Resource of the Week #107: A Reporting Checklist from a Journal

Hello again. This week I learned of a recently developed checklist from a journal. Authors are to complete the checklist when they submit papers. The checklist is “used to ensure good reporting standards and to improve the reproducibility of published results.”

Although some items in the checklist (which is from Nature Neuroscience) are only for neuroscience research, many also apply to other research. Some examples:

• “For each representative image, is there a clear statement of how many times this experiment was successfully repeated . . . ?”
• “Is there a justification of the sample size?”
• “Do the data meet the assumptions of the specific statistical test you chose . . . ?”
• “Are criteria for excluding data points reported?”

Consulting such a checklist can help ensure that papers meet high standards. To make sure you have all the needed content, perhaps start consulting such a checklist while planning your research and gathering your data.

Some other journals also include such checklists. If you’re an author and a journal doesn’t have one, consider developing one of your own. If you’re an editor, consider providing such a checklist if you don’t yet do so.

Until the next post—

Barbara