Climate Change Impacts on Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecosystems.pptx
Publishing your research
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Publishing your research
Research · March 2016
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John Ogbaji Igoli
Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi
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5. 1. Writing your Paper1. Writing your Paper1. Writing your Paper1. Writing your Paper
2222. Citations and. Citations and. Citations and. Citations and
Impact factor of JournalsImpact factor of JournalsImpact factor of JournalsImpact factor of Journals
3333. Plagiarism. Plagiarism. Plagiarism. Plagiarism
Outline
6. Review
Adv: More citations, Disadv: not usually counted as
research papers or evidence of research output
Short communication or data set
Adv: Can report work in progress, be the first to report
the findings even though the research is yet complete.
Disadv: Not a full paper and may deny you a possible
full paper that could have resulted from it.
Full paper
Adv: Fulfils and promotes your research and the journal.
Disadv: requires more work and attention to details,
procedures, results and writing.
Journal Writing…types
7. To direct other researchers to your lab or institution
To introduce yourself and keep you in the research
community
To support your applications for research grants
To expose your university/institution to the world as a
functional research establishment
To impact your research community
To make discoveries and introduce novel ideas
To complete a research project for the process of
research is not complete unless one has communicated
its results. The question is why keep the results of your
research/work to yourself?
Journal Writing…why write a paper?
8. Where?
In a suitable journal appropriate for communicating
your results. Chemistry paper in a chemistry journal
In a high impact journal implies your research or results
are important
In a widely circulating journal, the more readers the
better! Caution…high impact does nor equate large
readership. Try and strike a balance between these two.
When?
As soon as the results are confirmed
Procrastination is the thief of time, ideas, results and
progress
Put a bright lamp (ideas, findings or results) up as soon
as possible
Journal writing…publishing your paper
9. Form an original idea
Carry out research
Write paper and submit to a suitably selected journal
Receive comments/suggestions for revision or
improvements or rejection from editors or reviewers
Rewrite paper or attend to comments and revision
Resubmit to same journal or another and WAIT…
ACCEPTANCE!!!
Rejections can be hard to bear and can be very bitter
especially when they come with comments implying
“we are sending you two rejection letters; one for this
paper and one for the next” or “do not write us any
further”
Journal writing…the process
10. Editors
Full length papers
Original research and novelty
Ground breaking results and findings
Attract readership and citations
Reviewers
Joy and happiness at reading your paper
Comprehensive, captivating research and results
Not a boring rendition of knowledge and known
findings or textbook materials
Error free (sentence construction, grammar, spellings,
formulas, calculations, citations, structures, tables and
table labels etc.)
Journal writing…expectations
11. Author:
Report only real, unfabricated data
Originality
Declare any conflicts of interest
Submit to one journal at a time
First author: the person who conducts or supervises the
data collection, analysis, presentation and
interpretation of the results, and also puts together the
paper for submission
Co-author: makes intellectual contributions to the data
analysis and contributes to data interpretation, reviews
each paper draft, must be able to present the results,
defend the implications and discuss study limitations
Journal writing…things to adhere
12. Fabrication: making up research data
Falsification: manipulation of existing research data
Plagiarism: previous work taken and passed off as one’s
own
Ghost authorship: excluding authors who participated in
the work
Scientific writers and gift authors: including authors
who did not contribute to the work
Multiple publications: of the same work, never submit
your manuscript to more than one journal at a time
Duplication: of results described in text or other
illustrations
Journal writing…things to avoid
14. An abstract is a snapshot of your research and is a
very useful indicator for other researchers of the
suitability of your work. If done properly, it conveys
very succinctly the reason for your research – your
aims, the steps you carried out to achieve the aim
and why, your findings and it’s implications. It may
be preferable to write your abstract last. Abstracts
should on average be no more than 300 words
15. Describes the background to your study/research
Gives a historical setting for your study and trace key
developments in the research area/theme
It is usually a combination of areas and themes
It identifies what has been done (corroboration or
foundation) and what has not been done or
researched already (i.e. a gap in the field of your
research/the justification for your work) to give the
aims and objectives
16. Should give information from literature (most
especially from research papers)
Give a historical trace or perspective to the study
(not to time immemorial or to sacred texts!!!)
Enable a good understanding of the topic and
convey its importance
Identifies gap(s) and creates a basis for the study
Should be able to bring different themes together
and fuse them to get a rationale for the aim of the
study/research
Introduces the methods you are going to use
17. Describes what you did experimentally
Accurately describes methods in a scientific way.
Use past tense (3rd person)
There should be brevity in your description but with
essential details and nothing you did excluded
Mistakes in your methodology should be included
and then discussed in your results/discussion
A good methodology should be able to be followed
by anyone and give them the same results you got
18. It describes what happened in the experiment not
what you think it means but what can justify why
you carried out the experiment with a clear order.
Try as much as possible to present your results
professionally in graphs, tables or figures (it may
help reduce your words for your word count)
In writing your results you may need to decide which
part of your results is not relevant to your study and
discard it
19. For a statistical report, it should contain a statistical
assessment and number of observations e.g. n = 3
Squeeze out as much as you can from your
figures/tables or graphs
20. Presented unprofessionally or untidy
Too small labels (cannot be seen clearly) or wrong
scales
The title is not accurate
No statistics (difficult to ascertain if effects,
observations or differences are real)
No curve fitting for graphs
No legends or title
21. This may be the hardest part to write!
Say what you got and why and what your results
might mean (don’t just repeat your results section)
State your own understanding of the results and use
other knowledge from literature to help assess what
the results mean and to confirm your findings.
Extend the above with some ideas and observations
from literature and show how your results compare
to literature reports and if not why not? Do not give
experimental errors as a reason!!!
Discuss…discuss…discuss and widen your scope of
reasoning/deduction
22. E.g. start by saying what results you have got
broadly but not in detail. Then compare it to other
studies considering:
Sample(s)/Assay(s)/Treatment(s)/results/findings
Which ones are the same? Why?
Which ones are different and why?
Try and take your discussion back to the original
question!
Sometimes results and discussions are combined
23. Compares well with…
In contrast to…
….suggesting
In order to exclude…
Several studies have also shown…
…has previously been isolated or reported…
A good discussion should through and through
showcase the importance of your study and
understanding of the subject matter
24. A conclusion may be written (2-3 lines)
just to sum up the study
25. There are different methods/conventions used when
referencing. A general guideline is to follow the
convention favoured or suggested by the journal you
are writing for.
Some of the common methods are the Harvard,
Modern Languages Association (MLA), Vancouver,
Chicago and American Psychological Association
(APA) styles.
26. In the Harvard style, the in-text referencing is just
the author(s)’s surname and the year of publication
e.g. (Kucha , 2015 or if many authors, Kucha et al,
2015).
In the bibliography/reference list when referencing
journals use the format: Author(s)’s name(s) and
initial(s), year of publication, Title of paper, Title of
journal (in italics) Volume and number and page
number(s) of the paper.
27. E.g. of the Harvard style referencing for journals:
Tor-Anyiin, T.A(2015), “Finishing Your Research”,
UAM Journal of postgraduate studies, Vol 5 (1) pp. 1-
15.
NB, even within a particular referencing style, there
can be variations on how it is done. E.g. from the
above example some journals use full stops in place
of some commas and some don’t use the inverted
commas.
Meanwhile if quoting, it is a general consensus in
the Harvard style to put it in quotation marks and
reference in text and in the bibliography.
28. However if it is a quote longer than 1 and a half to 2
lines, it is best put in a paragraph on its own. Maybe
in italics to distinguish it from the main body of your
text on its own and referencing in text and in
bibliography as usual.
Citations is akin to publicity for papers. The more a
paper is cited, the more likely it could be read by an
increased number of people and the more “buzz” it
creates amongst your peers. It validates the
importance and impact of your findings.
29. There is a lot of help out there on google and on the
academic websites. This one is quite detailed and
useful for a number of referencing styles:
http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm
?harvard_id=63#63
Again look at the referencing style in the journal you
are submitting your paper to and keep to it.
Caution! When a paper is being evaluated, quotes
can be ignored as they are not your own work so it
won’t mean anything if you incorporate them in
your own words and arguments in the body of your
text.
30. The number of citations (of articles from a journal)
received in a JCR (Journal Citation Report) year divided
by the number of articles the journal published in the
last two years is known as the impact factor (IF) of the
journal.
By so doing, journals captured in the JCR are ranked by
their IFs and the higher the value, the higher the
importance of the journal. JOURNALS NOT CAPTURED
BY THE JCR HAVE ZERO IMPACT FACTOR…
The European Association of Science Editors (EASE)
acknowledge concerns that IFs can be manipulated
and advises it be used wisely and only when dealing
with journals as a whole and not individual articles.
31. A list of IFs of a large number of journals can be
found here: http://www.scijournal.org/
You can also view journal IFs by the subject area of
interest to you e.g. Chemistry Journals
A good tip is to find out if your university uses any sort
of ranking for journals and consider their ranking
system if you are using rankings to decide what
journals to tailor your submissions to.
Is it possible to have a high impact article
in a journal with low or no impact factor?
32. According to http://www.4icu.org/ng/, Federal
University of Agriculture, Makurdi (FUAM) is ranked
41st among Nigerian Universities.
According to
http://ranking.journalsconsortium.org/universities/
view/1478, a website with a substantial focus on
journal activity of universities, FUAM is ranked 109
amongst African Universities and 31st among
Nigerian Universities.
DO YOU AGREE?
WHY?
33. This is simply cheating or academic theft
and it may begin at school…
34. Plagiarism is the appropriation of another
person’s ideas, processes, or words without
giving appropriate credit, including those
obtained through confidential review of
others’ research proposals and manuscripts.
Work that can be plagiarised includes…
Words (language), Ideas, Findings, Writings, Graphic
Representations, Computer programs, Diagrams, Graphs
Illustrations, Information, Lectures, Printed material
Electronic material, Any other original work
Plagiarism…definition
35. Hurrying to publish as many papers as possible
Desperation for promotion and perks of being regarded
as a bright academic, a prolific writer and researcher
Laziness, greed and fraud
Consequences…could be dire…
Vary depending on the misconduct and the journal,
institutions and funding bodies involved e.g. ban from
publishing in that journal or certain ones
Authors could have articles retracted (carrying a note
why they were retracted, e.g. for plagiarism)
Have letters of concern or reprimand written to them
Institutes and funding bodies could carry out
disciplinary actions or outright dismissal from service
Plagiarism…causes and consequences
36. Plagiarism is popularly checked by a system called
turnitin or crosscheck. These are softwares that can
check over 30 million articles worldwide and report
on the degree of similarity (similarity score)
between your article and any one in the database.
Generally papers that have a score of 20% or below
are considered okay but papers that score above
that are left to the discretion of the reviewing or
marking body to decide if the author (s) plagiarised.
You can also just google the title of the paper, or the
key words (such as plant name) or use an internet
available plagiarism scan on google for an initial
check.
37. Interestingly, one can be guilty of self-plagiarism!
Trying to pass off a previously submitted or
published work of yours as new or original in a new
paper by not referencing it properly.
Websites like http://publicationethics.org/ and
http://www.elsevier.com/editors/publishing-ethics
outline the ethics of publishing. Your duty as an
author and the publishers duties to you are some of
the topics expanded on.
You reference/cite to avoid plagiarism.
Correct citation is key
38. Avoid plagiarism of other peoples’ work(s)
Avoid multiple publication of the same work, never
submit your manuscript to more than one journal at a
time
Cite and acknowledge others’ work(s) appropriately
Only list co-authors who made major contributions
Stick to the Guide for Authors in your manuscript,
editors do not like wasting time on poorly prepared
manuscripts.
Remember…
39. Continue to organize fora like this especially one for
successful grant writing.
Set up a publication challenge to facilitate paper
publication and reward PG students with high impact
publications
Set up a postgraduate research grant (PGRG) accessible
to PG students to support their research projects
Encourage our PG students to download and complete
grant application forms such as IFS, TWAS, DAAD etc
Encourage the University administration to set up
functional postgraduate research and instrument labs
Encourage the departments to procure functional
equipment and dispose of unserviceable ones.
Help…from PG School
41. Side effect of publishing your research
Borrowed
titles and
clothes!!!
42. PG School, Dean, depute and staff for this seminar
Chemistry department, staff and students
The phytochemistry research group UAM and UoS
My postgraduate students and friends: Saratu, Pedro,
Bubwa, Vivian, Theresa, Esezobor, Maikasuwa, Nabila,
Raymond, Jecintha, Elizabeth, Henry, Samar, Hazar,
Aisya, Kanidta, Naif, Ahmed, Abdul, Tahani and Ebtisam
My mentor and father in phytochemistry; Sandy Gray
To you all for your patience and
attention
Thank you…
References:
1. P.J. Hills (Ed) 1987, Publish or Perish. Peter Francis Publishers, Orchard House
Cambridge.186pp
2. www.elsevier.com/authors
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