Choose the document before you choose the template

A template can make a document look familiar before the team has decided what the document needs to do. Route the work through five questions first:

1. What decision or understanding must the output support? Publication, study conduct, authority review, safety assessment, reimbursement, professional education, patient choice, or another use?
2. Who is the primary reader? Specialist, general clinician, investigator, regulator, payer, author team, learner, patient, caregiver, or public audience?
3. What is the evidence object? One study, a development program, a case, a body of literature, a model, post-market information, expert discussion, or a controlled claim set?
4. What level of method must be visible? Narrative synthesis, reproducible evidence review, formal study reporting, regulated dossier integration, instructional design, or plain-language transformation?
5. What is the destination? Journal, congress, authority, sponsor system, payer body, field team, website, participant, or internal decision forum?

The answers identify the family and subtype. A study-based manuscript and a narrative review may both be journal articles, but their evidence engines differ. A plain-language summary of a paper and a lay summary of clinical-trial results may share communication techniques while serving different source and process requirements. A clinical protocol manuscript describes a study to the scientific community; a regulated clinical protocol controls how the study will be conducted.

Routing table