title: Alvan Feinstein and the art of consulting: how to define a research question.
abstract: When thinking of a new study, the most important task is to define its goals and to choose a design to match those goals. Alvan Feinstein described how he went about consulting others on defining a research question in his book, "Clinical Epidemiology, the Architecture of Clinical Research." In this paper, the author reminisces about how he learned and tried to apply those principles.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Epidemioloy, Leiden University Medical Centre, C9-P 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands. J.P.Vandenbroucke@lumc.nl
authors.forename: Jan P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Vandenbroucke
mesh_terms: D004813:Epidemiology / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D014481:United States