GRL

Global Research Letters

Getting Your Research Papers Published (An Editor Explains)

Those who ride just get more out of life. So if you’re a research published research paper, publishing research paperser student resident fellow or faculty in the academic setting and are trying to get to research published research paper, publishing research papers paper published getting rejections still learning how to write or even those who want to get really good at scientific writing research published research paper, publishing research papers. This video is for you something unique about. Academia is how people doing similar amounts of work can be paid differently and can advance faster based on how many papers they’ve written so write the papers research published research paper, publishing research papers get promoted turbocharge your career and get to the highest paying tier. Which offer comes with a nicer more. Reputable rank like a professor but more importantly this is a means to show the good work. You’re already doing to your professional Community research published research paper, publishing research papers. I have co-authored over 200 papers including some big data articles and have been a journal research published research paper, publishing research papers editor for 10 years so I will do my best to really simplify this process for you references to the citations used mainly Dr Pearson’s amazing work and timestamps are in the description below so if you’d like like to jump to a section. Feel Free as bonus content at the end I will share my own. Simple five-step writing process if you like this video consider giving it a like so that the YouTube algorithm can suggest it to other scientific research published research paper, publishing research papersers like yourself who may benefit from this. Let’s begin before you write anything. There are a few things you ought to do to avoid publishing. Blues first discuss authorship expectations with all relevant parties and have it written in an email to avoid confusion later. Select your target. Journal study the journal’s manuscript preparation guide on the website and plan to submit a paper that’s shorter yes shorter than the journal’s research published research paper, publishing research papers average if you get into a disagreement about anything related to the paper with your co-authors I personally err on the side of saving relationships and don’t get Petty about fighting over Credit in just one paper rarely. Is it ever worth it. But it is possible that you’re really early in your career or the stakes are higher especially near your promo or tenure and may think differently.

Let’s talk about some basic concepts research published research paper, publishing research papers first if you select the wrong. Journal especially when the type of article you’re submitting is not a good fit. You will end up with a desk rejection which means the editor will reject your paper without even a peer review an experienced. Mentor can help you. Select the most appropriate journal and the article type for your submission if you have an offbeat submission you can always email the editor directly for guidance. I print three articles research published research paper, publishing research papers on similar topics. I’m working on from my target journal and use it as a quick reference for styling and formatting I find this way easier than going through the fine print on the journal’s website format your paper in such a way that if the editor forwarded it for publication the copy editor could simply send the article research published research paper, publishing research papers for printing without changing anything. The more you say the more you can be criticized for and the more citations you will need. Define early in your paper. What the scope research published research paper, publishing research papers of your work is and stick to it. Don’t take unnecessary tangents or over complicate things. In essence. A scientific paper needs to communicate four things. Why did you start what did you do. What did you find and what does it mean. And this translates perfectly due to the four sections of a paper introduction materials and methods results and discussion. But before all of that. Let’s talk about the title. It’s super important to get this right. The title of your paper should accurately describe the paper’s content be specific about the scope of the study number of patients in the study indicate. Its study design whether it was prospective or retrospective. State the subject not the conclusion avoid abbreviations and acronyms. I personally like longer titles which are descriptive of the amount of work involved in your study research published research paper, publishing research papers. Make them interesting but also easy to understand for example if we had titled this article we published as understanding why patients no show our experience.

It would not have highlighted the fact that this was a huge study of 3 million patient visits and is our 16-year multi-center experience it took more than two years to complete research published research paper, publishing research papers. I have this preference because when being judged for promotions most reviewers will just read the titles of the papers in your CV  research published research paper, publishing research papers and look at the PDFs of your best papers which you might have submitted which is typically around five or so so research published research paper, publishing research papers. There really isn’t time for even well-meaning reviewers to download the PDFs of all of your papers listed in your CV and read them in detail. You get the idea. I also like titles. That are eye-catching and arouse curiosity to entice the reader research published research paper, publishing research papers to read your word for example the charismatic radiologist or the serious business paper we wrote based on my observations from a tip to Disneyland with my family titled lessons from the happiest place on earth. I will link these in the description in case you need to check them out research published research paper, publishing research papers. The abstract of the paper is not the same as the presented abstract in a scientific meeting you need to strictly adhere to journals instructions. It should be in complete agreement with the rest of the text of the paper research published research paper, publishing research papers. Don’t include anything which is not in the body of the paper research published research paper, publishing research papers. Conclusion should be specific and conservative since no study is ever perfect or the final verdict on any topic. The abstract is the last part of the paper that you should write. A good paper should be able to communicate everything. A reader needs to know through the abstract tables and figures with clear descriptive research published research paper, publishing research papers. Legends if someone wants to replicate your study they can go read the paper research published research paper, publishing research papers introduction. This section should provide the background information. For why you decided to pursue the project what knowledge. Gap were you trying to fill. Avoid any new unusual or wake terms just clearly describe the purpose of your study and keep it brief materials and methods research published research paper, publishing research papers.

This should be the simplest section to write research published research paper, publishing research papers and could be written even before your data collection is complete. This section should be written in a manner that a reader could replicate your study by following. Along in a systematic manner statistical methods. You use should be clearly identified and described with input from a statistician. No results should be written in this section research published research paper, publishing research papers. The results section should start with the major positive findings include a table describing the characteristics of your study population. This is called table one present results in a logical order and do not repeat detailed information that is given in the tables and figures research published research paper, publishing research papers. The results should be reported in the Target journals format if necessary use subheadings and do not repeat your methods and things you are discussing research published research paper, publishing research papers. Subsequently in the discussion section do not use more than the journal’s average number of tables while presenting statistical information report relative risk and 95 confidence intervals use statistical terms correctly for example substantial is a good word to use if what you’re describing is not statistically significant provide exact p-values when possible at this point. It is important for me to tell you clearly that regardless of your statistical experience in most instances you would want to hire a statistician who should ideally design the. Excel sheet in which you collect your data. Ask your supervisor for allocating some funds to hire one if you don’t have one in-house if you don’t want to tell your supervisor how critical your need for a statistician is send them this video if you are indeed blessed with an in-house statistician. Make sure to be friends with them. They’re commonly inundated with projects. And you need to be patient with them. It is always worth the wait in my experience. Sometimes there are biostatistics students who are looking for projects to work on and need authorship and papers a statistician should always be an author on your paper research published research paper, publishing research papers.

There’s no debate here. I’ve had papers published as senior author where the statistician does such amazing work that when I saw the final product. I could not even believe this is our work an awesome statistic Edition who we have worked with on. Many projects always wrote the results section for us and provided us with tables and figures research published research paper, publishing research papers with their Legends in the last 15 years of working with him we had just one complex statistical question and all he said was I’ll take care of it and he did enough said be resourceful. Find yourself a good statistician now. Tables and figures should be simple self-explanatory and in the journals format not a Verbatim repetition of text described in the paper use appropriate units for every variable exact p-values appropriate rounding and keep the format consistent with other tables in your manuscript. Be careful with bright colors and Grading as some can look rather obnoxious in print. Figures should be used to illustrate the major points label axes and other elements in your figures. Clearly don’t just use figures from the poster you submitted. I usually like to have a very thin white line as the margins of my figures with the proof create arrows and clearly visible. Annotations have clear detail. Legends such that each figure is a complete teaching nugget by itself if you’re a Radiologists like I am just know that any paper research published research paper, publishing research papers without excellent figures will likely be rejected. Make your images pop and spend time to select the highest quality of images available. Make sure that no patient information is included as part of your image this can be reliably done by taking a screen capture of the image as patient information is often embedded in many common image formats discussion. Start with the most important point in this section present no new data in this section and focus on the implications of your results stick to the subject and keep it focused and compare your study with previous studies published in the literature on the same topic acknowledge the weaknesses and deficiencies of your study.

No study is ever perfect. And acknowledging the weaknesses of your study disarms the reviewer and is likely to increase the odds of acceptance discuss alternative explanations for your results write clearly and in plain great. English keep the section as short as possible. You may have to redefine the scope of your work here to minimize the number of citations. You need there should be no grammatical errors in your paper and do a final review for English grammar and formatting before submission. What might not be obvious early in your career is that authors. And editors share a symbiotic relationship editors too want the Best Authors to send their best work to their Journal journals often compete for the same content especially those topics that are trendy authors who have a great track record of publishing high quality papers and meeting. Publication deadlines are more likely to get picked to submit invited commentaries by the editor. Sign up to be a reviewer submit high quality reviews and get to know the editor. Run your ideas by them. Even before you’ve written the paper see seek them out in meetings to say hello and better yet try to recruit them as your Mentor. Just a short conversation with an editor of a journal. You want to publish in can sometimes help you find information regarding what topics the journal is interested in for the forthcoming issues. And what their needs. Are this information is usually only known to editorial board members or associate editors once you find that information go work hard to fill that need. Let me now share my blueprint writing strategy for working with inexperienced research published research paper, publishing research papersers to minimize rejections. So when I’m working with someone who’s still learning scientific writing. We have a teaching session in my office or on. Zoom basically things. We’ve discussed so far in this video. This upfront teaching saves exponential time over the course of the project then.

I give them Word files of the paper. I have previously published in the same category in the same journal to minimize formatting errors once. They have that all they have to do is remove content from the previous topic and change it to the new topic. I diligently save all the files of our submissions to be able to do this effectively use templates and minimize. Reinventing the wheel. There are predictable reasons why manuscripts are not accepted for publication. You don’t have to make these mistakes. Learn from them and increase the odds of getting your work accepted. Here are the top 10 reasons. Why papers don’t get accepted starting at number 10 picking the wrong Journal. It’s not funny how commonly this happens. Young authors often don’t know much about a Target journal and submit papers which instantly get a desk rejection for example. I run a radiology journal and see a few. Dental articles coming through clearly. The young research published research paper, publishing research paperser did not get any guidance about Journal selection from their mentors you need to become familiar with what types of Articles your target. Journal publishes topics format article length number of tables and figures and overall Journal Focus subscribe to electronic table of contents of several journals. You want to publish in and just scan through the topics as these emails. Come to your inbox. After a few months you’ll really understand which topics are a good fit for with. Journal at number nine submitting something. That isn’t what the journal publishes. Even though you may have submitted a good article for your specialty you could end up submitting an article type. Which is a misfit. You could submit a high quality original research published research paper, publishing research papers and submit it to a journal. That only publishes review articles for example instant desk rejection again. Ask your mentors or senior colleagues for guidance. Here anyone with a bit of experience should be able to help you out here at number eight not following.

Journal instructions this is an easy one. The hired the journal’s impact factor the more likely they are to be picky about formatting and journal staff will likely return your submission if you don’t follow instructions. You don’t want the editor to see a manuscript which doesn’t have attention to detail. You will look really bad and will be recognized the next time you submit another paper. Don’t spoil your reputation. Pay attention to small details. It’s important at number seven bad writing. Get help find a mentor. Just because you have a good grasp of English as a language does not automatically make you a profession and writer of scientific research published research paper, publishing research papers just because I personally didn’t understand this Nuance I went through 17 rejections in the first two years of my career. I learned my lesson quickly albeit the hard way and eventually all of these papers were published for fun. Let me read you. This paragraph someone actually wrote the algorithm fathoms in a synergistic manner globally and an antagonistic depth. Quest locally whatever that means. Don’t get me wrong. While this paper was likely very useful and informative. You can only imagine the frustration of the reviewers and editors over such over complication in English language. I will say this as clearly as I can. Here say what you mean mean what you say. And don’t use big words. The secret sauce to good medical writing is threefold. Have something important to say. Say it as briefly as you can and get out of there here are some basic rules of writing. Use short words short sentences short first paragraphs. And if it’s possible to cut out a word always cut it out avoid passive phrases when you can use an active phrase. Don’t use a jargon word if you can think of an everyday. English equivalent don’t use clinical slangs or cliches unconventional abbreviations pejoratives or unnecessary information about patients. Number six. Getting carried away in the discussion articles are commonly rejected for erroneous or unsupported conclusions.

Interpretation of results not concordant with the data provided non-concordance of the findings to the clinical practice and policy and failure to consider alternative explanations. Okay that was a mouthful in other words. Let your data do the talking. Avoid any conflicts of interest particularly if you have industry conflicts and acknowledge all study limitations number five sub-optimal reporting of results. A good statistician can help you here. And ideally you should be writing the results section for you unless you have a degree in biostatistics you already know where. I stand on this one number. Four inadequate description of the methods. Write your materials and methods as soon as you design the study before you forget the details. You’ll be glad you wrote this section early and psychologically are building momentum in your paper preparation number three poor study design. Now this can kill a paper. It’s a fatal flaw. If you get these words in your review try submitting to another journal to avoid this. Everyone including the senior members and statisticians should attend the initial study design meeting internally critique the research published research paper, publishing research papers methodology and take diligent notes of the weaknesses being discussed. These are the things to be mentioned in the limitation sections of your article. Now number two not revising and resubmitting your paper. Now you’ve done everything right up to this point and get a request for revisions with a long list of changes requested the longest list. I have seen is 80 changes requested for one of our papers. Ask for more time. From the editors if you need it as a last resort life happens and many editors will be accommodating if you ask nicely in most cases four to six weeks should be plenty to revise a paper diligently address all the comments events be respectful to reviewer opinions. You can disagree a bit but use citations to support your opinions. Here’s my method to respond to comments when submitting a revision.

Write a detailed cover letter to the editor with your revisions address comments. Point by point for every issue raised by the reviewers submit both clean and annotated versions. The goal is to make it really easy for the editor. So that the article does not need to be sent back to the reviewers and the editor can just accept it quickly thank the reviewers raise their insight and acknowledge their expertise. Don’t be nasty or unprofessional. Ever don’t just don’t respond with a point by. Point rebuttal of all the issues raised by any of the reviewers at number one drumroll please is not writing the paper in the first place you and I both know we’ve all been there get over that writer’s blog we all have something important to say so just say it and once you have the article written keep vlogging it until it ends up in print. I had one that was accepted in the third journal. I submitted it to another paper got trashed in one. Journal only to have another editor from a different Journal. Love it so much that it was featured on the cover page peer review is not perfect your writing. Mantra should be if it’s good enough to be written. It’s good enough to end up in print be persistent now. Bonus content. Here’s my five-step writing process. Step one make a one-page outline with sections and bullet points for each section. This is your blueprint. Step two finalize the tables and figures with the Legends step 3 get permissions for any tables. You want to use from another article. This can take a few weeks to obtain so the earlier. You start the better assign sections to co-authors especially those sections that are not in your area of expertise and agree on internal deadlines. Don’t forget to send periodic reminders and check in frequently step 4 write one small section at a time and build momentum. This process is called chunking. It’s a very effective technique compile all the sections from your co-authors when you have them and finally step five accept a crappy first draft getting the first draft out is the hardest part of the paper.

So get that out of the way quickly shamelessly send it to your co-authors and ask them to edit. Don’t get emotional. Here first drafts always suck let me know in the comments below which ideas resonated with you. And which didn’t anything. I did not cover that you think I should have do share if you have a different approach for writing a research published research paper, publishing research papers paper. I welcome any feedback ideas suggestions and respond to all comments consider subscribing to the channel. So you don’t miss videos on topics like how to learn anything fast in the next video on decoding greatness. How the smartest people reverse engineer success. Plenty of of exciting topics are coming up soon. Thanks for watching and I will see you in the next video.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *