publish my own research paper

PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
EDIT Edit this Article
EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
Browse Articles
Learn Something New
Quizzes Hot
This Or That Game
Train Your Brain
Explore More
Support wikiHow
About wikiHow
Log in / Sign up
Education and Communications
College University and Postgraduate
Academic Writing
Research Papers

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 701,349 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.

Step 1 Create a list of journals you’d like to publish your work in.

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.

Step 2 Look at each journal’s audience, exposure, policies, and procedures.

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.

Step 1 Craft an effective introduction with a thesis statement.

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.”

Step 2 Write the literature review and the body of your paper.

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

Step 3 Write your conclusion that ties back to your thesis or research objective.

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.

Step 4 Write an abstract that describes what your paper is about.

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.

Step 1 Prepare your manuscript according to the journal’s requirements.

They might also provide templates to help you structure your manuscript according to their specific guidelines. [11] X Research source

Step 2 Ask 2 colleagues to review your paper and revise it with their notes.

Not all journal reviewers will be experts on your specific topic, so a non-expert “outsider’s perspective” can be valuable.

Step 1 Check your sources for plagiarism and identify 5 to 6 keywords.

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

Step 2 Write a cover letter explaining why you chose their journal.

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].”

Step 3 Submit your article according to the journal’s submission guidelines.

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.

Step 1 Try not to panic when you get the journal’s initial response.

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.

Step 2 Revise your paper based on the reviewers’ feedback.

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.

Step 3 Resubmit to the same journal or choose another from your list.

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

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

Send fan mail to authors

Reader Success Stories

RAMDEV GOHIL

Oct 16, 2017

Did this article help you?

David Okandeji

Oct 23, 2019

Revati Joshi

Feb 13, 2017

Shahzad Khan

Jul 1, 2017

Apr 7, 2017

Featured Articles

Watch Articles

Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
Do Not Sell or Share My Info
Not Selling Info

wikiHow Tech Help Pro:

Level up your tech skills and stay ahead of the curve

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! ✨

Behind the Scenes: What Does a Research Assistant Do?

Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in a research lab? Does it involve acting out the whims of

How to Write a Research Paper Introduction: Hook, Line, and Sinker

Want to know how to write a research paper introduction that dazzles? Struggling to hook your reader in with your opening sentences?

Blog Podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter!

Discover more from Audemic: Access any academic research via audio

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Home » How to Publish a Research Paper – Step by Step Guide

How to Publish a Research Paper – Step by Step Guide

Table of Contents

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

Research Paper Introduction – Writing Guide and...

Significance of the Study – Examples and Writing...

Research Methodology – Types, Examples and...

Research Contribution – Thesis Guide

How to Cite Research Paper – All Formats and...

Research Paper Title – Writing Guide and Example

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.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Get the latest posts delivered right to your inbox.

Now check your inbox and click the link to confirm your subscription.

Please enter a valid email address

Oops! There was an error sending the email, please try later.

Leyre Martínez

Recommended for you.

How to Write a Research Funding Application | Orvium

Increasing Representation and Diversity in Research with Open Science | Orvium

Your Guide to Open Access Week 2023

You are using an outdated browser . Please upgrade your browser today !

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.

You might also be interested in

Academia & Publishing

Library Community Gives Back: 2023 Webinar Speakers’ Charity Picks

From error to excellence: embracing mistakes in library practice, the impact of transformative agreements on scholarly publishing, visit our shop.

De Gruyter publishes over 1,300 new book titles each year and more than 750 journals in the humanities, social sciences, medicine, mathematics, engineering, computer sciences, natural sciences, and law.

Pin It on Pinterest

Technical Support
Find My Rep

Getting started

Choosing the right journal for you.

Submitting your article to a Sage journal

Promoting your article

Related resources you may find useful.

How to Get Your Journal Article Published guide

Our handy guide is a quick overview covering the publishing process from preparing your article and choosing a journal, to publication (5 minute read).

View the How to Get Your Journal Article Published guide

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.

Browse our webinars

Sage Perspectives blog

Looking for tips on how to make sure your article goes smoothly through the peer review process, or how to write the right title for your article?

Read our blog

Sage Campus courses

Want something a bit more in-depth? Sage Campus courses are short and interactive (around 2 hours each) and cover a range of skills, including how to get published. Your library may already subscribe to the modules, or you may want to recommend that they do. Meanwhile, you can utilize the free modules.

Explore Sage Campus

Each journal has its own Aims & Scope, so the acceptance of articles is not just about quality, but also about being a good fit. Does your work reflect the scope of the Journal? Is Open Access important to you, and does the Journal have an Open Access model available? What is the readership of the Journal, and is that readership the right audience for your work? Researching the best match for your manuscript will significantly improve your chances of being accepted.

Watch our 2 minute video

If you already know in which Sage journal you’d like to publish your work, search for it and check the manuscript submission guidelines to make sure it is a good match. Or use the Sage Journal Recommender to tell us your article title and subjects and see which journals are a potential home for your manuscript. Be prepared to adjust your manuscript to match the scope and style of the desired journal.

Find journals with the Sage Journal Recommender or browse all Sage journals

Professional presentation of your work includes a precise and clear writing style, avoiding accidental plagiarism, and formatting your article to meet the criteria of your chosen journal. All of these take time and may not be skills inherent to your field of research. Sage Author Services can help you to prepare your manuscript to comply with these and other related standards, which could significantly improve your chance of acceptance.

Visit Sage Author Services

Submitting your article to a Sage journal

You’ve identified the right journal; now you need to make sure your manuscript is the perfect fit. Following the author guidelines can be the difference between possible acceptance and rejection, so it’s definitely worth following the required guidelines. We’ve a selection of resources and guides to help:

Watch How to Get Published: Submitting Your Paper (2 minute video)

Read our Article Submission infographic , a quick reminder of essentials

Here you’ll find chapter and verse on all aspects of our Manuscript Submission Guidelines

Ready to submit? Our online Submission Checklist will help you do a final check before sending your article to us.

Each journal retains editorial independence, which means their Guidelines will vary, so do go to the home page of your chosen journal to check anything you should be aware of. You can submit your article there too.

The academic world is crowded, how can you make your article stand out? If you are active on social media platforms, telling your followers about your article is one of the simplest and most effective things you can do.

Between us, we can improve the chances of your article being found, read, downloaded and cited – of your article and you making an impact. Our tips and guidance will show you how to promote your article alongside building your academic profile.

Read our tips on how to maximize your impact

Open access at Sage
Top reasons to publish with Sage
How to do research and get published webinar series
How to get published for librarians
Sage Author Services
Manuscript submission guidelines
During peer review
During and post publication
Help and support
Journal Editor Gateway
Journal Reviewer Gateway
Ethics & Responsibility
Sage editorial policies
Publication Ethics Policies
Sage Chinese Author Gateway 中国作者资源

Search Search
CN (Chinese)
DE (German)
ES (Spanish)
FR (Français)
JP (Japanese)
Open Research
Booksellers
Peer Reviewers
Springer Nature Group ↗

Publish an article

Roles and responsibilities
Signing your contract
Writing your manuscript
Submitting your manuscript
Producing your book
Promoting your book
Submit your book idea
Manuscript guidelines
Book author services
Publish a book
Publish conference proceedings

Join thousands of researchers worldwide that have published their work in one of our 3,000+ Springer Nature journals.

Step-by-step guide to article publishing

1. Prepare your article

Make sure you follow the submission guidelines for that journal. Search for a journal .
Get permission to use any images.
Check that your data is easy to reproduce.
State clearly if you're reusing any data that has been used elsewhere.
Follow our policies on plagiarism and ethics .
Use our services to get help with English translation, scientific assessment and formatting. Find out what support you can get .

2. Write a cover letter

Introduce your work in a 1-page letter, explaining the research you did, and why it's relevant.

3. Submit your manuscript

Go to the journal homepage to start the process
You can only submit 1 article at a time to each journal. Duplicate submissions will be rejected.

4. Technical check

We'll make sure that your article follows the journal guidelines for formatting, ethics, plagiarism, contributors, and permissions.

5. Editor and peer review

The journal editor will read your article and decide if it's ready for peer review.
Most articles will be reviewed by 2 or more experts in the field.
They may contact you with questions at this point.

6. Final decision

If your article is accepted, you'll need to sign a publishing agreement.
If your article is rejected, you can get help finding another journal from our transfer desk team .
If your article is open access, you'll need to pay a fee.
Fees for OA publishing differ across journals. See relevant journal page for more information.
You may be able to get help covering that cost. See information on funding .
We'll send you proofs to approve, then we'll publish your article.
Track your impact by logging in to your account

Get tips on preparing your manuscript using our submission checklist .

Each publication follows a slightly different process, so check the journal's guidelines for more details

Open access vs subscription publishing

Each of our journals has its own policies, options, and fees for publishing.

Over 600 of our journals are fully open access. Others use a hybrid model, with readers paying to access some articles.

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. You'll need to check the open access fees for the journal you choose.

Learn more about open access

Get help with funding.

Many organisations require you to publish your research open access. It's worth checking with your supervisor and colleagues to understand your organisation's approach.

Many funders and institutions will cover your open access publishing fees. To find out if your fees are covered, take a look at our funding agreements .

We also offer discounts for researchers in some geographical regions. See regions with reduced fees

Learn more about funding

Choose a journal.

We have 3,000+ journals to choose from, covering a wide range of topics. The best way to find a relevant journal is to search by keyword.

Once you've chosen a journal, check the submission guidelines to see the open access fees.

Search all journals

Get support.

We offer editing, translation, data presentation and formatting services to help you at each step.

Author support for publishing

Knowledge resources for scientists, author tutorials.

If you have a question about a specific journal, check the submission guidelines. If you still need help, contact us .

Tools & Services
Account Development
Sales and account contacts
Professional
Press office
Locations & Contact

We are a world leading research, educational and professional publisher. Visit our main website for more information.

© 2024 Springer Nature
General terms and conditions
Your US State Privacy Rights
Your Privacy Choices / Manage Cookies
Accessibility
Legal notice
Help us to improve this site, send feedback.

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

View all journals

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:

Role of each of the main sections of a research paper

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:

Mains ideas in our example 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.

Example of a figure format in a research paper

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.

Example of a table format in a research paper

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:

Example of writing a title for a research paper

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.

Getting started

Choosing the right journal for you.

Submitting your article to a Sage journal

Promoting your article

Related resources you may find useful.

How to Get Your Journal Article Published guide

Our handy guide is a quick overview covering the publishing process from preparing your article and choosing a journal, to publication (5 minute read).

View the How to Get Your Journal Article Published guide

How to Get Published webinars

Browse our webinars

Sage Perspectives blog

Looking for tips on how to make sure your article goes smoothly through the peer review process, or how to write the right title for your article?

Read our blog

Sage Campus courses

Explore Sage Campus

Watch our 2 minute video

Find journals with the Sage Journal Recommender or browse all Sage journals

Visit Sage Author Services

Submitting your article to a Sage journal

Watch How to Get Published: Submitting Your Paper (2 minute video)

Read our Article Submission infographic , a quick reminder of essentials

Here you’ll find chapter and verse on all aspects of our Manuscript Submission Guidelines

Ready to submit? Our online Submission Checklist will help you do a final check before sending your article to us.

Read our tips on how to maximize your impact

Open access at Sage
Top reasons to publish with Sage
How to do research and get published webinar series
How to get published for librarians
Sage Author Services
Manuscript submission guidelines
During peer review
During and post publication
Help and support
Journal Editor Gateway
Journal Reviewer Gateway
Ethics & Responsibility
Sage editorial policies
Publication Ethics Policies
Sage Chinese Author Gateway 中国作者资源

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!

Writing your paper

Advice and guidance on preparing and writing an effective research paper.

Publishing the results of your research is a critical part of your academic career. By following the advice and guidance here, you’ll be able to produce a paper that’s a great fit for your chosen journal.

Jump to section

Vector illustration of a screen with a character holding a large spanner on the left side and on the right side is a giant pink ladder with a character sitting on it on the laptop.

Know who you’re writing for

Before you start writing up your research, it’s important to have a good idea of which journal you want your paper to be published in.

When writing your paper you should keep the journal you are targeting in mind, to make sure the style, structure and audience are all a good fit.

This helps the editor to see how your work matches with the aims and scope of the journal , and make it more likely to be accepted for publication. Make sure you’ve read the aims and scope for your target journal before you start writing, it will tell you what types of article are accepted.

You’ll find lots more advice on finding the right journal for your research in our section on choosing a journal .

Vector illustration of a character wearing grey top and grey skirt, holding a piece of paper in their left hand and writing with their right hand.

Read the guidelines

You need to understand what the editor of your target journal will be looking for. By understanding the expectations of both the journal and the publisher, you can write your paper to meet those standards from the start.

Familiarizing yourself with your chosen journal’s instructions for authors (IFAs) is a key part of writing your paper and preparing to submit.

The IFAs tell you exactly what the journal’s editorial board expects to see, including details of specific processes to follow to make sure there are no problems should your article be accepted

It’s important to familiarize yourself with the journal’s own policies, but in addition, you should also review the Taylor & Francis Editorial Policies that apply across our whole portfolio of journals.

Editorial Policies clearly lay out the standards of reporting expected by the journal/publisher, as well as covering everything from ethics standards to use of third-party material.

Vector illustration of a character in grey, sat crossed legged, on an open laptop with a WiFi symbol above it.

Structuring your article

The best way to determine how to structure your article is to study your target journal. The right manuscript structure can boost your chances of publishing success.

To save time and for peace of mind, you may want to consider using manuscript formatting experts while you focus on your research.

Look through the journal’s instructions for authors, but also take the time to read a selection of articles already published there to see how they are structured. This will help you to understand what the editor may be looking for.

You could also make use of an article template. Check the instructions for authors for your chosen journal to see if they accept templated articles, then download the article template and instructions .

Sometimes there are specific templates available to use, for example the Article Template and Software Tool Article Template for LaTeX users submitting to F1000Research via Overleaf.

Writing your manuscript

Every article is unique, and the structure and the sections you need to include depends on the type of article you’re writing and the subject of study.

Here’s a helpful step by step guide to take you through the standard sections that many researchers need to include when writing a manuscript, in the order in which you would normally write them.

Prepare tables and figures (if required) When creating tables and figures for your article, check the journal’s instructions for authors, which may specify artwork formatting guidelines such as layouts and use of color.

Write up the literature review (if required) Literature reviews aren’t always needed, but often form an important part of Humanities and Social Sciences manuscripts. Typically, a literature review should discuss what’s already known about the topic of the article, identify gaps in current knowledge and present your approach to addressing those gaps.

Write the method The method section gives the reader all the details of how you conducted your research. Check the instructions for authors for your target journal to see whether there are any specific requirements on how it should be presented. It’s also a good idea to review previously published papers in the journal or sample reports on the journal website.

Write up your results In the results section, you’re answering the question ‘what have you found?’. You should state your findings, but don’t interpret the results or discuss their implications in this section.

Write the discussion and conclusions Your discussion and conclusion are where you interpret your results. Discuss your conclusions in order of most to least important, and end by stating your main conclusions again.

Write the introduction Your introduction should provide the background information needed to understand your study, and the reasons why you conducted your experiments. At the end of your introduction you should include a clear statement of your aims and a brief sentence or two on how you conducted your study. Although your introduction comes first in your article, you’ll have a clearer idea of how to write it once you’ve written the rest of your paper.

Write the abstract and create a compelling title Your abstract is the shop window of your article – this is where customers (researchers) can sample your wares and decide whether to read and cite your content or look elsewhere. Follow our advice on writing the title and abstract for your article using keywords to set up your work to be easily discovered online.

Don’t worry if you’re not a native English speaker. Here’s how to break language barriers and publish in international journals .

What else should I include when writing my paper?

If you are using third-party material in your article, It is important to make sure that you are clear on the guidance you need to follow, as most journals need you to have written permission.

If you need to refer to a data set in your article, you’ll need to make sure that you cite the data appropriately. Read more in our how-to guide on citing data .

There are also specific guidelines to follow when including mathematical scripts and special characters .

Please make sure you read through the Taylor & Francis Editorial Policies which include important information about why and how you should cite sources in your article. These requirements apply to all journals published by Taylor & Francis Group.

Have you considered writing a Plain Language Summary ? They can greatly help to communicate the significance of scientific research evidence to a broad audience.

Do you want your scientific paper to be shared with a non-scientific audience, such as policy makers? If so, the recently launched Key Policy Highlights scheme can support you with this.

For more tips and useful advice, we’ve put together a handy guide and video on what to consider when writing your journal article . You can also check out our guide to know what makes a good research paper .

Writing a review article?

A review article, also called a literature review, should give an overview of current thinking on the theme rather than presenting new results. Read our specific advice on writing a review article for more guidance.

Writing a manuscript in a more unusual format?

There may be specific resources available to help you structure and write the article – for example, F1000Research offer detailed instructions for authors for some of their article types, like Data Notes and Registered Report Stage 1 Study Protocols . It’s always worth exploring the journal or platform homepage to see if there are dedicated guides and resources to help you prepare your manuscript.

Formatting your paper

Everything in one guide.

Our manuscript layout guide will help you to format your manuscript to get it ready to submit to a Taylor & Francis journal.

Many journals also allow the use of templates to help you format your article. You can find out if this applies to your chosen journal by checking the instructions for authors.

Then you should visit our formatting and templates page to find the downloadable template files and their instructions .

Publishing tips, direct to your inbox

Expert tips and guidance on getting published and maximizing the impact of your research. Register now for weekly insights direct to your inbox.

Before you submit

Once you have the first complete draft of your paper, make sure it is in the best possible shape before submitting, by editing your manuscript properly. You need to know how to improve your research paper by taking a critical look at your manuscript.

This guide to preparing your article for submission will also show you how to write and refine your paper in confidence. When you’re confident in the final draft of your manuscript, it’s important to check it back against the Taylor & Francis Editorial Policies, and the individual processes and policies of your target journal found in the IFAs.

Guidance may vary by journal, so we’ve listed below a few key areas that you need to pay attention to:

Defining authorship : co-authors, corresponding authors, and affiliations.

The ethical issues you should be aware of as an author.

Declaring competing interests . Also known as a ‘conflict of interest’, full disclosure of any competing interests is required when you submit your paper to a journal.

If your research includes a medical/clinical study you will need written patient consent from your participants. All authors are required to follow the ICMJE requirements on privacy and informed consent from patients and study participants.

Vector illustration of a character wearing blue, holding a giant pink magnifying glass with both arms, leaning to the left.

If you need more help to get your paper ready to submit, find out how Taylor & Francis Editing Services can help you improve your manuscript . These tailored services make the process of preparing and submitting a manuscript even easier to offer you a smooth journey to publication.

Once you have written your paper and are ready to submit, read our guidance on making your submission to help you through the process.

Enhance your paper

Have you considered any optional enhancements for your paper?

Plain Language Summaries communicate the significance of scientific research evidence to a broad audience in jargon-free and clear language. Improve public engagement with a Plain Language Summary.

A graphical abstract is a useful tool that provides a concise, visual summary of the main conclusions of your article. It can be a great additional way to communicate your findings.

A video abstract lets you introduce readers to your article in your own words, telling others why they should read your research. They are an increasingly popular way of getting others to engage with published research.

Explore related posts

Insights topic: Get published

5 practical tips for writing an academic article

5 ways to avoid the wrong journal and find the right one

5 key benefits of using an academic editing service

Stack Exchange Network

Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow , the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.

Q&A for work

Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.

How do I go about publishing a paper without a university affiliation?

I graduated with a B.S. degree and I have been working in industry for a few years as a software engineer. I am very interested in reinforcement learning, a sub-field of machine learning, and I am interested in performing research and publishing a paper on that topic.

The problem is, in my city there are no professors working in this field (or related fields) who could help me. I contacted other professors in different cities and they rejected my help request for a variety of reasons (such as I am not their student, they don't know me, they are busy, etc.).

Still, I want to perform research and publish a paper. I can't attend school as a full time student and my collaboration requests were not successful. Given all that, how can I publish by myself?

How to choose a research topic?

Should I read all the papers on this field?

How to decide which problem to work on or which is not obsolete? I don't want to work on something which no one is interested in.

Should I read and study all the prerequisite material, or fill in the gaps during research efforts?

publications
independent-researcher

6 I think the first question you'll have to answer is, why do you want to publish? What goal are you hoping to achieve? Once you answer that, we can probably give you more directed advice. – eykanal Sep 11, 2012 at 18:30
8 possible duplicate of Does one need to be affiliated with a university to publish papers? – bobthejoe Sep 11, 2012 at 19:33
3 The title and the question are unrelated, and I think you confuse conducting research and publishing stuff. – Sylvain Peyronnet Sep 11, 2012 at 21:09
2 I think this question is sufficiently different from those cited as duplicate: he is asking about his options for research/collaborations or independent research, very much distinct from "can I publish a paper without affliation". – Legendre Sep 12, 2012 at 12:20
2 I agree with @Legendre; the linked questions address the question of "can it be done?", this question asks "how can it be done?". – eykanal Sep 12, 2012 at 15:46

4 Answers 4

Is it possible to publish a paper without a Professor?

Sure. Nobody gives a rat's patootie about the academic ranks of paper authors (at least in my field). I published sole-author papers as a graduate student. I have colleagues who published as undergraduates, and others who published with no university (or research lab, or corporate) affiliation at all.

Choose something you're good at, that you're passionate about, and that other people will care about. If you're not good at it, you'll never get anywhere. If you're not passionate about it, you won't put in enough effort to succeed. If nobody cares, then, well, nobody cares.

No. Reading all the papers in any field is simply not possible. But you should read a lot . A few hundred papers should get you started (ha ha only serious).

Read lots of papers; talk to lots of people; go to seminars/conferences and listen to talks. Or decide that the topics that you care about are so fascinating and your results are so compelling that you'll make other people interested (but be prepared for disappointment). Or—my personal favorite—just make up something cool out of thin air.

Yes. Both. (Except not all the prerequisite material; that's impossible.)

3 I have heard people say that for those remaining in academice after their PhD, professor-less publications are a good thing to have as they indicate you stepped out of your advisor's shadow. – Raphael Sep 13, 2012 at 7:46
1 I would like to comment that "ask > read". It's easy to miss an important paper (or idea) when just searching for papers plus it's hard to decide if a problem is of the interest of others (it might be technically correct and novel, but considered as unimporant). – Piotr Migdal Sep 13, 2012 at 13:59
This is very true. I know of an IBM employee who publishes about star formation in astronomy journals ; he's not associated with a university. – Geremia Apr 19, 2014 at 0:48
1 @Geremia But he still has an affiliation. What about freelancers, or unemployed people? – qed Jan 15, 2015 at 21:13

I can't comment on the later issues—they are too general for the scope of a single question.

To address the first issue, yes, it is possible to publish without a professor. People at corporations and small companies publish all the time without academic collaborators (and without PhD level staffers). The challenge is having a topic that is worth publishing, and finding an appropriate venue to publish it in.

Yes, sure, why not? The point is whether the paper (your work) is worthy enough to be published or not. It's not the point if the paper has a professor or not; it's about being professional and not about a professor.

First, it depends on your interest. Then it depends on if it's useful, uses new method, new knowledge, etc.

Not all but only related to your topics. Because you have to "re-search" if others have done it already. You need their results and methods to compare with your work for reference.

I give up for this Q. Actually,it's not hard to answer but not easy too. Because there's no right or wrong answer, only depends on your like. People select scientific papers by their own standard and so do I. No one knows exactly which standard criteria should be decided, but at least you may know the trend of interests, so please "re-search"!

Oops! I have to do it a lot.

PS: This may not the most correct answer because I'm not a professor but at least I hope it helps.

Based on your comment above, that you "want to work on a problem and solve it", I strongly recommend that you change your goal from "publishing in a journal" to simply "solving a problem". By limiting yourself to research that would be publishable in a journal, you place yourself under the following very harsh constraints:

You must become familiar with the existing academic literature such that you can properly cite other academic sources when discussing prior findings.

If you don't take the journal route, you can become familiar with existing techniques through books, tutorials, wikipedia, and blog posts, and work from there.

When publishing to a journal, your work will have a higher likelihood of being published if it relates to the topic du jour. Certain concepts go in and out of style, and researching a less popular topic can have an impact on when you can publish. On a related note, there's a lot of time between submission and actual publication; a number of months to almost a year is common.

Alternatlive, if you go your own route, then you won't have that delay.

You must be willing to work in areas which are of interest to whatever journal in which you wish to publish. This requires knowledge of the different journals and what they typically publish, which may be difficult for you to find without academic contacts.

If you don't take the journal route, you can simply publish your findings in a blog post or other open setting (there may be places specifically intended for this sort of thing, I'm not sure).

You will have to pay non-trivial fees for publication.

I want my contributions to be notable. And the best way of this is publishing in journals or conferences. I don't see a way my work is recognized or respected via a blog post. At the end if I achieve something I want to get proper credit for it. My main target is conferences and their short paper sessions. Mainly I will target ICML and confs. one tier lower than that. – teenage ninja turtle Sep 12, 2012 at 17:53
@teenageninjaturtle - Having a publication ≠ notability, or even recognition. The likelihood that your publication will make very little impact at all (along with the vast majority of publications these days) is quite high. I don't mean this personally, I fear this is just the reality. – eykanal Sep 12, 2012 at 18:49
Good point. One might want to start with posting stuff on arXiv (or a blog) and sending links to people in the field (important: be professional). The feedback (if any) can determine the next step. About (4): that's not generally true (although it unfortunately happens). – Raphael Sep 13, 2012 at 7:48

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for browse other questions tagged publications university independent-researcher ., hot network questions.

A Fantasy story where a man appears to have been crushed on his wedding night by a statue on the finger of which he has put a wedding ring
A trigonometric equation: how hard could it be?
Who are the mathematicians interested in the history of mathematics?
`getTokenAccountsByDelegate` Method Not Available After Clean Install of `@solana/web3.js`
What is the U.N. list of shame and how does it affect Israel which was recently added?
I'm looking for a series where there was a civilization in the Mediterranean basin, which got destroyed by the Atlantic breaking in
Under physicalism, should I still be sad if my murdered wife is replaced with a perfect clone?
How to create an enumerate environment with Case 1, Case 2,
A man is kidnapped by his future descendants and isolated his whole life to prevent a bad thing; they accidentally undo their own births
Transformer with same size symbol meaning
Energy stored in a saturating inductor
Calculate the volume of intersection sphere and cone using triple integral
Who owns the moon?
What percentage of light gets scattered by a mirror?
Python matrix class
Book recommendation introduction to model theory
My players think they found a loophole that gives them infinite poison and XP. How can I add the proper challenges to slow them down?
Why "Power & battery" stuck at spinning circle for 4 hours?
I can't search in Messages on iOS anymore. How to fix it?
How do you keep the horror spooky when your players are a bunch of goofballs?
Application of Lie group analysis of PDE (beyond calculation of exact solutions)
Build the first 6 letters of an Italian codice fiscale (tax identification number)
An application of the (100/e)% rule applied to postdocs: moving on from an academic career, perhaps
What terminal did David connect to his IMSAI 8080?

How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer-Reviewed Journal

Open access
Published: 30 April 2020
Volume 36 , pages 909–913, ( 2021 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

Clara Busse ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0178-1000 1 &
Ella August ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5151-1036 1 , 2

274k Accesses

15 Citations

719 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

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.

How to Choose the Right Journal

The Point Is…to Publish?

Writing and publishing a scientific paper

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

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

Article Google Scholar

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

Download references

Acknowledgments

Ella August is grateful to the Sustainable Sciences Institute for mentoring her in training researchers on writing and publishing their research.

Code Availability

Not applicable.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Maternal and Child Health, University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, 135 Dauer Dr, 27599, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

Clara Busse & Ella August

Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, 1415 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-2029, USA

Ella August

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ella August .

Ethics declarations

Conflicts of interests.

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

(PDF 362 kb)

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

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

Download citation

Published : 30 April 2020

Issue Date : October 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-020-01751-z

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Manuscripts
Scientific writing
Find a journal
Publish with us
Track your research

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

Knowledge Base
Research paper

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.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

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.

Scribbr Citation Checker New

The AI-powered Citation Checker helps you avoid common mistakes such as:

Missing commas and periods
Incorrect usage of “et al.”
Ampersands (&) in narrative citations
Missing reference entries

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.

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

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.

APA Citation Generator MLA Citation Generator

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 .

Scribbr’s professional editors can help with the revision process with our award-winning proofreading services.

Discover our paper editing service

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.).

You've written a great paper. Make sure it's perfect with the help of a Scribbr editor!

Open Google Slides Download PowerPoint

Is this article helpful?

Other students also liked.

Writing a Research Paper Introduction | Step-by-Step Guide
Writing a Research Paper Conclusion | Step-by-Step Guide
Research Paper Format | APA, MLA, & Chicago Templates

Get unlimited documents corrected

✔ Free APA citation check included ✔ Unlimited document corrections ✔ Specialized in correcting academic texts

Unfortunately we don't fully support your browser. If you have the option to, please upgrade to a newer version or use Mozilla Firefox , Microsoft Edge , Google Chrome , or Safari 14 or newer. If you are unable to, and need support, please send us your feedback .

We'd appreciate your feedback. Tell us what you think! opens in new tab/window

Sharing and promoting your article

Sharing and promoting your article form an important part of research, in terms of fostering the exchange of scientific information in your field and allowing your paper to contribute to wider scientific progress.

In addition, bringing your research and accomplishments to the attention of a broader audience also makes you more visible in your field. This helps you to get more citations, enabling you to cultivate a stronger reputation, promote your research and move forward in your career. This page describes how you can share your article responsibly and offers advice to help you promote it widely.

Sharing your article

As an author, you benefit from sharing the appropriate version of your article which ensures that:

You always receive credit – you need to be cited accurately, which will ensure that services such as Mendeley will record the impact of your paper correctly. (Don’t have a Mendeley account yet? Please register here opens in new tab/window .)

The integrity of the scientific record is not compromised – you should always direct readers to the most up-to-date version of your article – a link to the published journal article.

Below you will find a number of options for posting and sharing your article. For further information, please see green open access with Elsevier , our sharing policy and our FAQ on posting. Unless otherwise noted, the examples below relate to your published journal article. For information on how you can share preprints and accepted manuscripts, please refer to our sharing policy .

Responsible sharing in line with copyright enables publishers to sustain high quality journals and the services they provide to the research community. Elsevier supports responsible sharing and responsible sharing platforms and we adhere to the voluntary sharing principles opens in new tab/window of the STM Association.

The STM Association has created howcanishareit.com opens in new tab/window which helps to explain how authors and users can share articles published in academic journals. It includes the Can I Share It look-up tool which provides academic researchers with an easy way to check where a journal article can be shared in line with the paper’s access and usage rights.

Sharing options for different contexts

At a conference.

You can always present your research in forms such as a presentation, or poster.

For classroom teaching purposes

You can use your article for your own classroom teaching and internal training at your institution (including use in course packs and courseware programs.

For grant applications

You can include your article for grant funding purposes.

With my colleagues

You can easily share your article with your colleagues (and other individuals) in private communications such as email.

On a preprint server

You can always post your preprint on a preprint server. Additionally, for ArXiv and RePEC you can also immediately update this version with your accepted manuscript . Please note that Cell Press, The Lancet, and some society-owned titles have different preprint policies. Information on these is available on the journal homepage.

On my personal blog or website

We recommend that you list all your publications and link back to the final version on ScienceDirect to make it easier for you to be cited. In addition to this you can also post your preprint or accepted manuscript and any gold open access articles on your non-commercial personal website or blog. Gold open access articles can be posted on your non-commercial personal website or blog. Authors can also share gold OA articles under CC-BY license on commercial websites. See “A word about Gold OA” below.

On my institutional repository

You can post your accepted author manuscript immediately to an institutional repository and make this publicly available after an embargo period has expired. Remember that for gold open access articles, you can post your published journal article and immediately make it publicly available.

On a subject repository (or other non-commercial repository)

You can always post your preprint version and you can also post your accepted author manuscript after the embargo period has expired. Remember for gold open access articles, you can post the published journal article immediately.

On Scholarly Collaboration Network (SCN), such as Mendeley or Scholar Universe

Services such as SCNs enable authors to showcase their work, providing fast and effective ways to collaborate and disseminate research.

A number of SCNs are working together with publishers to help to showcase your work by sharing links to published journal articles on author profiles.

We encourage authors to share their research responsibly on SCNs. You can share your preprint or a link to your article.

Social Media, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter

Elsevier will send you a ' share link ': a personal, customized short link that you will receive after final publication of your article. It provides 50 days free access to your newly-published article on ScienceDirect to anyone clicking on the link. We encourage you to share this link on social media. After 50 days the share link will still work but automatically revert to a link to your full text article.

Open access publishing

You can also share your final published article immediately by publishing it open access .

In the gold open access model, you pay an article publishing charge (APC), making your article immediately, permanently, and freely available for anyone to access, read and build on. In many cases, your institution or research funder will pay the APC on your behalf. All our journals offer a green open access option, meaning you can post a version of your article in a repository after an embargo, so people can access it freely. See our sharing policy for more information.

Gold open access licensing and sharing

If you have chosen to publish your article open access, you can share according to the end user license selected:

CC-BY licensed articles may be shared with anyone, on any platform or via any communication channel.

CC-BY-NC-ND licensed articles may be shared on non-commercial platforms only.

Do you want to make your published paper OA?

If your article has already been published as a subscription article, it may still be possible to make it open access up until 31st January of the following year by paying the Article Publishing Charge (APC) opens in new tab/window associated with your journal. For example, if the article has a formal date of publication of March 2017, authors are able to make their article open access up until the 31st January 2018. This cutoff date is necessary to uphold our no double dipping policy . To request retrospective open access or for further details, please contact us opens in new tab/window .

Promoting your article

Now that your article is published, you can promote it to make a bigger impact with your research. Here's how you can make use of the services we offer.

To help you reach more readers, Elsevier will send you and any co-authors a Share Link when your article is published: A personal, customized short link that provides free access to your article for 50 days. This means you can invite colleagues and peers to access your article ScienceDirect, sharing it by email and social media. Readers who click on the Share Link will be taken directly to your article, with no sign up or registration required.

50 days’ free access to the HTML and PDF versions of your article

Sharing the link via social media accounts and email helps you generate interest in your article

Sharing your article makes it more visible, potentially increasing downloads and citations

The process is simple: just click on the link during the 50-day free access period

You will automatically receive the Share Link at the final citable publication stage of your article. If co-author information is provided at the time of submission, they will also automatically receive a notification with the article's Share Link.

Showcasing yourself and your research

As published author, it's important that you stand out and can be easily found by others.

Mendeley Showcase helps you tell the academic community about yourself as a researcher and the impact of your research. Your Mendeley Profile opens in new tab/window allows you to:

Collate and curate a list of all your outputs in one place.

Track and demonstrate the impact of your research through insights including citations, readers, views, media mentions and h-index. Find out more about measuring an article’s impact here .

Go beyond the metrics and paint your complete research picture by telling others more about yourself and your research interests.

Connect with others and find global collaborators.

Complete your Mendeley Profile and showcase yourself opens in new tab/window

Don’t have a Mendeley Profile? Get one now by creating a Mendeley account opens in new tab/window

Other ways to help you make your article stand out can be found in our free quick guide opens in new tab/window - including tips & tricks on how to promote your article effectively via social media. If you’re interested in a free e-learning course on the topic, visit the"Ensuring Visibility" page on Researcher Academy opens in new tab/window .

Last but not least, don’t forget to monitor your article's impact with article level metrics .

Welcome to the Purdue Online Writing Lab

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. Teachers and trainers may use this material for in-class and out-of-class instruction.

The Purdue On-Campus Writing Lab and Purdue Online Writing Lab assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement. The Purdue Writing Lab serves the Purdue, West Lafayette, campus and coordinates with local literacy initiatives. The Purdue OWL offers global support through online reference materials and services.

A Message From the Assistant Director of Content Development

The Purdue OWL® is committed to supporting students, instructors, and writers by offering a wide range of resources that are developed and revised with them in mind. To do this, the OWL team is always exploring possibilties for a better design, allowing accessibility and user experience to guide our process. As the OWL undergoes some changes, we welcome your feedback and suggestions by email at any time.

Please don't hesitate to contact us via our contact page if you have any questions or comments.

All the best,

Social Media

Facebook twitter.

Select your preferred language

Welcome to Kindle Direct Publishing

Illustration of a little girl looking into a body of water

Manuscript check

Maximize your chance of publication success with 30+ key manuscript language and technical checks!

How Paperpal for Manuscript works

Submit your research manuscript for a comprehensive check that identifies potential problem areas

Assess the edits suggested and see how your manuscript fares against key journal requirements

Get an edited version of your article with all errors marked up at just $19.

Trusted and celebrated by those who love research

“My article was not good. I thought of putting it through Paperpal, and now the article has been accepted for publication”

“What I love about Paperpal is that it has an element of context sensitivity. It understands the context in which the content is written and then gives suggestions”

“With Paperpal, I feel like some professors from university are sitting at the back and correcting things for me”

“I made a lot of mistakes when it came to articles, plural consistency and punctuations while writing papers. Paperpal was very good with correcting them”

“When our editors first saw Paperpal in action, they were blown away!”

“The best thing about Paperpal Word is that you get edits in real-time, and not when you’re done writing your document.”

Try Paperpal

Frequently Asked Questions

Who can benefit from using paperpal for manuscript, what makes paperpal better than other ai proofreading tools, what document types does paperpal support, will paperpal publish my manuscripts, how secure is my manuscript does paperpal use my data, how long will my data be stored can i delete files uploaded to paperpal, ready to get published.

Upload your manuscript to improve your chances of acceptance with a high-quality language edits and technical checks for submission-readiness.

Science News

A stylized illustration of a chip being placed into a brain

1st Neuralink user describes highs and lows of living with Elon Musk's brain chip

By Lauren Leffer published 9 June 24

Thirty-year-old Noland Arbaugh says the Neuralink chip has let him "reconnect with the world"

Earth's upper atmosphere could hold a missing piece of the universe, new study hints

By Paul Sutter published 9 June 24

Mysterious dark matter could slosh over our planet like a wave. If it does, it may produce telltale radio waves in Earth's atmosphere, new theoretical research suggests.

Beautiful Sunda Clouded Leopard (Neofelis diardi) in Deramakot Forest Reserve, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia.

Bornean clouded leopard family filmed in wild for 1st time ever

By Elise Poore published 9 June 24

Camera traps in Indonesian Borneo recorded a clouded leopard mother with her two cubs in first time footage of its kind.

Space photo of the week: James Webb and Chandra telescopes spot a 'lighthouse' pointed at Earth

By Jamie Carter published 9 June 24

Images from the James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory have been combined to reveal how the Crab Nebula's neutron star is changing.

close up on the exposed belly of a pregnant woman propped up on a hospital bed and wearing a gown

Epidurals may lower risk of complications after birth, study hints

By Miriam Bergeret published 8 June 24

Getting an epidural during labor was linked to a 35% reduction in severe maternal health complications in a new study, with even higher protective effects in people with preterm births.

A man holds a silver ingot in the palm of his hand. He is in a museum with Viking artifacts, including a boat.

Viking Age 'treasure' discovered by metal detectorist on Isle of Man

By Jennifer Nalewicki published 8 June 24

The silver ingot would have been used during the Viking Age in exchange for goods and services.

A curled up hagfish on the sandy sea floor.

Pacific Hagfish: The ancient deep-sea creature that can can choke a shark by spewing slime

By Melissa Hobson published 8 June 24

This eel-like fish lives on the seabed over 300 feet below the surface where it feasts on dead animals and protects itself from attack using a suffocating slime.

An artist's rendering of menacing alien monsters standing in a forest

What could aliens look like?

By Sarah Wells published 8 June 24

The search for alien life is one of humanity's greatest missions, but it may look nothing like anything we've seen on Earth.

computer illustration of a yellow fungus with branches and tiny nobs along its length

Rare fungal STI spotted in US for the 1st time

By Nicoletta Lanese published 7 June 24

A difficult-to-treat form of ringworm can spread via sex and has now been seen in the U.S.

A deep field image from JWST showing stars and galaxies

James Webb telescope finds carbon at the dawn of the universe, challenging our understanding of when life could have emerged

By Ben Turner published 7 June 24

The James Webb Space Telescope has found carbon in a galaxy just 350 million years after the Big Bang. That could mean life began much earlier too, a new study argues.

Model skeletons of a neanderthal and human

Neanderthals and humans interbred 47,000 years ago for nearly 7,000 years, research suggests

By Charles Q. Choi published 7 June 24

DNA from prehistoric and modern-day people suggests that humans interbred with Neanderthals 47,000 years ago for a period lasting 6,800 years.

A senior woman with long white hair peeks between her fingers at a birthday cake with candles

Epigenetics linked to the maximum life spans of mammals — including us

By Kamal Nahas last updated 7 June 24

Some chemical tags on DNA, called epigenetic factors, that are present at a young age can affect the maximum life spans of mammal species.

A close up of large, dark green cucumbers in a pile

Salmonella outbreak tied to cucumbers sickens 162

A company that ships whole cucumbers from Florida has recalled potentially contaminated produce.

Port of Tacoma at sunset with Mount Rainer in the background

'The difference between alarming and catastrophic': Cascadia megafault has 1 especially deadly section, new map reveals

By Stephanie Pappas published 7 June 24

The Cascadia subduction zone is more complex than researchers previously knew. The new finding could help scientists better understand the risk from future earthquakes.

A green comet in space with two long tails of light stretching in opposite directions

Explosive 'devil comet' grows seemingly impossible 2nd tail after close flyby of Earth — but it's not what it seems

By Harry Baker published 7 June 24

Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, also known as the devil comet, recently made its closest approach to Earth for more than 70 years. During this close encounter, astrophotographers spotted a seemingly impossible "anti-tail" coming off the comet thanks to an extremely rare optical illusion.

An asteroid orbiting the sun alongside Earth

New contest lets you name Earth's 1st 'quasi-moon' for free. Here's how to enter.

A new public competition will allow a lucky astronomy enthusiast to name one of Earth's tiny "quasi-moons." Here's everything you need to know about how to enter the competition for free.

Shigir Idol: World's oldest wood sculpture has mysterious carved faces and once stood 17 feet tall

By Jennifer Nalewicki published 7 June 24

Crafted out of the trunk of a larch tree, this towering figure features several human faces.

A bear charges at a tigress on a dirt road at Pilibhit Tiger Reserve in India.

Bear vs tiger: Watch 2 of nature's heavyweights face off in the wild in India

By Sascha Pare published 7 June 24

Visitors at a tiger reserve in India recently filmed an encounter between a tigress and a bear, with the bear charging after the tigress but deciding at the last minute it was not worth the fight.

Arctic 'zombie fires' rising from the dead could unleash vicious cycle of warming

By Sebastian Wieczorek, Eoin O'Sullivan, Kieran Mulchrone published 7 June 24

Zombie fires that burn underground over winter may be a case of climate change-driven spontaneous combustion, new research reveals.

photo of a young woman lying in bed and covering her face with a blanket, as if having woken up from a nightmare

Vivid nightmares precede lupus diagnosis by over a year in some patients

By Michael Schubert published 7 June 24

Some lupus patients report having nightmares just before a flare, and of these, some report starting to have bad dreams long before their actual lupus diagnosis.

View Archive

Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now

Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.

2 100-foot 'walking tree' in New Zealand looks like an Ent from Lord of the Rings — and is the lone survivor of a lost forest
3 A 'new star' could appear in the sky any night now. Here's how to see the Blaze Star ignite.
4 Why did Homo sapiens emerge in Africa?
5 Blood Falls: Antarctica's crimson waterfall forged from an ancient hidden heart
2 What could aliens look like?
3 Neanderthals and humans interbred 47,000 years ago for nearly 7,000 years, research suggests
4 Bear vs tiger: Watch 2 of nature's heavyweights face off in the wild in India
5 Rare fungal STI spotted in US for the 1st time

The state of AI in 2023: Generative AI’s breakout year

You have reached a page with older survey data. please see our 2024 survey results here ..

The latest annual McKinsey Global Survey on the current state of AI confirms the explosive growth of generative AI (gen AI) tools . Less than a year after many of these tools debuted, one-third of our survey respondents say their organizations are using gen AI regularly in at least one business function. Amid recent advances, AI has risen from a topic relegated to tech employees to a focus of company leaders: nearly one-quarter of surveyed C-suite executives say they are personally using gen AI tools for work, and more than one-quarter of respondents from companies using AI say gen AI is already on their boards’ agendas. What’s more, 40 percent of respondents say their organizations will increase their investment in AI overall because of advances in gen AI. The findings show that these are still early days for managing gen AI–related risks, with less than half of respondents saying their organizations are mitigating even the risk they consider most relevant: inaccuracy.

The organizations that have already embedded AI capabilities have been the first to explore gen AI’s potential, and those seeing the most value from more traditional AI capabilities—a group we call AI high performers—are already outpacing others in their adoption of gen AI tools. 1 We define AI high performers as organizations that, according to respondents, attribute at least 20 percent of their EBIT to AI adoption.

The expected business disruption from gen AI is significant, and respondents predict meaningful changes to their workforces. They anticipate workforce cuts in certain areas and large reskilling efforts to address shifting talent needs. Yet while the use of gen AI might spur the adoption of other AI tools, we see few meaningful increases in organizations’ adoption of these technologies. The percent of organizations adopting any AI tools has held steady since 2022, and adoption remains concentrated within a small number of business functions.

It’s early days still, but use of gen AI is already widespread
Leading companies are already ahead with gen AI
AI-related talent needs shift, and AI’s workforce effects are expected to be substantial
With all eyes on gen AI, AI adoption and impact remain steady

About the research

1. it’s early days still, but use of gen ai is already widespread.

The findings from the survey—which was in the field in mid-April 2023—show that, despite gen AI’s nascent public availability, experimentation with the tools is already relatively common, and respondents expect the new capabilities to transform their industries. Gen AI has captured interest across the business population: individuals across regions, industries, and seniority levels are using gen AI for work and outside of work. Seventy-nine percent of all respondents say they’ve had at least some exposure to gen AI, either for work or outside of work, and 22 percent say they are regularly using it in their own work. While reported use is quite similar across seniority levels, it is highest among respondents working in the technology sector and those in North America.

Organizations, too, are now commonly using gen AI. One-third of all respondents say their organizations are already regularly using generative AI in at least one function—meaning that 60 percent of organizations with reported AI adoption are using gen AI. What’s more, 40 percent of those reporting AI adoption at their organizations say their companies expect to invest more in AI overall thanks to generative AI, and 28 percent say generative AI use is already on their board’s agenda. The most commonly reported business functions using these newer tools are the same as those in which AI use is most common overall: marketing and sales, product and service development, and service operations, such as customer care and back-office support. This suggests that organizations are pursuing these new tools where the most value is. In our previous research , these three areas, along with software engineering, showed the potential to deliver about 75 percent of the total annual value from generative AI use cases.

In these early days, expectations for gen AI’s impact are high : three-quarters of all respondents expect gen AI to cause significant or disruptive change in the nature of their industry’s competition in the next three years. Survey respondents working in the technology and financial-services industries are the most likely to expect disruptive change from gen AI. Our previous research shows that, while all industries are indeed likely to see some degree of disruption, the level of impact is likely to vary. 2 “ The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier ,” McKinsey, June 14, 2023. Industries relying most heavily on knowledge work are likely to see more disruption—and potentially reap more value. While our estimates suggest that tech companies, unsurprisingly, are poised to see the highest impact from gen AI—adding value equivalent to as much as 9 percent of global industry revenue—knowledge-based industries such as banking (up to 5 percent), pharmaceuticals and medical products (also up to 5 percent), and education (up to 4 percent) could experience significant effects as well. By contrast, manufacturing-based industries, such as aerospace, automotives, and advanced electronics, could experience less disruptive effects. This stands in contrast to the impact of previous technology waves that affected manufacturing the most and is due to gen AI’s strengths in language-based activities, as opposed to those requiring physical labor.

Responses show many organizations not yet addressing potential risks from gen AI

According to the survey, few companies seem fully prepared for the widespread use of gen AI—or the business risks these tools may bring. Just 21 percent of respondents reporting AI adoption say their organizations have established policies governing employees’ use of gen AI technologies in their work. And when we asked specifically about the risks of adopting gen AI, few respondents say their companies are mitigating the most commonly cited risk with gen AI: inaccuracy. Respondents cite inaccuracy more frequently than both cybersecurity and regulatory compliance, which were the most common risks from AI overall in previous surveys. Just 32 percent say they’re mitigating inaccuracy, a smaller percentage than the 38 percent who say they mitigate cybersecurity risks. Interestingly, this figure is significantly lower than the percentage of respondents who reported mitigating AI-related cybersecurity last year (51 percent). Overall, much as we’ve seen in previous years, most respondents say their organizations are not addressing AI-related risks.

2. Leading companies are already ahead with gen AI

The survey results show that AI high performers—that is, organizations where respondents say at least 20 percent of EBIT in 2022 was attributable to AI use—are going all in on artificial intelligence, both with gen AI and more traditional AI capabilities. These organizations that achieve significant value from AI are already using gen AI in more business functions than other organizations do, especially in product and service development and risk and supply chain management. When looking at all AI capabilities—including more traditional machine learning capabilities, robotic process automation, and chatbots—AI high performers also are much more likely than others to use AI in product and service development, for uses such as product-development-cycle optimization, adding new features to existing products, and creating new AI-based products. These organizations also are using AI more often than other organizations in risk modeling and for uses within HR such as performance management and organization design and workforce deployment optimization.

AI high performers are much more likely than others to use AI in product and service development.

Another difference from their peers: high performers’ gen AI efforts are less oriented toward cost reduction, which is a top priority at other organizations. Respondents from AI high performers are twice as likely as others to say their organizations’ top objective for gen AI is to create entirely new businesses or sources of revenue—and they’re most likely to cite the increase in the value of existing offerings through new AI-based features.

As we’ve seen in previous years , these high-performing organizations invest much more than others in AI: respondents from AI high performers are more than five times more likely than others to say they spend more than 20 percent of their digital budgets on AI. They also use AI capabilities more broadly throughout the organization. Respondents from high performers are much more likely than others to say that their organizations have adopted AI in four or more business functions and that they have embedded a higher number of AI capabilities. For example, respondents from high performers more often report embedding knowledge graphs in at least one product or business function process, in addition to gen AI and related natural-language capabilities.

While AI high performers are not immune to the challenges of capturing value from AI, the results suggest that the difficulties they face reflect their relative AI maturity, while others struggle with the more foundational, strategic elements of AI adoption. Respondents at AI high performers most often point to models and tools, such as monitoring model performance in production and retraining models as needed over time, as their top challenge. By comparison, other respondents cite strategy issues, such as setting a clearly defined AI vision that is linked with business value or finding sufficient resources.

The findings offer further evidence that even high performers haven’t mastered best practices regarding AI adoption, such as machine-learning-operations (MLOps) approaches, though they are much more likely than others to do so. For example, just 35 percent of respondents at AI high performers report that where possible, their organizations assemble existing components, rather than reinvent them, but that’s a much larger share than the 19 percent of respondents from other organizations who report that practice.

Many specialized MLOps technologies and practices may be needed to adopt some of the more transformative uses cases that gen AI applications can deliver—and do so as safely as possible. Live-model operations is one such area, where monitoring systems and setting up instant alerts to enable rapid issue resolution can keep gen AI systems in check. High performers stand out in this respect but have room to grow: one-quarter of respondents from these organizations say their entire system is monitored and equipped with instant alerts, compared with just 12 percent of other respondents.

3. AI-related talent needs shift, and AI’s workforce effects are expected to be substantial

Our latest survey results show changes in the roles that organizations are filling to support their AI ambitions. In the past year, organizations using AI most often hired data engineers, machine learning engineers, and Al data scientists—all roles that respondents commonly reported hiring in the previous survey. But a much smaller share of respondents report hiring AI-related-software engineers—the most-hired role last year—than in the previous survey (28 percent in the latest survey, down from 39 percent). Roles in prompt engineering have recently emerged, as the need for that skill set rises alongside gen AI adoption, with 7 percent of respondents whose organizations have adopted AI reporting those hires in the past year.

The findings suggest that hiring for AI-related roles remains a challenge but has become somewhat easier over the past year, which could reflect the spate of layoffs at technology companies from late 2022 through the first half of 2023. Smaller shares of respondents than in the previous survey report difficulty hiring for roles such as AI data scientists, data engineers, and data-visualization specialists, though responses suggest that hiring machine learning engineers and AI product owners remains as much of a challenge as in the previous year.

Looking ahead to the next three years, respondents predict that the adoption of AI will reshape many roles in the workforce. Generally, they expect more employees to be reskilled than to be separated. Nearly four in ten respondents reporting AI adoption expect more than 20 percent of their companies’ workforces will be reskilled, whereas 8 percent of respondents say the size of their workforces will decrease by more than 20 percent.

Looking specifically at gen AI’s predicted impact, service operations is the only function in which most respondents expect to see a decrease in workforce size at their organizations. This finding generally aligns with what our recent research suggests: while the emergence of gen AI increased our estimate of the percentage of worker activities that could be automated (60 to 70 percent, up from 50 percent), this doesn’t necessarily translate into the automation of an entire role.

AI high performers are expected to conduct much higher levels of reskilling than other companies are. Respondents at these organizations are over three times more likely than others to say their organizations will reskill more than 30 percent of their workforces over the next three years as a result of AI adoption.

4. With all eyes on gen AI, AI adoption and impact remain steady

While the use of gen AI tools is spreading rapidly, the survey data doesn’t show that these newer tools are propelling organizations’ overall AI adoption. The share of organizations that have adopted AI overall remains steady, at least for the moment, with 55 percent of respondents reporting that their organizations have adopted AI. Less than a third of respondents continue to say that their organizations have adopted AI in more than one business function, suggesting that AI use remains limited in scope. Product and service development and service operations continue to be the two business functions in which respondents most often report AI adoption, as was true in the previous four surveys. And overall, just 23 percent of respondents say at least 5 percent of their organizations’ EBIT last year was attributable to their use of AI—essentially flat with the previous survey—suggesting there is much more room to capture value.

Organizations continue to see returns in the business areas in which they are using AI, and they plan to increase investment in the years ahead. We see a majority of respondents reporting AI-related revenue increases within each business function using AI. And looking ahead, more than two-thirds expect their organizations to increase their AI investment over the next three years.

The online survey was in the field April 11 to 21, 2023, and garnered responses from 1,684 participants representing the full range of regions, industries, company sizes, functional specialties, and tenures. Of those respondents, 913 said their organizations had adopted AI in at least one function and were asked questions about their organizations’ AI use. To adjust for differences in response rates, the data are weighted by the contribution of each respondent’s nation to global GDP.

The survey content and analysis were developed by Michael Chui , a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute and a partner in McKinsey’s Bay Area office, where Lareina Yee is a senior partner; Bryce Hall , an associate partner in the Washington, DC, office; and senior partners Alex Singla and Alexander Sukharevsky , global leaders of QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, based in the Chicago and London offices, respectively.

They wish to thank Shivani Gupta, Abhisek Jena, Begum Ortaoglu, Barr Seitz, and Li Zhang for their contributions to this work.

This article was edited by Heather Hanselman, an editor in the Atlanta office.

Explore a career with us

The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier

A green apple split into 3 parts on a gray background. Half of the apple is made out of a digital blue wireframe mesh.

What is generative AI?

Circular hub element virtual reality of big data, technology concept.

Exploring opportunities in the generative AI value chain

IMAGES

How to publish your First Research Paper? Step by Step Explained !
How to easily publish a research paper in journals 2023
Easy Steps to Publish a Project Paper for Students
How to publish your first Research Paper? Detailed Step by Step Procedure
How to publish your first research paper? Step-by-Step Start to End Instructions
How to Publish a Research Paper

VIDEO

How to Write and Publish a Research Paper
Expert Tips for Writing a Research Article for Publication
Achieving Success: Journal Publication Strategies
How to Publish a Technical Paper with IEEE
How to Publish Research Papers Successfully
How to write a research paper during bachelor’s degree?

COMMENTS

How to Publish a Research Paper: Your Step-by-Step Guide
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.
How to Publish a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide
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 ...
How to publish your research
The first step in publishing a research paper should always be selecting the journal you want to publish in. Choosing your target journal before you start writing means you can tailor your work to build on research that's already been published in that journal. This can help editors to see how a paper adds to the 'conversation' in their ...
The Academic's Guide to Self-Publishing
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.
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.
Publish with Elsevier: Step by step
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.
The 5 Best Platforms to Publish Your 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 ...
How to Write and Publish a Research Paper in 7 Steps
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.
How to Get Published
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. Browse our webinars.
Publish an article
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.
How to publish your paper
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 ...
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 ...
7 steps to publishing in a scientific journal
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.
Author Services
Your article is accepted. The next step is production. Copy editing begins, and we'll contact you with your proofs. You'll also sign a publishing agreement. If you submitted to an Open Select journal, now is the time to choose whether to publish your article open access. Find out what happens when your article is in production.
How to Write and Publish a Research Paper
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.
How to Get Published
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. Browse our webinars.
How to Publish a Research Paper in 5 Easy Steps
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.
Writing your paper
Before you start writing up your research, it's important to have a good idea of which journal you want your paper to be published in. When writing your paper you should keep the journal you are targeting in mind, to make sure the style, structure and audience are all a good fit. This helps the editor to see how your work matches with the ...
publications
Sure. Nobody gives a rat's patootie about the academic ranks of paper authors (at least in my field). I published sole-author papers as a graduate student. I have colleagues who published as undergraduates, and others who published with no university (or research lab, or corporate) affiliation at all. How to choose a research topic?
Publish Your Research Articles
Articles are published rapidly as soon as they are accepted, after passing a series of prepublication checks to assess originality, readability, author eligibility, and compliance with Health Open Research's policies and ethical guidelines. Peer review by invited experts, suggested by the authors, takes place openly after publication.
How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer ...
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 ...
How to Write a Research Paper
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.
How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper (Project ...
After writing the paper comes the time of reading your paper a few times in order to get everything perfect.In this section you will learn how to remove a lot of mistakes you might have been writing. In the end, you will have to build your own checklist corresponding to your own problems you want to avoid.
How To Write A Research Paper (FREE Template
Step 1: Find a topic and review the literature. As we mentioned earlier, in a research paper, you, as the researcher, will try to answer a question.More specifically, that's called a research question, and it sets the direction of your entire paper. What's important to understand though is that you'll need to answer that research question with the help of high-quality sources - for ...
Sharing and promoting your article
Showcasing yourself. Sharing and promoting your article form an important part of research, in terms of fostering the exchange of scientific information in your field and allowing your paper to contribute to wider scientific progress. In addition, bringing your research and accomplishments to the attention of a broader audience also makes you ...
Welcome to the Purdue Online Writing Lab
Mission. The Purdue On-Campus Writing Lab and Purdue Online Writing Lab assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement. The Purdue Writing Lab serves the Purdue, West Lafayette, campus and coordinates with local literacy initiatives.
Self Publishing
Publish print and digital formats in three simple steps, and see your book appear on Amazon stores around the world in 72 hours. Earn up to 70% royalty and offer your eBook on Kindle Unlimited by enrolling in KDP Select. Retain ownership of your content, publish on your schedule, and set your own list prices.
Manuscript Checker
How Paperpal for Manuscript works. 1. Upload your manuscript. Submit your research manuscript for a comprehensive check that identifies potential problem areas. 2. Preview edit suggestions. Assess the edits suggested and see how your manuscript fares against key journal requirements. 3. Get improved article.
Science news, expert analysis and the latest discoveries
The latest science news and groundbreaking discoveries, with expert analysis and interesting articles on today\'s most important events and breakthroughs.
The state of AI in 2023: Generative AI's breakout year
Source: McKinsey Global Survey on AI, 1,684 participants at all levels of the organization, April 11-21, 2023. McKinsey & Company. Organizations, too, are now commonly using gen AI. One-third of all respondents say their organizations are already regularly using generative AI in at least one function—meaning that 60 percent of organizations ...

How to Write and Publish Your Research in a Journal

Choosing a Journal

Things You Should Know

Expert Q&A

About This Article

Reader Success Stories

Did this article help you?

Featured Articles

Trending Articles

Watch Articles

How to Publish a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide

Jordan Kruszynski

Understanding the Publishing Process

Step 1: Preparing Your Research Paper

Step 2: Finding the Right Journal

Step 3: Crafting a Strong Manuscript

Step 4: Navigating the Peer-Review Process

Step 5: Submitting Your Paper

Step 6: Dealing with Rejections and Revising Your Paper

Final Thoughts

Table of Contents

Behind the Scenes: What Does a Research Assistant Do?

How to Write a Research Paper Introduction: Hook, Line, and Sinker

Discover more from Audemic: Access any academic research via audio

How to Publish a Research Paper – Step by Step Guide

How to Publish a Research Paper

How to Choose Journal for Research Paper Publication

List of Journals for Research Paper Publications

List of Conferences for Research Paper Publications

How to Publish a Research Paper in Journal

How to Publish a Research Paper for Students

How to Publish a Research Paper for Free

Journals and Conferences for Free Research Paper publications

Importance of Research Paper Publication

Advantages of Research Paper Publication

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

You may also like

Research Paper Introduction – Writing Guide and...

Significance of the Study – Examples and Writing...

Research Methodology – Types, Examples and...

Research Contribution – Thesis Guide

How to Cite Research Paper – All Formats and...

Research Paper Title – Writing Guide and Example

The 5 Best Platforms to Publish Your Academic Research

How to Identify the Best Platforms for Publishing

The 5 Best Platforms to Publish Academic Research

ScienceOpen

Orvium Makes Choosing a Platform Easy

Subscribe to our newsletter

Leyre Martínez

How to Write a Research Funding Application | Orvium

Increasing Representation and Diversity in Research with Open Science | Orvium

Your Guide to Open Access Week 2023

How to Write and Publish a Research Paper in 7 Steps

1. Check Whether Your Research Is Publication-Ready

2. Choose An Article Type

3. Choose a Journal

4. Construct Your Paper

4.1 The Title

4.2 The Abstract

4.3 Keywords

4.4 Introduction

4.5 Methods

4.6 Results

4.7 Discussion

4.8 Conclusion

4.9 Acknowledgments and Ethical Statements

4.10 References

5. Decide the Order of Authors

6. Check and Double-Check

7. Submit Your Paper

If you are interested, check out this related blog post

You might also be interested in

Library Community Gives Back: 2023 Webinar Speakers’ Charity Picks

Pin It on Pinterest

You are here

Getting started

Promoting your article

How to Get Your Journal Article Published guide