Writing Course

How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper (Project-Centered Course)

Week1

为什么要发表文章

To share your results to your scientific commnuity. 分享成果给同行并得到反馈，提高自我影响力。 To contribute to the human knowledge!

了解期刊和投稿

1. 了解期刊如何运行：peer review system
2. 了解如何评判一共期刊的好坏
3. Submission: 第一要知道期刊的收稿范畴是由主编和编辑的研究领域所决定的，所以必须要了解主编和编辑的研究方向，以确定自己的文章是否对口；第二，查看期刊被引用最多的文章类型，确保自己手稿中也引用了这些文章。因为这样做可以表示你是圈内人士，大家具有共同语言。

Ethical Guidelines

1. 避免利益冲突
2. 避免学术不端（引用是尤其需要注意的问题）

Week2

Know your paper! What is my paper about? So what?

You have to answer the question: So what? Learn how to organize your answers into a paper properly

1. Is it worthy to write about? What could I contribute to my research filed and community if I write it?
2. Who should I discuss with ?
3. What kind of paper do I want to write?
4. Know compatibility between paper and journal

How to: the literature review 1/2: find a good literature review

• 我们站在巨人的肩膀上。
• 我们需要了解巨人（前人的研究到了什么水平）
• 也需要知道我们在巨人的肩膀上前进了有多少步，往哪个方向前进的（实证研究？新观点？新方法？新研究背景？）？

How to: the literature review 2/2: construction of your own literature review

Goals of literature review:

• Identify the knowledge frontier and what needs to be stduied
• Identify the context of your research question/research problem
• Identify key words, varibles linked to your research question/research, and their potential relationships
• Establish the relationships between theorietical frames on one part and empirical considerations on the other

How to search references(papers/handbooks/review):

• Transfer your subject to key words
• Goggle scholar
• Store the references you found and organize them according to your interests

How to the research design: How to build a research quetion from the gap?

The research quetion should be the Highlight of your paper

如何从前人文献中挖研究点？The “gap” By filling the gap in the literature, you can really contribute to your scientific commnuity.

• Has it already been done? It must have not been done!
• Is it possible to go further in this direction in an original way?

How to the gap? Coherence of the research design

Here are a few questions that you can ask yourself to ensure your research design is coherent:

1. is my problematic coherent with the literature strand I chose for theoretical anchorage? Introduction
2. is my methodology compatible with the problematic I established? Method
3. do I enrich the comprehension of the literature with the discussion of my results? Results and Discussion

By asking these quetions and solving them, we can clarify our research question:

• clear
• coherent
• concise

Week3 Writing the paper: things you need to knowledge

3.1 The structure of an academic paper

• Title
• Abstract
• Keywords
• Introduction: Literature review, Limits of previous studies, Research question
• Method: Konw what your target journals expect to see in your method
• Results
• Discussion : explain what you found, and how your findings contribute to your scientific commnuity
• Conclusion
• References
• Other: figures/tables/appendix

3.2 Preliminary advice on writing an academic paper

• Writing order: write the introduction, conclusion and adstract at last
• Write for your community!
• The first sentence of your introduction is very important!
• Write the abstract and introduction according to the MRCI framwork
  1. M: Motivation - What is the motivation of your topic ? Explain why there is a real gap in the literature ? Why your research question is an interesting one, relevant one or an important one ? Why your research is necessary ? Why no one has done it before ?
  2. R: Results - What are your findings?
  3. C: Contribution - How do your results (theoretical, empirical or methodological) contribute to the ongoing research or previous literature? Empirical involves bringing up new data or highlighting new phenomenon. Methodological would involve a new design method that is better than others or complementary to others.
  4. I : Implications - Are there any implications of your work for future research ?
• The literature review is also a political act. By choosing whom you are quoting, you are choosing side in the research community. So treat carefully and make sure you’re not omitting any key reference.

3.3 How to the bibilography

Master how to use Endnote!

3.4 How to the abstract

• Important! Edition in chief generally focus on this part
• The features of an abstract:
  • short length
  • Preface of your article
  • Plan of your article

• The structure of abstract: MRCI

• Check by the following questions:
  1. Who are the intended readers?
  2. What did you do?
  3. Why did you do it?
  4. What happened when you did that?
  5. What do your results mean in practice and in theory?
  6. What are the key benefits for the readers?
  7. What remains unsolved?

Week4 After the writing: the check list

4.1 How to avoid being boring?

• Common mistakes should be avoided
• Content mistakes (not coherent)
  • Do you pass the so what test?
  • Does the problematic remains the same throughout the paper?
  • is the paper title coherent?
  • are the keywords adequate?
  • Is the content of your research coherent with the aims and scopes of the journal you are targeting.
  • Ask peers help to check the paper
• How to be boring (should be avoided)?
  1. Not being consistent
  2. Not being original (just copy others’ views)
  3. Implication of your work
  4. No illustration
  5. Being too concise
  6. Being too exhaustive

4.2 The main mistakes to look for: format

1. Improper language The Grammar of Mathematics: Writing About Variables
2. Spelling mistakes

4.3 Constructing your checklist

Each scientific community and sometimes even journal in the same field have their own particular rules.

Your paper should follow the rules! Konw it and follow it.

References

• How to avoid being boring
• References (Reading)

Many articles try to take into account the mistakes you can make, here are a few: Boring papers: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0030-1299.2007.15674.x/epdf Avoiding mistakes: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3474299/pdf/ijspt-07-518.pdf ; http://www.iemss.org/sites/iemss2012/images/WS_J2_Volk_Lautenbach_pdf.pdf

There are a lot of reasons why an article can be rejected from a journal, here are exemples taken from the publisher websites: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3035881/pdf/JYPharm-2-3.pdf https://www.elsevier.com/connect/8-reasons-i-rejected-your-article

• http://cse.unl.edu/~ssamal/wiki/index.php?title=Writing_a_Scientific_Paper
• A comic point of view of how to write the abstract: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1121
• APA writing style https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/08/the-grammar-of-mathematics-writing-about-variables.html

Standford Writing Courses by Kristin Sainani

Introduction

1. What makes good writing? 1. express your idea clearly and effectively (focus on this point)
   1. Good writing is elegant and stylish
2. What makes a good writer? Good training to think logically, and a few simple, learnable rules of style
3. How many steps to be a good writer?
   1. Reading
   2. Write
   3. ‘academic’ writing habits
   4. Talk about your research before trying to write about it
   5. Write to engage your readers–try not to bore them
   6. No waiting! Just write it
   7. Accept that writing is hard for everyone
   8. Revise, Revise and revise
   9. Learn how to cut ruthlessly.
   10. Find a good editor!

Examples

Basic principles

1. For the first sentence of your paper, ask yourself
   1. Is it eary to understand?
   2. Is it interesting and enjoyable to read? It shoud be!
2. Avoid using nons, and write with verbs. And don’t cover up your verbs!
3. Use the active voice: subject + verb + object

Cut the clutter

1. On well writing by Zinsser William: “The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be shorter, every adverb that····that weanken the strength of a sentence”