Propose a Paper

The WHI scientific community encourages manuscript proposals from within the WHI community and beyond​​.

The Publications and Presentations (P&P) Committee meets on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month (with the exception of Nov/Dec when there is only one call per month). Upcoming due dates for proposals and manuscripts:

Authors are advised to contact the Chair(s) of relevant Scientific Interest Groups (SIGs) in WHI as they develop their proposal for assistance and to avoid duplication with works in progress.

Meeting abstracts should be submitted for review at least two weeks before submission to meeting organizers. Abstracts must have a pre-approved paper proposal before review.

Submit materials for review to the P&P Committee (p&p@whi.org).

Investigators need to collaborate with a WHI sponsoring Principal Investigator.

PIs of ancillary studies also need to submit paper proposals before they will be granted access the WHI Investigators data.

Review existing WHI publications before submitting a proposal. See WHI Published Papers. To avoid overlap with manuscripts in progress, ask your sponsoring PI to review the list of manuscripts in progress or contact P&P at p&p@whi.org.

A note about TOPMed papers: 

• Joining a TOPMed writing group:  TOPMed welcomes WHI participation in TOPMed papers.  TOPMed paper proposals are posted to the WHI website when writing groups open for author nomination. By selecting an open TOPMed paper proposal, you will be directed through the process of joining the TOPMed writing group, including the recommendation to join the relevant working group. Paper discussion occurs through the TOPMed working groups. 
  
• Initiating a TOPMed paper: Investigators interested in submitting paper proposals using TOPMed data must submit them for review to the TOPMed P&P rather than to the WHI P&P. Step one of this process is to become a TOPMed-affiliated investigator by contacting Charles Kooperberg (clk@fredhutch.org) or Alex Reiner (areiner@whi.org) at the WHI CCC.  TOPMed-affiliated investigators will be granted access to the TOPMed website that contains the proposal template and a guide for submitting new TOPMed paper proposals.  If you are already a member of the relevant TOPMed working group, please work through that working group. 
  
• Please see the TOPMed (AS564) WHI study page for more information. 
  

Write a Paper - Resources

• P&P Policy

• Manuscript proposal application form (NEW as of 12/2/19)

• Manuscript proposal sample                                                                      

• WHI Data Use Agreement (For investigators performing their own analyses)

Outline for WHI Manuscript Development

1. Review the procedures and policies for writing a paper.  For collaborative studies, please note the additional requirements for author representation.   

2. Draft a proposal (use the Manuscript Proposal Application Form). Also refer to the Manuscript Analysis Guidelines for tips in developing your analysis plan.

3. Submit the proposal to the P&P Committee by emailing the p&p@whi.org. The proposal will be sent to two committee members for review and will be presented at the next P&P meeting. P&P@whi.org will contact the investigator regarding the committee's decision.²

4. After the proposal is approved, your proposal will be posted for writing group nominations for WHI investigators. After a two week nomination period, you will receive the list of nominees with appropriate expertise to confirm they will be accepted on the writing group. Confirm the WHI nominees and provide p&p@whi.org with the names and contact information for any additional co-authors to be included on the manuscript.

5. P&P@whi.org will send a memo, designating you as the Chair, to the final approved writing group members. After you receive this memo, circulate the proposal to co-authors for review and feedback.

6. If needed, schedule a writing group conference call fo finalize analysis plan. Contact p&p@whi.org to obtain a conference call number.

7. Incorporate feedback from writing group. The P&P wants the proposed analysis to be as strong as possible.  Be as specific as possible regarding which data items off the forms should be included.3

8. If the analyses are being done at the CCC or a Regional Center, a statistician will be in contact as soon as they are available to start work on the paper (please note: low-priority papers may be required to do their own analyses even if the CCC or RC was selected as the top preference for where the analyses will be performed).⁴ 

   1. Any descriptive tables requested will be sent first. The statisticians prefer to get feedback on the data in these tables before proceeding with any modeling or other multivariate methods. Notify the statistician if you will be unable to review the data shortly after receipt.

   2. After any required modifications have been made, work on the remaining analyses will begin. It usually takes a few iterations before all analyses are finished. When data analyses are completed, analyses and results will be sent for review.

9. If the authors intend to perform their own analyses, all investigators who will work with the data must complete and return a WHI data use agreement⁵; the sponsoring PI will assist with accessing the data.

10. Distribute final analyses and results to all writing group members to solicit input.

11. Contact co-authors and begin to prepare the draft manuscript. You may assign tasks to committee members or set up conference calls to discuss the manuscript.⁶

12. Circulate the draft manuscript to all writing group members to solicit input. The final draft of the manuscript must be approved by all co-authors before submission to the P&P Committee.

13. Submit the final draft manuscript to the P&P Committee for review at p&p@whi.org. The manuscript will be sent to two committee members for review and will be presented at the next P&P meeting. P&P@whi.org will contact the investigator regarding the committee's decision.⁷

14. P&P policy requires papers to be published with an appendix acknowledging WHI investigators; please use either the short list or the long list of WHI investigators. All WHI publications must also include an acknowledgement that approximates the following: "The WHI programs is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through contracts, HHSN268201600018C, HHSN268201600001C, HHSN268201600002C, HHSN268201600003C, and HHSN268201600004C."

15. After the manuscript is approved, submit the manuscript to a journal. Notify p&p@whi.org and the NHLBI if submitting to a high-profile journal⁸. If the journal request revisions or responses to comments, inform the writing group and solicit their input as appropriate. If the manuscript undergoes substantial revisions in context or interpretation, then the revised paper must be re-submitted to P&P for approval.

16. Notify p&p@whi.org when the manuscript is accepted for publication. Provide copies fo the accepted manuscript and expected publication dates as they become available.

17. Inform p&p@whi.org immediately if any press releases or media materials are generated. The P&P Committee will expedite their review, and must approve all materials before they are distributed.

18. After the manuscript is published, please send a copy of the final paper to p&p@whi.org. PDF copies are preferred.

¹Papers may be submitted to P&P via the p&p@whi.org account.
²Possible decisions are as follows: approve; approve with recommended changes; approve with required changes (proposal does not need further review, but changes must be incorporated into manuscript); revise and resubmit to primary reviewers (further review by the full P&P Committee is not necessary, but the two reviewers must re-review); revise and resubmit; disapprove.
³Forms are available here.
⁴If you are concerned about the timeframe or feel that the analyses for your paper are not progressing, please contact the Statistics Unit Manager by emailing helpdesk@whi.org.
⁵This form is also available by emailing helpdesk@whi.org.
⁶The P&P Committee recommends no more than four conference calls per group. WHI sponsors up to two calls per group.
⁷Manuscripts with an NHLBI co-author will need to undergo additional review by the NHLBI Project Office.
⁸Examples include Archives of Internal Medicine, Circulation, Hypertension, JAMA, Lancet, Nature, Nature Genetics, and New England Journal of Medicine.  NHLBI monitors submission to these journals to anticipate media attention.