of  the things I found frustrating is I can’t read what is published in the Chinese and Japanese literature , because it is not in the  language that I understand .Ultimately, in order for us all to share information , we are going to have to either find better ways to translate things or be able to work in some common language whether it is English or something else .
      心血管网：现在，许多中国医生想在英语杂志上发表文章，但您知道，英语不是我们的母语。对如何提高中国医生的英语写作技巧您有什么建议吗？
      Dr. Alexander：是的。我觉得中国医生可以做一些事情。想发表英文文献的美国医生也要做其中的一些事情。没有人生来就是个好作者。人们必须学习如何写作，特别是如何写科学性文章。实践是学习写作最好的方法。写作和修改这两种方法可以使文章越写越好。而语言问题是中国医生独特的问题，讲英语的美国和欧洲医生不需要面对这个问题。也有一些可行的方法来解决这个问题，我们会在课程中提到一些。方法之一可以先用中文写文章，然后再翻译成英文，最好由专业的医学英语翻译来完成。也可以让杂志的或独立于杂志的英语语言编辑和抄写编辑来修改原稿，使文章用英语表述通畅。我们有一个编辑小组专门写文章修改文章。我自己就常常用不通畅的英文很快地写稿，然后交给编辑们完善语言表达。美国的医生可以借助这些编辑的帮助来用医学杂志英语写作，这与标准英语不同。这是一种独特的写作，就像写诗或写新闻文章，写科学文献也是一种独特的写作技巧。我认为中国医生还可以做另一件事，这与写作风格不太相关，这就是合作。临床研究实质上是现代交流和全球化合作的活动。中国医生有许多机会和讲英语的医生、科学家以及世界上其他科学家一起合作项目，这种关系可以帮助更多的中国医生在英文文献中发表文章。关于英语文献还有一个重要的意见，这在前两天已经说过。现在英语是临床研究和多数研究所使用的全球性的语言，除此以外英语其实没有什么特别的。许多年前，英语不是全球性的研究语言，事实上，当时大多数研究为德语。现在大多数的临床研究用英文发表，但是英语和英文文献没有特别之处。当我们想到全球化的传播，我们就会想到信息的全球化的传播。有一件使我觉得很沮丧的事是，我无法读懂中文和日文的文献，因为这不是我理解的语言。归根结底，为了大家能够分享信息，我们必须找到更好的翻译的方法或是使用同样的语言工作，无论它是英语或是其他语言。

      365Heart：Today is the end day of our program .  Do you have some suggestion with the English writing program for improvement in the future
      Dr. Alexander： Yes , I have a lot of ideas . When we started planning this with Abbott, we worked through a lot of designs of this program . I think the biggest thing we could do that would  make it better is to make it smaller and the reason that we make it better is that we would then be able to introduce actual exercises in designing studies , collecting data , looking at data ,writing abstracts and manuscripts . so we have  another course that we do which would possibly be limited to about 30 participants where , and  probably have to be done in 2 sessions several months apart where the participants will actually get some data and write abstracts and  submit those abstracts , they write out the abstracts during the course and they would break out into groups and turn a subset of those abstracts into manuscripts . It isn’t something that you can do with hundreds of people because just too many people to do that kind of activity . but that kind of activity is basically we just talked about the doing  that will really make this kind of learning thinking.
      心血管网：今天是我们项目的最后一天。您对这个英语写作项目的以后发展有什么建议?
      Dr. Alexander：是的，我有许多想法。当我们和雅培公司开始这个项目时，就做了许多的设计方案。我觉得我们最要做的事情是让它的规模缩小。我们做的好是因为我们在研究的设计，数据收集，数据观察，摘要和底稿的书写上可以进行实际的练习。我们有另外一个课程会将参加的人数限制在30人，并将课程分为2阶段，中间相隔几个月。课上，参加者会得到一些数据，写出摘要并提交。他们要分组，写出摘要，并将其中的一些摘要写成底稿。这项活动不适合成百上千的人一起进行。但基本上就像我们所说的那样，这个活动真正的将学习变成思考。