Book Overview

Writing scientific research articles: Strategy and steps guides authors in how to write, as well as what to write, to improve their chances of having their articles accepted for publication. The book is designed for scientists who use English as a first or an additional language; for research students and those who teach them paper writing skills; and for early-career researchers wanting to hone their skills as authors and mentors. It provides clear processes for selecting target journals and writing each section of a manuscript, starting with the results. The stepwise learning process uses practical exercises to develop writing and data presentation skills through analysis of well-written example papers. Strategies are presented for responding to referee comments, as well as ideas for developing discipline-specific English language skills for manuscript writing. The book is designed for use by individuals or in a class setting.

At the end of the book are two example article exercises. More example exercises are available on this website in different scientific disciplines. Click here or on the navigation bar to the left to access these extra exercises.

Table of Contents

Section 1 A framework for success

1 How the book is organised, and why
1.1 Getting started with writing for international publication
1.2 Publishing in the international literature
1.3 Aims of this book
1.4 How the book is structured
2 Research article structures
2.1 Conventional article structure: AIMRaD (Abstract, Introduction,
Materials and methods, Results, and Discussion) and its variations
3 Referees' criteria for evaluating manuscripts
3.1 Titles

Section 2 When and how to write each article section

4 Results as a "story" : The key driver of an article
5 Results: turning data into knowledge
5.1 Figure, table, or text?
5.2 Designing figures
5.3 Designing tables
5.4 Figure legends and table titles
6 Writing about results
6.1 Functions of results sentences
6.2 Verb tense in Results sections
7 The Methods section
7.1 Purpose of the Methods section
7.2 Organizing Methods sections
7.3 Use of passive and active verbs
8 The Introduction
8.1 Five stages to a compelling Introduction
8.2 Stage 1: Locating your project within an existing field of scientific research
8.3 Using references in Stages 2 and 3
8.4 Avoiding plagiarism when using others' work
8.5 Indicating the gap or research niche
8.6 Stage 4: The statement of purpose or main activity
8.7 Suggested process for drafting an Introduction
8.8 Editing for logical flow
9 The Discussion section
9.1 Important issues
9.2 Information elements to highlight the key messages
9.3 Negotiating the strength of claims
10 The title
10.1 Strategy 1: Provide as much relevant information as possible, but be concise
10.2 Strategy 2: Use keywords prominently
10.3 Strategy 3: Choose strategically: noun phrase, statement, or question?
10.4 Strategy 4: Avoid ambiguity in noun phrases
11 The Abstract
11.1 Why Abstracts are so important
11.2 Selecting additional keywords
11.3 Abstracts: typical information elements

Section 3 Getting your manuscript published

12 Considerations when selecting a target journal
12.1 The scope and aims of the journal
12.2 The audience for the journal
12.3 Journal impact
12.4 Using indices of journal quality
12.5 Time to publication
12.6 Page charges or Open Access costs
13 Submitting a manuscript
13.1 Five practices of successful authors
13.2 Understanding the peer-review process
13.3 Understanding the editor's role
13.4 The contributor's covering letter
13.5 Understanding the reviewer's role
13.6 Understanding the editor's role (continued)
14 How to respond to editors and referees
14.1 Rules of thumb
14.2 How to deal with manuscript rejection
14.3 How to deal with ''conditional acceptance'' or ''revise and resubmit''
15 A process for preparing a manuscript
15.1 Initial preparation steps
15.2 Editing procedures
15.3 A pre-review checklist

Section 4 Developing your publication skills further

16 Skill-development strategies for groups and individuals
16.1 Journal clubs
16.2 Writing groups
16.3 Selecting feedback strategies for different purposes
16.4 Training for responding to reviewers
17 Developing discipline-specific English skills
17.1 Introduction
17.2 What kind of English errors matter most?
17.3 Strategic (and acceptable!) language re-use: sentence templates
17.4 More about noun phrases
17.5 Concordancing: a tool for developing your discipline-specific English
17.6 Using the English articles (a/an, the) appropriately in science writing
17.7 Using which and that

Section 5 Provided example articles

18 Provided example article 1: Kaiser et al. (2003)
19 Provided example article 2: Britton-Simmons and Abbott (2008)

Answer pages
References
Index