Why we do research and why we publish

Dr. Elsadig Agabna Elhadisad_agb@hotmail.com

Research

• “an original contribution to knowledge” Academic research .

• Contribution to service innovation and service development : practitioner research.

• Research is immersion in the unknown. We just don't know what we're doing. We can't be sure whether we're asking the right question or doing the right experiment until we get the answer or the result (Shwartz, 2008).

Why do we need research • To increase our knowledge and understanding • To provide the evidence to support and inform

policy-making and decision-making • Advance professional practice and support

service development by the generation and testing of new ideas which can then lead to service innovation and improvement

Steps in doing research

• Identify the problem that you need to solve (All research begins with a question )

• Review relevant literature to learn what has been done in the field. It gives researchers the opportunity to build on each others work.. (No one scratch on the stone). Help to avoid repetition of research.

• Define your objectives and the hypotheses

• A good hypothesis is:• a. Clear enough to be tested• b. Adequate to explain the phenomenon• c. Good enough to permit further prediction• d. As simple as possible• Select Research Procedure:• a. Selection of treatments design, experimental

design and number of replicates• B. Selection of measurements to be taken

Research Types

• There are three basic methods of research: survey, observation, and 3 experiment (McDaniel and Gates, 1991).

• The survey is the most common method of gathering information in the social sciences

• Observation research monitors respondents' actions without directly interacting with them

• In an experiment, the investigator changes one or more variables over the course of the research. When all other variables are held constant

Research for degree

• Desertion research (Undergraduate)• M.Sc Degree (The student here only

required to understand the technique of doing research properly• PhD Degree (Here the candidate

must add something new to the field)

Publication

• Scientists communicate the fruits of their labour mostly in writing, and mostly in scientific journals. Conferences and other forms of verbal communication, including the evening news, play an important role but the written word reaches the widest audience and constitutes the archival message.

• Kenneth Rothman

• “Seeing your name in print is such an amazing concept: you get so much attention without having to actually show up somewhere… There are many obvious advantages to this. You don’t have to dress up, for instance, and you can’t hear them boo you straight away”

Importance of publication

• It is unethical to conduct a study without report the findings

• You have some results that are worth reporting• You want• to progress scientific• to give credibility to your research team• your work to reach a broad audience• Your track record will improve• You will add credibility to your reputation• You will improve your chance of promotion• You are more likely to obtain research grants

Important of good writing

• Bad research is not usually publishable (although it happens) but good and well reported research is more highly respected than good science reported badly.

• Discoveries will always be respected no matter how they are written. Few of us are lucky enough to have such discoveries to report but even exciting new findings are better appreciated if they are written elegantly.

Scientific writing

• well-defined technique rather than a creative art. • basic aspects to effective scientific writing are

thought, structure, and style.• � Thought is a matter of having some worthwhile

results and ideas to publish. • � Structure is getting the right things in the right

place.• � Style choosing the fewest and most useful

expression

Plagiarism

• In an instructional setting, plagiarism occurs when a writer deliberately uses someone else’s language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without acknowledging its source.

• This definition applies to texts published in print or on-line, to manuscripts, and to the work of other student writers.

How to avoid

• By citing writer idea through quotations, paraphrases, and summaries

• A quotation is an exact copy of a group of words from a research source.

• A paraphrase, on the other hand, is a restatement of a source’s idea that is written completely in your own words

• A summary is very similar to a paraphrase; It differed from a paraphrase because it only summarizes the main idea of a source or the author of a source.

• You don’t need a citation for information that is common knowledge

Choosing a journal

• Type of audience you want to reach international or local audience.

• Whether you want to publish in a relatively new journal or in a well-established journal, and in a journal that comes out weekly, monthly, etc

• New journals may be more likely to accept papers but often have low impact factors , may have limited circulation, and may not reach a wide audience

• On the other hand, highly ranked established journals are harder to get into and may have long wait times between article acceptance and publication.

• Established journals with a high profile are much more likely to be read by people who are experts in your field,

• and they carry inestimable prestige. If you submit your paper to an established journal, it may be rejected, but you may have unexpected gains in that you will receive pertinent reviews that enable you to improve your reporting.

Authorship

• “It is a contradiction to be a co-author but then plead ignorance and assume victim status if there is controversy regarding data in the paper.”P de Sa, A Sagar

• Vancouver guidelines on authorship• Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work

to take full responsibility for the content.• Authorship credit should be based only on:• a. substantial contributions to conception and design, or

analysis and interpretation of data; and to• b. drafting the article or revising it critically for important

intellectual content,• final approval of the version to be published. Conditions a, b,

and c must all be met.

Responsibilities of authors and coauthors

• First author• Takes primary responsibility for all aspects of publishing the paper Conducts or

supervises the data analyses and interprets the results Writes the paper in consultation with coauthors

• Maintains ownership of the master document• Submits the paper to a journal and deals with the correspondence• Responsible for archiving and documenting all data and files• Coauthors• Make early decisions about the aims of the experiment• Make intellectual contributions to the data analyses• Contribute to the interpretation of the results , Review each draft• Take public responsibility for the content and results• . The last author is usually the senior member of the team and is often the

person who conceived

Gift and Ghost Author

• Gift” authorship occurs when someone who has not made an intellectual contribution to a paper accepts an authorship. This type of authorship often develops because both the author and the “gift” author benefit from the relationship. Senior “gift” authors are often enrolled because they tend to confer a stamp of authority on a paper

• “Ghost” authorship, on the other hand, is the practice of• omitting authors who have made a major contribution to a

paper.• The science is based on truth and trust, practices of• “gift” and “ghost” authorship are to be avoided at all costs

Duplicate publication

• Duplicate publication occurs when results that are published in one paper substantially overlap with results published in another.

• Duplicate publication is unnecessary and is usually• fraudulent since the authors have given a signed assurance

that their work has not been published elsewhere. • If you want to include previous data analyses in your paper,

the correct process is to cite them in the reference list. In some cases, secondary publication in another language is justifiable but only with the permission of the journal editor

Citation index

• When a journal article is cited in another journal article it earns a scientific merit point. These merit points are formally recorded in what is known as the Science Citation Index

• Thus, the citation rate of a paper can be easily calculated by counting up the number of citations it receives in the years following publication. The average citation rate per year is often regarded as a marker of the scientific merit of the article especially if the annual citation rate becomes higher than the impact factor of the journal.

Impact factors

• An impact factor is calculated as the total number of citations from a journal in one year divided by the average number of journal articles published in the previous two years and, as such, is a mean citation rate

• calculation tends to perpetuate bias in favour of some journals.

• In the calculation, editorials, letters, abstracts, etc.• are included in the numerator but only original articles and

reviews are included in the denominator. • Books are not included at all but, interestingly, self-citations

are.

• Thus, a journal that includes many editorials, letters, and reviews may have an impact factor that is inflated when compared to another journal that largely publishes original research papers.

• Journals that publish fewer papers have a smaller denominator and therefore tend to have a higher impact factor.

• In many fields of research, the most cited journal articles are papers that report the development of research methods and review articles rather than papers that report original research findings. Thus, journals that favour the publication of editorials, comments, reviews, and methodology articles tend to have inherently higher impact factors.

• Thanks I have to Acknowledge that most of the information of this presentation from the book “Scientific Writing Easy when you know how”