Saturday, April 29, 2017

Reasons for getting a paper accepted in a peer reviewed journal

Significance of the work

The work delves with an important issue that affects the life of a lot of people. It may shed light on an hitherto unsolved problem or may provide a solution to it. 

Novelty: Show something new

The editors are avid readers of Journals. They are well conversed with recent works in their domain. So they often take the final decision by their gut-feeling about a topic - whether it is current, novel and not a derivative of a previous work. The work may create a new theory or may catalyse in advancing an existing one.

Methods adopted should be appropriate

Various methods used to gather data and the analysis of those data should be appropriate. It is suggested to refer to the data collection and analysis methods used by contemporary researchers. Following advice of Dr. Peter Thrower, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Carbon, a world famous journal in chemistry, may be kept in mind while writing an article.
  • The study must contain clear control groups or other comparison metrics.
  • The study should conform to recognised procedures or methodology that can be repeated.
  • The analysis must be statistically valid or should follow the norms of the field.

Explanations

The data obtained should be analysed and explained for why and how the data supports the conclusions. Data and analysis from other workers may be cited, compared or contrasted in this part to create connections to prior works in that field. This will make the arguments of the article clear.

The article tells a good story

An article is nothing but a story. A story well-told is attracted by all. So a well written article will be easy to understand, the arguments are logically arranged and ought not be internally contradictory.

Plagiarism! A big NO NO! 

Plagiarism is the copying of data, text and even idea by an author and publish it as his / her own. It is a taboo in the Research Circle. All editors, invariably, frown upon it. "There should be no hints of plagiarism or fabrication in the paper." - said Dr. Francesco Visioli, Editor-in-Chief of Pharmacological Research. 
Therefore, just after writing a paper or thesis check it with a plagiarism checker. Some are free and many of them are paid service.

References



Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Zotero - Tutorial Part-I

Zotero

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Introduction

This is an ultimate organizer for research fellows. If you are planning to create a (i) Research Paper or a (ii) Masters Degree Dissertation or (iii) a PhD thesis then go for Zotero. The advantages of Zotero are enlisted below:
  1. First of all it is free to download and use.
  2. Zotero can be installed as Standalone or may be installed as AddIns in Firefox browser.
  3. You can create a bibliographic item like a book or book section, a research article, a news paper report, an official document, a blog or webpage, a letter and what not?
  4. The citations [e.g. (12) or (Samanta et.al. 2014)] can be inserted in MS Word or Openoffice. Zotero appears as a AddIns in the menu with six buttons. From this toolbar citations can be inserted, edited and refreshed just by a mere click.
  5. You can save the original document (either in .doc, .pdf or .html format) in your hard disk and link the file to an item in the Library. Whenever required just by a click on the item in the Library you can open the document. There will be no need of tearing your hairs for searching the required file.
  6. You can add notes while you are going through the literature. You can search the list of items by any relevant term in Zotero window during writing your thesis.
  7. The bibliography or references can be inserted by almost all conventional styles and paste it at the end of your thesis or article. You can change the style whenever you desire.
  8. All the bibliographic items are stored in a Library of your choice. This library can be Exported as file and can be sent to your guide(s) or peers which the latter can Import in their own Zotero Standalone.
  9. The Library can be synced online (by logging in the Zotero site.)
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