Writing for Publication: Part 5

Office of Graduate Studies Author

12/22/2016 Added

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Part 5 of an 8-part Writing for Publication workshop presented by Dr. Brian Waters

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[00:00:02.914]So let's talk about the mechanics
[00:00:04.270]of preparing a manuscript.
[00:00:09.523]So, here's the slide, the process.
[00:00:13.097]We're going to start talking about this area,
[00:00:16.168]prewriting and drafting.
[00:00:17.711]So, we've talked some about drafting,
[00:00:19.640]about how to structure your article to tell a good story,
[00:00:23.693]but let's talk about the mechanics of actually doing it.
[00:00:26.915]So, some of you may have not prepared articles yet,
[00:00:29.890]some of you may have already done this.
[00:00:32.350]So, we're going to talk about the prewriting stage now.
[00:00:37.743]So, we've already talked about searching for the best match
[00:00:40.954]of topic audience and journal.
[00:00:45.025]We've talked about those strategies,
[00:00:48.043]and I showed you how to find the instructions for authors.
[00:00:51.366]So, before you start writing the paper,
[00:00:53.592]it's advisable to get those instructions, you know,
[00:00:58.517]choose the journal before you write the paper,
[00:01:01.617]and read those instructions carefully,
[00:01:04.991]because you need to follow them so you don't get rejected
[00:01:08.077]before review for technical reasons, and so,
[00:01:11.939]these instructions are going to tell you things like
[00:01:14.782]how to format the title page.
[00:01:17.964]So, if you haven't submitted a manuscript before,
[00:01:21.528]you don't send it in looking like the final article.
[00:01:25.149]You'll just send it in as a Word file,
[00:01:28.611]but that Word file needs to be formatted in certain ways.
[00:01:31.858]So, each journal has a specific title page format.
[00:01:36.267]They'll tell you whether or not they require keywords
[00:01:41.237]and how to use those.
[00:01:42.911]They'll give you instructions for the abstract length
[00:01:45.503]and the format of the abstract.
[00:01:48.250]Some journals have different formats.
[00:01:52.228]They'll tell you if there are word limits,
[00:01:53.954]and if so, what they are,
[00:01:55.662]and which file formats they'll take for the main body
[00:01:59.653]of the paper, for the figures, for the supplemental data,
[00:02:03.479]or supplemental data sets.
[00:02:05.689]So, that's important.
[00:02:08.502]And, if you're not already, I very strongly recommend
[00:02:13.367]that you use reference manager software.
[00:02:17.013]You can get this for free from the libraries.
[00:02:19.430]You can get RefWorks, and maybe one other one,
[00:02:22.019]from the libraries, but using this,
[00:02:25.437]it'll take you maybe one or two hours to learn
[00:02:27.650]how to use the reference managing software,
[00:02:30.617]but it will allow you to easily comply to the journal format
[00:02:34.465]for the references, and you don't have to type it up
[00:02:38.363]in a certain format, and if you change target journals,
[00:02:43.396]then you can automatically change the formatting
[00:02:46.383]of the references.
[00:02:48.037]So, you don't want to spend two days sitting
[00:02:51.358]and reformatting all the references;
[00:02:53.634]just use the software from the beginning
[00:02:55.709]and you won't have to deal with that.
[00:02:59.549]Okay, so this is back to the journal, Experimental Botany,
[00:03:02.737]instructions to authors,
[00:03:04.982]and I've scrolled down the page a ways,
[00:03:07.269]and now you can see the instructions
[00:03:09.463]for the presentations of manuscripts.
[00:03:12.610]You can see the instructions for the manuscript files
[00:03:16.574]and the specific information, and then they tell you all
[00:03:20.516]of the sections that the articles need to be in.
[00:03:25.806]So, the title page, the abstract, the introduction,
[00:03:29.880]and materials and methods, results, discussion,
[00:03:34.473]supplementary data, acknowledgements, references, tables,
[00:03:37.826]figure legends, and then figures.
[00:03:39.387]They want it in that order, so if you don't put it
[00:03:42.244]in the right order, you might get it rejected immediately.
[00:03:47.161]So, there's a lot of instructions here.
[00:03:51.083]It's probably seven or eight printed pages of instructions,
[00:03:54.790]but it's important to get those instructions early
[00:03:57.697]and follow them.
[00:03:58.931]That'll save you a lot of time.
[00:04:03.759]Okay, so, authorship.
[00:04:06.921]It's advisable that you decide who are all of the authors
[00:04:11.208]and the order they'll be in, before you start writing.
[00:04:15.841]That's a really good idea.
[00:04:17.689]It avoids arguments and problems and conflicts later,
[00:04:23.848]and the co-authors should be everyone
[00:04:27.423]that contributed significantly to the research, design,
[00:04:32.266]or major aspects of the writing, okay,
[00:04:35.578]but the co-authors should not be people
[00:04:38.947]that only helped you in editing;
[00:04:40.750]they can earn an acknowledgement,
[00:04:42.164]but they're probably not a co-author;
[00:04:45.766]or people that you just hired to collect data
[00:04:48.590]and they don't have input before or after that.
[00:04:53.376]Ethically, they should not be included as co-authors.
[00:04:57.814]And all of the co-authors should read
[00:04:59.643]and approve the final version of the manuscript,
[00:05:02.478]so they all have equal responsibility for what is said
[00:05:07.102]in this manuscript.
[00:05:10.445]This is the authorship statement from another journal
[00:05:13.061]in my field; it's called Plant Physiology;
[00:05:17.086]and they have a specific statement in their instructions
[00:05:20.459]about who can be authors.
[00:05:23.404]So it says, authorship credit should be based only
[00:05:26.551]on substantial contributions to, A, conception and design,
[00:05:32.020]or analysis and interpretation of data;
[00:05:35.607]B, on drafting the article or revising it critically
[00:05:39.476]for important intellectual content, so that's not editing
[00:05:43.225]for grammar and spelling, that's revising it critically;
[00:05:47.126]and C, on final approval of the version to be published;
[00:05:50.930]and conditions A, B, and C must all be met.
[00:05:54.461]So, that's a very stringent requirement for authors,
[00:05:58.789]and so, you should see what your statement is
[00:06:03.698]in the target journal.
[00:06:04.771]Make sure you follow that.
[00:06:09.557]Also think about using the parts of your article
[00:06:14.413]to market itself.
[00:06:16.779]So, your goal as an author is to bring in as many readers
[00:06:21.208]as you possibly can.
[00:06:22.479]You want your journal article to be cited widely
[00:06:25.351]and read widely.
[00:06:27.253]So, think about the title.
[00:06:29.919]The title should attract readers and generate interest
[00:06:33.697]from editors and reviewers.
[00:06:35.741]The title should give the reader a good idea
[00:06:38.397]of what's going to be in the article.
[00:06:40.765]It also should separate your article from others
[00:06:43.914]in the field, so they should know what's new and different,
[00:06:48.738]just from the title, and you should strive to use specific
[00:06:53.675]rather than general terms.
[00:06:55.565]So if it's too general, then you don't have a good idea
[00:06:59.223]of what it's about.
[00:07:02.555]If the journal asks for keywords,
[00:07:05.777]you should try to choose keywords that are not in the title,
[00:07:09.128]because you'll have more searchable terms that way.
[00:07:12.440]If you just repeat words that are in the title,
[00:07:14.451]then you have fewer searchable terms.
[00:07:18.465]And the abstract is really important, too.
[00:07:22.558]So, some people think of it as an afterthought, you know,
[00:07:25.220]I just have to write this short thing
[00:07:27.543]before I submit the paper,
[00:07:29.457]but think about it as an advertisement for your article,
[00:07:33.855]so when people are on Google Scholar or Web of Science
[00:07:37.590]or whatever index is in your field,
[00:07:40.948]first they'll see the title, then they'll click on that,
[00:07:44.880]they'll see the abstract, and so,
[00:07:47.618]this is the first part also that the reviewers will see,
[00:07:52.547]and so, in terms of reviewers,
[00:07:54.570]it gives them an impression immediately about what to expect
[00:07:58.950]in the article, and in terms of potential readers,
[00:08:03.635]once they read the abstract, they're going to say,
[00:08:05.795]is this worth my time to read the full paper or not?
[00:08:09.881]So, if the abstract is not very attracting,
[00:08:14.229]then they may not read the rest of the paper.
[00:08:20.040]Okay, so the abstracts for research papers,
[00:08:24.408]this is typically what you should include,
[00:08:27.162]basically all of the parts of the full paper,
[00:08:30.977]but in 200 or 250 words.
[00:08:35.259]It's very difficult to do that,
[00:08:37.146]but you do need to include the background;
[00:08:40.396]the question or purpose, the research question
[00:08:42.990]or the purpose of the study; the experimental approach,
[00:08:47.895]obviously very briefly, you're naming the approach,
[00:08:51.694]you're not giving methods here; you give the key results
[00:08:56.053]and the key conclusions, and tell the significance
[00:09:00.454]of your work.
[00:09:03.369]These are all the parts that we talked about
[00:09:05.197]in the hourglass.
[00:09:06.976]Somehow, you have to squeeze those into the abstract, too.
[00:09:12.389]Okay, so these are instructions for another journal
[00:09:16.209]in my field; it's called New Phytologist;
[00:09:19.195]and these are the instructions for their abstract.
[00:09:21.503]They call it a summary.
[00:09:23.655]And so, the summary for research papers,
[00:09:26.428]which must be usable as a stand-alone document,
[00:09:29.740]must not exceed 200 words,
[00:09:32.373]and should be organized using four bullet points
[00:09:36.603]to indicate.
[00:09:37.827]So it's not a paragraph, it's four bullet points.
[00:09:40.723]So, to indicate the research conducted,
[00:09:43.028]including the rationale, the methods, the key results,
[00:09:47.781]and the main conclusion, including the key points
[00:09:50.559]of discussion, all in 200 words.
[00:09:54.324]So, that's a challenge.
[00:09:57.899]And you don't put citations in the abstract.
[00:10:02.321]Okay, so here's a sample.
[00:10:03.730]We're not going to read this whole thing,
[00:10:05.905]but if you just glance at this paragraph,
[00:10:08.912]you can see that they've managed to put all of the parts
[00:10:13.118]into this very small paragraph.
[00:10:14.906]They have the background, they have the purpose
[00:10:17.627]or research question, they have the approach,
[00:10:20.595]they have the results, and they have the significance
[00:10:24.135]of the work.
[00:10:27.321]So, it's all there.
[00:10:31.395]You also need to prepare a cover letter with the manuscript,
[00:10:35.885]and the cover letter should be fairly short.
[00:10:38.759]The only person that's going to read it, or maybe two,
[00:10:42.529]editors at the journal, but you need to explain
[00:10:46.398]to the editor why your work is important to your field,
[00:10:50.778]why it advances knowledge, and why it's relevant
[00:10:53.568]to that journal.
[00:10:55.153]So, this is basically what the editor will use to decide
[00:11:00.510]if it's going to be reviewed or rejected at that point.
[00:11:05.639]They have the option to do that.
[00:11:08.137]And keep in mind your audience for the cover letter.
[00:11:11.506]The audience would be the editor,
[00:11:13.717]and the editors only want to publish papers
[00:11:16.478]that are going to be cited, so you need to convince them
[00:11:20.734]that your paper is important to your field
[00:11:22.879]and is going to generate citations,
[00:11:26.310]by talking about these three items.

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Writing for Publication: Part 5

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