AsianScientist (May 8, 2011) – I recall the words of an ex-colleague said many years ago in naivete, “When I’m ready, I’ll publish.” My ex-colleague – seven years into his PhD – has yet to publish a first-authored paper.
I suspect this record (or a lack of one) has much to do with his view on publishing scientific research – that the right moment to publish is when all the stars align and shine down on the researcher, proclaiming “young man, it is time.”
In reality, scientific research is a nebulous beast. Where you begin is where many others have laid down decades of research to forge a path for your entry, and where you end is… well, you never truly end.
Practically speaking, there are no flagpoles or ribbons to indicate that you have reached the end of the project, and so many junior researchers have difficulty crystallizing the start and finish date of their “publet” or “publon.” The project may drag on for years on end, creating a situation where the research may get ‘scooped’ by rival labs or risk becoming obsolete.
Here, Asian Scientist Magazine takes on the challenging task of trying to define the 7 steps to publishing a scientific paper. Some of these may not apply to all fields of research.
1. Define the paper before you even begin
Write the outline and define the individual figures and results before you even pick up a pipette. If you set the boundaries of the paper, e.g. five figures in the paper with a total of five to ten experiments, then the paper essentially becomes a linear task towards accomplishing a fixed number of endpoints.
Many researchers often feel daunted because they think there is so much to be done before they can write a paper. Without a concrete set of steps, it is impossible not to feel overwhelmed. A poorly defined task is a lot more stressful than one with good planning.
If you are new to this field and don’t have a strong sense of how to plan your paper’s structure, enlist the help of your principal investigator (PI) or a senior lab-mate.
2. Stay focused
Staying focused sounds like a trifle point, aren’t all scientists focused? Yes and no. Most scientists have multiple projects and ideas at any given time, and tend to meander towards different directions especially when something does not work the way it is supposed to.
Many junior scientists also tend to give up when an experiment does not work once, twice, or thrice in a row, assuming that it will never work in future.
Let me fill you in on a secret only veterans know. 99 percent of experiments do not work. Period. When you think you have gotten all your ducks lined up, something always backfires. Accepting failure is something veteran researchers understand perfectly, but newbies don’t.
Hence, senior scientists aren’t necessarily better equipped than you. They just know how to navigate through this quagmire and never lose sight of the goal – all this whilst others are giving up and dropping out.
3. Divide and conquer
Why do some papers have ten authors on them, whereas others only have two? Some of these are due to the field – genomics research tends to be a consortium of an upward of 30 researchers, whereas in physics, researchers may even publish alone.
In other cases, the number of authors may also be influenced by the individual style of the lab – in some labs students and post-docs tend to publish alone with their PI.
Undeniably, publishing alone implies you did all the work, but it is also likely that you will have fewer papers compared to someone who knows how to capitalize on the resources available to him or her. Unless your paper was published in Nature, Cell, or Science, chances are you may have been better off asking a handful of colleagues for help on individual experiments, pooling their expertise and getting to a paper more efficiently.
On a side note, helping your colleagues on their own papers may get you a couple of co-authored papers for a smaller amount of effort. Some people frown upon working on non first-authored papers, but co-authored papers are helpful for padding your CV and showing that you can cooperate with someone other than yourself.
4. Buy part of the paper
We don’t mean to be dramatic, as many of us do so already depending on how much grant money we have. Most kits are designed for efficiency and convenience, and these days there is a kit for everything under the sun. For a fee, there are an increasing number of companies who will prepare and stain all your histology samples, analyze all your microarray slides, and even construct your plasmids for you. Some will even create unique chemical compounds or perform your entire animal study for a hefty sum.
You may balk at the thought and retort, “I’d rather do things from first principles.” There is however much value in sub-contracting the more mundane tasks (with no intrinsic scientific originality) to a specialist who does it expertly, versus trying to do everything on your own and ending up as a master of none.
5. Write the paper as you get data
Some scientists prefer to wait till the end before they write the entire paper. Doing so may be a personal preference, but unless you have proven to yourself that this is a good strategy, junior researchers should consider otherwise.
Why? This is because that day may never arrive. If you recall in Point #1 we suggested that you plan all experiments before you even begin. Sometimes, the amount of data may be sufficient even when only 60-80 percent of your tasks have been accomplished. Yet, you may only realize that you have enough data once you have made the figures and written up the results.
Never wait, as there is no ‘finish date’ in research, but there is an ‘expiry date.’
6. Cut-and-paste from other papers
“What, are you asking me to plagiarize?!” This response may be instinctive on your part. The answer is no, we aren’t asking you to plagiarize. Our advice is particularly pertinent for novice writers who have never written a first-authored paper before.
When writing a results section or materials section without having written one before, you may end up listing too many details or missing out some. You may also inadvertently sound like a novice – reviewers can see that very clearly and treat your data very differently than if they know they are dealing with an expert.
Our advice here is to find papers which cover the same experiment or research area, and adopt their overall architecture. From there, to override most of the details in your own writing style and with your results. Be sure that the final product is ultimately your own writing, so that you will not be plagiarizing someone’s prose.
As for the materials section, it is not wrong to have it sounding similar. After all, driving directions on how to get from location A to location B tend to sound the same, don’t they?
7. Enlist a professional proofreading and editing service
Once you are done, carefully proofread the text for grammar, typographical errors and stylistic differences, especially if more than one author has written separate parts of the text. Especially for weaker writers, the last thing you want is for the reviewer to address your grammar in the review. When reviewers do so, it is a waste of goodwill and you may infuriate even the most pleasant of reviewers, who are often busy and want to complete their scientific community service as quickly as possible.
While most papers are judged entirely on the quality of the research, higher impact journals have been known to reject papers on language alone, requesting for a better version to be sent back in the future. Sometimes, the gist of the research may not be conveyed properly due to poor wording and inconsistencies, causing your paper to be rejected.
When you think of the costs involved in buying scientific kits and equipment, versus the cost of getting your paper to look perfect, the choice may not be a hard one.
Good luck!
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Copyright: AsianScientist Magazine.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
