Ophthalmology and vision science research. Part 4: avoiding rejection--structuring a research paper from introduction to references.

As part of an ongoing series, this fourth article is the second of 2 related articles that deal with the basics of producing a high-quality manuscript. Although ophthalmology and vision science are the principal focus of this series, the general concepts essential to producing a quality manuscript are applicable to diverse fields of research. This article provides guidelines on how to present research findings in a structured form using the Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (IMRaD) style. The components to be included, and equally important excluded, from each section are elucidated in detail. Commonly omitted or inaccurately or incompletely presented components of the manuscript, such as statistical analysis and references, are highlighted. The necessity to carefully refine manuscripts before submission is discussed. This article concludes by illustrating methods of appropriately dealing with referees' comments and resubmitting manuscripts. Although researchers may have to deal with rejection as part of the process, we hope that this series provides an easy-to-follow structure to maximize manuscript quality and improve the prospect of scientific publication.