(An essay -How to write an academic paper (part 1: Good method

Today, one of the most difficult challenges for student is writing an academic paper. While knowledge and oratory are what students need more in the professional world, writing a research paper demands more than these two skill.

there are significant differences between the ways that researchers from different disciplines (for example medical, mathematical and sociological) write and construct their articles. However, whatever field you are in, the rules of well-structured paper in English are the same: clarity, logic, conciseness (no redundancy), no ambiguity, and the highest level of readability possible.  

 This essay is aimed at students or researchers in any field of study who wish to write a research paper in English. This article is useful for both inexperienced and experienced authors (also authors whose first language are English or not). It helps You to increase your chances of acceptance of your manuscript.  

The essay is divided into several parts and each part will be published every Tuesday through this weblog.

Part 1:

Planning and Preparation

To write a perfect scientific article in good clear English you should to have a method. If you don’t have a good method, you may waste a lot of time having to re-plan and re-write entire sections of your paper.

This part proposed some tips and steps to follow and things to think about before you begin the writing process.

What the experts say

“The writing of an accurate, understandable paper is just as important as the research itself.”

Robert A Day, How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper

1.1 Think about why you want to publish your research

You will be more motivated to write a good paper, if you have thought about exactly why you want to have your research published. One of your reasons will probably be because you believe you can make a contribution to a gap in the current knowledge base of your field. It helps if you can write down concisely what this contribution is, and then double check that your proposed contribution really is original.

1.2 Give yourself enough time to plan and write your manuscript

Allow at least twice as much time as you think it will take.

1.3 Choose an appropriate journal, preferably with a high impact factor

Your progress in academia very much depends on your ability to publish in journals that have a high impact factor. The higher the impact factor, the more widely read the journal is, and the more likely other researchers will cite your paper.

If you have never written a paper before and your supervisor has not indicated a specific journal where he/she would like you to publish, it is a good idea to ask colleagues in your research group what they read and what sort of publications they aspire to publish in.

1.4 Download the instructions for authors from your chosen journal and from a high impact journal in the same field

Each journal has its own requirements and style guide. These instructions tend to have different titles, for example: ‘instructions for authors’, ‘notes for authors’, ‘author guidelines’. They often appear under a page called ‘author resources’.

It is vital that you rigorously follow your chosen journal’s instructions to authors. So download these instructions from the journal’s website before you start writing.

If you opt for a low impact journal, you will still find it very useful to look at the instructions of an equivalent high impact journal. Higher impact journals tend to have better author resources, which are useful for all authors, not just for those in the specific field of the journal itself.

1.5 Read and analyze papers for your literature review, and note how they are structured

Once you have chosen your journal, look at the most frequently cited papers to see how the authors rationalize the various steps of their research. Try to use papers that you will probably quote in your section on the review of the literature, and which are highly relevant to your topic and/or classic papers in your general field.

For example, you could create a table with some or all of the following headings:

      ·         problem that the research addresses

      ·         background information and relevant references

      ·         elements that validate the level of innovation of the research

      ·         conceptual model, methodology or procedure that the research takes into         consideration

      ·         materials, equipment and software used

      ·         method used and the operational steps that the author carried out

      ·         results achieved

      ·         analysis and interpretation of these results

      ·         strengths and weaknesses of the research, the insights demonstrated

      ·         implications for further research

Then you can fill in your table with brief notes for each of the papers you have analyzed.

This analysis should help you to:

1. write your own literature review, because after this analysis you will be very familiar with the literature

2. identify the differences in other researchers’ approaches and results compared to your research

3. note down the strengths and weaknesses (including possibly bias) in the work of others

These three points should enable you to understand in what ways your research is unique, innovative, interesting and useful, and how it extends what is already in the literature. Your aim is to find a knowledge gap to fill.

1.6 Identify what the editor is looking for

the editors of the journal are looking for some things in the in manuscripts to enable them to keep their readership levels high.

Below are some of the typical things:

type of paper: Original research, or a systematic review, or a position paper etc.

subject:  Hot topic (contemporary issues), original and innovative; or controversial; or classic.

Aim:  Clarity of purpose, i.e. the research objectives are clear.

Research:  Well conducted, methodology clear, ethical, reproducible, no bias, limitations admitted

Results:  In line with research objective; entirely new or confirmation of other results already published in the same journal; not too broad as to be meaningless; can be generalized outside your very specific field.

Length of paper:  Short or long.

Style:  Personal (we, I), or impersonal (exclusively passive form), or mix (personal and impersonal).

1.7 Choose one paper as a model and note down useful phrases

Choose one paper that is close to your topic, that is written by a native English speaker, and that you enjoyed reading. As you read your model paper, note down some useful English phrases that the author uses. Such phrases will help to increase the readability of your text, as they will be familiar to your readers.

1.8 Think about the order in which to write the various sections3

There is no standard order in which you should write the various sections of your paper. You should choose the order that suits you best. This may involve writing several sections simultaneously.

Many authors start with the Methods, which is often the easiest section to write because this is the part that will usually be clearest in your mind.

In reality, it is best to start with the Abstract as this will help you to focus / orient your ideas on what are the key aspects of your research.

The hardest part for most authors is the Discussion where you have to interpret your results and compare them with other authors’ results.

A typical order for writing the various sections is thus:

• Abstract (very rough draft)
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Introduction
• Conclusions
• Abstract (final version)

1.9 Create separate files for each section  

If you decide to write several sections simultaneously, it helps to create files for each section. Then for each file write down a list of the key concepts you want to cover. You can write these down as notes in a random order. Often, as you are writing one section you will think of things that you need to put into other sections. Consequently, it may help to have all the files open so that you can quickly add to them whenever you need to.

1.10 Chat with non-experts

Some researchers find it hard to write the first words of a new paper. This is often because you don’t have clear ideas in your head. So it may be useful simply to talk about your research with a friend or member of your family. To explain your research to such non experts really forces you to think about what is and is not important about your methodology and findings. After you have had this nontechnical ‘chat’, you can write down some notes, which you can then insert into the relevant section files.

Chatting with friends and family also gives you some idea about how hard or easy it is for non-experts to understand your subject.

1.11 Give mini presentations to colleagues

Before you begin writing, give an oral presentation of your methods and results to your colleagues. These colleagues can then give you useful comments and criticisms.

1.12 Decide what your key findings are and whether you really have a contribution to make

before you start writing you need to have an absolutely clear idea of:

•        what your research goal was
•      what your most important findings are and how you can demonstrate that they are true
•        how these findings differ from, and add to, previous knowledge

You must give the reader a clear message.

Make a list of your key findings and choose the most important ones to fit the space you have available.

1.13 For each section, think about how you can highlight your key findings

While you are planning what to put in each section, think of where and how you can highlight your contribution. It may help you to imagine that the reader has asked you these questions:

1. what problem are you trying to solve / investigate?

2. how did you solve / investigate it?

3. how does your solution / investigation differ from previous approaches?

4. what did you discover?

5. how do your findings differ from what is already in the literature, and what do they mean?

1.14 Always have the referees in mind

It is crucial to write your paper with the referees in mind. They are the ones that decide the fate (outcome) of your paper.

Referee 1 (R1): Top experts currently working in your field

These are the ones to whom most journal editors try to send manuscripts for review. They are the experts that know most about the topic and are therefore most suitable to carry out a peer review of your paper. Such referees tend to be most interested in whether the paper makes sense from a scientific point of view. They may be less concerned with language errors, provided such errors do not impede on their understanding your paper. They do not normally have time to make a detailed analysis of every sentence you write.

Referee 2 (R2): Retired experts

These referees are like R1s, but they have a lot more time on their hands, because they are no longer officially working. Because they have more time, they tend to enter into much greater detail, both from a scientific and language point of view.

Referee 3 (R3): PhD students

With the advent of so many online journals, more and more papers are being published every day. This means that top experts are in great demand. Rather than refusing an editor’s request for them to do a review, they sometimes ask permission to pass the paper on to one of their PhD students. This is often the case when reviews are requested for low impact / low ranked journals. Clearly, a PhD student’s knowledge of your topic maybe less than your own, though this does not mean that they are unable to make a good evaluation of your work.

You need to keep all these types of referee happy!

1.15 Referees and English level

It is possible to write a paper in completely accurate English, but still have a paper rejected for poor writing skills - which is what happens even to native English researchers. On the other hand, a paper that is constructed well, and is easy to read, may be accepted (perhaps with some requests for minor revisions) even if the English is not totally accurate.

In my experience native referees tend to be more interested in how the paper flows and how easy it is to read. Non-native referees seem to focus more grammatical and vocabulary mistakes, so very accurate English is important in order to keep them satisfied too.

1.16 How to keep the referees happy

1.              Remember that a referee has no obligation to review your paper.
2.             Write in a way that a non-expert or less experienced person can understand.
3.         Make your paper interesting enough for an expert.
4.             Look at the forms used in referees’ reports.

1.17 Write directly in English and find ways to improve your writing skills

Write directly in English rather than in your native language. This may be hard at the beginning. But with a model paper written by a native English speaker in front of you, which you can follow step by step, it should be quicker than translating from your own language.

1.18 Consult online resources

You can find more specific advice for your specific field by searching on the web.

Jokar, A.

Email: [e-mail]