ScientificScientific WritingWriting: : How to Prepare How to Prepare ManuscriptManuscript forfor

PublicationPublication

ScientificScientific WritingWriting: : How to Prepare How to Prepare ManuscriptManuscript forfor

PublicationPublication

Department of Chemistry Department of Chemistry Faculty of Science Faculty of Science Chiang Mai University Chiang Mai University

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jaroon Jakmunee

Scientific Research•Problem(s)•Objective•Hypothesis •Experimental design•Perform experiment•Gather results•Interpretation of results•conclusion

Report to Scientific Community•Report•Thesis•Journal paper

Manuscript Submit to JournalPeer review

Paper/article

Why is research performed?

To research: To research:

• To discover new thingTo discover new thing

• To solve problem(s)To solve problem(s)

• To see what all people hav To see what all people hav

e seen and to think what n e seen and to think what n obody has thought obody has thought A.Szent Gyorgyi A.Szent Gyorgyi

Education and Teaching in Analytical Chemistry, by G.E. Ba Education and Teaching in Analytical Chemistry, by G.E. Ba iuleseu, C. Patroescu, R.A. Chalmers Ellis Horwood, Chiche iuleseu, C. Patroescu, R.A. Chalmers Ellis Horwood, Chiche

ser, 1982, p.63. ser, 1982, p.63.

RESEARCH

Input Output

PUBLICATION-Journal-Meeting/conference

PATENT etc.,

INNOVATION-Proto type

-Knowledge

HUMAN RESOURCES-Logical-Vision

Grant

Instrument/Apparatus/Chemicals

Time

Knowledge/Vision

STANDARDSTANDARD

Lab report Senior project report

, Research project rep

ort Paper in a journal

AbstractIntroductionExperimental

Results and DiscussionConclusionReferences

Acknowledgements

AbstractIntroduction

Materials and MethodResults

DiscussionConclusionReferences

Acknowledgements

Concise report

Informative but short

Raw (primary) data

process

Digested data

graph, table, summarized form

IntroductionMethodsResultsDiscussion

Four questions of Scientific Writing:

1. What was the problem studied?2. How did I study it?3. What did I find?4. What do the findings mean?

The Answers become the

The four parts of a scientific paper

Organization of a Scientific Organization of a Scientific ArticleArticle

Objectives:a.b.c.d.

Introduction: What was the problem/topic studied?

1.2.3.4.

General Particular General

Methods/Procedures: How did I study it?

In order to (do this), I (did this)

Subheading 1:Subheading 2:Subheading 3:Subheading 4:Results: What did I find?

Subheadings:I.II.III.IV.V.

Discussion: What does it mean?

Subheadings:I.II.III.IV.V.

Conclusion

Objectives a.-d.:

Why publish in international- peer reviewed journal?

“A naturalist’s life would be a happy one if he only had to observe and never write”

Charles Darwin

Scientists must not only DO science, they must also

WRITE about science.

Good scientific writing does not lead to the publication of poor science. Poor writing does, however,delay the publication of good science.

Scientists become known or remain unknown through their publication.

The first publication of original The first publication of original research results in a form research results in a form whereby peers of the author can whereby peers of the author can repeat the experiments and test repeat the experiments and test the conclusions in a journal or the conclusions in a journal or other source document readily other source document readily available within the scientific available within the scientific communitycommunity

The first publication of original The first publication of original research results in a form research results in a form whereby peers of the author can whereby peers of the author can repeat the experiments and test repeat the experiments and test the conclusions in a journal or the conclusions in a journal or other source document readily other source document readily available within the scientific available within the scientific communitycommunity

•Novelty (New findings) Highlight, claim

•Correctness of scientific discussion

•High impact / advantages

•Good story, easy to follow, concise

•Good English language

• To prepare manuscripts that have a high probability of being accepted for publication.

• To be completely understood when they are published.

• To write a scientific paper, we must know WHAT

to do and WHY we do it.

• Preparing a scientific paper is not a literary skill, it

is ORGANIZATION.

Types of Articles Appearing in Journals

1. research paper (8-10 pp.)

2. review articles (20-30 pp.)

3. commentaries (1-2 pp.)

4. reviews [individual books or software (<1-2 pp.); comparative reviews (2-3 pp.)]

5. working papers (1-2 pp.)

See journal website

for Author

Guidelines

ConciseKeywords

Put sequence of keywords

Novelty !!! What? Why? How?

•Title: concise but show the image of the manuscript

•Authors:Name(s) & Address(es)

Corresponding author•Abstract:

the last part to be written•Introduction:

Review literatures, why this work to be investigated?

•Experimental part:Methodology

•Results: Digested results; one form to present the results (e.g. not present both graph and table)

•Discussion:Correlation of the observation in the results. Using theory to support the observation.

•Conclusion: very short

Concept: • Theme of the work Make a good story!

Think and put in your own language.

• Put topics and subtopics as many as you can scopescope of your manuscript.

• Consider the language after having your good story.

Draft 5Draft 6Draft 7

Draft 1Draft 2Draft 3Draft 4

Some more remarks

• “aging” of manuscript helps

• pre-submission reviews

Hint

Titles

Too short? RarelyToo long? Avoid “waste words” “Studies on.…” “Investigations of… ” “Observations on. ..”

•The fewest possible words that adequately describe the contents of the paper

A title is a labelNot a sentence

Title• Specific

– “Actions of antibiotics on bacteria”• Short but tells us little

– “Preliminary observations on the effect of certain antibiotics on various species of bacteria”

• Longer but tells us no more

– “Action of streptomycin on Mycobactrium tuberculosis”

• Better, but still too general

– “Inhibition of growth of Mycobactrium tuberculosis by streptomycin”

Authors and addresses

• Order of names• No universal agreement• Most popular is listing in order of seniority

(in relation to the study)• First author should be the one who did

most or all of the research• Subsequent authors should be in order of

importance to the study

Introduction

•A description of what you did

•Goes from general to specific

•Presents the nature and scope of the problem

•Indicates how this study fits into the problem

•Reviews pertinent literature

•Present goal/objectives of study and paper

Materials and Methods

•A description of how you did it

•Add Subheadings for approaches used

•in outlining use: “In order to do/determine ………..,I did………..”

•Give copy of methods to colleagues, asking whether they could repeat the experiment based on what is written

Results• A description of what you found in your experiments

• Separate facts from inferences

• Present results in a logical sequence that corresponds to objectives

• Best if short difficulties of repetitive data in Tables and figures

• Do not include material that does not relate to objectives

Figures or Tables?

Exact numerical values (Tables)

•Trends (Figures)

•Design tables and figures with format(1 or 2 column) of journal in mind.

SAMPLE FIA ROUTINE METHOD

D19 6.4 15.8A1 5.5 21.3A23 8 21.1B4 8.4 18.7C13 6 21.4D20 11.1 25E19 8.5 26.1C7 7.8 21.7C5 3.4 4.5C8 2.9 2.7D3 5.4 4.8D9 4.1 4.7D18 7.3 18.4E24 4.8 4.6A9 1.8 2.9A8 3.1 5.5A28 2 2.5B2 2.2 2.5C2 1.7 1.1C11 1.4 2C12 1.2 2.2C16 2.7 2.4D2 1.3 2.2E7 1.9 2.1E10 2 1.9E20 8.5 17A4 2.6 2.9B6 1.3 2.2B11 2.2 2.9B13 1.9 2.5

ExampleExample

Correlation Curve

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

0 2 4 6 8 10 12FIA method

Ro

un

tin

e m

eth

od

Discussions•A description of what your experiments mean•Shows relationships among results observed•Shows how results agree or disagree with previously published research

ConclusionMost often-quoted part of article•State conclusion summarizing evidence•Ideas for future research (not a call for more research); •questions?

Acknowledgement

•Simple and courteous•“I thank” not “wish to thank”•Limited to those who contributed to study (technical, funding, editorial)

Literature Cited (see Guideline for authors)

• references cited should be restricted to significant journal articles, not reports if possible

• format specific to journal * name and year * number from an alphabetical list * number in sequence of citation

• check citations and text for congruence• check citations against original articles• use literature cited to determine appropriate journal for submission

• avoid “ghosts”150 citations checked (Public Health journals)

31% had errors10% of citations could not be found

• cite literature correctly30% of citations differed from original author’s statements15% of citations do not relate to original author’s statements

Aims and Scope General Information

Manuscript submission Presentation of Manuscript

s Author enquiries

ProofsReprints

Electronic manuscripts

Original researc h paper

Preliminary communicationsannotations

Editor(s), Edito rial board,

Advisory board

Impact factor

A Quick Review of Terms•The ISSN is a unique International Standard Serials Number assigned to a journal.

• Total Cites represents the number of times the journal has been cited by all journals in the ISI database in a particular year.

•The Impact Factor is the average number of times articles published in a specific journal in the two previous years were cited in a particular year

•The Immediacy Index is the average number of times current articles in a specific journal are cited during the year they were published. • Total Articles represents the number of articles published in a given year.•The Cited Half-Life is the number of years, going back from the current year, that account for 50% of the total citations received by the journal in the current year.•The Citing Half-Life is the number of years, going back from the current year, that account for 50% of the total citations given by the journal in the current year.

A measure of how “visible” and “generally useful” a particular journal is to the readership of a particular scientific field.

The impact factor is a quantity that reflects the average number of time all manuscripts from a given journal, published during the two previous years, have been referenced in other manuscripts during the following year in all journals from a particular scientific field of study.

Journal Impact Factor

Journal Impact Factor1997

Impact Factor2000

Science 24.676 23.872Chem Rev 19.286 20.036J Am Chem Soc 5.650 6.025Anal Chem 4.743 4.587LC-GC 3.400 3.655J Am Soc Mass Spectr 2.855 3.040J Chromatogr A 2.697 2.551Spectrochim Acta B 2.448 2.608TRAC - Trend Anal Chem 2.373 2.908J Microcolumn Sep 2.125 2.487Chromatographia 2.079 1.619HRC-J High Res Chrom 1.950 2.062Appl Spectrosc 1.848 1.948Anal Chim Acta 1.778 1.849J Chromatogr Sci 1.696 1.247Analyst 1.614 1.818J Chromatogr B 1.588 1.802Fresen J Anal Chem 1.398 1.418Chemometer Intell Lab 1.348 1.462J Chemometer 1.174 2.081Talanta 1.149 1.554Anal Commun 0.980 2.184Int J Environ An Ch 0.979 0.643Anal Sci 0.892 1.094J Chem Eng Data 0.885 0.988Sensor Actuat B-Chem 0.858 1.470Spectrochim Acta A 0.776 1.023Separ Sci Technol 0.761 0.725Am lab 0.663 0.593Instrum Sci Technol 0.574 0.521Microchem J 0.562 0.884Lab Robotics Automat 0.345 0.439

Submission:•Submit by post•On-line submission (e-mail, website)

Informations:

•copyright transfer form•guideline for manuscript preparation•manuscript template•guideline for submission

How is the manuscript review process conducted?

• First, manuscript submission is made to the journal editor. The editor may reject and return to the authors a manuscript at this stage if the manuscript does not meet the Aims and Scope of the journal

• Second, referee selection of experts in the field is made by the journal editor, and the manuscripts are sent out for review

• Third, completion and return of referee reports is followed by an editorial decision regarding status of the manuscript. A decision may be made with only one referee report in rare cases

Peer-reviewed Journals• Editor• Editorial Board

– Helps the editor establish editorial policy

• Manuscript reviewers– Help the editor identify manuscripts for

publication• Accept• Reject• Accept after modifications

Peer-reviewed Journals

• Manuscript reviewers– Editor usually selects 2 or 3 reviewers

per manuscript

– Very specific instructions• Evaluate the experimental procedure• Do the results justify the conclusions?• Check one third of the references for

accuracy

Review / evaluating process?

• Peers must be able to1) assess the observations

• Did you do a proper literature review?• Did you design the experiment properly?

2) repeat the experiments • Are they described in sufficient detail that I can repeat

them? and

3) evaluate intellectual processes• Are your conclusions justified by the results?

•Accept• Major revision• Minor revision• Resubmit elsewhere• Resubmit after more analysis or research•Reject Author

Editor (Associate editor/Editorial board)

Reviewers (Editorial board)

Author

Editor (preliminary decision)

Editor (final decision)

1) No Double PublishingThe same “body of data” is used to produce two articles that are published in two different places.

2) No Multiple SubmissionsThe same article is submitted to more than one journal at a time.

3) No Copyright ViolationsAny repeat use of material after copyright has been transferred to the publisher.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE AUTHOR

-Comments• how to revise according to the reviewers’ comments

•Don’t be panic to reviewer comments, carefully consider each point with positive thinking

If have time, see example (in word file)

See submission demonstration if internet is available….