Last week, on the 21st of April, we held another webinar entitled: “Writing scientific manuscripts ? work smarter, not harder”. It was a huge success and we were really happy to see such a turnaround ? over 70 participants. It was moderated by co-founder and chief editor of eCORRECTOR, Dr. (hab.) Mark J. Hunt, and our main guest, who conducted the entire lecture, was Dr. Suzanne Naser who obtained her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University, USA.
The main purpose of the webinar was to show the attendees the basics of writing scientific papers, how not to lose your mind while doing it, and how to prepare your paper, and present it in the strongest possible way.
Many PhD candidates who participated were issued certificate of attendance which they could attach to their end of year report of their progress.
eCORRECTOR as a proofreading end editing company always try to help authors with the submission of their papers by offering proofreading/editing services or even just by giving some tips and pointers, that is why we want to share with you some highlights from our recent event:
1. Preparing a Manuscript
Help your work/results reach a wide audience and ?push back the scientific frontier? ? sounds corny, but you are all doing this. To do so, tailor your writing to the editor/reviewers, but also the audience/readers ? they will cite it, which brings it to a wider audience.
2. Key Aspects of the Review Process
Editor and Reviewers are asked to consider:
? Relevance ? Within the journal?s scope? Appropriate for the journal?s target audience?
? Novelty ? Contribution to the field (new knowledge or application)? Results reasonably support conclusions?
? Presentation ? Clearly written? Presented according to the journal?s guidelines?
Impact factor indicates the number of times the articles in a journal are cited in other studies during a particular period. For example, an impact factor of 3 indicates that each article in the journal was cited 3 times on average during the specified period. It is assumed that an article that is cited many times presents novel, interesting, or important research.
There is no correlation between acceptance/rejection rate and journal impact factor.
3. What Makes a Good Title?
Titles are searchable and the first thing a reader uses to judge whether to keep going. Overly amusing titles – won?t be searchable, could be lost in translation. So you should have it not too short to be descriptive, and not too long to be read or understood. Make it declarative (avoid ?A study of? etc.) and avoid abbreviations, and jargon.
4. Phrasing and Word Choice ? Make it Concise
Avoid too many introductory clauses
× Therefore, as shown in Fig. 3, under alkaline conditions, because of the higher number of active sites, catalyst 2 shows better activity than catalyst 1.
? Therefore, catalyst 2 outperforms catalyst 1 under alkaline conditions because it has more available active sites (Fig. 3).
Parentheses can help!
× It can be seen from Fig 2. that?
? As shown in Figure 2, ?
? Specifically, ? (Fig. 2).
This doesn?t mean you shouldn?t use transitions to help the flow!
? First, second, third, finally. (Not firstly, secondly, thirdly?)
? Furthermore/moreover/overall?
? Therefore/thus/additionally/as a result?
As you can see just from those few highlights, working on a scientific paper is not an easy one, so why not make your life a little bit easier in this department and use some professional help.
You can find out more about our proofreading and editing service here. As for the PhDs who work on your papers, you may find more information about them by visiting this site. Don’t forget to like our Facebook profile and subscribe to our YouTube channel to be in touch with our content!
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