Standardization in science: effects and issues of guidelines for biomedical reporting

Abstract

Biomedical research can be described as an international community that exchanges new findings, ideas, or theories across borders and cultures. To make this exchange possible, particular forms of writing texts and presenting data have become established over decades. Recently, however, it has been claimed that scholarly communication has become out of sync: Many research papers lack crucial information, and readers become unable to judge quality or relevance. To solve this problem, experts developed so-called reporting guidelines that provide checklists with items to follow during writing. In my doctoral research, I have analyzed the emergence, dissemination, and use of an important reporting guideline in biomedicine. I show how the reporting guideline promises to turn transparency from something abstract into an achievable task for writers. Guidelines are supposed to be easy to use, but they reshape writing practices and the genre of what is written. But guidelines do not just turn writing into a technical task. Rather, they visualize the complexity of writing and communicating results and support the professionalization of scholarly communication in biomedical research.