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How to Publish a Research Paper – Step by Step Guide
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Publishing a research paper is an important step for researchers to disseminate their findings to a wider audience and contribute to the advancement of knowledge in their field. Whether you are a graduate student, a postdoctoral fellow, or an established researcher, publishing a paper requires careful planning, rigorous research, and clear writing. In this process, you will need to identify a research question , conduct a thorough literature review , design a methodology, analyze data, and draw conclusions. Additionally, you will need to consider the appropriate journals or conferences to submit your work to and adhere to their guidelines for formatting and submission. In this article, we will discuss some ways to publish your Research Paper.
How to Publish a Research Paper
To Publish a Research Paper follow the guide below:
- Conduct original research : Conduct thorough research on a specific topic or problem. Collect data, analyze it, and draw conclusions based on your findings.
- Write the paper : Write a detailed paper describing your research. It should include an abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion.
- Choose a suitable journal or conference : Look for a journal or conference that specializes in your research area. You can check their submission guidelines to ensure your paper meets their requirements.
- Prepare your submission: Follow the guidelines and prepare your submission, including the paper, abstract, cover letter, and any other required documents.
- Submit the paper: Submit your paper online through the journal or conference website. Make sure you meet the submission deadline.
- Peer-review process : Your paper will be reviewed by experts in the field who will provide feedback on the quality of your research, methodology, and conclusions.
- Revisions : Based on the feedback you receive, revise your paper and resubmit it.
- Acceptance : Once your paper is accepted, you will receive a notification from the journal or conference. You may need to make final revisions before the paper is published.
- Publication : Your paper will be published online or in print. You can also promote your work through social media or other channels to increase its visibility.
How to Choose Journal for Research Paper Publication
Here are some steps to follow to help you select an appropriate journal:
- Identify your research topic and audience : Your research topic and intended audience should guide your choice of journal. Identify the key journals in your field of research and read the scope and aim of the journal to determine if your paper is a good fit.
- Analyze the journal’s impact and reputation : Check the impact factor and ranking of the journal, as well as its acceptance rate and citation frequency. A high-impact journal can give your paper more visibility and credibility.
- Consider the journal’s publication policies : Look for the journal’s publication policies such as the word count limit, formatting requirements, open access options, and submission fees. Make sure that you can comply with the requirements and that the journal is in line with your publication goals.
- Look at recent publications : Review recent issues of the journal to evaluate whether your paper would fit in with the journal’s current content and style.
- Seek advice from colleagues and mentors: Ask for recommendations and suggestions from your colleagues and mentors in your field, especially those who have experience publishing in the same or similar journals.
- Be prepared to make changes : Be prepared to revise your paper according to the requirements and guidelines of the chosen journal. It is also important to be open to feedback from the editor and reviewers.
List of Journals for Research Paper Publications
There are thousands of academic journals covering various fields of research. Here are some of the most popular ones, categorized by field:
General/Multidisciplinary
- Nature: https://www.nature.com/
- Science: https://www.sciencemag.org/
- PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS): https://www.pnas.org/
- The Lancet: https://www.thelancet.com/
- JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama
Social Sciences/Humanities
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/psp
- Journal of Consumer Research: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/jcr
- Journal of Educational Psychology: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/edu
- Journal of Applied Psychology: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/apl
- Journal of Communication: https://academic.oup.com/joc
- American Journal of Political Science: https://ajps.org/
- Journal of International Business Studies: https://www.jibs.net/
- Journal of Marketing Research: https://www.ama.org/journal-of-marketing-research/
Natural Sciences
- Journal of Biological Chemistry: https://www.jbc.org/
- Cell: https://www.cell.com/
- Science Advances: https://advances.sciencemag.org/
- Chemical Reviews: https://pubs.acs.org/journal/chreay
- Angewandte Chemie: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15213765
- Physical Review Letters: https://journals.aps.org/prl/
- Journal of Geophysical Research: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/2156531X
- Journal of High Energy Physics: https://link.springer.com/journal/13130
Engineering/Technology
- IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=5962385
- IEEE Transactions on Power Systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=59
- IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=42
- IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=87
- Journal of Engineering Mechanics: https://ascelibrary.org/journal/jenmdt
- Journal of Materials Science: https://www.springer.com/journal/10853
- Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/jcej
- Journal of Mechanical Design: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/mechanicaldesign
Medical/Health Sciences
- New England Journal of Medicine: https://www.nejm.org/
- The BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal): https://www.bmj.com/
- Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama
- Annals of Internal Medicine: https://www.acpjournals.org/journal/aim
- American Journal of Epidemiology: https://academic.oup.com/aje
- Journal of Clinical Oncology: https://ascopubs.org/journal/jco
- Journal of Infectious Diseases: https://academic.oup.com/jid
List of Conferences for Research Paper Publications
There are many conferences that accept research papers for publication. The specific conferences you should consider will depend on your field of research. Here are some suggestions for conferences in a few different fields:
Computer Science and Information Technology:
- IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM): https://www.ieee-infocom.org/
- ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Data Communication: https://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/
- IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP): https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP/
- ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS): https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/
- ACM Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (CHI): https://chi2022.acm.org/
Engineering:
- IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA): https://www.ieee-icra.org/
- International Conference on Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (ICMAE): http://www.icmae.org/
- International Conference on Civil and Environmental Engineering (ICCEE): http://www.iccee.org/
- International Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (ICMSE): http://www.icmse.org/
- International Conference on Energy and Power Engineering (ICEPE): http://www.icepe.org/
Natural Sciences:
- American Chemical Society National Meeting & Exposition: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/meetings/national-meeting.html
- American Physical Society March Meeting: https://www.aps.org/meetings/march/
- International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology (ICEST): http://www.icest.org/
- International Conference on Natural Science and Environment (ICNSE): http://www.icnse.org/
- International Conference on Life Science and Biological Engineering (LSBE): http://www.lsbe.org/
Social Sciences:
- Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA): https://www.asanet.org/annual-meeting-2022
- International Conference on Social Science and Humanities (ICSSH): http://www.icssh.org/
- International Conference on Psychology and Behavioral Sciences (ICPBS): http://www.icpbs.org/
- International Conference on Education and Social Science (ICESS): http://www.icess.org/
- International Conference on Management and Information Science (ICMIS): http://www.icmis.org/
How to Publish a Research Paper in Journal
Publishing a research paper in a journal is a crucial step in disseminating scientific knowledge and contributing to the field. Here are the general steps to follow:
- Choose a research topic : Select a topic of your interest and identify a research question or problem that you want to investigate. Conduct a literature review to identify the gaps in the existing knowledge that your research will address.
- Conduct research : Develop a research plan and methodology to collect data and conduct experiments. Collect and analyze data to draw conclusions that address the research question.
- Write a paper: Organize your findings into a well-structured paper with clear and concise language. Your paper should include an introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion. Use academic language and provide references for your sources.
- Choose a journal: Choose a journal that is relevant to your research topic and audience. Consider factors such as impact factor, acceptance rate, and the reputation of the journal.
- Follow journal guidelines : Review the submission guidelines and formatting requirements of the journal. Follow the guidelines carefully to ensure that your paper meets the journal’s requirements.
- Submit your paper : Submit your paper to the journal through the online submission system or by email. Include a cover letter that briefly explains the significance of your research and why it is suitable for the journal.
- Wait for reviews: Your paper will be reviewed by experts in the field. Be prepared to address their comments and make revisions to your paper.
- Revise and resubmit: Make revisions to your paper based on the reviewers’ comments and resubmit it to the journal. If your paper is accepted, congratulations! If not, consider revising and submitting it to another journal.
- Address reviewer comments : Reviewers may provide comments and suggestions for revisions to your paper. Address these comments carefully and thoughtfully to improve the quality of your paper.
- Submit the final version: Once your revisions are complete, submit the final version of your paper to the journal. Be sure to follow any additional formatting guidelines and requirements provided by the journal.
- Publication : If your paper is accepted, it will be published in the journal. Some journals provide online publication while others may publish a print version. Be sure to cite your published paper in future research and communicate your findings to the scientific community.
How to Publish a Research Paper for Students
Here are some steps you can follow to publish a research paper as an Under Graduate or a High School Student:
- Select a topic: Choose a topic that is relevant and interesting to you, and that you have a good understanding of.
- Conduct research : Gather information and data on your chosen topic through research, experiments, surveys, or other means.
- Write the paper : Start with an outline, then write the introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion sections of the paper. Be sure to follow any guidelines provided by your instructor or the journal you plan to submit to.
- Edit and revise: Review your paper for errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Ask a peer or mentor to review your paper and provide feedback for improvement.
- Choose a journal : Look for journals that publish papers in your field of study and that are appropriate for your level of research. Some popular journals for students include PLOS ONE, Nature, and Science.
- Submit the paper: Follow the submission guidelines for the journal you choose, which typically include a cover letter, abstract, and formatting requirements. Be prepared to wait several weeks to months for a response.
- Address feedback : If your paper is accepted with revisions, address the feedback from the reviewers and resubmit your paper. If your paper is rejected, review the feedback and consider revising and resubmitting to a different journal.
How to Publish a Research Paper for Free
Publishing a research paper for free can be challenging, but it is possible. Here are some steps you can take to publish your research paper for free:
- Choose a suitable open-access journal: Look for open-access journals that are relevant to your research area. Open-access journals allow readers to access your paper without charge, so your work will be more widely available.
- Check the journal’s reputation : Before submitting your paper, ensure that the journal is reputable by checking its impact factor, publication history, and editorial board.
- Follow the submission guidelines : Every journal has specific guidelines for submitting papers. Make sure to follow these guidelines carefully to increase the chances of acceptance.
- Submit your paper : Once you have completed your research paper, submit it to the journal following their submission guidelines.
- Wait for the review process: Your paper will undergo a peer-review process, where experts in your field will evaluate your work. Be patient during this process, as it can take several weeks or even months.
- Revise your paper : If your paper is rejected, don’t be discouraged. Revise your paper based on the feedback you receive from the reviewers and submit it to another open-access journal.
- Promote your research: Once your paper is published, promote it on social media and other online platforms. This will increase the visibility of your work and help it reach a wider audience.
Journals and Conferences for Free Research Paper publications
Here are the websites of the open-access journals and conferences mentioned:
Open-Access Journals:
- PLOS ONE – https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
- BMC Research Notes – https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/
- Frontiers in… – https://www.frontiersin.org/
- Journal of Open Research Software – https://openresearchsoftware.metajnl.com/
- PeerJ – https://peerj.com/
Conferences:
- IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) – https://globecom2022.ieee-globecom.org/
- IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM) – https://infocom2022.ieee-infocom.org/
- IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM) – https://www.ieee-icdm.org/
- ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Data Communication (SIGCOMM) – https://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/
- ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) – https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/CCS2022/
Importance of Research Paper Publication
Research paper publication is important for several reasons, both for individual researchers and for the scientific community as a whole. Here are some reasons why:
- Advancing scientific knowledge : Research papers provide a platform for researchers to present their findings and contribute to the body of knowledge in their field. These papers often contain novel ideas, experimental data, and analyses that can help to advance scientific understanding.
- Building a research career : Publishing research papers is an essential component of building a successful research career. Researchers are often evaluated based on the number and quality of their publications, and having a strong publication record can increase one’s chances of securing funding, tenure, or a promotion.
- Peer review and quality control: Publication in a peer-reviewed journal means that the research has been scrutinized by other experts in the field. This peer review process helps to ensure the quality and validity of the research findings.
- Recognition and visibility : Publishing a research paper can bring recognition and visibility to the researchers and their work. It can lead to invitations to speak at conferences, collaborations with other researchers, and media coverage.
- Impact on society : Research papers can have a significant impact on society by informing policy decisions, guiding clinical practice, and advancing technological innovation.
Advantages of Research Paper Publication
There are several advantages to publishing a research paper, including:
- Recognition: Publishing a research paper allows researchers to gain recognition for their work, both within their field and in the academic community as a whole. This can lead to new collaborations, invitations to conferences, and other opportunities to share their research with a wider audience.
- Career advancement : A strong publication record can be an important factor in career advancement, particularly in academia. Publishing research papers can help researchers secure funding, grants, and promotions.
- Dissemination of knowledge : Research papers are an important way to share new findings and ideas with the broader scientific community. By publishing their research, scientists can contribute to the collective body of knowledge in their field and help advance scientific understanding.
- Feedback and peer review : Publishing a research paper allows other experts in the field to provide feedback on the research, which can help improve the quality of the work and identify potential flaws or limitations. Peer review also helps ensure that research is accurate and reliable.
- Citation and impact : Published research papers can be cited by other researchers, which can help increase the impact and visibility of the research. High citation rates can also help establish a researcher’s reputation and credibility within their field.
About the author
Muhammad Hassan
Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer
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How to Write and Publish Your Research in a Journal
Last Updated: May 26, 2024 Fact Checked
Choosing a Journal
Writing the research paper, editing & revising your paper, submitting your paper, navigating the peer review process, research paper help.
This article was co-authored by Matthew Snipp, PhD and by wikiHow staff writer, Cheyenne Main . C. Matthew Snipp is the Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University. He is also the Director for the Institute for Research in the Social Science’s Secure Data Center. He has been a Research Fellow at the U.S. Bureau of the Census and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has published 3 books and over 70 articles and book chapters on demography, economic development, poverty and unemployment. He is also currently serving on the National Institute of Child Health and Development’s Population Science Subcommittee. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 707,360 times.
Publishing a research paper in a peer-reviewed journal allows you to network with other scholars, get your name and work into circulation, and further refine your ideas and research. Before submitting your paper, make sure it reflects all the work you’ve done and have several people read over it and make comments. Keep reading to learn how you can choose a journal, prepare your work for publication, submit it, and revise it after you get a response back.
Things You Should Know
- Create a list of journals you’d like to publish your work in and choose one that best aligns with your topic and your desired audience.
- Prepare your manuscript using the journal’s requirements and ask at least 2 professors or supervisors to review your paper.
- Write a cover letter that “sells” your manuscript, says how your research adds to your field and explains why you chose the specific journal you’re submitting to.
- Ask your professors or supervisors for well-respected journals that they’ve had good experiences publishing with and that they read regularly.
- Many journals also only accept specific formats, so by choosing a journal before you start, you can write your article to their specifications and increase your chances of being accepted.
- If you’ve already written a paper you’d like to publish, consider whether your research directly relates to a hot topic or area of research in the journals you’re looking into.
- Review the journal’s peer review policies and submission process to see if you’re comfortable creating or adjusting your work according to their standards.
- Open-access journals can increase your readership because anyone can access them.
- Scientific research papers: Instead of a “thesis,” you might write a “research objective” instead. This is where you state the purpose of your research.
- “This paper explores how George Washington’s experiences as a young officer may have shaped his views during difficult circumstances as a commanding officer.”
- “This paper contends that George Washington’s experiences as a young officer on the 1750s Pennsylvania frontier directly impacted his relationship with his Continental Army troops during the harsh winter at Valley Forge.”
- Scientific research papers: Include a “materials and methods” section with the step-by-step process you followed and the materials you used. [5] X Research source
- Read other research papers in your field to see how they’re written. Their format, writing style, subject matter, and vocabulary can help guide your own paper. [6] X Research source
- If you’re writing about George Washington’s experiences as a young officer, you might emphasize how this research changes our perspective of the first president of the U.S.
- Link this section to your thesis or research objective.
- If you’re writing a paper about ADHD, you might discuss other applications for your research.
- Scientific research papers: You might include your research and/or analytical methods, your main findings or results, and the significance or implications of your research.
- Try to get as many people as you can to read over your abstract and provide feedback before you submit your paper to a journal.
- They might also provide templates to help you structure your manuscript according to their specific guidelines. [11] X Research source
- Not all journal reviewers will be experts on your specific topic, so a non-expert “outsider’s perspective” can be valuable.
- If you have a paper on the purification of wastewater with fungi, you might use both the words “fungi” and “mushrooms.”
- Use software like iThenticate, Turnitin, or PlagScan to check for similarities between the submitted article and published material available online. [15] X Research source
- Header: Address the editor who will be reviewing your manuscript by their name, include the date of submission, and the journal you are submitting to.
- First paragraph: Include the title of your manuscript, the type of paper it is (like review, research, or case study), and the research question you wanted to answer and why.
- Second paragraph: Explain what was done in your research, your main findings, and why they are significant to your field.
- Third paragraph: Explain why the journal’s readers would be interested in your work and why your results are important to your field.
- Conclusion: State the author(s) and any journal requirements that your work complies with (like ethical standards”).
- “We confirm that this manuscript has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another journal.”
- “All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to [insert the name of the target journal].”
- Submit your article to only one journal at a time.
- When submitting online, use your university email account. This connects you with a scholarly institution, which can add credibility to your work.
- Accept: Only minor adjustments are needed, based on the provided feedback by the reviewers. A first submission will rarely be accepted without any changes needed.
- Revise and Resubmit: Changes are needed before publication can be considered, but the journal is still very interested in your work.
- Reject and Resubmit: Extensive revisions are needed. Your work may not be acceptable for this journal, but they might also accept it if significant changes are made.
- Reject: The paper isn’t and won’t be suitable for this publication, but that doesn’t mean it might not work for another journal.
- Try organizing the reviewer comments by how easy it is to address them. That way, you can break your revisions down into more manageable parts.
- If you disagree with a comment made by a reviewer, try to provide an evidence-based explanation when you resubmit your paper.
- If you’re resubmitting your paper to the same journal, include a point-by-point response paper that talks about how you addressed all of the reviewers’ comments in your revision. [22] X Research source
- If you’re not sure which journal to submit to next, you might be able to ask the journal editor which publications they recommend.
Expert Q&A
You might also like.
- If reviewers suspect that your submitted manuscript plagiarizes another work, they may refer to a Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowchart to see how to move forward. [23] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
- ↑ https://www.wiley.com/en-us/network/publishing/research-publishing/choosing-a-journal/6-steps-to-choosing-the-right-journal-for-your-research-infographic
- ↑ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13187-020-01751-z
- ↑ https://libguides.unomaha.edu/c.php?g=100510&p=651627
- ↑ https://www.canberra.edu.au/library/start-your-research/research_help/publishing-research
- ↑ https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/conclusions
- ↑ https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/assignments/writing-an-abstract-for-your-research-paper/
- ↑ https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/book-authors-editors/your-publication-journey/manuscript-preparation
- ↑ https://apus.libanswers.com/writing/faq/2391
- ↑ https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/library/keyword/search-strategy
- ↑ https://ifis.libguides.com/journal-publishing-guide/submitting-your-paper
- ↑ https://www.springer.com/kr/authors-editors/authorandreviewertutorials/submitting-to-a-journal-and-peer-review/cover-letters/10285574
- ↑ https://www.apa.org/monitor/sep02/publish.aspx
- ↑ Matthew Snipp, PhD. Research Fellow, U.S. Bureau of the Census. Expert Interview. 26 March 2020.
About This Article
To publish a research paper, ask a colleague or professor to review your paper and give you feedback. Once you've revised your work, familiarize yourself with different academic journals so that you can choose the publication that best suits your paper. Make sure to look at the "Author's Guide" so you can format your paper according to the guidelines for that publication. Then, submit your paper and don't get discouraged if it is not accepted right away. You may need to revise your paper and try again. To learn about the different responses you might get from journals, see our reviewer's explanation below. Did this summary help you? Yes No
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Home → Get Published → How to Publish a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide
How to Publish a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide
Jordan Kruszynski
- January 4, 2024
You’re in academia.
You’re going steady.
Your research is going well and you begin to wonder: ‘ How exactly do I get a research paper published?’
If this is the question on your lips, then this step-by-step guide is the one for you. We’ll be walking you through the whole process of how to publish a research paper.
Publishing a research paper is a significant milestone for researchers and academics, as it allows you to share your findings, contribute to your field of study, and start to gain serious recognition within the wider academic community. So, want to know how to publish a research paper? By following our guide, you’ll get a firm grasp of the steps involved in this process, giving you the best chance of successfully navigating the publishing process and getting your work out there.
Understanding the Publishing Process
To begin, it’s crucial to understand that getting a research paper published is a multi-step process. From beginning to end, it could take as little as 2 months before you see your paper nestled in the pages of your chosen journal. On the other hand, it could take as long as a year .
Below, we set out the steps before going into more detail on each one. Getting a feel for these steps will help you to visualise what lies ahead, and prepare yourself for each of them in turn. It’s important to remember that you won’t actually have control over every step – in fact, some of them will be decided by people you’ll probably never meet. However, knowing which parts of the process are yours to decide will allow you to adjust your approach and attitude accordingly.
Each of the following stages will play a vital role in the eventual publication of your paper:
- Preparing Your Research Paper
- Finding the Right Journal
- Crafting a Strong Manuscript
- Navigating the Peer-Review Process
- Submitting Your Paper
- Dealing with Rejections and Revising Your Paper
Step 1: Preparing Your Research Paper
It all starts here. The quality and content of your research paper is of fundamental importance if you want to get it published. This step will be different for every researcher depending on the nature of your research, but if you haven’t yet settled on a topic, then consider the following advice:
- Choose an interesting and relevant topic that aligns with current trends in your field. If your research touches on the passions and concerns of your academic peers or wider society, it may be more likely to capture attention and get published successfully.
- Conduct a comprehensive literature review (link to lit. review article once it’s published) to identify the state of existing research and any knowledge gaps within it. Aiming to fill a clear gap in the knowledge of your field is a great way to increase the practicality of your research and improve its chances of getting published.
- Structure your paper in a clear and organised manner, including all the necessary sections such as title, abstract, introduction (link to the ‘how to write a research paper intro’ article once it’s published) , methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion.
- Adhere to the formatting guidelines provided by your target journal to ensure that your paper is accepted as viable for publishing. More on this in the next section…
Step 2: Finding the Right Journal
Understanding how to publish a research paper involves selecting the appropriate journal for your work. This step is critical for successful publication, and you should take several factors into account when deciding which journal to apply for:
- Conduct thorough research to identify journals that specialise in your field of study and have published similar research. Naturally, if you submit a piece of research in molecular genetics to a journal that specialises in geology, you won’t be likely to get very far.
- Consider factors such as the journal’s scope, impact factor, and target audience. Today there is a wide array of journals to choose from, including traditional and respected print journals, as well as numerous online, open-access endeavours. Some, like Nature , even straddle both worlds.
- Review the submission guidelines provided by the journal and ensure your paper meets all the formatting requirements and word limits. This step is key. Nature, for example, offers a highly informative series of pages that tells you everything you need to know in order to satisfy their formatting guidelines (plus more on the whole submission process).
- Note that these guidelines can differ dramatically from journal to journal, and details really do matter. You might submit an outstanding piece of research, but if it includes, for example, images in the wrong size or format, this could mean a lengthy delay to getting it published. If you get everything right first time, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and trouble, as well as strengthen your publishing chances in the first place.
Step 3: Crafting a Strong Manuscript
Crafting a strong manuscript is crucial to impress journal editors and reviewers. Look at your paper as a complete package, and ensure that all the sections tie together to deliver your findings with clarity and precision.
- Begin by creating a clear and concise title that accurately reflects the content of your paper.
- Compose an informative abstract that summarises the purpose, methodology, results, and significance of your study.
- Craft an engaging introduction (link to the research paper introduction article) that draws your reader in.
- Develop a well-structured methodology section, presenting your results effectively using tables and figures.
- Write a compelling discussion and conclusion that emphasise the significance of your findings.
Step 4: Navigating the Peer-Review Process
Once you submit your research paper to a journal, it undergoes a rigorous peer-review process to ensure its quality and validity. In peer-review, experts in your field assess your research and provide feedback and suggestions for improvement, ultimately determining whether your paper is eligible for publishing or not. You are likely to encounter several models of peer-review, based on which party – author, reviewer, or both – remains anonymous throughout the process.
When your paper undergoes the peer-review process, be prepared for constructive criticism and address the comments you receive from your reviewer thoughtfully, providing clear and concise responses to their concerns or suggestions. These could make all the difference when it comes to making your next submission.
The peer-review process can seem like a closed book at times. Check out our discussion of the issue with philosopher and academic Amna Whiston in The Research Beat podcast!
Step 5: Submitting Your Paper
As we’ve already pointed out, one of the key elements in how to publish a research paper is ensuring that you meticulously follow the journal’s submission guidelines. Strive to comply with all formatting requirements, including citation styles, font, margins, and reference structure.
Before the final submission, thoroughly proofread your paper for errors, including grammar, spelling, and any inconsistencies in your data or analysis. At this stage, consider seeking feedback from colleagues or mentors to further improve the quality of your paper.
Step 6: Dealing with Rejections and Revising Your Paper
Rejection is a common part of the publishing process, but it shouldn’t discourage you. Analyse reviewer comments objectively and focus on the constructive feedback provided. Make necessary revisions and improvements to your paper to address the concerns raised by reviewers. If needed, consider submitting your paper to a different journal that is a better fit for your research.
For more tips on how to publish your paper out there, check out this thread by Dr. Asad Naveed ( @dr_asadnaveed ) – and if you need a refresher on the basics of how to publish under the Open Access model, watch this 5-minute video from Audemic Academy !
Final Thoughts
Successfully understanding how to publish a research paper requires dedication, attention to detail, and a systematic approach. By following the advice in our guide, you can increase your chances of navigating the publishing process effectively and achieving your goal of publication.
Remember, the journey may involve revisions, peer feedback, and potential rejections, but each step is an opportunity for growth and improvement. Stay persistent, maintain a positive mindset, and continue to refine your research paper until it reaches the standards of your target journal. Your contribution to your wider discipline through published research will not only advance your career, but also add to the growing body of collective knowledge in your field. Embrace the challenges and rewards that come with the publication process, and may your research paper make a significant impact in your area of study!
Looking for inspiration for your next big paper? Head to Audemic , where you can organise and listen to all the best and latest research in your field!
Keep striving, researchers! ✨
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How to Write and Publish a Research Paper in 7 Steps
What comes next after you're done with your research? Publishing the results in a journal of course! We tell you how to present your work in the best way possible.
This post is part of a series, which serves to provide hands-on information and resources for authors and editors.
Things have gotten busy in scholarly publishing: These days, a new article gets published in the 50,000 most important peer-reviewed journals every few seconds, while each one takes on average 40 minutes to read. Hundreds of thousands of papers reach the desks of editors and reviewers worldwide each year and 50% of all submissions end up rejected at some stage.
In a nutshell: there is a lot of competition, and the people who decide upon the fate of your manuscript are short on time and overworked. But there are ways to make their lives a little easier and improve your own chances of getting your work published!
Well, it may seem obvious, but before submitting an academic paper, always make sure that it is an excellent reflection of the research you have done and that you present it in the most professional way possible. Incomplete or poorly presented manuscripts can create a great deal of frustration and annoyance for editors who probably won’t even bother wasting the time of the reviewers!
This post will discuss 7 steps to the successful publication of your research paper:
- Check whether your research is publication-ready
- Choose an article type
- Choose a journal
- Construct your paper
- Decide the order of authors
- Check and double-check
- Submit your paper
1. Check Whether Your Research Is Publication-Ready
Should you publish your research at all?
If your work holds academic value – of course – a well-written scholarly article could open doors to your research community. However, if you are not yet sure, whether your research is ready for publication, here are some key questions to ask yourself depending on your field of expertise:
- Have you done or found something new and interesting? Something unique?
- Is the work directly related to a current hot topic?
- Have you checked the latest results or research in the field?
- Have you provided solutions to any difficult problems?
- Have the findings been verified?
- Have the appropriate controls been performed if required?
- Are your findings comprehensive?
If the answers to all relevant questions are “yes”, you need to prepare a good, strong manuscript. Remember, a research paper is only useful if it is clearly understood, reproducible and if it is read and used .
2. Choose An Article Type
The first step is to determine which type of paper is most appropriate for your work and what you want to achieve. The following list contains the most important, usually peer-reviewed article types in the natural sciences:
Full original research papers disseminate completed research findings. On average this type of paper is 8-10 pages long, contains five figures, and 25-30 references. Full original research papers are an important part of the process when developing your career.
Review papers present a critical synthesis of a specific research topic. These papers are usually much longer than original papers and will contain numerous references. More often than not, they will be commissioned by journal editors. Reviews present an excellent way to solidify your research career.
Letters, Rapid or Short Communications are often published for the quick and early communication of significant and original advances. They are much shorter than full articles and usually limited in length by the journal. Journals specifically dedicated to short communications or letters are also published in some fields. In these the authors can present short preliminary findings before developing a full-length paper.
3. Choose a Journal
Are you looking for the right place to publish your paper? Find out here whether a De Gruyter journal might be the right fit.
Submit to journals that you already read, that you have a good feel for. If you do so, you will have a better appreciation of both its culture and the requirements of the editors and reviewers.
Other factors to consider are:
- The specific subject area
- The aims and scope of the journal
- The type of manuscript you have written
- The significance of your work
- The reputation of the journal
- The reputation of the editors within the community
- The editorial/review and production speeds of the journal
- The community served by the journal
- The coverage and distribution
- The accessibility ( open access vs. closed access)
4. Construct Your Paper
Each element of a paper has its purpose, so you should make these sections easy to index and search.
Don’t forget that requirements can differ highly per publication, so always make sure to apply a journal’s specific instructions – or guide – for authors to your manuscript, even to the first draft (text layout, paper citation, nomenclature, figures and table, etc.) It will save you time, and the editor’s.
Also, even in these days of Internet-based publishing, space is still at a premium, so be as concise as possible. As a good journalist would say: “Never use three words when one will do!”
Let’s look at the typical structure of a full research paper, but bear in mind certain subject disciplines may have their own specific requirements so check the instructions for authors on the journal’s home page.
4.1 The Title
It’s important to use the title to tell the reader what your paper is all about! You want to attract their attention, a bit like a newspaper headline does. Be specific and to the point. Keep it informative and concise, and avoid jargon and abbreviations (unless they are universally recognized like DNA, for example).
4.2 The Abstract
This could be termed as the “advertisement” for your article. Make it interesting and easily understood without the reader having to read the whole article. Be accurate and specific, and keep it as brief and concise as possible. Some journals (particularly in the medical fields) will ask you to structure the abstract in distinct, labeled sections, which makes it even more accessible.
A clear abstract will influence whether or not your work is considered and whether an editor should invest more time on it or send it for review.
4.3 Keywords
Keywords are used by abstracting and indexing services, such as PubMed and Web of Science. They are the labels of your manuscript, which make it “searchable” online by other researchers.
Include words or phrases (usually 4-8) that are closely related to your topic but not “too niche” for anyone to find them. Make sure to only use established abbreviations. Think about what scientific terms and its variations your potential readers are likely to use and search for. You can also do a test run of your selected keywords in one of the common academic search engines. Do similar articles to your own appear? Yes? Then that’s a good sign.
4.4 Introduction
This first part of the main text should introduce the problem, as well as any existing solutions you are aware of and the main limitations. Also, state what you hope to achieve with your research.
Do not confuse the introduction with the results, discussion or conclusion.
4.5 Methods
Every research article should include a detailed Methods section (also referred to as “Materials and Methods”) to provide the reader with enough information to be able to judge whether the study is valid and reproducible.
Include detailed information so that a knowledgeable reader can reproduce the experiment. However, use references and supplementary materials to indicate previously published procedures.
4.6 Results
In this section, you will present the essential or primary results of your study. To display them in a comprehensible way, you should use subheadings as well as illustrations such as figures, graphs, tables and photos, as appropriate.
4.7 Discussion
Here you should tell your readers what the results mean .
Do state how the results relate to the study’s aims and hypotheses and how the findings relate to those of other studies. Explain all possible interpretations of your findings and the study’s limitations.
Do not make “grand statements” that are not supported by the data. Also, do not introduce any new results or terms. Moreover, do not ignore work that conflicts or disagrees with your findings. Instead …
Be brave! Address conflicting study results and convince the reader you are the one who is correct.
4.8 Conclusion
Your conclusion isn’t just a summary of what you’ve already written. It should take your paper one step further and answer any unresolved questions.
Sum up what you have shown in your study and indicate possible applications and extensions. The main question your conclusion should answer is: What do my results mean for the research field and my community?
4.9 Acknowledgments and Ethical Statements
It is extremely important to acknowledge anyone who has helped you with your paper, including researchers who supplied materials or reagents (e.g. vectors or antibodies); and anyone who helped with the writing or English, or offered critical comments about the content.
Learn more about academic integrity in our blog post “Scholarly Publication Ethics: 4 Common Mistakes You Want To Avoid” .
Remember to state why people have been acknowledged and ask their permission . Ensure that you acknowledge sources of funding, including any grant or reference numbers.
Furthermore, if you have worked with animals or humans, you need to include information about the ethical approval of your study and, if applicable, whether informed consent was given. Also, state whether you have any competing interests regarding the study (e.g. because of financial or personal relationships.)
4.10 References
The end is in sight, but don’t relax just yet!
De facto, there are often more mistakes in the references than in any other part of the manuscript. It is also one of the most annoying and time-consuming problems for editors.
Remember to cite the main scientific publications on which your work is based. But do not inflate the manuscript with too many references. Avoid excessive – and especially unnecessary – self-citations. Also, avoid excessive citations of publications from the same institute or region.
5. Decide the Order of Authors
In the sciences, the most common way to order the names of the authors is by relative contribution.
Generally, the first author conducts and/or supervises the data analysis and the proper presentation and interpretation of the results. They put the paper together and usually submit the paper to the journal.
Co-authors make intellectual contributions to the data analysis and contribute to data interpretation. They review each paper draft. All of them must be able to present the paper and its results, as well as to defend the implications and discuss study limitations.
Do not leave out authors who should be included or add “gift authors”, i.e. authors who did not contribute significantly.
6. Check and Double-Check
As a final step before submission, ask colleagues to read your work and be constructively critical .
Make sure that the paper is appropriate for the journal – take a last look at their aims and scope. Check if all of the requirements in the instructions for authors are met.
Ensure that the cited literature is balanced. Are the aims, purpose and significance of the results clear?
Conduct a final check for language, either by a native English speaker or an editing service.
7. Submit Your Paper
When you and your co-authors have double-, triple-, quadruple-checked the manuscript: submit it via e-mail or online submission system. Along with your manuscript, submit a cover letter, which highlights the reasons why your paper would appeal to the journal and which ensures that you have received approval of all authors for submission.
It is up to the editors and the peer-reviewers now to provide you with their (ideally constructive and helpful) comments and feedback. Time to take a breather!
If the paper gets rejected, do not despair – it happens to literally everybody. If the journal suggests major or minor revisions, take the chance to provide a thorough response and make improvements as you see fit. If the paper gets accepted, congrats!
It’s now time to get writing and share your hard work – good luck!
If you are interested, check out this related blog post
[Title Image by Nick Morrison via Unsplash]
David Sleeman
David Sleeman worked as Senior Journals Manager in the field of Physical Sciences at De Gruyter.
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How to publish your paper
On this page, journal specific instructions, nature journal pledge to authors, how to publish your research in a nature journal, editorial process, about advance online publication, journals' aop timetable, frequently asked questions.
For more information on how to publish papers in a specific Nature Portfolio title, please visit the author instructions page for the journal that is of interest to you.
Top of page ⤴
Editors of the Nature journals strive to provide authors with an outstandingly efficient, fair and thoughtful submission, peer-review and publishing experience. Authors can expect all manuscripts that are published to be scrutinized for peer-review with the utmost professional rigor and care by expert referees who are selected by the editors for their ability to provide incisive and useful analysis. Editors weigh many factors when choosing content for Nature journals, but they strive to minimize the time taken to make decisions about publication while maintaining the highest possible quality of that decision.
After review, editors work to increase a paper's readability, and thereby its audience, through advice and editing, so that all research is presented in a form that is both readable to those in the field and understandable to scientists outside the immediate discipline. Research is published online without delay through our Advance Online Publication system. Nature journals provide more than 3,000 registered journalists with weekly press releases that mention all research papers to be published. About 800,000 registered users receive e-mailed tables of contents, and many papers are highlighted for the nonspecialist reader on the journal's homepage, contents pages and in News and Views.
Throughout this process, the editors of Nature journals uphold editorial, ethical and scientific standards according to the policies outlined on the author and referee site as well as on our journal websites. We periodically review those policies to ensure that they continue to reflect the needs of the scientific community, and welcome comments and suggestions from scientists, either via the feedback links on the author and referees' website or via our author blog, Nautilus , or peer-review blog, Peer to Peer .
The Nature journals comprise the weekly, multidisciplinary Nature, which publishes research of the highest influence within a discipline that will be of interest to scientists in other fields, and fifteen monthly titles, publishing papers of the highest quality and of exceptional impact: Nature Biotechnology, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Chemistry, Nature Climate Change, Nature Communications, Nature Genetics, Nature Geoscience, Nature Immunology, Nature Materials, Nature Medicine, Nature Methods, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Neuroscience, Nature Photonics, Nature Physics, Nature Protocolsand Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. These journals are international, being published and printed in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. See here for more information about the relationship between these journals.
Nature and the Nature monthly journals have Impact Factors that are among the highest in the world. The high prestige of these journals brings many rewards to their authors, but also means that competition for publication is severe, so many submissions have to be declined without peer-review.
The Nature journals differ from most other journals in that they do not have editorial boards, but are instead run by professional editors who consult widely among the scientific community in making decisions about publication of papers. This article is to provide you with an overview of the general editorial processes of these unique journals. Although the journals are broadly similar and share editorial policies , all authors should consult the author information pages of the specific Nature journal before submitting, to obtain detailed information on criteria for publication and manuscript preparation for that journal, as some differences exist.
The following sections summarise the journals' editorial processes and describe how manuscripts are handled by editors between submission and publication. At all stages of the process, you can access the online submission system and find the status of your manuscript.
Presubmission enquiries
Many Nature journals allow researchers to obtain informal feedback from editors before submitting the whole manuscript. This service is intended to save you time — if the editors feel it would not be suitable, you can submit the manuscript to another journal without delay. If you wish to use the presubmission enquiry service, please use the online system of the journal of your choice to send a paragraph explaining the importance of your manuscript, as well as the abstract or summary paragraph with its associated citation list so the editors may judge the manuscript in relation to other related work. The editors will quickly either invite you to submit the whole manuscript (which does not mean any commitment to publication), or will say that it is not suitable for the journal. If you receive a negative response, please do not reply. If you are convinced of the importance of your manuscript despite editors' reservations, you may submit the whole manuscript using the journal's online submission system. The editors can then make a more complete assessment of your work. Note that not all Nature journals offer a presubmission enquiry service.
Initial submission
When you are ready to submit the manuscript, please use the online submission system for the journal concerned. When the journal receives your manuscript, it will be assigned a number and an editor, who reads the manuscript, seeks informal advice from scientific advisors and editorial colleagues, and compares your submission to other recently published papers in the field. If the manuscript seems novel and arresting, and the work described has both immediate and far-reaching implications, the editor will send it out for peer review, usually to two or three independent specialists. However, because the journals can publish only a few of the manuscripts in the field or subfield concerned, many manuscripts have to be declined without peer review even though they may describe solid scientific results.
Transfers between Nature journals
In some cases, an editor is unable to offer publication, but might suggest that the manuscript is more suitable for one of the other Nature journals. If you wish to resubmit your manuscript to the suggested journal, you can simply follow the link provided by the editor to transfer your manuscript and the reviewers' comments to the new journal. This process is entirely in your control: you can choose not to use this service and instead to submit your manuscript to any other Nature or nature research journal, with or without including the reviewers' comments if you wish, using the journal's usual online submission service. For more information, please see the manuscript transfers page .
Peer review
The corresponding author is notified by email when an editor decides to send a manuscript for review. The editors choose referees for their independence, ability to evaluate the technical aspects of the paper fully and fairly, whether they are currently or recently assessing related submissions, and whether they can review the manuscript within the short time requested.
You may suggest referees for your manuscript (including address details), so long as they are independent scientists. These suggestions are often helpful, although they are not always followed. Editors will honour your requests to exclude a limited number of named scientists as reviewers.
Decisions and revisions
If the editor invites you to revise your manuscript, you should include with your resubmitted version a new cover letter that includes a point-by-point response to the reviewers' and editors' comments, including an explanation of how you have altered your manuscript in response to these, and an estimation of the length of the revised version with figures/tables. The decision letter will specify a deadline, and revisions that are returned within this period will retain their original submission date.
Additional supplementary information is published with the online version of your article if the editors and referees have judged that it is essential for the conclusions of the article (for example, a large table of data or the derivation of a model) but of more specialist interest than the rest of the article. Editors encourage authors whose articles describe methods to provide a summary of the method for the print version and to include full details and protocols online. Authors are also encouraged to post the full protocol on Nature Protocols' Protocol Exchange , which as well as a protocols database provides an online forum for readers in the field to add comments, suggestions and refinements to the published protocols.
After acceptance
Your accepted manuscript is prepared for publication by copy editors (also called subeditors), who refine it so that the text and figures are readable and clear to those outside the immediate field; choose keywords to maximize visibility in online searches as well as suitable for indexing services; and ensure that the manuscripts conform to house style. The copy editors are happy to give advice to authors whose native language is not English, and will edit those papers with special care.
After publication
All articles are published in the print edition and, in PDF and HTML format, in the online edition of the journal, in full. Many linking and navigational services are provided with the online (HTML) version of all articles published by the Nature journals.
All articles and contact details of corresponding authors are included in our press release service, which means that your work is drawn to the attention of all the main media organizations in the world, who may choose to feature the work in newspaper and other media reports. Some articles are summarized and highlighted within Nature and Nature Portfolio publications and subject-specific websites.
Journals published by Nature Portfolio do not ask authors for copyright, but instead ask you to sign an exclusive publishing license . This allows you to archive the accepted version of your manuscript six months after publication on your own, your institution's, and your funder's websites.
Disagreements with decisions
If a journal's editors are unable to offer publication of a manuscript and have not invited resubmission, you are strongly advised to submit your manuscript for publication elsewhere. However, if you believe that the editors or reviewers have seriously misunderstood your manuscript, you may write to the editors, explaining the scientific reasons why you believe the decision was incorrect. Please bear in mind that editors prioritise newly submitted manuscripts and manuscripts where resubmission has been invited, so it can take several weeks before letters of disagreement can be answered. During this time, you must not submit your manuscript elsewhere. In the interests of publishing your results without unnecessary delay, we therefore advise you to submit your manuscript to another journal if it has been declined, rather than to spend time on corresponding further with the editors of the declining journal.
Nature journals offer Advance Online Publication (AOP).
We believe that AOP is the best and quickest way to publish high-quality, peer-reviewed research for the benefit of readers and authors. Papers published AOP are the definitive version: they do not change before appearing in print and can be referenced formally as soon as they appear on the journal's AOP website. In addition, Nature publishes some papers each week via an Accelerated Article Preview (AAP) workflow. For these papers, we upload the accepted manuscript to our website as an AAP PDF, without subediting of text, figures or tables, but with some preliminary formatting. AAP papers are clearly indicated by a watermark on each page of the online PDF.
Each journal's website includes an AOP table of contents, in which papers are listed in order of publication date (beginning with the most recent). Each paper carries a digital object identifier (DOI), which serves as a unique electronic identification tag for that paper. As soon as the issue containing the paper is printed, papers will be removed from the AOP table of contents, assigned a page number and transferred to that issue's table of contents on the website. The DOI remains attached to the paper to provide a persistent identifier.
Nature publishes many, but not all, papers AOP, on Mondays and Wednesdays.
For the monthly Nature journals publishing primary research, new articles are uploaded to the AOP section of their web sites once each week. Occasionally, an article may be uploaded on other days.
The monthly Nature Reviews journals also upload new articles to the AOP section of their web sites once each week.
Q. Which articles are published AOP?
A. Original research is published AOP — that is, Articles and Letters, and for the Nature journals that publish them, Brief Communications. Associated News and Views articles may be published with the AOP Article or Letter or when the papers are published in the print/online edition of the journal. Nature occasionally publishes other article types AOP, for example News and Commentaries.
Q. Is the AOP version of the article definitive?
A. Yes. Only the final version of the paper is published AOP, exactly as it will be published in the printed edition. The paper is thus complete in every respect except that instead of having a volume/issue/page number, it has a DOI (digital object identifier). This means that the paper can be referenced as soon as it appears on the AOP site by using the DOI. Nature also publishes some papers each week via an Accelerated Article Preview workflow, where the accepted version of the paper is uploaded as a PDF to our website without subediting of text, figures and tables, but with some preliminary formatting. These papers are clearly identified by a watermark on each page of the PDF.
Q. What is a Digital Object Identifier?
A. The DOI is an international, public, "persistent identifier of intellectual property entities" in the form of a combination of numbers and letters. For Nature Portfolio journals, the DOI is assigned to an item of editorial content, providing a unique and persistent identifier for that item. The DOI system is administered by the International DOI Foundation, a not-for-profit organization. CrossRef, another not-for-profit organization, uses the DOI as a reference linking standard, enables cross-publisher linking, and maintains the lookup system for DOIs. Nature Portfolio is a member of CrossRef.
Q. What do the numbers in the DOI signify?
A. The DOI has two components, a prefix (before the slash) and a suffix (after the slash). The prefix is a DOI resolver server identifer (10) and a unique identifier assigned to the publisher—for example, the identifier for Nature Portfolio is 1038 and the entire DOI prefix for an article published by Nature Portfolio is 10.1038. The suffix is an arbitrary number provided by the publisher. It can be composed of numbers and/or letters and does not necessarily have any systematic significance. Each DOI is registered in a central resolution database that associates it with one or more corresponding web locations (URLs). For example, the DOI 10.1038/ng571 connects to http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng571.
Q. Can I use the DOI in a reference citation?
A. Yes, instead of giving the volume and page number, you can give the paper's DOI at the end of the citation. For example, Nature papers should be cited in the form;
Author(s) Nature advance online publication, day month year (DOI 10.1038/natureXXX).
After print publication, you should give the DOI as well as the print citation, to enable readers to find the paper in print as well as online. For example;
Author(s) Nature volume, page (year); advance online publication, day month year (DOI 10.1038/natureXXX).
Q. How can I use a DOI to find a paper?
A. There are two ways:
- DOIs from other articles can be embedded into the linking coding of an article's reference section. In Nature journals these appear as "|Article|" in the reference sections. When |Article| is clicked, it opens another browser window leading to the entrance page (often the abstract) for another article. Depending on the source of the article, this page can be on the Nature Portfolio's site or a site of another publisher. This service is enabled by CrossRef.
- A DOI can be inserted directly into the browser. For example, for the DOI 10.1038/ng571, typing http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng571 brings up the entrance page of the article.
Q. What is the official publication date?
A. Many journals, and most abstracting and indexing services (including Medline and Thomson-Reuters) cite the print date as the publication date. Publishers usually state both the 'online publication date' and the 'print publication date'. Nature Portfolio publishes both dates for our own papers, in the hope that scientific communities, as well as abstracting and indexing services, will recognize these dates.
We endeavour to include both the online publication date and the usual print citation in reference lists of Nature Portfolio papers, where a paper has been published online before being published in print. Given the use of the DOI in locating an online publication in the future, we encourage authors to use DOIs in reference citations.
For legal purposes (for example, establishing intellectual property rights), we assume that online publication constitutes public disclosure. But this is for the courts to decide; Nature Portfolio's role as a publisher is to provide clear documentation of the publication history, online and in print.
Q. Must I be a subscriber to read AOP articles?
A. Yes. AOP papers are the same as those in the print/online issues: while abstracts are freely available on any Nature Portfolio journal's web site, access to the full-text article requires a paid subscription or a site license.
Q. Does Medline use DOIs?
A. Medline currently captures DOIs with online publication dates in its records, and is developing an enhanced level of support for the DOI system.
Q. Does Thomson-Reuters use DOIs?
A. Thomson Reuters captures DOIs in its records at the same time as the volume/issue/page number. Therefore, it is not using the DOI to capture information before print publication, but rather as an additional piece of metadata.
Q. How does AOP affect the Impact Factor?
A. Impact factors are calculated by Thomson-Reuters. At present, Thomson-Reuters bases its calculations on the date of print publication alone, so until or unless it changes its policy, AOP has no effect on impact factors.
Q. What are the page numbers in PDFs of AOP papers?
A. For convenience, the PDF version of every AOP article is given a temporary pagination, beginning with page 1. This is unrelated to the final pagination in the printed article.
Quick links
- Explore articles by subject
- Guide to authors
- Editorial policies
How to Write & Publish a Research Paper: Step-by-Step Guide
This guide is far more than a list of instructions on what to include in each section of your research paper. In fact, we will:
- Use a research paper I wrote specifically as an example to illustrate the key ideas in this guide ( link to the full-text PDF of the research paper ).
- Use real-world data (on 100,000 PubMed research papers) to show you how professional scientists write in practice, instead of presenting my own opinion on the subject.
- Provide practical tips on how to: improve your writing , find the right journal , and submit your article .
Let’s get started!
- Structure of a research paper
- Writing the Introduction section
- Writing the Methods section
- Writing the Results section
- Writing the Discussion section
- Writing the Abstract
- Writing the Title
- Writing optional sections
- Refining and improving your article
- Managing and formatting your References
- Submitting your article
1. Structure of a research paper
Most research papers follow the IMRaD structure that consists of 4 main sections:
- I ntroduction
- D iscussion
The paper also has some essential elements–Title, Abstract, and References–and may contain other optional sections–Conclusion, Acknowledgements, Funding, Conflicts of interest, and Appendix.
These sections often appear in the following order:
The advantages of following the IMRaD structure are:
- To make the paper easily scannable by readers (since most won’t read the entire manuscript.
- To avoid repeating the same information in different places.
To follow the IMRaD structure, you must learn what information goes where.
So, here’s an overview of what each of the main sections represents:
Section | Content |
---|---|
Introduction | Why you chose this topic and what is your objective |
Methods | What you did and how you did it |
Results | What you found |
Discussion | What your results mean |
Together, these 4 sections start with the main topic of the paper and end up with a conclusion regarding that topic:
1.1. Where to start?
When writing a research paper, some people prefer to start with the Results section—since it comes out right from the data they just analyzed. Others start with the Methods section—since information about how they designed the study and analyzed the data is still fresh in their mind. Personally, I prefer to start with the Introduction section for 2 reasons:
- While doing a literature review for the introduction, sometimes I discover a problem in my approach or an interesting secondary objective that I did not think about, which as you can imagine, changes a lot of things in other sections of the article.
- I want to formulate the hypothesis before analyzing the data in order to avoid HARKing (Hypothesizing after the results are known) which is a major problem in statistics (see: 7 Tricks to Get Statistically Significant p-Values ).
2. Writing the Introduction section
The Introduction targets a non-specialized audience, so when writing it, make sure to use simple and beginner-friendly terms.
2.1. Length of the Introduction section
The introduction section should be:
- 400 to 760 words long (3 to 5 paragraphs).
- The shortest section of the article (half the length of the other sections: Methods, Results, and Discussion).
(These data are based on an analysis I made on 61,518 articles from PubMed )
2.2. Structure of the Introduction section
Here’s what you should include in the Introduction:
- Step #1: Describe the general context of your work (your aim should be to convince the reader that the topic of your research is interesting).
- Step #2: Summarize the results of previous studies on the topic (report what others have found and provide references. But don’t do an in-depth literature review, a short summary of these findings is enough).
- Step #3: Identify the gap , problem, or limitations of previous studies (find the missing pieces of the puzzle).
- Step #4: State your objective , hypothesis, question that you want to answer, or problem that you want to solve (make sure that the purpose of your study is clear and understandable, otherwise people won’t care about your results).
- Step #5: Present your solution : explain the approach you used to achieve the objective, explain what is different about it and what makes it special. Here you have to sell your approach. But keep it short (leave the details to the methods section).
2.3. Verb tense and voice in the Introduction section
Use the past tense for things that were already done and the present tense for things that continue to be true today.
For instance:
“Previous studies found that the rate of heart disease is increasing “.
“The goal of this study is to explore why the rate of heart disease increased in the past 10 years”.
You should write the Introduction using mainly the active voice.
“ A recent study found conflicting results”.
Should be favored over:
“ Conflicting results were recently found “.
2.4. Example: writing an Introduction section
In this section, we are going to verify that the Introduction section of our example article ( link to the full-text PDF ) follows the step-by-step structure discussed above. (The article studies the influence of title length on its attractiveness).
What follows is the Introduction of that article with the main steps highlighted:
INTRODUCTION
The role of a research title is to draw the reader’s attention while providing an overview of the article’s content. Finding a way to engage readers is important since only 18% of those who read the title proceed to read the abstract (Mabe and Amin, 2002).
Title attractiveness may be affected by its length; but studies on this subject have been inconsistent and sometimes contradictory (Subotic and Mukherjee, 2014; Letchford et al., 2015; Guo et al., 2018; Jacques and Sebire, 2010; Habibzadeh and Yadollahie, 2010; Stremersch et al., 2007; Falahati Qadimi Fumani et al., 2015). This may be due to bias and confounding since these studies did not follow a causal model to eliminate alternative explanations and indirect effects.
The confusion over the effect of title length led to a gap between what professional writers recommend and what researchers do in practice: while professionals recommend keeping titles as short as possible (Zeiger, 1999; Neill, 2007), in practice, titles are getting longer (Milojevi¢, 2017; Whissell, 2012) and more descriptive (mentioning the study objective, the variables involved, the main result, and the study design).
To help resolve this issue, the present study aims to quantify the direct influence of title length on its attractiveness by analyzing data on 9,830 biomedical research papers from PubMed and adjusting for confounding and indirect effects through the use of a causal diagram.
Writing is not just about following a series of rules: you should keep an eye on the flow of your story that ties your paragraphs together.
Here’s an overview of the story of our Introduction section:
3. Writing the Methods section
The Methods section is the recipe for the study: it should provide enough information to replicate the study without looking elsewhere (although most of those who read the Methods section will not be interested in replicating your study, instead they just want to make sure that your study is credible).
The Methods is the most technical section of the article. So, unlike the Introduction, don’t shy away from technical terms, since those who are not interested in such details will most likely skip this section.
3.1. Length of the Methods section
The Methods section should be:
- 760 to 1,620 words long (6 to 14 paragraphs).
- The same length as the Results or the Discussion, and about double the length of the Introduction.
(These data are based on an analysis I did on 61,514 articles from PubMed )
3.2. Structure of the Methods section
Here’s what you should include in the Methods section:
- The date and duration of the study.
- The sampling procedure.
- The assignment to different study groups.
- The source of the data.
- Any approval needed to conduct the study.
- Step#3: List the inclusion and exclusion criteria (i.e., the characteristics that participants must have to be included in the study).
- The reason behind choosing such procedure.
- The order in which things were done (a flow diagram can simplify the description of complex procedures).
- The calculation of the minimum sample size needed.
- The role of each variable (dependent, independent, or control variable).
- The methods used to address bias in the study.
- The methods used to handle missing data.
- The measures used to summarize the data.
- The type of statistical test or model you used to test your hypothesis and the threshold for statistical significance (don’t go into detail about obvious statistical tests or models, but advanced methods should be either described or referenced).
- The statistical software used [optional].
3.3. Verb tense and voice in the Methods section
Use the past tense (because the things you did took place in the past).
“The data were downloaded “.
“A linear regression model was used “.
Use the passive voice (to avoid repeating the pronouns: “I” or “We”).
“Variables were summarized using the mean and standard deviation”.
Instead of:
“I summarized the variables using the mean and standard deviation”.
3.4. Example: writing a Methods section
In this section, we are going to verify that the Methods section of our example article ( link to the full-text P D F ) follows the structure discussed above. (Remember that this article is about studying the influence of title length on its attractiveness).
What follows is the Methods section of this article with the main steps highlighted:
For this cross-sectional study, data were downloaded from PubMed Central in March 2021 using a web API created by Comeau et al. (2019). From a collection of about 3 million biomedical research articles from various journals, 105,984 were chosen at random from those uploaded between the years 2016 and 2021.
From these 105,984 articles, a total of 96,154 were discarded for incomplete data, leaving 9,830 articles ready for analysis (Figure 4). Reasons for discarding articles included: unavailable full text, unmentioned study design, missing impact factor of the journal in which the article was published, missing article DOI, and unavailable citation count.
To study the influence of title length on its attractiveness, and in order to avoid defining and measuring Title attractiveness , I substituted this variable with another closely related one: the Citation count for a given article; this can work provided that we block all alternative paths other than the direct effect of Title attractiveness on Citation count . Looking at the causal diagram in Figure 5, we notice that there is only one alternative path, and it can be blocked by adjusting for the Journal in which the article was published. Since the data contained articles from 1,040 different journals (and to avoid complicating the analysis by creating 1,039 dummy variables), I ended up adjusting for the Journal impact factor , a direct descendent of the deconfounding variable Journal , thus representing most of its effect.
To compute the direct causal effect of Title length on Title attractiveness , alternative explanations of the association between these two such as confounding and indirect effects must also be eliminated. From Figure 5, we see that this can be accomplished by adjusting for the Mention of study design in the title (a confounder) and the use of Comma in the title and Colon in the title (indirect effects).
After determining the variables that we want to adjust for, Poisson regression was used to compute the effect of Title length on Citation count . In our case, a Poisson model has 2 major advantages over linear regression: (1) it fits the data better, since counts follow a Poisson rather than a normal distribution, and (2) it accounts for different publication dates of different articles, which is important to offset the advantage of older articles regarding the time they had to collect citations (this can be accomplished by including Years since publication as an offset in the model).
The Poisson model described above can be summarized with the following equation:
log(Citation count) =β 0 + β 1 × Title length + β 2 × Journal impact factor + β 3 × Mention of study design in the title + β 4 × Comma in the title + β 5 × Colon in the title + log(Years since publication)
Variables in the model, such as Citation count , Title length , and Journal impact factor , were summarized using the median and the interquartile range (IQR), since they follow either a Poisson or a skewed non-normal distribution.
Note that in some cases, you will be forced to include some results in the Methods section. Although the research paper has a separate Results section (which we will discuss next), sometimes we include some results in the Methods section to justify the use of a certain material or method.
For example, in the Methods section above, in order to defend the use of the variable Journal impact factor instead of Journal , I ended up reporting the number of journals in the study (which is a number calculated from the data, so it normally belongs to the Results section):
“Since the data contained articles from 1,040 different journals (and to avoid complicating the analysis by creating 1,039 dummy variables), I ended up adjusting for the Journal impact factor, a direct descendent of the deconfounding variable Journal, thus representing most of its effect.”
4. Writing the Results section
In the Results section, you should describe and summarize your findings without explaining them (the interpretation should be left for the Discussion section).
4.1. Length of the Results section
The Results section should be:
- 610 to 1,660 words long (5 to 11 paragraphs).
- The same length as the Methods or the Discussion, and about double the length of the Introduction.
(These data are based on an analysis I did on 61,458 articles from PubMed )
4.2. Structure of the Results section
Here’s what you should include in the Results section:
- At each stage and for each group of the study, report the number of participants (if some were lost to follow-up, provide the reasons).
- Describe participants’ characteristics.
- Compare participants in different groups.
- Describe the main variables in the study.
- The statistical significance (the p-value).
- The precision (the 95% confidence interval).
- The practical significance (the effect size).
4.3. Using figures and tables
A table or a figure are useful to highlight important results or to represent a lot of numbers that, if reported in the text, can be unpleasant for the reader.
Here are a few rules regarding figures and tables:
- The supporting text should complement the table or figure but not repeat the same content.
- The table or figure should stand alone (i.e., the reader can understand it without referring to the text).
- No vertical lines.
- A line above the header row.
- A line below the header row.
- A line at the bottom of the table.
- No horizontal lines to separate data rows.
(Refer to the example below to see how your tables should look like)
4.4. Verb tense and voice in the Results section
Use the past tense for completed actions.
“In our sample of 9,830 articles, the median title length composed of 16 words (IQR = 6), had 2.2 yearly citations (IQR = 3.33), and was published in a journal with an impact factor of 2.74 (IQR = 1.67).”
Use the present tense for things that continue to be true today.
“The Poisson model shows a significant negative effect of longer titles on citation count.”
Use the active voice when possible.
4.5. Example: writing a Results section
In this section, we are going to verify that the Results section of our example article ( link to the full-text P D F ) follows the structure discussed above. (Remember that this article is about studying the influence of title length on its attractiveness).
What follows is the Results section of this article with the main steps highlighted:
In our sample of 9,830 articles, the median title composed of 16 words (IQR = 6), had 2.2 yearly citations (IQR = 3.33), and was published in a journal with an impact factor of 2.74 (IQR = 1.67). Also, 4,317 (43.9%) of titles contained at least one colon, 1,442 (14.7%) contained at least one comma, and 2,794 (28.4%) mentioned the study design.
The Poisson model shows a significant negative effect of longer titles on citation count (Table 2). Specifically, each additional word in the title causes a drop of 2.5% in the citation rate (95% confidence interval: [-2.7%, -2.3%]; p < 0.001). Equivalently, we can say that removing one word from the title causes an increase of 2.5% in the citation rate. To put that into perspective, removing one word from the title of the median article (that has 2.2 citations per year) causes a gain of 0.055 (= 2.2 × 0.025) citations per year, equivalent to 1 citation every 19 years.
5. Writing the Discussion section
In the Discussion section, you should explain the meaning of your results, their importance, and implications.
5.1. Length of the Discussion section
The Discussion section should be:
- 820 to 1,480 words long (5 to 9 paragraphs).
- The same length as the Methods or the Results, and about double the length of the Introduction.
(These data are based on an analysis I did on 61,517 articles from PubMed )
5.2. Structure of the Discussion section
Here’s what you should include in the Discussion section:
- Step #1: Answer the study objective (i.e., where the Introduction ended). Your first sentence can be: “We/I found that” , “This study shows/proves that” , etc.
- Explain its consequences.
- Comment on whether it supports or refutes your initial hypothesis (i.e., was this result expected or unexpected?).
- Compare it with the results of other studies (if they contradict each other: explain why, and suggest a way for further studies to resolve this contradiction).
- Then discuss your secondary finding (if you have any) by following the same steps as you did for the main finding.
- Step #3: Point out the strengths of your study (e.g., the use of a new and superior method, a larger sample size, etc.).
- How you addressed these limitations in your design and analysis (i.e., justify the methods used in your study).
- What future studies should do to address these limitations.
- Step #5: Conclude with a takeaway message that reminds the reader of your most important finding and its implications (this Conclusion paragraph is sometimes put in a separate section after the Discussion [for more information, see: Length of a Conclusion Section: Analysis of 47,810 Examples ]).
5.3. Verb tense and voice in the Discussion section
Use the past tense for completed actions. For instance:
“I found that…”.
Use the present tense for things that continue to be true today. For instance:
“This study shows that…”.
5.4. Example: writing a Discussion section
In this section, we are going to verify that the Discussion section of our example article ( link to the full-text PDF ) follows the structure discussed above. (Remember that this article is about studying the influence of title length on its attractiveness).
What follows is the Discussion section of this article with the main steps highlighted:
This study shows that shorter research titles are more engaging by proving that they attract more citations. However, this effect, although statistically significant, is practically negligible since removing one word from a title will attract, on average, a single additional citation every 19 years–so I would not recommend shortening research titles as a strategy for increasing the citation count.
Previous studies on the subject reported conflicting results for articles in different disciplines since they did not use a causal approach to control bias and confounding. For instance, they found that shorter titles attracted more citations in psychology (Subotic and Mukherjee, 2014) and general scientific research (Letchford et al., 2015), but less in economics (Guo et al., 2018) and medicine (Jacques and Sebire, 2010; Habibzadeh and Yadollahie, 2010), and had no effect in marketing research (Stremersch et al., 2007) and scientometrics (Falahati Qadimi Fumani et al., 2015). What distinguishes the present study was the use of a causal diagram to identify and block alternative paths between title length and citation count, removing all but the causal explanation of any association between the two.
However, there are some limitations: (1) the 3 million biomedical research articles that are freely available on PubMed Central from which our sample was drawn may not accurately represent all published articles—thus introducing selection bias; (2) adjusting for the journal impact factor instead of the journal itself (to reduce model complexity) may have resulted in some residual confounding; and (3) the general approach taken to adjust for bias and confounding using a causal diagram (Figure 5) created based on my understanding of the subject may have incorporated an element of subjectivity into the analysis. Future studies can address these issues by: (1) collecting data on articles from different disciplines (to increase the result’s generalizability), (2) including a larger number of articles from each journal (to enable adjusting for Journal instead of Journal impact factor ), and (3) validating, either theoretically or analytically, the structure of the causal diagram (to reduce subjectivity).
Finally, this study proves that shortening a research title is not an effective strategy for earning more citations. Yet, writing shorter titles may still have other benefits, such as: getting more reads on Mendeley (Zahedi and Haustein, 2018; Didegah and Thelwall, 2013), tweets (Haustein et al., 2015), appearances in social media in general (Zagovora et al., 2018), and avoiding truncation when they appear on the results page of an online search engine like Google.
6. Writing the Abstract
The Abstract is a summary of the article.
6.1. Length of the Abstract
The Abstract should be 220 to 320 words long (1 to 4 paragraphs).
(These data are based on an analysis I did on 61,429 articles from PubMed )
6.2. Structure of the Abstract
In the Abstract, you should provide a summary of each section of your paper (It can be divided into subheadings, if the journal allows it):
- Step #1: Start with a one sentence introduction to the subject.
- Step #2: Mention the study objective .
- Step #3: Summarize the Methods section .
- Step #4: Highlight key results in numbers (including data is important for researchers who want to cite your article based only on the Abstract).
- Step #5: End with a one sentence conclusion (i.e., skip the detailed discussion of the results and go straight to the takeaway message).
6.3. Example: writing an Abstract
In this section, we are going to verify that the Abstract of our example article ( link to the full-text PDF ) follows the structure discussed above. (Remember that this article is about studying the influence of title length on its attractiveness).
What follows is the Abstract of this article with the main steps highlighted:
Attractive titles are expected to drive more reads and thus more citations to a research article, so studying the effect of title length on its attractiveness can be reduced to analyzing its influence on the citation count. Previous studies on the subject showed conflicting results that are probably attributable to bias and confounding, since they mostly focused on predicting citation count based on title length instead of using a causal model to explain the relationship between the two. The present study aims to quantify the direct influence of title length on its attractiveness guided by a causal diagram to identify and eliminate alternative explanations such as indirect effects and confounding. The study used data on 9,830 biomedical research articles from PubMed Central, downloaded through an API created by Comeau and colleagues. Poisson regression modeled the citation rate as a function of title length, adjusting for mediators of indirect effects—such as the use of a comma and a colon in the title—and confounders—such as the journal impact factor and the mention of study design in the title. The model shows that each word removed from the title increases the citation rate by 2.5%. This means that, for the median article that receives 2.2 citations per year, each word removed from the title causes a gain of 0.055 citations per year, equivalent to 1 citation every 19 years. Although statistically significant, this effect is practically negligible—so shortening a research title is not an effective strategy for earning more citations.
7. Writing the Title
The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first. Blaise Pascal
The Title’s role is to describe the content of the article and attract people to read it. Remember that only 18% of those who read the title proceed to read the Abstract [Source: Mabe and Amin, 2002 ].
7.1. Length of the Title
The Title should be 11 to 18 words long (80 to 129 characters).
Keep your Title as short as possible, since:
- Google shows only the first 60 characters of titles in their results page, so longer titles will be truncated when they appear in Google search.
- High-impact journals tend to publish articles with short titles.
(These data are based on an analysis I did on 104,161 titles from PubMed )
7.2. Structure of the Title
The Title should:
- Mention the central question or the purpose of the study (including important variables).
- Be front loaded : this means that the keywords should be close to the beginning of the title (remember that readers are scanning the title and they want to determine as fast as possible if they are interested in your article).
- Have a meaningful short version . For those searching online, Google will show them only the first 60 characters of your title and the rest is truncated. So, make sure to pack enough information in this part for users to be able to judge whether they want to click it.
- Mention the study design [optional].
- Avoid abbreviations and jargon . For instance: “ The effects of having CVD on the psychological status “ should be replaced by “Psychological effects of cardiovascular disease” .
7.3. Example: writing a Title
The following figure shows how the Title of our example article follows the structure discussed above:
8. Writing optional sections
8.1. writing the acknowledgement section.
In this section, you should acknowledge any significant technical contribution, permission, advice, suggestion, or comment you received.
“I would like to thank Prof. John for assistance with choosing an appropriate study design”.
“Thanks are due to all the hospital crew members who contributed their time and effort to make the data collection feasible in the shortest time possible”.
8.2. Writing the Funding section
In this section, you should provide the sources of funding, or the sources of the equipment and materials used in the study, and the role of funders.
“The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, or publication of this article”.
“This work was supported by [name of the funder, and grant number]”.
8.3. Writing the Conflicts of Interest section
In this section, you should state if you have any direct or indirect competing interests that may have influenced the outcome of the study, such as: financial, work, personal, or religious interests.
“The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest”.
“The corresponding author was a former employee in company X that sells the main product used in this study”.
8.4. Writing the Appendix
In this section, you should provide supplementary information that was too large to be included in the main text, such as: data, questionnaires, and additional details on the materials and methods used.
9. Refining and improving your article
The following is a list of useful tips to improve your writing:
- Avoid jargon , be concise, and focus on saving your readers’ time. The truth is that nobody enjoys reading, if readers can download information into their brain, they would!
- Assume that your readers are beginners : so, use terms that are easy to understand.
- Avoid acronyms when possible.
- You don’t know the subject.
- You don’t want to repeat the pronouns ”I” or ”We” in many places in the same paragraph (although it would be fine to use them sparingly, see: ”I” & ”We” in Academic Writing: Examples from 9,830 Studies ).
- You want to emphasize what was done instead of who did it (especially in the Methods section).
- To maintain the flow of ideas (for more information, see the video lecture by Steven Pinker below).
- Write short sentences and paragraphs : each paragraph should be between 2 and 6 sentences long (65 to 167 words), and should cover a single topic. (For more information, see: Paragraph Length: Data from 9,830 Research Papers )
- Get rid of hedge words : e.g. ”These results might suggest that a fair amount of x is suspected to have a meaningful impact on y” . These make you sound hesitant or unsure about what you are talking about.
- Avoid using “They” or “Their” when the subject is singular . For a gender-neutral language, revise the sentence to make the subject plural. For instance, use: “Participants were assigned according to their choosing” instead of “Each participant was assigned according to their choosing” .
For more writing tips, I highly recommend this lecture by Steven Pinker:
10. Managing and formatting your References
When it comes to references, you should:
- Cite between 25 and 56 references overall (approximately 1 reference for every 95 words or 4 sentences) [Source: How Many References Should a Research Paper Have? Study of 96,685 Articles ].
- Aim to find those published within the past 13 years [Source: How Old Should Your Article References Be? Based on 3,823,919 Examples ].
- Cite the original source, not secondary sources.
- Cite research papers and books instead of websites and videos (unless these contained original data not available elsewhere).
- Use a citation management software to collect and organize your references. I recommend Zotero® since it is free, easy to learn, and has a lot of tutorials online.
11. Submitting your article
Here’s a step-by-step description of how to find a journal and submit your article:
- Go to: The Directory of Open Access Journals (This is a database of 17,614 journals that publish open-access articles–i.e., if you publish in these journals, your article’s full-text will be available for free to your readers).
- Under SEE JOURNALS, select: Without article processing charges in order to exclude journal where you have to pay to publish your article.
- Under SUBJECTS, choose: the domain that is closest to the topic of your article.
- Under LANGUAGES, select: English.
- Select a journal from the suggested list.
- Go to the journal’s website, look for their “Instructions for authors”, and format your article accordingly.
- Sign-up to their website and submit your article.
Once your article is submitted, the editor takes a look at it and may:
- The topic of your article is not interesting for the journal’s audience.
- Your work is not important enough to be published in that journal.
- Rejected: In this case, you have to send your article to another journal (don’t get discouraged by rejection, sometimes important articles get rejected).
- Rejected, but can be resubmitted after making some major changes suggested by the reviewers (for instance, expanding, deleting, or re-writing major parts of the article): in this case, you can either revise and resubmit, or look for another journal.
- Accepted, but needs minor changes.
- Accepted (without the need for changes).
When you want to revise and resubmit your article, you should prepare 2 things:
- A revised manuscript with all the modifications you made highlighted (to make it easy for the reviewers to see what you changed).
- A response for the reviewers where you address their comments point by point: you can either agree or disagree with their recommendations (but, in case you disagree, you should explain the reason).
Once your paper is accepted, you will get a final version formatted in the journal’s style. Be careful to look for errors before you accept this final version.
Further reading
- How Long Should a Research Paper Be? Data from 61,519 Examples
- Can a Research Title Be a Question? Real-World Examples
- Statistical Software Popularity in 40,582 Research Papers
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The 5 Best Platforms to Publish Your Academic Research
Academic research is a central component of scientific advancements and breakthrough innovations. However, your research journey is complex and ever-changing. You must take into consideration funding options, how to securely store your information, choosing where to publish your research, finding manuscript peer reviewers, and many more.
To keep up with the change, you and other researchers require modern, easy-to-navigate research platforms to help you uncover, store, verify, compile, and share content, data, and important insights to continue to carry out breakthrough research.
This article explains how to identify the best platforms for publishing your research and gives you a list of five platforms to help you publish. Towards the end, you’ll also see a mention of how Orvium can further assist you with publishing.
How to Identify the Best Platforms for Publishing
When trying to identify the best platforms for publishing your research, you have to consider several factors, including:
- Does the platform support your research journey ? Can you collaborate with other authors and researchers, discover public groups and research papers and manuscripts (including Open Access work), view interactive graphs, images, tables, etc., track citations, and build a professional research profile?
- Is the platform easy to use ? Does it offer rich functionalities that are easy to understand, and if so, which ones?
- Does it use artificial intelligence and machine learning ? Automated actions (email alerts, etc.) can help you unlock breakthroughs faster and deliver deeper insights.
- What security and governance does it have ? Platforms must be secure and compliant according to local regulations since researchers often deal with sensitive data.
The 5 Best Platforms to Publish Academic Research
Researchgate.
ResearchGate is a platform hosting over 135 million publication pages with a community of 20 million scientists. The platform allows you to show off your work, access papers and advice from other researchers, make contacts and even find jobs. Some of its more prominent features include:
- Dedicated Q&A section with searchable keywords to target experts in your particular field or area of study
- Ability to create a personal profile page where you can display all research-specific details about yourself, including up to five pieces of work (including datasets and conference papers)
- In-depth stats on who reads your work and the ability to track your citations
- A private messaging service that allows you to send messages to other researchers
- A comments section to provide feedback when viewing a paper
- A “projects” section to tell others about your upcoming work.
In addition, it's completely free to use!
Academia is a research-sharing platform with over 178 million users, 29 million papers uploaded, and 87 million visitors per month. Their goal is to accelerate research in all fields, ensure that all research is available for free and that the sharing of knowledge is available in multiple formats (videos, datasets, code, short-form content, etc.). Some of their more prominent features include:
- Mentions and search alerts that notify you when another researcher cites, thanks, or acknowledges your work, and automatic reports of search queries
- Ability to create a personal profile page
- “Profile visitor” and “readers” features let you know the title and location of those who visit your profile or read your papers so you can learn about their research interests and get in touch
- A “grants” feature to allow you to find new grants and fellowships in your field
- Advanced research discovery tools allow you to see full texts and citations of millions of papers.
The platform is based on a “freemium” business model, which provides free access to research for everyone, and paid capabilities to subscribers.
ScienceOpen
ScienceOpen is a discovery platform that empowers researchers to make an impact in their communities. The platform is committed to Open Science, combining decades of experience in traditional publishing, computing, and academic research to provide free access to knowledge to drive creativity, innovation, and development. Some of their more prominent features include:
- You can publish your most recent paper as a preprint that’s citable and includes a DOI to share with peers immediately and enhance visibility
- A multidimensional search feature for articles with 18 filters and the ability to sort results by Altmetric scores , citations, date, and rating
- Ability to create a personal profile with minimal upkeep necessary
- Access to a suite of metrics (usage, citations, etc.) of your publications
- Ability to follow other researchers to stay up-to-date on their work and expand your network.
The platform is free to use, although some features (like publishing your preprint) may cost money.
IOPscience is a platform that embraces innovative technologies to make it easier for researchers to discover and access technical, scientific, and medical content while managing their own research content. They participate in several programs that offer researchers in developing countries several ways to gain access to journals at little or no cost. Some of their other features include:
- An enhanced search filtering feature allows you to find relevant research faster
- A social bookmarking feature allows you to interact with other researchers and share articles
- Ability to create a personal profile, customize your alerts, view recently published articles within your field or area of interest, and save relevant papers or articles
- Ability to receive email alerts and RSS feeds once new content is published.
IOPscience is free to use and functions on an Open Access policy, which you can check here .
Orvium is an open, community-based research platform that allows researchers, reviewers, and publishers to share, publish, review, and manage their research. Orvium protects your work with built-in blockchain integration to ensure that you maintain the copyright of your work and not only. Some of our more notable features include:
- Access to a modern web platform with Google indexing, notifications, and mobile-ready features
- Ability to manage your entire publication process, with control over when you submit, receive peer reviews, and publish your paper
- “Collaboration” and “full traceability” features allow you to track your profile impact, get in touch with other researchers, and have ownership over your work
- Recognition badges or economic rewards are given when you peer-review.
Orvium is completely free to use.
Orvium Makes Choosing a Platform Easy
No matter what platform or community you choose to be a part of, you now know what you need to look for when choosing one. You also learned about five excellent platforms where you can publish your academic research. Orvium will remain your one-stop-shop platform for all your research needs. Do you want to know how Orvium and our communities work? Check out our platform or contact us with any questions you may have.
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Leyre Martínez
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High School Guide: How to Publish a Research Paper in 5 Easy Steps
Indigo Research Team
We understand how overwhelming the idea of publishing research as a high schooler may seem. It’s true, that the process of submitting and publishing a paper can be very complex and daunting. It needs a lot of preparation and perseverance.
However, publishing research increasingly becomes the " gold " that a college Admission Officer is looking for. Publication in leading journals, like Concord Review, or International Journal for High School Students can showcase your ability and determination to a college admission officer when you apply for college.
Although it seems complicated, worry not! We’ll simplify the steps for you.
This article will break down 5 steps on how to publish a research paper.
1. Find the Right Mentor for Your Research Purposes
Can you write a research paper on your own? Yes, you can. But, it would be extremely difficult. Finding the perfect mentor is key to having a smooth ride. As an aspiring high school student, you'll want guidance from someone who shares your intellectual interests and can offer expertise in your field of study. Mentors can also help you find information about publishing research as well as where to publish a research paper.
“If you cannot see where you are going, find someone who has been there before.” - J.L. Norris
To find a mentor, first , you need to reflect on your goals and needs. Ask yourself these questions:
• Do you want help developing research questions? • Feedback on a draft? • Opportunities to co-author a paper?
Defining what you hope to gain from mentorship will help determine who may be the best fit.
Secondly, once you know (in general) who you want to work with, you can start your search by browsing the faculty profiles on your school’s website or research database like academia.edu or you can also utilize social media platforms like LinkedIn. Look for professors with expertise in your areas of interest.
It’s important to reach out in the right manner for them to notice you. Remember, you are the one who needs their help and not the other way around. Therefore, the way you reach out online is very crucial to get their attention. Keep in mind that you should do thorough research about this person before sending a message. Here’s an example of a short template message you can use for initial communication on LinkedIn:
Dear Professor [Last Name],
I'm [Your Name], a high school student passionate about [Your Research Interest]. Impressed by your work in [Their Field]. I'm very intrigued by your argumentation about [Topic]. I’m looking for a mentorship for a project I'm planning. Your guidance would be invaluable. Could we discuss this possibility
Looking forward to hearing from you. Best,
[Your Name]
Third, if you still can’t find an available mentor, you should also expose yourself to new ideas by attending guest lectures, joining online forums, and reading publications in your field. You can also find mentors who have published research papers that you are interested in. Engage with the material by asking questions. This demonstrates your passion for learning and can lead to finding a mentor.
While finding a mentor can be a bit of a hassle, you can check out our mentors and find the mentor of your preferences. After you have found your mentor, you can start doing the second step.
2. Choose an Exciting Research Topic That Interests You
Choosing topics that you are deeply passionate about or interested in is the key to keeping you motivated until the end of the research.
Discover Your Passions or Interests
There are many passion project ideas that you can explore. But you can always start by asking:
• What do you love to read about or discuss with friends? • Are there any social issues you care deeply about? • What are the topics related to your hobbies, favorite books or movies, sports teams, and travel destinations? • Or do you like more of the popular subjects in your school like biology, chemistry, computer science, psychology, or genetics? Look for topics that spark your curiosity or creativity.
Find an Opportunity Gap
Review what research has already been done on topics that interest you. Look for areas that could use more exploration or that you could investigate further. Think about new angles, questions, or perspectives you might bring to the subject. Finding an unexplored niche in a broader topic area can lead to an exciting, original research paper.
Talk to Your Mentor
Discuss ideas with your mentor, especially if you have an area of study in mind but need guidance narrowing down to a specific, manageable research question. Your mentor may be able to suggest topics that would work well for a research paper and align with standards or curriculum. They can also help determine if a topic idea is too broad or narrow, or if resources will be readily available.
Application of the Research in Reality
Choose a topic that could have real-world implications or applications. How can your research paper help real-world problems?
Think about local issues in your community or school that could be addressed or improved through research. Papers investigating practical solutions or the effectiveness of policies, programs, or interventions tend to be very compelling.
3. Choose the Right Journal or Conference to Publish Your Research Paper
“Where can I publish my research paper?”
You can publish your research paper through respectable journals, conferences, or research paper competitions. It's important to have a goal in mind before starting any research paper. Determining this in the beginning might help you to stay on course and motivated.
Consider the Scope of the Selected Journals
Decide the scope then look for publications that focus on your area of study or research topic. Are you looking to publish a research paper in an international journal? Or are you aiming for more local journals?
Double-check that the journal accepts submissions from high school students and check their reputation. Aim high, but be realistic. See if any professors or mentors can recommend appropriate platforms. Review the editorial board and see if top researchers in your field are involved.
Examples of the journals that can publish your research paper as a high schooler include:
- Concord Review
- The National High School Journal of Science
- STEM Fellowship Journal
- Journal of Student Research
- Journal of High School Science (JHSS)
- International Journal of High School Research (IJHSR)
“Where can I publish my research paper for free?”
Here are some journals where you can submit your research paper for free, but be aware some of them require a publication fee:
- Journal of Emerging Investigators (JEI)
- Young Scientist Journal
- Youth Medical Journal
- Journal Research High School
- Hope Humanities Journal
- International Youth Neuroscience Association Journal
- Whitman Journal of Psychology
Review Submission Guidelines
Once you’ve set your mind and chosen your goal, carefully read and follow the instructions for authors. Pay attention to formatting, abstract length, images, and anything else specified. Following the guidelines shows you understand publishing norms in your field.
4. Conduct Thorough Research, Write and Format Your Research Paper Properly
Now that you have selected a topic and compiled sources, it's time to dive into your research and start writing. Publishing a research paper in a journal requires thorough research and a properly formatted paper.
- Analyze and read all of your resources and take notes on the key ideas, facts, questions, examples, data, quotes, and arguments that might be relevant to your research project. Keep it organized into an outline.
- Determine your research question and consult with your mentor. Once you begin drafting your paper, be sure to paraphrase, summarize, and quote the right citation.
- Carefully proofread and format your paper. Double-check for any spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors. Ensure your paper follows the recommended style guide for font type and size, spacing, margins, page numbers, headings, and image captions.
Of course, writing a research paper is not as easy. If you need guidance, you can also try to join research programs that will allow you to finish the research paper easier.
5. Review Before Submitting Your Research Paper and Respond to Feedback
Once your paper is complete, it's time to share your work with the world.
Review Your Research Paper
Before making this incredible step, review your research paper once again. Have a teacher or mentor check your paper to ensure it meets the journal's standards. Put together a cover letter introducing yourself and your research. Explain the importance of your work and most importantly, why they need to publish your work.
Anticipate Feedback
Even after submitting, your work isn't done. Journals will send your paper out for peer review by experts in the field. Reviewers may suggest changes to strengthen your paper before it can be accepted. Don't get discouraged—even professional researchers incorporate feedback! Address each comment thoroughly and openly. Making revisions will improve your paper and help you become a better writer and researcher.
How Long Does it Take to Publish a Research Paper?
In general, the publication process can take several months to a year or more from the initial submission to final publication. It depends on the institutions and the availability of the peer reviewers. If your paper is accepted for publication, congratulations! If not, use the experience as an opportunity to improve. Carefully consider the feedback and see it as a chance to strengthen your methods, arguments, and writing. Don't hesitate to submit to another journal or work with your mentor to revise and resubmit.
That’s it! Congratulations on finishing all the steps!
Whether or not you get published, finishing the research paper is an achievement in itself. We hope that this article on how to publish a research paper will help you to get your research paper published. Remember that persistence, attention to detail, and a clear understanding of your target journal's guidelines are key. Stay determined and keep researching. You got this!
Need more guidance to do your research paper and most importantly, publish your paper? Don't worry, we've got you! At Indigo Research, we connect you with leading professors from renowned universities who are eager to mentor you and support you in publishing your research!
Click to discover more about how we can help!
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How to Write a Research Paper: the LEAP approach (+cheat sheet)
In this article I will show you how to write a research paper using the four LEAP writing steps. The LEAP academic writing approach is a step-by-step method for turning research results into a published paper .
The LEAP writing approach has been the cornerstone of the 70 + research papers that I have authored and the 3700+ citations these paper have accumulated within 9 years since the completion of my PhD. I hope the LEAP approach will help you just as much as it has helped me to make an real, tangible impact with my research.
What is the LEAP research paper writing approach?
I designed the LEAP writing approach not only for merely writing the papers. My goal with the writing system was to show young scientists how to first think about research results and then how to efficiently write each section of the research paper.
In other words, you will see how to write a research paper by first analyzing the results and then building a logical, persuasive arguments. In this way, instead of being afraid of writing research paper, you will be able to rely on the paper writing process to help you with what is the most demanding task in getting published – thinking.
The four research paper writing steps according to the LEAP approach:
I will show each of these steps in detail. And you will be able to download the LEAP cheat sheet for using with every paper you write.
But before I tell you how to efficiently write a research paper, I want to show you what is the problem with the way scientists typically write a research paper and why the LEAP approach is more efficient.
How scientists typically write a research paper (and why it isn’t efficient)
Writing a research paper can be tough, especially for a young scientist. Your reasoning needs to be persuasive and thorough enough to convince readers of your arguments. The description has to be derived from research evidence, from prior art, and from your own judgment. This is a tough feat to accomplish.
The figure below shows the sequence of the different parts of a typical research paper. Depending on the scientific journal, some sections might be merged or nonexistent, but the general outline of a research paper will remain very similar.
Here is the problem: Most people make the mistake of writing in this same sequence.
While the structure of scientific articles is designed to help the reader follow the research, it does little to help the scientist write the paper. This is because the layout of research articles starts with the broad (introduction) and narrows down to the specifics (results). See in the figure below how the research paper is structured in terms of the breath of information that each section entails.
How to write a research paper according to the LEAP approach
For a scientist, it is much easier to start writing a research paper with laying out the facts in the narrow sections (i.e. results), step back to describe them (i.e. write the discussion), and step back again to explain the broader picture in the introduction.
For example, it might feel intimidating to start writing a research paper by explaining your research’s global significance in the introduction, while it is easy to plot the figures in the results. When plotting the results, there is not much room for wiggle: the results are what they are.
Starting to write a research papers from the results is also more fun because you finally get to see and understand the complete picture of the research that you have worked on.
Most importantly, following the LEAP approach will help you first make sense of the results yourself and then clearly communicate them to the readers. That is because the sequence of writing allows you to slowly understand the meaning of the results and then develop arguments for presenting to your readers.
I have personally been able to write and submit a research article in three short days using this method.
Step 1: Lay Out the Facts
You have worked long hours on a research project that has produced results and are no doubt curious to determine what they exactly mean. There is no better way to do this than by preparing figures, graphics and tables. This is what the first LEAP step is focused on – diving into the results.
How to p repare charts and tables for a research paper
Your first task is to try out different ways of visually demonstrating the research results. In many fields, the central items of a journal paper will be charts that are based on the data generated during research. In other fields, these might be conceptual diagrams, microscopy images, schematics and a number of other types of scientific graphics which should visually communicate the research study and its results to the readers. If you have reasonably small number of data points, data tables might be useful as well.
Tips for preparing charts and tables
- Try multiple chart types but in the finished paper only use the one that best conveys the message you want to present to the readers
- Follow the eight chart design progressions for selecting and refining a data chart for your paper: https://peerrecognized.com/chart-progressions
- Prepare scientific graphics and visualizations for your paper using the scientific graphic design cheat sheet: https://peerrecognized.com/tools-for-creating-scientific-illustrations/
How to describe the results of your research
Now that you have your data charts, graphics and tables laid out in front of you – describe what you see in them. Seek to answer the question: What have I found? Your statements should progress in a logical sequence and be backed by the visual information. Since, at this point, you are simply explaining what everyone should be able to see for themselves, you can use a declarative tone: The figure X demonstrates that…
Tips for describing the research results :
- Answer the question: “ What have I found? “
- Use declarative tone since you are simply describing observations
Step 2: Explain the results
The core aspect of your research paper is not actually the results; it is the explanation of their meaning. In the second LEAP step, you will do some heavy lifting by guiding the readers through the results using logic backed by previous scientific research.
How to define the Message of a research paper
To define the central message of your research paper, imagine how you would explain your research to a colleague in 20 seconds . If you succeed in effectively communicating your paper’s message, a reader should be able to recount your findings in a similarly concise way even a year after reading it. This clarity will increase the chances that someone uses the knowledge you generated, which in turn raises the likelihood of citations to your research paper.
Tips for defining the paper’s central message :
- Write the paper’s core message in a single sentence or two bullet points
- Write the core message in the header of the research paper manuscript
How to write the Discussion section of a research paper
In the discussion section you have to demonstrate why your research paper is worthy of publishing. In other words, you must now answer the all-important So what? question . How well you do so will ultimately define the success of your research paper.
Here are three steps to get started with writing the discussion section:
- Write bullet points of the things that convey the central message of the research article (these may evolve into subheadings later on).
- Make a list with the arguments or observations that support each idea.
- Finally, expand on each point to make full sentences and paragraphs.
Tips for writing the discussion section:
- What is the meaning of the results?
- Was the hypothesis confirmed?
- Write bullet points that support the core message
- List logical arguments for each bullet point, group them into sections
- Instead of repeating research timeline, use a presentation sequence that best supports your logic
- Convert arguments to full paragraphs; be confident but do not overhype
- Refer to both supportive and contradicting research papers for maximum credibility
How to write the Conclusions of a research paper
Since some readers might just skim through your research paper and turn directly to the conclusions, it is a good idea to make conclusion a standalone piece. In the first few sentences of the conclusions, briefly summarize the methodology and try to avoid using abbreviations (if you do, explain what they mean).
After this introduction, summarize the findings from the discussion section. Either paragraph style or bullet-point style conclusions can be used. I prefer the bullet-point style because it clearly separates the different conclusions and provides an easy-to-digest overview for the casual browser. It also forces me to be more succinct.
Tips for writing the conclusion section :
- Summarize the key findings, starting with the most important one
- Make conclusions standalone (short summary, avoid abbreviations)
- Add an optional take-home message and suggest future research in the last paragraph
How to refine the Objective of a research paper
The objective is a short, clear statement defining the paper’s research goals. It can be included either in the final paragraph of the introduction, or as a separate subsection after the introduction. Avoid writing long paragraphs with in-depth reasoning, references, and explanation of methodology since these belong in other sections. The paper’s objective can often be written in a single crisp sentence.
Tips for writing the objective section :
- The objective should ask the question that is answered by the central message of the research paper
- The research objective should be clear long before writing a paper. At this point, you are simply refining it to make sure it is addressed in the body of the paper.
How to write the Methodology section of your research paper
When writing the methodology section, aim for a depth of explanation that will allow readers to reproduce the study . This means that if you are using a novel method, you will have to describe it thoroughly. If, on the other hand, you applied a standardized method, or used an approach from another paper, it will be enough to briefly describe it with reference to the detailed original source.
Remember to also detail the research population, mention how you ensured representative sampling, and elaborate on what statistical methods you used to analyze the results.
Tips for writing the methodology section :
- Include enough detail to allow reproducing the research
- Provide references if the methods are known
- Create a methodology flow chart to add clarity
- Describe the research population, sampling methodology, statistical methods for result analysis
- Describe what methodology, test methods, materials, and sample groups were used in the research.
Step 3: Advertize the research
Step 3 of the LEAP writing approach is designed to entice the casual browser into reading your research paper. This advertising can be done with an informative title, an intriguing abstract, as well as a thorough explanation of the underlying need for doing the research within the introduction.
How to write the Introduction of a research paper
The introduction section should leave no doubt in the mind of the reader that what you are doing is important and that this work could push scientific knowledge forward. To do this convincingly, you will need to have a good knowledge of what is state-of-the-art in your field. You also need be able to see the bigger picture in order to demonstrate the potential impacts of your research work.
Think of the introduction as a funnel, going from wide to narrow, as shown in the figure below:
- Start with a brief context to explain what do we already know,
- Follow with the motivation for the research study and explain why should we care about it,
- Explain the research gap you are going to bridge within this research paper,
- Describe the approach you will take to solve the problem.
Tips for writing the introduction section :
- Follow the Context – Motivation – Research gap – Approach funnel for writing the introduction
- Explain how others tried and how you plan to solve the research problem
- Do a thorough literature review before writing the introduction
- Start writing the introduction by using your own words, then add references from the literature
How to prepare the Abstract of a research paper
The abstract acts as your paper’s elevator pitch and is therefore best written only after the main text is finished. In this one short paragraph you must convince someone to take on the time-consuming task of reading your whole research article. So, make the paper easy to read, intriguing, and self-explanatory; avoid jargon and abbreviations.
How to structure the abstract of a research paper:
- The abstract is a single paragraph that follows this structure:
- Problem: why did we research this
- Methodology: typically starts with the words “Here we…” that signal the start of own contribution.
- Results: what we found from the research.
- Conclusions: show why are the findings important
How to compose a research paper Title
The title is the ultimate summary of a research paper. It must therefore entice someone looking for information to click on a link to it and continue reading the article. A title is also used for indexing purposes in scientific databases, so a representative and optimized title will play large role in determining if your research paper appears in search results at all.
Tips for coming up with a research paper title:
- Capture curiosity of potential readers using a clear and descriptive title
- Include broad terms that are often searched
- Add details that uniquely identify the researched subject of your research paper
- Avoid jargon and abbreviations
- Use keywords as title extension (instead of duplicating the words) to increase the chance of appearing in search results
How to prepare Highlights and Graphical Abstract
Highlights are three to five short bullet-point style statements that convey the core findings of the research paper. Notice that the focus is on the findings, not on the process of getting there.
A graphical abstract placed next to the textual abstract visually summarizes the entire research paper in a single, easy-to-follow figure. I show how to create a graphical abstract in my book Research Data Visualization and Scientific Graphics.
Tips for preparing highlights and graphical abstract:
- In highlights show core findings of the research paper (instead of what you did in the study).
- In graphical abstract show take-home message or methodology of the research paper. Learn more about creating a graphical abstract in this article.
Step 4: Prepare for submission
Sometimes it seems that nuclear fusion will stop on the star closest to us (read: the sun will stop to shine) before a submitted manuscript is published in a scientific journal. The publication process routinely takes a long time, and after submitting the manuscript you have very little control over what happens. To increase the chances of a quick publication, you must do your homework before submitting the manuscript. In the fourth LEAP step, you make sure that your research paper is published in the most appropriate journal as quickly and painlessly as possible.
How to select a scientific Journal for your research paper
The best way to find a journal for your research paper is it to review which journals you used while preparing your manuscript. This source listing should provide some assurance that your own research paper, once published, will be among similar articles and, thus, among your field’s trusted sources.
After this initial selection of hand-full of scientific journals, consider the following six parameters for selecting the most appropriate journal for your research paper (read this article to review each step in detail):
- Scope and publishing history
- Ranking and Recognition
- Publishing time
- Acceptance rate
- Content requirements
- Access and Fees
How to select a journal for your research paper:
- Use the six parameters to select the most appropriate scientific journal for your research paper
- Use the following tools for journal selection: https://peerrecognized.com/journals
- Follow the journal’s “Authors guide” formatting requirements
How to Edit you manuscript
No one can write a finished research paper on their first attempt. Before submitting, make sure to take a break from your work for a couple of days, or even weeks. Try not to think about the manuscript during this time. Once it has faded from your memory, it is time to return and edit. The pause will allow you to read the manuscript from a fresh perspective and make edits as necessary.
I have summarized the most useful research paper editing tools in this article.
Tips for editing a research paper:
- Take time away from the research paper to forget about it; then returning to edit,
- Start by editing the content: structure, headings, paragraphs, logic, figures
- Continue by editing the grammar and language; perform a thorough language check using academic writing tools
- Read the entire paper out loud and correct what sounds weird
How to write a compelling Cover Letter for your paper
Begin the cover letter by stating the paper’s title and the type of paper you are submitting (review paper, research paper, short communication). Next, concisely explain why your study was performed, what was done, and what the key findings are. State why the results are important and what impact they might have in the field. Make sure you mention how your approach and findings relate to the scope of the journal in order to show why the article would be of interest to the journal’s readers.
I wrote a separate article that explains what to include in a cover letter here. You can also download a cover letter template from the article.
Tips for writing a cover letter:
- Explain how the findings of your research relate to journal’s scope
- Tell what impact the research results will have
- Show why the research paper will interest the journal’s audience
- Add any legal statements as required in journal’s guide for authors
How to Answer the Reviewers
Reviewers will often ask for new experiments, extended discussion, additional details on the experimental setup, and so forth. In principle, your primary winning tactic will be to agree with the reviewers and follow their suggestions whenever possible. After all, you must earn their blessing in order to get your paper published.
Be sure to answer each review query and stick to the point. In the response to the reviewers document write exactly where in the paper you have made any changes. In the paper itself, highlight the changes using a different color. This way the reviewers are less likely to re-read the entire article and suggest new edits.
In cases when you don’t agree with the reviewers, it makes sense to answer more thoroughly. Reviewers are scientifically minded people and so, with enough logical and supported argument, they will eventually be willing to see things your way.
Tips for answering the reviewers:
- Agree with most review comments, but if you don’t, thoroughly explain why
- Highlight changes in the manuscript
- Do not take the comments personally and cool down before answering
The LEAP research paper writing cheat sheet
Imagine that you are back in grad school and preparing to take an exam on the topic: “How to write a research paper”. As an exemplary student, you would, most naturally, create a cheat sheet summarizing the subject… Well, I did it for you.
This one-page summary of the LEAP research paper writing technique will remind you of the key research paper writing steps. Print it out and stick it to a wall in your office so that you can review it whenever you are writing a new research paper.
Now that we have gone through the four LEAP research paper writing steps, I hope you have a good idea of how to write a research paper. It can be an enjoyable process and once you get the hang of it, the four LEAP writing steps should even help you think about and interpret the research results. This process should enable you to write a well-structured, concise, and compelling research paper.
Have fund with writing your next research paper. I hope it will turn out great!
Learn writing papers that get cited
The LEAP writing approach is a blueprint for writing research papers. But to be efficient and write papers that get cited, you need more than that.
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How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer-Reviewed Journal
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- Published: 30 April 2020
- Volume 36 , pages 909–913, ( 2021 )
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- Clara Busse ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0178-1000 1 &
- Ella August ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5151-1036 1 , 2
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Communicating research findings is an essential step in the research process. Often, peer-reviewed journals are the forum for such communication, yet many researchers are never taught how to write a publishable scientific paper. In this article, we explain the basic structure of a scientific paper and describe the information that should be included in each section. We also identify common pitfalls for each section and recommend strategies to avoid them. Further, we give advice about target journal selection and authorship. In the online resource 1 , we provide an example of a high-quality scientific paper, with annotations identifying the elements we describe in this article.
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Introduction
Writing a scientific paper is an important component of the research process, yet researchers often receive little formal training in scientific writing. This is especially true in low-resource settings. In this article, we explain why choosing a target journal is important, give advice about authorship, provide a basic structure for writing each section of a scientific paper, and describe common pitfalls and recommendations for each section. In the online resource 1 , we also include an annotated journal article that identifies the key elements and writing approaches that we detail here. Before you begin your research, make sure you have ethical clearance from all relevant ethical review boards.
Select a Target Journal Early in the Writing Process
We recommend that you select a “target journal” early in the writing process; a “target journal” is the journal to which you plan to submit your paper. Each journal has a set of core readers and you should tailor your writing to this readership. For example, if you plan to submit a manuscript about vaping during pregnancy to a pregnancy-focused journal, you will need to explain what vaping is because readers of this journal may not have a background in this topic. However, if you were to submit that same article to a tobacco journal, you would not need to provide as much background information about vaping.
Information about a journal’s core readership can be found on its website, usually in a section called “About this journal” or something similar. For example, the Journal of Cancer Education presents such information on the “Aims and Scope” page of its website, which can be found here: https://www.springer.com/journal/13187/aims-and-scope .
Peer reviewer guidelines from your target journal are an additional resource that can help you tailor your writing to the journal and provide additional advice about crafting an effective article [ 1 ]. These are not always available, but it is worth a quick web search to find out.
Identify Author Roles Early in the Process
Early in the writing process, identify authors, determine the order of authors, and discuss the responsibilities of each author. Standard author responsibilities have been identified by The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) [ 2 ]. To set clear expectations about each team member’s responsibilities and prevent errors in communication, we also suggest outlining more detailed roles, such as who will draft each section of the manuscript, write the abstract, submit the paper electronically, serve as corresponding author, and write the cover letter. It is best to formalize this agreement in writing after discussing it, circulating the document to the author team for approval. We suggest creating a title page on which all authors are listed in the agreed-upon order. It may be necessary to adjust authorship roles and order during the development of the paper. If a new author order is agreed upon, be sure to update the title page in the manuscript draft.
In the case where multiple papers will result from a single study, authors should discuss who will author each paper. Additionally, authors should agree on a deadline for each paper and the lead author should take responsibility for producing an initial draft by this deadline.
Structure of the Introduction Section
The introduction section should be approximately three to five paragraphs in length. Look at examples from your target journal to decide the appropriate length. This section should include the elements shown in Fig. 1 . Begin with a general context, narrowing to the specific focus of the paper. Include five main elements: why your research is important, what is already known about the topic, the “gap” or what is not yet known about the topic, why it is important to learn the new information that your research adds, and the specific research aim(s) that your paper addresses. Your research aim should address the gap you identified. Be sure to add enough background information to enable readers to understand your study. Table 1 provides common introduction section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.
The main elements of the introduction section of an original research article. Often, the elements overlap
Methods Section
The purpose of the methods section is twofold: to explain how the study was done in enough detail to enable its replication and to provide enough contextual detail to enable readers to understand and interpret the results. In general, the essential elements of a methods section are the following: a description of the setting and participants, the study design and timing, the recruitment and sampling, the data collection process, the dataset, the dependent and independent variables, the covariates, the analytic approach for each research objective, and the ethical approval. The hallmark of an exemplary methods section is the justification of why each method was used. Table 2 provides common methods section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.
Results Section
The focus of the results section should be associations, or lack thereof, rather than statistical tests. Two considerations should guide your writing here. First, the results should present answers to each part of the research aim. Second, return to the methods section to ensure that the analysis and variables for each result have been explained.
Begin the results section by describing the number of participants in the final sample and details such as the number who were approached to participate, the proportion who were eligible and who enrolled, and the number of participants who dropped out. The next part of the results should describe the participant characteristics. After that, you may organize your results by the aim or by putting the most exciting results first. Do not forget to report your non-significant associations. These are still findings.
Tables and figures capture the reader’s attention and efficiently communicate your main findings [ 3 ]. Each table and figure should have a clear message and should complement, rather than repeat, the text. Tables and figures should communicate all salient details necessary for a reader to understand the findings without consulting the text. Include information on comparisons and tests, as well as information about the sample and timing of the study in the title, legend, or in a footnote. Note that figures are often more visually interesting than tables, so if it is feasible to make a figure, make a figure. To avoid confusing the reader, either avoid abbreviations in tables and figures, or define them in a footnote. Note that there should not be citations in the results section and you should not interpret results here. Table 3 provides common results section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.
Discussion Section
Opposite the introduction section, the discussion should take the form of a right-side-up triangle beginning with interpretation of your results and moving to general implications (Fig. 2 ). This section typically begins with a restatement of the main findings, which can usually be accomplished with a few carefully-crafted sentences.
Major elements of the discussion section of an original research article. Often, the elements overlap
Next, interpret the meaning or explain the significance of your results, lifting the reader’s gaze from the study’s specific findings to more general applications. Then, compare these study findings with other research. Are these findings in agreement or disagreement with those from other studies? Does this study impart additional nuance to well-accepted theories? Situate your findings within the broader context of scientific literature, then explain the pathways or mechanisms that might give rise to, or explain, the results.
Journals vary in their approach to strengths and limitations sections: some are embedded paragraphs within the discussion section, while some mandate separate section headings. Keep in mind that every study has strengths and limitations. Candidly reporting yours helps readers to correctly interpret your research findings.
The next element of the discussion is a summary of the potential impacts and applications of the research. Should these results be used to optimally design an intervention? Does the work have implications for clinical protocols or public policy? These considerations will help the reader to further grasp the possible impacts of the presented work.
Finally, the discussion should conclude with specific suggestions for future work. Here, you have an opportunity to illuminate specific gaps in the literature that compel further study. Avoid the phrase “future research is necessary” because the recommendation is too general to be helpful to readers. Instead, provide substantive and specific recommendations for future studies. Table 4 provides common discussion section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.
Follow the Journal’s Author Guidelines
After you select a target journal, identify the journal’s author guidelines to guide the formatting of your manuscript and references. Author guidelines will often (but not always) include instructions for titles, cover letters, and other components of a manuscript submission. Read the guidelines carefully. If you do not follow the guidelines, your article will be sent back to you.
Finally, do not submit your paper to more than one journal at a time. Even if this is not explicitly stated in the author guidelines of your target journal, it is considered inappropriate and unprofessional.
Your title should invite readers to continue reading beyond the first page [ 4 , 5 ]. It should be informative and interesting. Consider describing the independent and dependent variables, the population and setting, the study design, the timing, and even the main result in your title. Because the focus of the paper can change as you write and revise, we recommend you wait until you have finished writing your paper before composing the title.
Be sure that the title is useful for potential readers searching for your topic. The keywords you select should complement those in your title to maximize the likelihood that a researcher will find your paper through a database search. Avoid using abbreviations in your title unless they are very well known, such as SNP, because it is more likely that someone will use a complete word rather than an abbreviation as a search term to help readers find your paper.
After you have written a complete draft, use the checklist (Fig. 3 ) below to guide your revisions and editing. Additional resources are available on writing the abstract and citing references [ 5 ]. When you feel that your work is ready, ask a trusted colleague or two to read the work and provide informal feedback. The box below provides a checklist that summarizes the key points offered in this article.
Checklist for manuscript quality
Data Availability
Michalek AM (2014) Down the rabbit hole…advice to reviewers. J Cancer Educ 29:4–5
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International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Defining the role of authors and contributors: who is an author? http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authosrs-and-contributors.html . Accessed 15 January, 2020
Vetto JT (2014) Short and sweet: a short course on concise medical writing. J Cancer Educ 29(1):194–195
Brett M, Kording K (2017) Ten simple rules for structuring papers. PLoS ComputBiol. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005619
Lang TA (2017) Writing a better research article. J Public Health Emerg. https://doi.org/10.21037/jphe.2017.11.06
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Acknowledgments
Ella August is grateful to the Sustainable Sciences Institute for mentoring her in training researchers on writing and publishing their research.
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Busse, C., August, E. How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer-Reviewed Journal. J Canc Educ 36 , 909–913 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-020-01751-z
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Little-known secrets for how to get published
Advice from seasoned psychologists for those seeking to publish in a journal for the first time
By Rebecca A. Clay
January 2019, Vol 50, No. 1
Print version: page 64
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An academic who is trying to get a journal article published is a lot like a salmon swimming upstream, says Dana S. Dunn, PhD, a member of APA’s Board of Educational Affairs. “The most important thing is persistence,” says Dunn, a psychology professor at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
But there are ways to make the journey through the publication process (see The publication process ) easier. “The more work you do up front, the more you can ensure a good outcome,” says Dunn. Among other tasks, that means finding the right venue, crafting the best possible manuscript and not giving up when asked to revise a manuscript.
The Monitor spoke with Dunn and several other senior faculty members with extensive experience publishing articles and serving as journal editors and editorial board members. Here’s their advice.
■ Target the right journals. To find the journal that’s the best fit for your article, research the journals themselves. Check each target journal’s mission statement, ask colleagues who have published there if your work is appropriate for it and read a current issue to see the kinds of articles it contains. “If your work isn’t in line with what they publish, they will reject it out of hand and you will have wasted valuable time,” says Dunn.
Also examine the composition of a journal’s editorial board, which will offer valuable clues about the kind of work the journal values—qualitative versus quantitative research, for example, or single-experiment studies versus multiple-experiment ones. You can even shoot a short email to the editor briefly summarizing your manuscript and asking if it sounds like something he or she feels would be appropriate for the journal. “Editors are pretty good at saying yes or no,” says Dunn.
In addition, let more experienced colleagues assess the strength of your study and give you some ideas about possible venues, says Jerry Suls, PhD, a professor emeritus of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Ask how strong and how novel they think your results are and whether your study has any methodological limitations. Although your colleagues may not have a completely accurate view of what journals will and won’t publish, says Suls, it’s still a good idea to get a sense of what they think about your chances.
■ Balance ambition and realism. Aim high, but be realistic about where you send your manuscript. But don’t get too hung up on trying to figure out a hierarchy of which is the “best” journal, says Rose Sokol-Chang, PhD, publisher of journals at APA. Instead, she suggests, think about what you’re trying to achieve with your article. For example, some journals have a longer history, broader focus and higher impact factor, a measure of how often papers in the journal are cited compared to how much is published in the journal. For more narrowly focused research, there are journals focused on subdisciplines that are well-respected by experts and have high impact factors. You could also try highly specialized journals appropriate to your direct area of research, which are more limited in scope and readership. Keep in mind that APA publishes its own journals as well as many affiliated journals, which vary in their levels of specialization.
What you do want to avoid is publishing in one of the increasing number of journals—often online—that aren’t peer-reviewed, says Nova Southeastern University psychology professor Linda Carter Sobell, PhD. Junior faculty may not even be aware that these journals aren’t true academic journals, says Sobell, adding that one possible outcome is that they go up for tenure only to have colleagues point out that their articles are published in nonreputable journals. Tip-offs include nonuniversity addresses or requests that authors pay to publish their work. “You can’t trust them when they say they’re peer-reviewed,” says Sobell. “That could mean the secretary looks at the manuscript when it comes in.”
To check rejection rates, go to www.apa.org/pubs/journals/statistics to get a sense of the odds for APA journals. For other journals, contact the editor, check the publication’s website or directions to contributors or see if your institution subscribes to the Cabells database, which offers information on both reputable journals and those it deems “predatory.”
Also, be sure to submit your work to just one journal at a time. Shotgunning a manuscript to multiple outlets simultaneously “is completely verboten,” says Suls.
■ Hone your manuscript. Give yourself time to write the best manuscript you can, says APA Board of Scientific Affairs (BSA) member Keith F. Widaman, PhD, distinguished professor of the Graduate Division of the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside. To make sure your writing is first-rate, study “The Elements of Style,” says Widaman, who rereads the William Strunk and E.B. White classic every year or two. Learn the difference between active and passive voices, the difference between “that” and “which,” and when to use commas. “There are times when you misportray the meaning of what you’re trying to get across if you write something poorly,” he says.
Before you start writing, draft an outline with subheads that mimic how manuscripts are organized in APA journals. “Carefully constructing a manuscript helps the reader follow your thinking,” he says. Also consult APA’s newly revised Journal Article Reporting Standards (APA Style JARS), which offer guidance on what information needs to be included in a research manuscript, whether your manuscript covers quantitative research or qualitative research ( American Psychologist , Vol. 73, No. 1, 2018), suggests Sokol-Chang.
Be sure to pay close attention to details such as spelling and footnotes, Widaman adds. “If a person does a crummy job with references, for example, what other details are they not paying attention to?” To this end, take advantage of APA Style CENTRAL , which offers manuscript templates, preformatted references drawn from APA’s PsycINFO database and more.
And polish your manuscript by asking colleagues—both in and out of your specialty area—to offer constructive criticism. Make sure you haven’t overlooked relevant citations, which will suggest to reviewers that you don’t know the literature and where your work fits in. Consider having a statistician double-check your analyses.
■ Be prepared to revise. Most manuscripts are going to be rejected, so don’t take rejection personally, says Suls. It’s also extremely rare for a journal to accept a manuscript as is. Of the thousand-plus manuscripts Suls saw as associate editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, he remembers only two that received a thumbs-up without requests for at least minor revisions. “Most papers are going to be rejected or are going to be resubmitted with revisions,” says Suls. “You’re not the only one.”
Your initial reaction to reviewers’ feedback may be disappointment or even anger. Put the comments aside for a few days while you calm down. “The first thing to realize is that reviewers are not trying to do a search-and-destroy mission; they’re trying to be helpful,” says Dunn. “Often when you read the comments with a colder eye, you realize the comments are good ones that will improve your work.”
For less extreme problems, the editor may invite you to revise the rejected paper and resubmit it or suggest that you send your manuscript elsewhere. Either way, be just as diligent in revising your manuscript as you were in writing it, says Dunn. Thank the reviewers, address every comment they made and use a detailed cover letter to explain those changes, with page numbers so the editor can easily see how you’ve addressed concerns. If reviewers disagree on a particular point and the editor hasn’t chimed in, choose which side you agree with and explain why you chose that side. And if you disagree with a comment and decide to reject that advice, explain that too.
■ Gain experience. Being on the other side of the editorial process can help give you ideas about how to better craft your own manuscripts. If you’re a graduate student or junior faculty member, ask a mentor or colleague who frequently serves as a reviewer if you can become a co-reviewer. “That’s a valuable educational experience,” says Dunn. (See “ How to Review a Manuscript ” in the May 2018 Monitor for more insights.)
If you do get a chance to review someone else’s manuscript, do it well and turn it in quickly. “If it comes back in a very timely fashion and the review is a good one, that person will be used again,” says Suls. That said, junior faculty should make sure the review process does not cut into the time they devote to doing their own research and writing.
■ Keep trying. Finally, don’t give up if your article is rejected by the first publication you send it to, says BSA member Jeffrey M. Zacks, PhD, a professor of psychological and brain sciences and radiology at Washington University in St. Louis. As long as your research is fundamentally sound, says Zacks, “there’s usually another reasonable journal you can turn around and go to.”
For a set of interactive modules on publishing journal articles, reviewing journal manuscripts and other issues of importance to early career academics and researchers, see APA’s Science Career Series at www.apa.org/career-development/courses .
Further reading
Managing Your Research Data and Documentation Berenson, K.R. APA, 2017
How to Publish High-Quality Research Joireman, J., & Van Lange, P.A.M. APA, 2015
Write It Up: Practical Strategies for Writing and Publishing Journal Articles Silvia, P.J. APA, 2015
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7 steps to publishing in a scientific journal
April 5, 2021 | 10 min read
By Aijaz Shaikh, PhD
Before you hit “submit,” here’s a checklist (and pitfalls to avoid)
As scholars, we strive to do high-quality research that will advance science. We come up with what we believe are unique hypotheses, base our work on robust data and use an appropriate research methodology. As we write up our findings, we aim to provide theoretical insight, and share theoretical and practical implications about our work. Then we submit our manuscript for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. For many, this is the hardest part of research. In my seven years of research and teaching, I have observed several shortcomings in the manuscript preparation and submission process that often lead to research being rejected for publication. Being aware of these shortcomings will increase your chances of having your manuscript published and also boost your research profile and career progression.
Dr Aijaz Shaikh gives a presentation.
In this article, intended for doctoral students and other young scholars, I identify common pitfalls and offer helpful solutions to prepare more impactful papers. While there are several types of research articles, such as short communications, review papers and so forth, these guidelines focus on preparing a full article (including a literature review), whether based on qualitative or quantitative methodology, from the perspective of the management, education, information sciences and social sciences disciplines.
Writing for academic journals is a highly competitive activity, and it’s important to understand that there could be several reasons behind a rejection. Furthermore, the journal peer-review process is an essential element of publication because no writer could identify and address all potential issues with a manuscript.
1. Do not rush submitting your article for publication.
In my first article for Elsevier Connect – “Five secrets to surviving (and thriving in) a PhD program” – I emphasized that scholars should start writing during the early stages of your research or doctoral study career. This secret does not entail submitting your manuscript for publication the moment you have crafted its conclusion. Authors sometimes rely on the fact that they will always have an opportunity to address their work’s shortcomings after the feedback received from the journal editor and reviewers has identified them.
A proactive approach and attitude will reduce the chance of rejection and disappointment. In my opinion, a logical flow of activities dominates every research activity and should be followed for preparing a manuscript as well. Such activities include carefully re-reading your manuscript at different times and perhaps at different places. Re-reading is essential in the research field and helps identify the most common problems and shortcomings in the manuscript, which might otherwise be overlooked. Second, I find it very helpful to share my manuscripts with my colleagues and other researchers in my network and to request their feedback. In doing so, I highlight any sections of the manuscript that I would like reviewers to be absolutely clear on.
2. Select an appropriate publication outlet.
I also ask colleagues about the most appropriate journal to submit my manuscript to; finding the right journal for your article can dramatically improve the chances of acceptance and ensure it reaches your target audience.
Elsevier provides an innovative Journal Finder opens in new tab/window search facility on its website. Authors enter the article title, a brief abstract and the field of research to get a list of the most appropriate journals for their article. For a full discussion of how to select an appropriate journal see Knight and Steinbach (2008).
Less experienced scholars sometimes choose to submit their research work to two or more journals at the same time. Research ethics and policies of all scholarly journals suggest that authors should submit a manuscript to only one journal at a time. Doing otherwise can cause embarrassment and lead to copyright problems for the author, the university employer and the journals involved.
3. Read the aims and scope and author guidelines of your target journal carefully.
Once you have read and re-read your manuscript carefully several times, received feedback from your colleagues, and identified a target journal, the next important step is to read the aims and scope of the journals in your target research area. Doing so will improve the chances of having your manuscript accepted for publishing. Another important step is to download and absorb the author guidelines and ensure your manuscript conforms to them. Some publishers report that one paper in five does not follow the style and format requirements of the target journal, which might specify requirements for figures, tables and references.
Rejection can come at different times and in different formats. For instance, if your research objective is not in line with the aims and scope of the target journal, or if your manuscript is not structured and formatted according to the target journal layout, or if your manuscript does not have a reasonable chance of being able to satisfy the target journal’s publishing expectations, the manuscript can receive a desk rejection from the editor without being sent out for peer review. Desk rejections can be disheartening for authors, making them feel they have wasted valuable time and might even cause them to lose enthusiasm for their research topic. Sun and Linton (2014), Hierons (2016) and Craig (2010) offer useful discussions on the subject of “desk rejections.”
4. Make a good first impression with your title and abstract.
The title and abstract are incredibly important components of a manuscript as they are the first elements a journal editor sees. I have been fortunate to receive advice from editors and reviewers on my submissions, and feedback from many colleagues at academic conferences, and this is what I’ve learned:
The title should summarize the main theme of the article and reflect your contribution to the theory.
The abstract should be crafted carefully and encompass the aim and scope of the study; the key problem to be addressed and theory; the method used; the data set; key findings; limitations; and implications for theory and practice.
Dr. Angel Borja goes into detail about these components in “ 11 steps to structuring a science paper editors will take seriously .”
Learn more in Elsevier's free Researcher Academy opens in new tab/window
5. Have a professional editing firm copy-edit (not just proofread) your manuscript, including the main text, list of references, tables and figures.
The key characteristic of scientific writing is clarity. Before submitting a manuscript for publication, it is highly advisable to have a professional editing firm copy-edit your manuscript. An article submitted to a peer-reviewed journal will be scrutinized critically by the editorial board before it is selected for peer review. According to a statistic shared by Elsevier, between 30 percent and 50 percent of articles submitted to Elsevier journals are rejected before they even reach the peer-review stage, and one of the top reasons for rejection is poor language. A properly written, edited and presented text will be error free and understandable and will project a professional image that will help ensure your work is taken seriously in the world of publishing. On occasion, the major revisions conducted at the request of a reviewer will necessitate another round of editing. Authors can facilitate the editing of their manuscripts by taking precautions at their end. These include proofreading their own manuscript for accuracy and wordiness (avoid unnecessary or normative descriptions like “it should be noted here” and “the authors believe) and sending it for editing only when it is complete in all respects and ready for publishing. Professional editing companies charge hefty fees, and it is simply not financially viable to have them conduct multiple rounds of editing on your article. Applications like the spelling and grammar checker in Microsoft Word or Grammarly are certainly worth applying to your article, but the benefits of proper editing are undeniable. For more on the difference between proofreading and editing, see the description in Elsevier’s WebShop.
6. Submit a cover letter with the manuscript.
Never underestimate the importance of a cover letter addressed to the editor or editor-in-chief of the target journal. Last year, I attended a conference in Boston. A “meet the editors” session revealed that many submissions do not include a covering letter, but the editors-in-chief present, who represented renewed and ISI-indexed Elsevier journals, argued that the cover letter gives authors an important opportunity to convince them that their research work is worth reviewing.
Accordingly, the content of the cover letter is also worth spending time on. Some inexperienced scholars paste the article’s abstract into their letter thinking it will be sufficient to make the case for publication; it is a practice best avoided. A good cover letter first outlines the main theme of the paper; second, argues the novelty of the paper; and third, justifies the relevance of the manuscript to the target journal. I would suggest limiting the cover letter to half a page. More importantly, peers and colleagues who read the article and provided feedback before the manuscript’s submission should be acknowledged in the cover letter.
7. Address reviewer comments very carefully.
Editors and editors-in-chief usually couch the acceptance of a manuscript as subject to a “revise and resubmit” based on the recommendations provided by the reviewer or reviewers. These revisions may necessitate either major or minor changes in the manuscript. Inexperienced scholars should understand a few key aspects of the revision process. First, it important to address the revisions diligently; second, is imperative to address all the comments received from the reviewers and avoid oversights; third, the resubmission of the revised manuscript must happen by the deadline provided by the journal; fourth, the revision process might comprise multiple rounds. The revision process requires two major documents. The first is the revised manuscript highlighting all the modifications made following the recommendations received from the reviewers. The second is a letter listing the authors’ responses illustrating they have addressed all the concerns of the reviewers and editors. These two documents should be drafted carefully. The authors of the manuscript can agree or disagree with the comments of the reviewers (typically agreement is encouraged) and are not always obliged to implement their recommendations, but they should in all cases provide a well-argued justification for their course of action.
Given the ever increasing number of manuscripts submitted for publication, the process of preparing a manuscript well enough to have it accepted by a journal can be daunting. High-impact journals accept less than 10 percent of the articles submitted to them, although the acceptance ratio for special issues or special topics sections is normally over 40 percent. Scholars might have to resign themselves to having their articles rejected and then reworking them to submit them to a different journal before the manuscript is accepted.
The advice offered here is not exhaustive but it’s also not difficult to implement. These recommendations require proper attention, planning and careful implementation; however, following this advice could help doctoral students and other scholars improve the likelihood of getting their work published, and that is key to having a productive, exciting and rewarding academic career.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Professor Heikki Karjaluoto, Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics for providing valuable feedback on this article.
Sun, H., & Linton, J. D. (2014).
Structuring papers for success: Making your paper more like a high impact publication than a desk reject opens in new tab/window
Technovation.
Craig, J. B. (2010).
Desk rejection: How to avoid being hit by a returning boomerang opens in new tab/window
Family Business Review
Hierons, R. M. (2016).
The dreaded desk reject opens in new tab/window
, Software Testing, Verification and Reliability .
Borja, A (2014):
11 steps to structuring a science paper editors will take seriously
Elsevier Connect
Knight, L. V., & Steinbach, T. A. (2008).
Selecting an appropriate publication outlet: a comprehensive model of journal selection criteria for researchers in a broad range of academic disciplines opens in new tab/window
, International Journal of Doctoral Studies .
Tewin, K. (2015).
How to Better Proofread An Article in 6 Simple Steps opens in new tab/window ,
Day, R, & Gastel, B: How to write and publish a scientific paper. Cambridge University Press (2012)
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How to Write a Research Paper | A Beginner's Guide
A research paper is a piece of academic writing that provides analysis, interpretation, and argument based on in-depth independent research.
Research papers are similar to academic essays , but they are usually longer and more detailed assignments, designed to assess not only your writing skills but also your skills in scholarly research. Writing a research paper requires you to demonstrate a strong knowledge of your topic, engage with a variety of sources, and make an original contribution to the debate.
This step-by-step guide takes you through the entire writing process, from understanding your assignment to proofreading your final draft.
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Table of contents
Understand the assignment, choose a research paper topic, conduct preliminary research, develop a thesis statement, create a research paper outline, write a first draft of the research paper, write the introduction, write a compelling body of text, write the conclusion, the second draft, the revision process, research paper checklist, free lecture slides.
Completing a research paper successfully means accomplishing the specific tasks set out for you. Before you start, make sure you thoroughly understanding the assignment task sheet:
- Read it carefully, looking for anything confusing you might need to clarify with your professor.
- Identify the assignment goal, deadline, length specifications, formatting, and submission method.
- Make a bulleted list of the key points, then go back and cross completed items off as you’re writing.
Carefully consider your timeframe and word limit: be realistic, and plan enough time to research, write, and edit.
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There are many ways to generate an idea for a research paper, from brainstorming with pen and paper to talking it through with a fellow student or professor.
You can try free writing, which involves taking a broad topic and writing continuously for two or three minutes to identify absolutely anything relevant that could be interesting.
You can also gain inspiration from other research. The discussion or recommendations sections of research papers often include ideas for other specific topics that require further examination.
Once you have a broad subject area, narrow it down to choose a topic that interests you, m eets the criteria of your assignment, and i s possible to research. Aim for ideas that are both original and specific:
- A paper following the chronology of World War II would not be original or specific enough.
- A paper on the experience of Danish citizens living close to the German border during World War II would be specific and could be original enough.
Note any discussions that seem important to the topic, and try to find an issue that you can focus your paper around. Use a variety of sources , including journals, books, and reliable websites, to ensure you do not miss anything glaring.
Do not only verify the ideas you have in mind, but look for sources that contradict your point of view.
- Is there anything people seem to overlook in the sources you research?
- Are there any heated debates you can address?
- Do you have a unique take on your topic?
- Have there been some recent developments that build on the extant research?
In this stage, you might find it helpful to formulate some research questions to help guide you. To write research questions, try to finish the following sentence: “I want to know how/what/why…”
A thesis statement is a statement of your central argument — it establishes the purpose and position of your paper. If you started with a research question, the thesis statement should answer it. It should also show what evidence and reasoning you’ll use to support that answer.
The thesis statement should be concise, contentious, and coherent. That means it should briefly summarize your argument in a sentence or two, make a claim that requires further evidence or analysis, and make a coherent point that relates to every part of the paper.
You will probably revise and refine the thesis statement as you do more research, but it can serve as a guide throughout the writing process. Every paragraph should aim to support and develop this central claim.
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A research paper outline is essentially a list of the key topics, arguments, and evidence you want to include, divided into sections with headings so that you know roughly what the paper will look like before you start writing.
A structure outline can help make the writing process much more efficient, so it’s worth dedicating some time to create one.
Your first draft won’t be perfect — you can polish later on. Your priorities at this stage are as follows:
- Maintaining forward momentum — write now, perfect later.
- Paying attention to clear organization and logical ordering of paragraphs and sentences, which will help when you come to the second draft.
- Expressing your ideas as clearly as possible, so you know what you were trying to say when you come back to the text.
You do not need to start by writing the introduction. Begin where it feels most natural for you — some prefer to finish the most difficult sections first, while others choose to start with the easiest part. If you created an outline, use it as a map while you work.
Do not delete large sections of text. If you begin to dislike something you have written or find it doesn’t quite fit, move it to a different document, but don’t lose it completely — you never know if it might come in useful later.
Paragraph structure
Paragraphs are the basic building blocks of research papers. Each one should focus on a single claim or idea that helps to establish the overall argument or purpose of the paper.
Example paragraph
George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language” has had an enduring impact on thought about the relationship between politics and language. This impact is particularly obvious in light of the various critical review articles that have recently referenced the essay. For example, consider Mark Falcoff’s 2009 article in The National Review Online, “The Perversion of Language; or, Orwell Revisited,” in which he analyzes several common words (“activist,” “civil-rights leader,” “diversity,” and more). Falcoff’s close analysis of the ambiguity built into political language intentionally mirrors Orwell’s own point-by-point analysis of the political language of his day. Even 63 years after its publication, Orwell’s essay is emulated by contemporary thinkers.
Citing sources
It’s also important to keep track of citations at this stage to avoid accidental plagiarism . Each time you use a source, make sure to take note of where the information came from.
You can use our free citation generators to automatically create citations and save your reference list as you go.
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The research paper introduction should address three questions: What, why, and how? After finishing the introduction, the reader should know what the paper is about, why it is worth reading, and how you’ll build your arguments.
What? Be specific about the topic of the paper, introduce the background, and define key terms or concepts.
Why? This is the most important, but also the most difficult, part of the introduction. Try to provide brief answers to the following questions: What new material or insight are you offering? What important issues does your essay help define or answer?
How? To let the reader know what to expect from the rest of the paper, the introduction should include a “map” of what will be discussed, briefly presenting the key elements of the paper in chronological order.
The major struggle faced by most writers is how to organize the information presented in the paper, which is one reason an outline is so useful. However, remember that the outline is only a guide and, when writing, you can be flexible with the order in which the information and arguments are presented.
One way to stay on track is to use your thesis statement and topic sentences . Check:
- topic sentences against the thesis statement;
- topic sentences against each other, for similarities and logical ordering;
- and each sentence against the topic sentence of that paragraph.
Be aware of paragraphs that seem to cover the same things. If two paragraphs discuss something similar, they must approach that topic in different ways. Aim to create smooth transitions between sentences, paragraphs, and sections.
The research paper conclusion is designed to help your reader out of the paper’s argument, giving them a sense of finality.
Trace the course of the paper, emphasizing how it all comes together to prove your thesis statement. Give the paper a sense of finality by making sure the reader understands how you’ve settled the issues raised in the introduction.
You might also discuss the more general consequences of the argument, outline what the paper offers to future students of the topic, and suggest any questions the paper’s argument raises but cannot or does not try to answer.
You should not :
- Offer new arguments or essential information
- Take up any more space than necessary
- Begin with stock phrases that signal you are ending the paper (e.g. “In conclusion”)
There are four main considerations when it comes to the second draft.
- Check how your vision of the paper lines up with the first draft and, more importantly, that your paper still answers the assignment.
- Identify any assumptions that might require (more substantial) justification, keeping your reader’s perspective foremost in mind. Remove these points if you cannot substantiate them further.
- Be open to rearranging your ideas. Check whether any sections feel out of place and whether your ideas could be better organized.
- If you find that old ideas do not fit as well as you anticipated, you should cut them out or condense them. You might also find that new and well-suited ideas occurred to you during the writing of the first draft — now is the time to make them part of the paper.
The goal during the revision and proofreading process is to ensure you have completed all the necessary tasks and that the paper is as well-articulated as possible. You can speed up the proofreading process by using the AI proofreader .
Global concerns
- Confirm that your paper completes every task specified in your assignment sheet.
- Check for logical organization and flow of paragraphs.
- Check paragraphs against the introduction and thesis statement.
Fine-grained details
Check the content of each paragraph, making sure that:
- each sentence helps support the topic sentence.
- no unnecessary or irrelevant information is present.
- all technical terms your audience might not know are identified.
Next, think about sentence structure , grammatical errors, and formatting . Check that you have correctly used transition words and phrases to show the connections between your ideas. Look for typos, cut unnecessary words, and check for consistency in aspects such as heading formatting and spellings .
Finally, you need to make sure your paper is correctly formatted according to the rules of the citation style you are using. For example, you might need to include an MLA heading or create an APA title page .
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Checklist: Research paper
I have followed all instructions in the assignment sheet.
My introduction presents my topic in an engaging way and provides necessary background information.
My introduction presents a clear, focused research problem and/or thesis statement .
My paper is logically organized using paragraphs and (if relevant) section headings .
Each paragraph is clearly focused on one central idea, expressed in a clear topic sentence .
Each paragraph is relevant to my research problem or thesis statement.
I have used appropriate transitions to clarify the connections between sections, paragraphs, and sentences.
My conclusion provides a concise answer to the research question or emphasizes how the thesis has been supported.
My conclusion shows how my research has contributed to knowledge or understanding of my topic.
My conclusion does not present any new points or information essential to my argument.
I have provided an in-text citation every time I refer to ideas or information from a source.
I have included a reference list at the end of my paper, consistently formatted according to a specific citation style .
I have thoroughly revised my paper and addressed any feedback from my professor or supervisor.
I have followed all formatting guidelines (page numbers, headers, spacing, etc.).
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Scholarly Communication Services : Publishing
We can help you navigate the evolving scholarly publishing process — not only for your “final” manuscript, but also your other critical research and publishing outputs, such as: preprints, data, interactive models, conference proceedings, posters, working papers, blog posts, and much more.
More information
The lifecycle, peer review, research impact, research data, economic overview.
You want to build your academic reputation, but how do you know to what journals or academic presses you should submit your work? You’ll want to consider norms in your field, recommendations from peers or advisors, and the extent of your desire for open access.
We’ve put together some guidelines.
Evaluating journals
With journal publishing, you will often be making choices based on the “impact” of various journals — meaning how those journals are recognized and perceived in the scholarly community, the frequency of citation of articles from those journals, and the like. (We discuss various statistical measures of impact in the Research Impact and Scholarly Profiles section.) But you should also consider impact in terms of openness. That is: Who can access the scholarship being published by that journal? Is it open for reading by all, or confined to only those institutions able to pay?
Gauging journal subject matter fit and impact
If you’re unfamiliar with the journals in your field, there are comparison tools that can help with the evaluation process:
- Journal Citation Reports : JCR provides citation data for journals across nearly two hundred subject categories. You can browse by subject category or by known title. JCR enables you to identify journals with high impact factors, understand the ranking of journals within a subject category, and more.
- Eigenfactor.org : Offers valuable information about the Eigenfactor Score and the Article Influence Score for various journals. You can also explore the cost effectiveness of journals for both subscription journals (which search ranks subscription-based journals according to the value-per-dollar that they provide) and open access journals (which compares the article-processing fees charged by open access journals).
- CiteScore : Identify and compare journal impact metrics across a wide range of journal titles and disciplines.
- UlrichsWeb : Provides key information about journals’ publishing frequency, location, audience, peer review status and more.
Evaluating open access journals
If you’re interested in open access publishing, but unfamiliar with a particular OA journal you’ve come across, you can also find out more about it by checking these additional sites:
- Is the journal included in the Directory of Open Access Journals ( DOAJ )? DOAJ is comprehensive, “community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.” To be included, journals must be peer-reviewed or employ editorial quality control. This also means the journals do not employ deceptive marketing practices to solicit papers to get the article processing charge that authors may pay. (See our page on open access publishing models .)
- Is the publisher a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association ( OASPA )?
- The Scholarly Communication Toolkit page on Evaluating Journals also has tremendous information about how to select open access journals for publication.
Concerned about deception?
If you’ve checked the above sources, but still have questions about the legitimacy of a journal solicitation you’ve received, there are several ways you can screen for propriety.
- Are you getting confusing spam? If you’ve been receiving unsolicited e-mails from journals that are not indexed in the above reputable sources, this may be an indication of deceptive practices.
- Have you checked for deceptive characteristics ? Researchers in 2017 identified various characteristics of deceptive journals. They went on to summarize these as : “low article-processing fees (less than US$150); spelling and grammar errors on the website; an overly broad scope; language that targets authors rather than readers; promises of rapid publication; and a lack of information about retraction policies, manuscript handling or digital preservation. Manuscript submissions by e-mail and the inclusion of distorted images are also common.”
- Have you done a “ Think, Check, Submit ?” Thinkchecksubmit.org , a campaign from many leading open access publishers, also helps researches identify trusted journals for their research by offering them a simple checklist to assess journal or publisher credentials. This is another great way to evaluate journal quality and spot unscrupulous activity. In addition to their checklist, you can check out their Think, Check, Submit video:
Remember, we can help! If you’re not sure about a journal, email us at [email protected] . And you can always consult advisors or subject specialist librarians in your field to provide more tailored advice.
Evaluating academic presses
Choosing a book publisher can be daunting, especially if you are looking to be published for the first time. The most useful advice and guidance will likely come from peers, colleagues, and academic advisors familiar with publishing in your discipline. They’ll be most knowledgeable about the logistics, publishing terms, marketing efforts, and prestige of particular presses.
Another way to get started is to consult resources that reveal various presses’ goals, target audiences, and interests. Some of the best resources that do that are the publishers' catalogs — that is, inventories and descriptions of the books they’ve published.
- American Association of University Presses (AAUP) has a list of member university presses . By going to the websites of particular publishers, you can find these catalogs and see exactly what the press is publishing in your discipline.
- Not sure which publishers’ websites to look at? AAUP also has a Subject Area Grid that identifies the interest areas of member publishers.
Explore presses with open access programs
Increasingly, presses offer open access book publishing. Open access books have tremendous potential to increase your readership and impact, while also still fostering print sales for readers who prefer it. They also can facilitate advanced media innovation in the publishing process.
With open access books, as with some open access journals, there may be an author fee assessed as a cost recovery mechanism for the press — given that they may sell fewer print copies to libraries since the book will be made available openly online. At UC Berkeley, we have a program that subsidizes any such fees! Check out our Get Funding to Publish Open Access page for details.
Other networking
Finally, there’s some networking you could do. Anali Perry of Arizona State University, on the Select a Venue page of her Getting Published guide, offers some great advice for outreach that can lead to a more streamlined press selection process.
As she explains:
If you’re attending conferences, you can set up meetings with editors to review a book idea and discuss whether this might be of interest. Another option is to contact editors directly with book ideas, written as a long essay (in the style of the press’s book catalog) stating the problem, what are you proposing, and how it is yours. Do this before writing the entire book - it’s better to work with an editor while you’re writing the book, not after. You can also be in contact with more than one publisher until you decide to accept an offer — just be honest that you’re investigating multiple options.
You can also check out this video from the AAUP. In 2015, AAUP convened a virtual panel to “take the scary out of scholarly publishing.” Their experts discussed tips and strategies for working with scholarly presses throughout the publishing process.
Contact us to set up a consultation!
What is “peer review”?
At its core, peer review (or the process called “refereeing”) is the effort of scholars within a similar discipline or area of research to critique and evaluate the scholarly contribution from others within that same domain, and determine whether that scholarship should be disseminated or how it can be improved. Peer review results in over 1.5 million scholarly articles published each year .
Journals differ in the percentage of submitted papers that they accept and reject. Higher impact factor journals such as Science or Nature can reject even good quality research papers if an editor deems it not ground-breaking enough. Other journals, such as PLoS One , instead take the approach of getting more scholarship out and circulated. They have utilized a review process that focuses on satisfaction of scientific rigors rather than assessment of innovativeness.
Basic models for peer review
As scholarly publishing changes, so too have peer review models. Typically, though, peer review involves authors (who conduct research and write the manuscript), reviewers (“peers” in the domain who provide expert opinions and advice), and editors (who make acceptance and publishing decisions). A basic model could like like the following, though there are multiple approaches.
In this model: A paper is submitted to a journal. A journal editor screens the manuscript to determine whether it should be passed through to the critique stage, or rejected outright. The editor collects reviewers who then undertake analysis and critique of the work. The reviewers pass opinions and suggested edits back to the editor, who asks the author to revise accordingly. This process of revision could go through several iterations. After author revisions are complete, the editor will decide whether to accept the paper for publication, or reject it.
Note, too, that some publishers have implemented a “cascading” approach so as not to squander reviewers’ efforts if a paper is ultimately rejected by an editor at the final stage. As Dan Morgan, Digital Science Publisher at the University of California Press, explains (at p. 10 of the Standing up for Science 3 guide to peer review):
Cascading peer review (a.k.a. ‘waterfall peer review’) is when a paper that has been rejected after peer review is passed on to another journal along with the reviewers’ reports. The peer review process at the second journal can be kept relatively short because the editor considers the reports from an earlier round of peer review, along with any new reviews. Variations on this process exist, according to the type of journal — but essentially reviews can ‘cascade’ down through various journals.
Cascading peer review can accelerate the time to publication so that valuable review efforts are not lost. Moreover, many publishing groups that issue multiple journals will automatically apply this process — helping to find the right journal for your particular manuscript.
Transparency
Within this basic peer review model, journals can employ different approaches to how and whether authors get to know their reviewers, and vice versa. The idea behind masking or revealing this information is that such knowledge may introduce bias, or affect how honest and critical the reviews are. These various approaches include, for example:
- Single-blind review: Reviewers know who authors are, but authors do not know who reviewers are.
- Double-blind review: Neither reviewers nor authors are informed about who the others are.
- Open review: Reviewers and authors know who each other are, and this review can also include the transmission of reviewer commentary in the open final publication.
- Post-publication open review: Here, readers and reviewers can submit public comments on published articles. Often, these comments are mediated by the editor.
If working papers are uploaded to a repository (such as ArXiv for mathematics, physics, and non-life sciences), there is also an opportunity for pre-publication peer review via the comments submitted by readers and downloaders at those sites.
You can learn a lot more about the mechanics of peer review, and tips for how to conduct peer review, in the following guide:
- Peer Review the Nuts-and-Bolts: A Guide for Early Career Researchers ( Standing up for Science 3 , 2017)
And you can contact with questions at [email protected] !
Why are we talking about impact?
Among other things, awareness of your scholarly impact can help you:
- Strengthen your case when applying for promotion or tenure.
- Quantify return on research investment for grant renewals and progress reports.
- Strengthen future funding requests by showing the value of your research.
- Understand your audience and learn how to appeal to them.
- Identify who is using your work and confirm that it is appropriately credited.
- Identify collaborators within or outside of your subject area.
- Manage your scholarly reputation.
Measuring your impact
Measuring impact is not a perfect science, and there are many who argue against its implications altogether. Here, we just want to present information about the statistical measures that exist so that you can make informed decisions about how and whether to gauge your impact.
Often, measuring impact relies on metrics such as: article-level metrics , author-level metrics , journal or publisher metrics , and alt-metrics .
Article-level metrics
Article-level metrics quantify the reach and impact of published research. For this, we can look to various measures such as citation counts, field-weighted citation impact, or social networking readership statistics.
e.g. Citation count : How many times has your article been cited? This can be difficult to assess and assign meaning to. How recent your article is obviously affects how many times it’s been cited. Additionally, the database or source of the statistic greatly impacts the count because the database needs to be able to scan a large number of possible places where your article could be cited — and not all databases have access to the same information in that regard.
e.g. Field-weighted citation impact : Since it takes time for publications to accumulate citations, it is normal that the total number of citations for recent articles is lower. Moreover, citations in research from one field may accumulate faster than others because that field simply produces more publications. Therefore, instead of comparing absolute counts of citations you might want to consider another citation measure called field-weighted citation impact (also known as FWCI) that adjusts for these differences. Field-weighted citation impact divides the number of citations received by a publication by the average number of citations received by publications in the same field, of the same type, and published in the same year. The world average is indexed to a value of 1.00. Values above 1.00 indicate above-average citation impact, and values below 1.00 likewise indicate below-average citation impact. It’s a proprietary statistic, though, meaning you’d need access to Elsevier’s SCOPUS product, which UC Berkeley provides.
e.g. Social Networking Site Readership : Another article-level metric is something like Mendeley Readership , which indicates the number of Mendeley users who have added a particular article into their personal library. This number can be considered an early indicator of the impact a work has, and typically Mendeley readership counts correlate moderately with future citations.
Author-level metrics
Author-level metrics address an author’s productivity and diversity of reach. We can look to measures of overall scholarly output, journal count, journal category count, and H-index or H-graph.
e.g. Journal count: Journal count indicates the diversity of an author’s publication portfolio: In how many of the distinct journals have this author’s publications appeared? This can be useful to show the excellence of authors who work across traditional disciplines and have a broad array of journals available in which to submit.
e.g. Journal category count : Journal category count addresses in how many journal categories has someone published. This can be useful for tracking breadth/reach of scholarship, and inter-disciplinariness.
- e.g. H-index: H-index is an author-level metric that attempts to measure both the productivity and citation impact of the publications of a scientist or scholar. The definition of the index is that a scholar with an index of h has published h papers, each of which has been cited in other papers at least h times. It is believed that after 20 years of research, an h index of 20 is good, 40 is outstanding, 60 is truly exceptional.
e.g. Scholarly output: Scholarly output demonstrates an author’s productivity: How many publications does this author have? This is a good metric for comparing authors who are similar, and at similar stages of career.
Journal or publisher metrics
Journal or publisher metrics address weights or prestige that particular publications are seen to carry. Some measures include:
e.g. SCImago Journal & Country Rank : SCImago Journal & Country Rank can be considered the “average prestige per article,” and is based on the idea that not all citations of your work are the same. (In other words, your articles could be cited in publications of varying prestige.) Here, the subject field, quality, and reputation of the journals in which your publications are cited have a direct effect on the “value” of a citation.
e.g. Impact per publication (IPP): IPP gives you a sense of the average number of citations that a publication published in the journal will likely receive. It measures the ratio of citations per article published in a journal. Unlike the standard impact factor, the IPP metric uses a three-year citation window, widely considered to be the optimal time period to accurately measure citations in most subject fields.
e.g. Source-normalized impact per paper: When normalized for the citations in the subject field, the raw Impact per Publication (IPP) becomes the Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP). SNIP measures contextual citation impact by weighting citations based on the total number of citations in a subject field. The impact of a single citation is given higher value in subject areas where citations are less likely, and vice versa.
Altmetrics
Altmetrics account for “non-traditional” citations of your scholarly work. They address the fact that scholarly conversations have expanded beyond the peer-reviewed article. People are now Tweeting and blogging about your articles, for instance, and altmetrics accumulate these mentions. To find out how your work is being cited and used in these ways, learn more at Altmetric.com .
Monitoring your impact
There are numerous existing and emerging tools available to help you track your scholarly impact by enabling you to create a virtual scholarly profile in which you input and keep track of all your professional activities and publications.
When selecting one of these tools, it’s helpful to consider:
- What sources of information are your chosen tools “pulling from” or indexing? The greater number of sources that the tool can “read,” the more comprehensive your metrics will be.
- What is the business model of your tool? Is it for-profit and available with premium features for a fee, or is it a free platform available to all? For instance, Symplectic’s Elements and Elsevier’s Pure are licensed platforms that come often at substantial cost to an institution, whereas Impact Story, ORCID, and Google Scholar offer free profile services.
- Have you made a copy of your scholarly materials available also through your institutional repository? Many of the profiling tools are not geared toward actually preserving a copy of your work. So, to ensure that a copy of your work remains publicly available, it’s best to make sure you also deposit a copy in your institutional repository (in the case of UC, this is eScholarship.org).
With all that in mind, here are a few profiling tools from which you can choose:
ImpactStory
From their site: Impactstory is an open-source website that helps researchers explore and share the the online impact of their research.By helping researchers tell data-driven stories about their work, we're helping to build a new scholarly reward system that values and encourages web-native scholarship. We’re funded by the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.
From their site: ORCID provides an identifier for individuals to use with their name as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities. We provide open tools that enable transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers, their contributions, and affiliations. We provide this service to help people find information and to simplify reporting and analysis.
Google Scholar Citations
From their site: Google Scholar Citations provide a simple way for authors to keep track of citations to their articles. You can check who is citing your publications, graph citations over time, and compute several citation metrics. You can also make your profile public, so that it may appear in Google Scholar results when people search for your name...Best of all, it's quick to set up and simple to maintain - even if you have written hundreds of articles, and even if your name is shared by several different scholars. You can add groups of related articles, not just one article at a time; and your citation metrics are computed and updated automatically as Google Scholar finds new citations to your work on the web. You can choose to have your list of articles updated automatically or review the updates yourself, or to manually update your articles at any time.
ResearchGate
From their site: Share your publications, access millions more, and publish your data. Connect and collaborate with colleagues, peers, co-authors, and specialists in your field. Get stats and find out who's been reading and citing your work.
Academia.edu
From their site: Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers. The company's mission is to accelerate the world's research. Academics use Academia.edu to share their research, monitor deep analytics around the impact of their research, and track the research of academics they follow.
From their site: LinkedIn operates the world’s largest professional network on the internet with more than 500 million members in over 200 countries and territories.
Fee-based or proprietary profiling systems like Elements or Pure .
These are software systems to help collect, understand, and showcase scholarly activities. These are not currently available at UC Berkeley.
Increasing your impact
In general, we recommend three overarching strategies to increase your scholarly impact:
A. Get your work seen and cited. B. Promote your work and be social. C. Develop and execute a personal plan.
We discuss each of these strategies with specifics below.
A. Get your work seen and cited
Publish pre-prints or post-prints in open access repositories.
Institutional or discipline-specific open access repositories (e.g. eScholarship.org for UC publications, BioArXiv, Humanities Commons, etc.) enable you to self-archive a copy of your work so that it is accessible for free by readers around the world. Moreover, these repositories are indexed on Google so that your scholarship can easily be found. This is a terrific way to build readership and impact, while also contributing to progress and knowledge by making a version of your work available to all. To choose a repository that’s right for you, you can check the DOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories).
As a UC faculty member, staff, or student, you are automatically authorized under the UC open access policies to post a pre-print copy of your scholarly articles (defined broadly) to the UC repository, eScholarship. You can also check the web tool Sherpa/ROMEO to determine whether there are other versions of your scholarship that your publisher has authorized for deposit.
Publish open access.
Open access is the free, immediate, online availability of scholarship. This means that when people publish a scholarly article in an open access journal, it is put online for anyone to access — without readers (or readers’ institutions) having to pay any fees or subscription charges for it (also known as “paywalls”).
Paywalls limit readership. The great value of publishing open access means that barriers between readers and scholarly publication are removed, making it easier for everyone to find, use, cite, and build upon knowledge and ideas. In this way, open access connects your scholarship to the world, and helps build your impact. Publishing open access is often a condition of research funding, so you should check your grants.
Open access publishers may ask for a fee to publish your scholarship open online in lieu of the fees they would ordinarily have collected from institutional memberships to the journal or publication. The UC Berkeley Library has a fund to cover these costs. You can learn more in our BRII (Berkeley Research Impact Initiative) Guide about applying for this funding.
There’s an open access place for all research outputs.
Your “final” publication — traditionally, an article, chapter, or scholarly monograph — is not the only thing readers desire to access and cite. You can publish your research data, code, software, presentations, working papers, and other supporting documents and documentation open access as well. In fact, in some cases, your funders might require it. Sharing these other research instruments not only advances knowledge and science, but also can help increase your impact and citation rates.
You can find the right open place for all your outputs. For instance, it’s possible to:
- Publish code on GitHub .
- Publish data sets on FigShare or Dryad .
- Publish presentations on SlideShare .
Publish several pieces on same topic.
If you’ve written a journal article, you can spread the word about it by supplementing it with a blog post or magazine article — thereby attracting greater attention from readers interested in your topic. What’s more, publishing your article open access to begin with also helps your work get discovered by journalists, making it easier for them to write their own supplemental magazine articles about your research, too.
Write for your audience and publish in sources they read.
Of course, many of us would like to be able publish in high impact journals or ones targeted to our audience. To find the best fit journals, it can be helpful to review the journal’s scope and submission criteria, and compare that to whom you believe your intended audience to be.
Use persistent identifiers to disambiguate you and your work from other authors.
There are more than 7 billion people in the world. If someone searches for your articles by your name, how can you be sure that they find yours and not someone else’s? How can you be sure that citations really reflect citations of your work and not someone else’s? Persistent identifiers — both for you and your publications — help disambiguate the chaos.
- ORCID : Much in the same way that a social security number uniquely identifies you, an ORCID “provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities ensuring that your work is recognized.” Increasingly, publishers and funders ask for your ORCID upon article submission or application so that they can disambiguate you from other researchers, too. ORCIDs are free to create and doing so takes just moments. They also enable you to set up a personal web profile page where you can link all of your scholarship to your unique identifier — creating a profile that is uniquely yours.
- Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) : A DOI is a type of persistent identifier used to uniquely identify digital objects like scholarly articles, chapters, or data sets. Metadata about the digital object is stored in association with the DOI, which often includes a URL where the object can be found. The value of the DOI is that the identifier remains fixed over the lifetime of the digital object even if you later change the particular URL where your article is hosted. Thus, referring to an online document by its DOI provides more stable linking than simply using its URL. Publishers and repositories often assign DOIs to each of your publications for this reason. If you are a UC Berkeley researcher depositing in eScholarship, you can obtain a DOI through a service called EZID .
B. Promote your work and be social
Although it might seem too self-laudatory for some people’s tastes, speaking up about issues of interest to you and your audience can help position you as a thought leader in your space. Therefore, it can be helpful to participate and collaborate in promoting and discussing your work through social networking, blogging, list serves, personal networks, and more.
And don’t overlook your research that’s still underway! Discussing what’s in progress can help build interest.
C. Develop and execute a personal plan.
Perhaps the best way to increase your impact is to develop a plan that is tailored for your own needs, and check in with yourself periodically about whether it’s working. Your plan should focus on tactics that make your work visible, accessible, and reusable .
What might such a plan look like? Here is a sample that you can adapt.
- Create and maintain an online profile (GoogleScholar, etc.).
- Use persistent identifiers (e.g. ORCIDs, DOIs) to disambiguate/link.
- Publish in fully OA journals or choose OA options.
- Creative Commons license your work for re-use.
- Post pre- or post-prints to repositories (eScholarship, PubMed Central, etc.).
- Make social media engagement a habit.
- Engage your audience in meaningful conversations.
- Connect with other researchers.
- Appeal to various audiences via multiple publications.
- Check back in on your goals.
Do you want to talk more about tailoring strategies so that they are right for you? Please contact us at [email protected] !
You’ve invested significant time and resources into preparing your final publication. So, after peer review, you’re done, right? Not necessarily. You may desire (or be required) to also publish the data underlying your research.
Why should we care about publishing data?
Sharing research data promotes transparency, reproducibility, and progress. In some fields, it can spur new discoveries on a daily basis. It’s not atypical for geneticists, for example, to sequence by day and post research results the same evening — allowing others to begin using their datasets in nearly real time (see, for example, Pisani and AbouZahr’s paper ). The datasets researchers share can inform business or regulatory policymaking, legislation, government or social services, and more.
Publishing your research data can also increase the impact of your research, and with it, your scholarly profile. Depositing datasets in a repository makes them both visible and citable. You can include them in your CV and grant application biosketches. Conversely, scholars around the world can begin working with your data and crediting you. As a result, sharing detailed research data can be associated with increased citation rates (check out this Piwowar et al. study , among others).
Publishing your data may also be required. Federal funders (e.g. National Institutes of Health ), granting agencies (e.g. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ), and journal publishers (e.g. PLoS ) increasingly require datasets be made publicly available — often immediately upon associated article publication.
How do we publish data?
Merely uploading your dataset to a personal or departmental website won’t achieve these aims of promoting knowledge and progress. Datasets should be able to link seamlessly to any research articles they support. Their metadata should be compatible with bibliographic management and citation systems (e.g. CrossRef or Ref Works ), and be formatted for crawling by abstracting and indexing services. After all, you want to be able to find other people’s datasets, manage them in your own reference manager, and cite them as appropriate. So, you’d want your own dataset to be positioned for the same discoverability and ease of use.
How can you achieve all this? It sounds daunting, but it’s actually pretty straightforward and simple. You’ll want to select a data publishing tool or repository that is built around both preservation and discoverability. It should:
- Offer you a stable location or DOI (which will provide a persistent link to your data’s location).
- Help you create sufficient metadata to facilitate transparency and reproducibility.
- Optimize the metadata for search engines.
You can learn about a variety of specific tools through the Research Data Management program website , on their Data Preservation and Archiving page. Briefly, here are some good options:
Sample tools
- Dryad : Dryad is an open-source, research data curation and publication platform. UC Berkeley Library is a proud partner of Dryad and offers Dryad as a free service for all UC Berkeley researchers to publish and archive their data. Datasets published in Dryad receive a citation and can be versioned at any time. Dryad is integrated with hundreds of journals and is an easy way to both publish data and comply with funder and publisher mandates. Check out published datasets or submit yours at: https://datadryad.org/stash .
- Figshare: Figshare is a multidisciplinary repository where users can make all of their research outputs available in a citable, shareable and discoverable manner. Figshare allows users to upload any file format to be made visualisable in the browser so that figures, datasets, media, papers, posters, presentations and filesets can be disseminated. Figshare uses Datacite DOIs for persistent data citation. Users are allowed to upload files up to 5GB in size and have 20 GB of free private space. Figshare uses Amazon Web Services - backups are performed on a daily basis, which are kept for 5 days.
- re3data : re3data.org is a global registry of research data repositories that covers research data repositories from different academic disciplines. It presents repositories for the permanent storage and access of data sets to researchers, funding bodies, publishers and scholarly institutions. re3data.org promotes a culture of sharing, increased access and better visibility of research data. The registry went live in autumn 2012 and is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
To explore others, check out OpenDOAR , the Directory of Open Access Repositories.
We also recommend that, if your chosen publishing tool enables it, you should include your ORCID (a persistent digital identifier) with your datasets just like with all your other research. This way, your research and scholarly output will be collocated in one place, and it will become easier for others to discover and credit your work.
What does it mean to license your data for reuse?
Uploading a dataset — with good metadata, of course! — to a repository is not the end of the road for shepherding one’s research. We must also consider what we are permitting other researchers to do with our data. And, what rights do we, ourselves, have to grant such permissions — particularly if we got the data from someone else, or the datasets were licensed to us for a particular use?
To better understand these issues, we first have to distinguish between attribution and licensing.
Citing datasets, or providing attribution to the creator, is an essential scholarly practice.
The issue of someone properly citing your data is separate, however, from the question of whether it’s permissible for them to reproduce and publish the data in the first place. That is, what license for reuse have you applied to the dataset?
The type of reuse we can grant depends on whether we own our research data and hold copyright in it. There can be a number of possibilities here.
- Sometimes the terms of contracts we’ve entered into (e.g. funder/grant agreements, website terms of use, etc.) dictate data ownership and copyright. We must bear these components in mind when determining what rights to grant others for using our data.
- Often, our employers own our research data under our employment contracts or university policies (e.g. the research data is “work-for-hire”).
Remember, the dataset might not be copyrightable to begin with if it does not constitute original expression. We could complicate things if we try to grant licenses to data for which we don’t actually hold copyrights. For an excellent summary addressing these “Who owns your data?” questions, including copyright issues, check out this blog post by Katie Fortney written for the UC system-wide Office of Scholarly Communication.
What’s the right license or designation for your data?
To try to streamline ownership and copyright questions, and promote data reuse, often data repositories will simply apply a particular “Creative Commons” license or public domain designation to all deposited datasets. For instance:
- Dryad and BioMed Central repositories apply a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) designation to deposited data — meaning that, by depositing in those repositories, you are not reserving any copyright that you might have. Someone using your dataset still should cite the dataset to comply with scholarly norms, but you cannot mandate that they attribute you and cannot pursue copyright claims against them.
It’s worth considering what your goals are for sharing the data to begin with, and selecting a designation or license that both meets your needs and fits within whatever ownership and use rights you have over the data. We can help you with this. Ambiguity surrounding the ability to reuse data inhibits the pace of research. So, try to identify clearly for potential users what rights are being granted in the dataset you publish.
Please contact us at [email protected] .
Basics of scholarly publishing
The scholarly communication landscape is impacted by various shifting economic forces, such as changes in:
- Publishing platforms and markets (e.g. emergence of open access business models, consortial funding for subscriptions, funder publishing platforms)
- Ways research is conducted (e.g. social research networks fostering global collaboration)
- Public policies (e.g. open access mandates, copyleft licensing models)
In the traditional publishing model , scholars produce and edit research and manuscripts, which publishers then evaluate, assemble, publish, and distribute. Libraries at the institutions where scholars are employed then pay for subscriptions to license or purchase this content that researchers have created. Typically these are large subscription packages with academic publishers that encompass dozens if not hundreds of journal titles.
The costs of scholarly journal subscriptions have risen unsustainably over many decades, outstripping inflation even relative to higher education markets. As costs have risen, so has the portion of the global research community operating without full access to the scholarly record (including nearly all U.S. universities). The open access (OA) movement, discussed elsewhere on these pages (see Open Access Publishing ), is in part a response to this affordability crisis.
Open access overview
In an OA world, libraries would not be paying for these out-of-reach subscriptions. But, if academic publishers are still distributing scholarly content through traditional journal systems, they of course would want some other form of cost recovery if subscriptions are off the table. OA publishing models differ in how and whether they address this issue.
As we discuss in the Open Access Publishing section, two of the predominant open access publishing models are “Gold Open Access” and “Green Open Access.”
Gold open access
Gold OA provides immediate access on the publisher’s website. Some Gold OA publishers recoup production costs via charges for authors to publish (“article processing charges” or “book processing charges”) rather than having readers (or libraries) pay to access and read it. This is a system in which “author pays” rather than “reader pays.” The charges to be paid by the author can come from many sources, such as: research accounts, research grants, the university, the library, scholarly societies, and consortia. Production costs can also be offset by the sale of memberships, add-ons, and enhanced services by the publisher.
Green open access
Also known as self-archiving, in the Green OA model authors continue to publish as they always have in all the same journals. Once the article has been published in a traditional journal, however, the author then posts the “final author version” of the article to an institutional or subject matter repository. Those uploaded manuscripts are open to all to be read. Often, publishers do not allow the formatted publication version to be deposited, but instead only permit the unformatted “post-print” (refereed) or “pre-print” (author submitted) version to be uploaded.
The (real) non-economic value of OA
While open access publishing has the potential to reduce costs, this is not the only (or even the main) driving force behind open access advocacy. The benefits to individual scholars, related institutions, scholarly communication, and the general researching public are also primary motivating factors.
Open access literature is free, digital, and available to anyone online. Providing greater access to scholarship can help attract more readers and build impact.
Moreover, in most cases open access literature is also free of downstream copyright restrictions apart from attributing the original author. This type of OA literature can be reused, remixed, and built upon to further spur innovation and progress.
New open access publishing models are continuing to emerge and be evaluated for sustainability. We have much more to say about them and all things open access on our Open Access page.
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
To Publish a Research Paper follow the guide below: Conduct original research: Conduct thorough research on a specific topic or problem. Collect data, analyze it, and draw conclusions based on your findings. Write the paper: Write a detailed paper describing your research.
3. Submit your article according to the journal's submission guidelines. Go to the "author's guide" (or similar) on the journal's website to review its submission requirements. Once you are satisfied that your paper meets all of the guidelines, submit the paper through the appropriate channels.
Step 2: Finding the Right Journal. Understanding how to publish a research paper involves selecting the appropriate journal for your work. This step is critical for successful publication, and you should take several factors into account when deciding which journal to apply for: Conduct thorough research to identify journals that specialise in ...
Step 1: Choosing a journal. Choosing which journal to publish your research paper in is one of the most significant decisions you have to make as a researcher. Where you decide to submit your work can make a big difference to the reach and impact your research has. It's important to take your time to consider your options carefully and ...
4. Track your paper. 5. Share and promote. 1. Find a journal. Find out the journals that could be best suited for publishing your research. For a comprehensive list of Elsevier journals check our Journal Catalog. You can also match your manuscript using the JournalFinder tool, then learn more about each journal.
6. Check and Double-Check. As a final step before submission, ask colleagues to read your work and be constructively critical. Make sure that the paper is appropriate for the journal - take a last look at their aims and scope. Check if all of the requirements in the instructions for authors are met.
Do your research: Beyond the research for your paper or book, of course. Don't just plunge into a self-publishing option without a plan. Find out what each company offers in terms of author compensation. Choose between ebook, print on demand, or traditional print formats. Analyze your needs and decide whether you really need an agent.
A. Yes, instead of giving the volume and page number, you can give the paper's DOI at the end of the citation. For example, Nature papers should be cited in the form; Author (s) Nature advance ...
Open access is a publishing model in which the author pays a fee to publish; the reader is able to access the article for free. Some journals are entirely open access, while others are "hybrid"—providing both a subscription as well as an open access publishing option. Open science, on the other hand, is a movement towards increased ...
In the Abstract, you should provide a summary of each section of your paper (It can be divided into subheadings, if the journal allows it): Step #1: Start with a one sentence introduction to the subject. Step #2: Mention the study objective. Step #3: Summarize the Methods section.
Publishing your article open access has a number of benefits: Free to access and download; Reaches a wider global audience; 1.6x more citations; 6x more downloads; 4.9 average Altmetric attention (vs 2.1 subscription) It's free to publish your article in a subscription journal, but there are fees for publishing open access articles.
ResearchGate. ResearchGate is a platform hosting over 135 million publication pages with a community of 20 million scientists. The platform allows you to show off your work, access papers and advice from other researchers, make contacts and even find jobs. Some of its more prominent features include: Dedicated Q&A section with searchable ...
Carefully proofread and format your paper. Double-check for any spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors. Ensure your paper follows the recommended style guide for font type and size, spacing, margins, page numbers, headings, and image captions. . Of course, writing a research paper is not as easy.
Reading Time: 14 minutes In this article I will show you how to write a research paper using the four LEAP writing steps. The LEAP academic writing approach is a step-by-step method for turning research results into a published paper.. The LEAP writing approach has been the cornerstone of the 70 + research papers that I have authored and the 3700+ citations these paper have accumulated within ...
How to Get Published webinars. Free 1 hour monthly How to Get Published webinars cover topics including writing an article, navigating the peer review process, and what exactly it means when you hear "open access.". Join fellow researchers and expert speakers live, or watch our library of recordings on a variety of topics.
And of course, making sure your published article makes an impact. Our podcast, Getting published for the first time, hears from researchers and editors explaining their tips for getting an article published. Here, we summarize their advice and gather useful resources to help you navigate publishing your first article.
The introduction section should be approximately three to five paragraphs in length. Look at examples from your target journal to decide the appropriate length. This section should include the elements shown in Fig. 1. Begin with a general context, narrowing to the specific focus of the paper.
Check each target journal's mission statement, ask colleagues who have published there if your work is appropriate for it and read a current issue to see the kinds of articles it contains. "If your work isn't in line with what they publish, they will reject it out of hand and you will have wasted valuable time," says Dunn.
Call for papers in your subject area. Journals regularly 'call for papers', asking for submissions within a particular field or topic. Answering these is a great way to get published, making sure your research fits the journal's aims and scope. Simply select your subject area with our handy tool to get started. Search current calls for ...
Generally, there are two ways of presenting your work: 1- Presenting a poster. 2- Or by giving a talk in front of an audience. In both cases, you will have to prepare an additional material summarizing your work, which could be either a poster or slides, it is the conference committee that makes the decision.
Sun and Linton (2014), Hierons (2016) and Craig (2010) offer useful discussions on the subject of "desk rejections.". 4. Make a good first impression with your title and abstract. The title and abstract are incredibly important components of a manuscript as they are the first elements a journal editor sees.
Develop a thesis statement. Create a research paper outline. Write a first draft of the research paper. Write the introduction. Write a compelling body of text. Write the conclusion. The second draft. The revision process. Research paper checklist.
About us. We can help you navigate the evolving scholarly publishing process — not only for your "final" manuscript, but also your other critical research and publishing outputs, such as: preprints, data, interactive models, conference proceedings, posters, working papers, blog posts, and much more.