How to write a world class

paper - tips for successful

publishing

Ethics and plagiarism – what

you should know Wendy Hurp Executive Publisher, Food Science, Elsevier National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal May 2014

Successful publishing is all about attention to detail

Outline

• Publishing in context – facts and figures

• Before you begin

• What is a strong manuscript?

• Paper types

• Choosing the right journal

• How to write a good manuscript

• Preparations before starting

• Constructing your article

• Special attention

• Language

• Submission

Outline

• The Review Process

• Ethics and plagiarism – what you should know

• What is unethical behaviour?

• Scientific misconduct

• Publishing misconduct

• Data theft (Case 1)

• Self-plagiarism (Case 2)

• Plagiarism (Case 3)

• Authorship questions (Case 4)

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Registration The timestamp to officially note who

submitted scientific results first

Certification Perform peer-review to ensure the

validity and integrity of submissions

Dissemination Provide a medium for discoveries and

findings to be shared

Preservation Preserving the minutes and record of

science for posterity

Role of Scientific Publications

Registration Certification Dissemination Preservation Use

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The Publisher’s Role

Innovation & Technology

How do Publishers add value to the scientific & health community?

Scientific research in India

Current

Growth of articles for research areas per country

Growth of food-related research in India

Which institutes are publishing?

Where is NDRI publishing?

Who is Publishing?

Author Name Division Overall Citations since 1996 The h Index considers

Scopus articles

published after 1995

Prabhat Palta Animal

Biotechnology 957 total citations by 493

documents 17

Avtar Kaur Singh Dairy Cattle

Nutrition Division 3524 total citations by 2758

documents 33

Manmohan Singh Chauhan

Animal Biotechnology

Centre

823 total citations by 430 documents

16

Tushar Kumar Mohanty

Artificial Breeding Research Center

102 total citations by 93 documents

6

Rameshwar Ran Bijoy Singh

Department of Dairy Technology

450 total citations by 411 documents

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Before you Begin

An international editor says:

“The following problems appear much too frequently”

• Submission of papers which are clearly out of scope

• Failure to format the paper according to the Guide for Authors

• Inappropriate (or no) suggested reviewers

• Inadequate response to reviewers

• Inadequate standard of English

• Resubmission of rejected manuscripts without revision

Paul Haddad, Editor, Journal of Chromatography A

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“8 reasons why I rejected your article”

1. It fails the technical screening

2. It does not fall within the Aims and Scope

3. It’s incomplete

4. The procedures and/or analysis of the data is seen to be defective

5. The conclusions cannot be justified on the basis of the rest of the paper

6. It’s is simply a small extension of a different paper, often from the same authors

7. It’s incomprehensible

8. It’s boring

Peter Thrower, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of Carbon

Choosing the right journal

– Look at your references – these will help you narrow

your choices.

– Review recent publications in each candidate journal.

Find out the hot topics, the accepted types of articles, etc.

– Find out journal specifics:

• Is the journal peer-reviewed?

• Who is this journal’s audience?

• What is the average time to publish?

• What is the journal’s Impact Factor?

– Decide on one journal. DO NOT submit to multiple

journals

– Consider journals’ Guides/Instructions for Authors

Make sure it’s in scope!

• Unless there is a clear relationship to dairy technology, human health or final product quality, International Dairy Journal does not publish papers related to milk production, animal health and other aspects of on-farm milk production.

• Subjects that will not be considered for publication in Food Research International, and will be rejected as being outside of scope, include :

• The Journal does not publish papers on: microbiological compounds; sensory quality; aromatics/volatiles in food and wine; essential oils; organoleptic characteristics of food; physical properties; or clinical papers and pharmacology-related papers

• Papers that do not have a direct food or beverage connection will not be considered for publication. The following examples provide some guide as to the type of papers that will not be admitted to the formal review process (for a more extensive list please refer to the journal’s Guide for Authors:

Your references can guide you

Elsevier Journal Finder

http://journalfinder.elsevier.com/

Search results:

What about the Impact Factor?

• the IF can give guidance but should NOT

be the sole reason to submit to a journal.

• The IF indicates the cites to recent items /

number of recent items (published in a 2

year period) in a journal

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Journal Impact Factor

Cites in 2012 to items published in: 2011 = 2554 Number of items published in: 2011 = 835

2010 = 2581 2010 = 641

Sum: 5135 Sum: 1476

Calculation: Cites to recent items 5135 = 3.479

Number of recent items 1476

What influences the Impact Factor?

• Editorial policies of journals can influence the number of

citations/article, which in turn will influence the IF.

• The turnover of research in a certain field influences the

IF as more recent citations will be made in a very “fast” area

like genetics (bear in mind the IF window of two years).

• The article type influences the IF, reviews are generally

better cited.

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Article Review Conference Paper Source:

How to write a good manuscript

Preparations before you start – Read the Guide for Authors

• You can find the Guide for Authors on the journal homepage

• Stick to the Guide for Authors in your manuscript, even in the first draft (text layout, nomenclature, figures & tables, etc.). In the end it will save you time, and also the editor’s.

• Editors (and reviewers) do not like wasting time on poorly prepared manuscripts.

Constructing your article - General structure of a research article

• Title • Abstract • Keywords

• Main text (IMRAD) – Introduction – Methods – Results – And – Discussions

• Conclusions • Acknowledgements • References • Supplementary Data

Journal space is not

unlimited.

Make your article as

concise as possible.

Make them easy for

indexing and searching!

(informative, attractive,

effective)

• Attract the reader’s attention

• Be specific

• Keep it informative and concise

• Avoid jargon and abbreviations

- Title

A clear abstract will strongly influence whether

or not your work is further considered...

– Brief - one paragraph

– Advertisement of your article (freely

available through A&I)

– Easy to understand (without reading the whole

article)

– Must be accurate and specific!

- Abstract

We tackle the general linear instantaneous model (possibly underdetermined and noisy) where we model the source prior with a Student t distribution. The conjugate-exponential characterisation of the t distribution as an infinite mixture of scaled Gaussians enables us to do efficient inference. We study two well-known inference methods, Gibbs sampler and variational Bayes for Bayesian source separation. We derive both techniques as local message passing algorithms to highlight their algorithmic similarities and to contrast their different convergence characteristics and computational requirements. Our simulation results suggest that typical posterior distributions in source separation have multiple local maxima. Therefore we propose a hybrid approach where we explore the state space with a Gibbs sampler and then switch to a deterministic algorithm. This approach seems to be able to combine the speed of the variational approach with the robustness of the Gibbs sampler.

What are the

main findings

What has

been done

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Used by indexing and abstracting services

• Labels/tags

• Use only established abbreviations (e.g. DNA)

• Check the ‘Guide for Authors’

- Keywords

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Provide context to convince readers that you

clearly know why your work is useful

• Be brief

• Clearly address the following:

– What is the problem?

– Are there any existing solutions?

– Which solution is the best?

– What is its main limitation?

– What do you hope to achieve?

• Try to be consistent with the nature of the journal

- Introduction

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Describe how the problem was studied

• Include detailed information

• Do not describe previously published procedures

• Identify the equipment and describe materials used

- Methods

• Tell a clear and easy-to-understand story.

• Include:

– Main findings

– Results of the statistical analysis

– Present only results that are essential to the

discussion

- Results – what have you found?

– Graphs: un-crowded plots; restrict data sets (symbols to distinguish); well-selected scales; axis labels; label size.

– Tables: succinct.

– Photos: scale marker.

– Use colour ONLY when necessary e.g. if different line styles can clarify the meaning, use this instead of colour. Figure should be visible and distinguishable when printed out in black & white.

– Do NOT ‘selectively adjust’ any image to enhance visualization of results.

- Results – figures and tables

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What the results mean

• Most important section

• Make the Discussion correspond to the Results

• You need to compare published results with yours

- Discussion

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How the work advances the field from the

present state of knowledge

• Should be clear

• Justify your work in the research field

• Suggest future experiments

- Conclusion

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• Do not use too many references

• Always ensure you have fully absorbed material you are referencing and do not just rely on checking excerpts or isolated sentences

• Avoid excessive self-citations

• Avoid excessive citations of publications from the same region

• Follow the style given in the Guide for Authors

Cite the main scientific publications on which

your work is based

- References

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Ensure those who helped in the research are recognised

Include individuals who have assisted with your study,

including:

• Advisors

• Financial supporters

• Proofreaders

• Suppliers who may have given materials

- Acknowledgements

Language - Why is language important?

Save your editor and reviewers the trouble of guessing what you mean

Complaint from an editor:

“[This] paper fell well below my threshold. I refuse to spend time

trying to understand what the author is trying to say. Besides, I

really want to send a message that they can't submit garbage to us

and expect us to fix it. My rule of thumb is that if there are more

than 6 grammatical errors in the abstract, then I don't waste my

time carefully reading the rest.”

- Do publishers correct language?

• Generally….no. It is the author’s responsibility to make sure his paper is in its best possible form when submitted for publication

• However: – Publishers often provide resources for authors who are

less familiar with the conventions of international journals. Please check your publishers’ author website for more information.

– Some publishers may perform technical screening prior to peer review.

– Visit http://webshop.elsevier.com for translation and language editing services.

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Submission - Final checks

• Revise before submission

• Check the manuscript as thoroughly as possible

before submission

• Ask colleagues and supervisors to review your

manuscript

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• Submitted along with your manuscript

• Mention what would make your manuscript

special to the journal

• Note special requirements (reviewers, conflicts

of interest)

Your chance to speak to the editor directly Final approval from all

authors

Explanation of importance

of research

Suggested reviewers

- Covering letter

The review process

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Demystifying the ‘black hole’

Submit a

paper

Basic requirements met?

REJECT

Assign

reviewers

Collect reviewers’

recommendations

Make a

decisionRevise the

paper

[Reject]

[Revision required]

[Accept]

[Yes]

[No]Review and give

recommendation

START

ACCEPT

Author Editor Reviewer

Michael Derntl. Basics of Research Paper Writing and

Publishing.

http://www.pri.univie.ac.at/~derntl/papers/meth-se.pdf

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What do reviewers look for?

• Importance and clarity of

research hypothesis

• Originality of work

• Delineation of strengths and

weaknesses of methodology,

experimental / statistical

approach, interpretation of

results

“ Technical” Quality

“ N

ovelty

”

• Writing style and figure / table presentation

• Ethics concerns (animal / human)

How to respond to a request to revise your paper

– Be positive – the reviewers think there is merit to your paper, or it would have been rejected

– Prepare a detailed letter of response

– State specifically what changes you have made to the manuscript.

– Provide a scientific response to the comment you accept; or a convincing, solid and polite rebuttal to the point you think the reviewer is wrong.

– Revise the whole manuscript

– Minor revision does NOT guarantee acceptance after revision.

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What leads to acceptance??? Attention to details Check and double check your work Consider the reviewers’ comments English must be as good as possible Presentation is important Take your time with revision Acknowledge those who have helped you New, original and previously unpublished Critically evaluate your own manuscript Ethical rules must be obeyed

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Nigel John Cook Editor-in-Chief, Ore Geology Reviews

Ethics and Plagiarism –

what you should know

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What is unethical behaviour?

Unethical behaviour can earn rejection and even a ban from publishing in some journals. Unethical behaviour includes:

• Scientific misconduct

• Falsification or fabrication of results

• Publishing misconduct

– Plagiarism

– Different forms / severities

– The paper must be original to the authors

– Duplicate/multiple submission

– Redundant publication

– Failure to acknowledge prior research and researchers

– Inappropriate identification of all co-authors

– Conflict of interest

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Scientific misconduct - Fabrication and falsification

• Fabrication is making up data or results, and recording or reporting them

• Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, processes, or changing/omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record

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“Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit, including those obtained through confidential review of others’ research proposals and manuscripts”

Federal Office of Science and Technology Policy, 1999

“Presenting the data or interpretations of others without crediting them, and thereby gaining for yourself the rewards earned by others, is theft, and it eliminates the motivation of working scientists to generate new data and interpretations”

Bruce Railsback, Professor, Department of Geology, University of Georgia

Publishing misconduct - Plagiarism

Case 1 – Data Theft/Plagiarism

An article was published online in Journal Z. We received the following complaint: • “Dr. X was a postdoctoral fellow in my laboratory • He/she worked on a project with Company A. • After dismissal from the lab, Dr. X took all the data and

has obviously been trying to publish it. This is completely unethical, since it is not his/her data, and he/she is not authorized to do so.

• Dr X is lying about the affiliation. • Most of this work has already been published as a book

chapter in the book I edited”

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• Multiple submissions waste editor and reviewer time

• The editorial process of your manuscripts will be completely stopped if the duplicated submissions are discovered

• Competing journals constantly exchange information on suspicious papers

• DO NOT send your paper to a second journal until you receive the final decision from the first

- Multiple submission

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• Two or more papers, without full cross reference, share the same hypotheses, data, discussion points, or conclusions

• An author should not submit for consideration in another journal a

previously published paper.

– Published studies do not need to be repeated unless further confirmation is required.

– Previous publication of an abstract during the proceedings of conferences does not preclude subsequent submission for publication, but full disclosure should be made at the time of submission.

– Re-publication of a paper in another language is acceptable, provided that there is full and prominent disclosure of its original source at the time of submission.

– At the time of submission, authors should disclose details of related papers, even if in a different language, and similar papers in press.

– This includes translations

- Duplicate submission

Self-plagiarism (or text recycling)

“Whereas plagiarism refers to the practice of

claiming credit for the words, ideas, and concepts

of others, self-plagiarism refers to the practice of

presenting one’s own previously published work as

though it were new”*

Papers considered to be self-plagiarizing are often

duplicate submissions

* American Psychological Association (2010). The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Sixth Edition. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

Examples of self-plagiarism

• Republishing the same paper that is already

published elsewhere without notifying the reader or

publisher of the journal

• Publishing a significant study as a number of

smaller studies to increase the number of

publications rather than publishing one large study

• Reusing portions of a previously written (published

or unpublished) paper without proper citation or

attribution

Case 2 – self plagiarism/failure to correctly

cite previous work Corrigendum

Surface protein coverage and its implications on spray-drying of model sugar-rich foods: Solubility, powder production and characterisation Food Chemistry, Volume 128, Issue 4, 15 October 2011, Pages 1003-1016

The effects of proteins and low molecular weight surfactants on spray drying of model sugar-rich foods: Powder production and characterisation Journal of Food Engineering, Volume 104, Issue 2, May 2011, Pages 259-271

The effect of protein types and low molecular weight surfactants on spray drying of sugar-rich foods Food Hydrocolloids, Volume 25, Issue 3, May 2011, Pages 459-469

The authors would like to acknowledge that they failed to provide correct referencing and acknowledgement for tables and figures used in these papers which were originally published in: The Effect of Food-Grade Low-Molecular-Weight Surfactants and Sodium Caseinate on Spray Drying of Sugar-Rich Foods Food Biophysics (2010) 5:128–137

The authors apologize for this serious omission and regret the inconvenience caused to readers.’

• 83 publishers

• 25.5 million articles

• 48157 journals, books, conference proceedings

• Papers are run through iThenticate which matches the

document against the Crosscheck database and major

data providers and the open web

• Get a report displaying degree of similarity to other

documents and a link to the full text of the matching

documents

• Cannot detect plagiarism but can identify a manuscript

of concern

Publishers have tools to detect plagiarism

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Case 3 - Plagiarism

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Consequences

The article of which the authors committed plagiarism: it won’t be removed from ScienceDirect.

Everybody who downloads it will see the reason of retraction…

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• Policies to address authorship can vary

• One respected example, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (aka Vancouver Group) declared that an author must:

1. substantially contribute to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;

2. draft the article or revise it critically for important intellectual content; and

3. give their approval of the final version to be published.

4. ALL 3 conditions must be fulfilled to be an author!

Authorship – who is considered

as an author?

- Authorship

• Order of authors varies by discipline and culture, but a

common rule is that the first author is the person who

conducts or supervises the data collection, analysis,

presentation and interpretation of the results, and also

puts together the paper for submission

• The corresponding author can be the first author, or

sometimes is a senior author from the institution

Avoid

• Ghost Authorship

– leaving out authors who should be included

• Gift Authorship

– including authors who did not contribute significantly

Main causes of authorship disputes

• Papers submitted and published without the

knowledge of all listed authors

• Papers submitted and published, and author

claims they should have been included

Main problem – to make any changes to

authorship after publication, ALL authors need to

agree to request. This can result in significant

delays and possible retraction of paper

Case 4 - Authorship 1. Prof. B claimed that his name was omitted from the paper when he should have been included. He also claimed that two project teams should have been acknowledged in the paper. 2. In response to an email from the Editor, Prof A agreed to add Prof. B’s name to the paper, and received consent from all authors as required – except from Prof. B. 3. The Editor’s office has subsequently received an email from Prof. B, in which he questions his position in the list of authors, the inclusion of Prof C as an author, and the failure to acknowledge the Ministry of Higher Education:

Until I can be assured that all authors are agreed on the inclusion (and positioning) of each name, this paper has been put on hold so that it will not published in an issue, and has also been temporarily removed from online publication, until the authorship is resolved.

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Elsevier has advice for authors on ethics issues

www.ethics.elsevier.com

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