Physiology articles often vary in their structure significantly, depending on the topic being covered. As a result, we do not provide a rigid structure you must follow when publishing physiology articles on the Geeky Medics website, however, you should follow the style of the example included in the link below. The most important thing is that you structure your article in a way that would seem logical to a reader and make the topic covered easier to understand.
Two things we would like to see included in all articles are:
- Clinical relevance section(s): see further details below.
- Key points summary: a bullet-point summary at the end of the article including the most important points to take away from the article.
- our example of a well written and appropriately structured physiology article.
- our article style guidelines which need to be carefully followed for your article to be accepted.
Images
Physiology articles often rely on images to convey important information and therefore being able to source appropriately licenced images is essential. Thankfully there is now a lot of physiology imagery available online that has licencing which permits re-use, with the two most common licence types being “Creative Commons (CC)” and “Public domain”.
Make sure to read our article style guidelines for details on how to source appropriately licenced images using Google image search.
Some useful sources of appropriately licenced physiology images include:
- Wikipedia: there are often appropriately licenced images available on the relevant Wikipedia topic summary page.
- OpenStax Anatomy & Physiology: free to use images/content – as long as referenced appropriately (Creative Commons licence).
If you are unable to find an image for a physiology article, you can either create one yourself (if able) or ask us to look into it.
Again, make sure to read our article style guidelines for details on how to source appropriately licenced images using Google image search.
Clinical relevance section(s)
For each physiology article, we like to have at least one clinical relevance section included. We have included an example below. See our article style guidelines for more information on how to highlight which content you’d like to appear in a block like the one below.
Clinical relevance: Neuromuscular disease
Degenerative neuromuscular diseases such as motor neurone disease can result in inadequate ventilation, due to weakness of the respiratory muscles such as the intercostal muscles and diaphragm.
Weakness of these muscles:
- reduces the intrathoracic volume able to be generated during inspiration and therefore reduces the pressure gradient for air to be drawn in from the atmosphere (this can result in inadequate levels of oxygenation, known as hypoxia).
- reduces the ability to decrease the intrathoracic volume during expiration, reducing the pressure gradient for air to be expelled from the lungs into the atmosphere (this can result in a build-up of CO2 known as hypercapnia).
As a result, patients with advanced neuromuscular disease often require ventilatory support.
Key points section
At the end of the article, summarise the most important points (not the entire article) as bullet points.
Key points
- Ventilation is the process by which oxygen and CO2 are transported to and from the lungs.
- The physics of breathing are based on Boyle’s law.
- The key anatomical structures involved in ventilation include the lungs, diaphragm, rib cage and external intercostal muscles.
- Active breathing involves the recruitment of accessory muscles to assist with ventilation, allowing the thoracic cavity to expand and contract more rapidly.
Questions or feedback
If you have any questions or feedback on how to improve these guides, don’t hesitate to email us at [email protected]. 🙂
