It is a distinct pleasure to be invited to prepare a short Foreword to Biomedical Research: How to plan, publish and present it, by William F. Whimster. Ninety years have elapsed since T. Clifford Allbutt, the Regius Professor of Physic at the University of Cambridge, published his c1assic work of 1904 Notes on the Composition of Scientific Papers. Small in size, but deep in wisdom, it remains a remarkably useful, if slightly old-fashioned, book, still weIl worth reading. Since 1904, and particularly in the last 25 years, there has been an avalanche of books on scientific style. Medawar has aptly observed that "most scientists do not know how to write, insofar as style betrays I' homme meme, they write as if they hated writing and want ed nothing more than to have done with it. " Whimster's book has a broader objective than most of this genre. Unlike Allbutt, who was addressing in the main those who were writing their theses to obtain the MD, Whimster writes for the young medical scientists who are planning and writing up an account of their research, either for pub lication in scientific journals, or for presentation of the scientific material at meetings. Whimster, a scientist and an experienced long term science editor, has written an up-to-date version of an earlier and very successful volume, Research, How to Plan, Speak and Write About It, edited by C. Hawkins and M. Sorgi.

A Planning

1 Types and design of research
2 Literature searching and information retrieval
3 The key biomedical data bases
4 The search interface and the Internet
5 Applying for ethics committee approval and research grants
B Results
6 Data handling and interpretation
7 The visual display of data
C Writing
8 Planning the writing
9 Original articles
10 Rewriting
11 Submitting the work
12 Other writing, including theses
13 Writing by those whose first language is not English
D The journal office
14 The editorial process
15 Peer review
16 Dealing with acceptance and rejection
E Presenting research at meetings
17 Planning presentations
18 "Conference abstracts"
19 Presenting papers at meetings
20 Presenting posters at meetings
F The final word
Further reading
Appendices
1 International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
A Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals
B Statements of policy
3 Declaration of Helsinki
4 Applications for ethical approval and for research grants
5 A selection of typefaces and sizes
6 American and British usage in spelling
7 Examples of needless words causing verbosity
8 The distraction removal test kit
9 Proofreading and proofreaders' marks.