Statistical Guidelines for Contributors to Medical Journals
Douglas G. Altman, Sheila M. Gore, Martin J. Gardner, Stuart Pocock · Annals of Clinical Biochemistry International Journal of Laboratory Medicine · 1992
These guidelines are intended to try to help authors know what is important statistically and how to present it in their papers.They emphasize that such matters of presentation are closely linked to more general consideration of statistical principles.Detailed discussion of how to choose an appropriate statistical method is not given; such information is best obtained by consulting a statistician.We do, however, draw attention to certain misuses of statistical methods.These guidelines follow the usual structure of medical research papers: Methods, Results (analysis and presentation), and Discussion (interpretation).As a result several topics appear in more than one place and are cross referenced as appropriate.