How to Report Statistics in Medicine: Annotated Guidelines for Authors, Editors and Reviewers

This is the best reference book I have found on the topic of how to present data for manuscripts to be submitted to peer-reviewed journals. It is easy to use, super easy to understand, and covers all elements of the manuscript preparation process as far as data representation is concerned. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a book on the subject. It includes many examples of data tables, figures, and even examples of how to write up titles and data descriptions.

The material is presented in a way that will help medical writers understand clinical trials more fully, and answer questions that come while writing.

As a medical writer and editor at The Cleveland Clinic, Thomas A. Lang found that the lack of clear understanding of statistics by non-statisticians affected the clarity of their writing. Physicians had the same problem while writing up their research papers for publication. Lang perceived a need among medical and science writers to understand just enough of biostatistics to make them better writers and editors without becoming statisticians themselves. He devised workshops that were conducted by the American Medical Writers Association which were enormously successful. The logical next step was to write this book based on the valuable teaching experience and feedback he got at those courses. In other words, this is a book that wasn't written in a vacuum but is the result of a perceived need, and the author's experience in meeting that need. Co-author Michelle Secic has also contributed with her expertise, making it a valuable book for people in this field.

Since I am not a statistician, but a writer, I have been searching for a basic biostatistical textbook from which I could absorb just enough information to help me understand the statistical design of clinical trials, and to help focus and sharpen my reporting of statistical data. I now have a collection of biostatistical texts-I can open a used bookshop-none of which serve my needs. Although they all begin with a light approach-I should have browsed deeper through them in the bookstore-they soon get lost in deep statistical and mathematical minutia. Now, Lang and Secic, in "How to Report Statistics in Medicine: Annotated Guidelines for Authors, Editors, and Reviewers," have achieved what others have not been able to-explain how to report statistical data AND the meaning of statistical tests, etc. They accomplish this without bombastic lectures and without the mathematical nuisances that get in the way of a non-statistician or someone who simply does not care about the derivation of statistical formulae. This will be my medical writing bible for years to come. My only complaint is that it should have been sold in hardcover-it will soon wear-out from all the use!

The conclusion to a review published in the March 1998 issue of the Journal of the American Statistical Association, one of the most influential statistics journals in the world:"Lang and Secic do a masterly job of taking a subject that intimidates (and terrorizes, to some extent) many people and sweetening it so that it is palatable. This book should be on every medical writer's and editor's desk (and many authors would benefit by it, too) to be read from cover to cover and used as a reference. I also recommend that it be used as a text for journalism students and science writers, or by anyone who does not plan to become a statistician yet needs to be able to interpret and report statistics. My thanks to the authors for producing an outstanding guide ... They have performed a public service for us, for the general public, and for science." Nadine W. Martin, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention