LECTURE #11

How to write scientific paper

Way

The steps toward publication can be summarized like this:

Do research

Write manuscript

Submit

Editor sends to review

Returned manuscript with reviews

Revise

Published

DOING THE RESEARCH

In order to describe your problem, you are going to have to do some research.

Research basically seeks to answer a question:

Why this problem occurs? Why we need it?How do the others try to solve? or

What are advantages or disadvantages?E.t.c

DOING THE RESEARCH

Library researchInternet research

Many PDF of articles can be downloaded from the internet. For example, using Google (probably the best search engine for this sort of thing)

Use Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com

)

Use other resource from SDU-internet

Be careful what you read, however, not everything there may be true.

DOING THE RESEARCH

Reading scientific articles can be difficult for a variety of reasons, including unfamiliarity with the topic, poor writing and too much jargon.

It may be necessary to read an article several times to understand it.

To understand quickly read the sections called the Abstract, the Introduction and the Conclusion, as well as the captions for any illustrations.

If you can understand those sections, you can generally understand the most important parts of the article.

You should definitely look up unfamiliar words because they can be the heart of the article. Google is a good tool to use.

DOING THE WRITING

What you need to write and what you have to write

Title

Author name(s) and address(es)Abstract

IntroductionMain body of manuscript

Conclusion/SummaryReferences Cited

DOING THE WRITING TITLE

The title is the first thing that the reader will see and this will often determine whether they will read further.

You naturally want to capture their attention, so the title needs to succinctly encapsulate the subject of the article.

The best way to do that is to use key words.

Author name(s) and address(es)

The person who did the work and wrote the paper is generally listed as the first author of a research paper.

For published articles, other people who made substantial contributions to the work are also listed as authors. Ask your mentor's permission before including his/her name as co-author.

Write your own emails

Also you do not need to write that you are student or MSc

DOING THE WRITING

ABSTRACT

Having read your wonderful title, the reader will next want to know a little more information without having to wade through a long article to get the “meat.”

That is the purpose of an abstract.

It briefly (150-350 words) conveys the essential information of your article, including its purpose, the results and conclusion.

So we have to write abstract at the end of work.

DOING THE WRITING

INTRODUCTION

The Introduction “introduces” the reader to your topic or subject (why are you writing this article?).

Consequently, you need to arrange the information from general to more specific. It is also important to give your reader a historical context so that they can understand the significance of your article. The best way is to refer to previous publications. (So make a good research before)

Present background information only as needed in order support a position. The reader does not want to read everything you know about a subject.

State the hypothesis/objective precisely - do not oversimplify.