A Scientific Approach to Scientific Writing
This volume systematically guides readers through the process of writing scientific papers for submission to peer-reviewed journals, and addressing referees’ responses. Beyond merely listing elements required for successful scientific writing, A Scientifi
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Maximizing Chances of Publication
In the modern world, every scientist who wants to publish findings in an international, peer-reviewed journal must write in English. This can be very challenging for people who are not native speakers of English. Indeed, it can be challenging for people who are native speakers. However, whether you are writing papers in your first or any other language, the process can be greatly facilitated by approaching it in a logical, systematic manner. The authors of this guide have written, re-written or edited more than 4,000 texts of diverse kinds and (together with numerous friends, colleagues and clients who have commented on various drafts) have substantial experience of both writing papers and the problems encountered by people who are learning to write them, in either their first or other languages. This brief guide is intended to help people tackle these problems, using four increasingly complex hypothetical case studies. The book focuses on writing research papers because they are key outputs for scientists seeking a high-profile career and the main elements of the primary literature. However, as discussed in Chapter 7, the outlined systematic approach can be applied when writing other kinds of presentations (e.g., reports, reviews and oral presentations). It is impossible to describe how to write anything without considering some linguistic aspects. Here, we address aspects we believe to be critical for structuring a paper, but it is assumed that readers will have had many years of English education; hence attempting to add significantly to your knowledge of the language would be pointless. Furthermore, there are many good books on English grammar, for people of all ages. We are not intending to add to their number. Instead, the main aim is to show you ways to arrange, compose and present a study, starting from brief, simple statements, in order to maximize the chances of publication. There are several ways to do this. The most effective way of all is to buy the company that owns the target journal. Then you can publish all of your papers, and those of your friends and colleagues, in it. The problems with this strategy are that it is very expensive and there is a risk that the quality, and hence the impact rating, of the journal will decline. The second strategy is to discover an embarrassing secret about the journal’s editor and apply blackmail. The problems with this approach are that it is difficult and immoral. The third option is to describe the problems/phenomena
J. Blackwell, J. Martin, A Scientific Approach to Scientific Writing, C Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-9788-3_1,
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1 Maximizing Chances of Publication
you have addressed, your results and their implications clearly and concisely. This is the approach that can be most easily adopted by the majority of readers and the one that will be considered here. As discussed in Chapter 6, however brilliant or innovative your study may be, there is no guarantee that it will be accepted
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