Scientific Writing and Publishing : A Comprehensive Manual for Authors

Abstract

This book is designed to help you write, improve, submit, revise and publish high quality research publications or reports. Papers are the final products of your research, possibly relating to experiments or investiga tions that might have taken several years to complete. Published papers are crucial for helping you to become an expert in your chosen field, commu nicate to the world your important contributions to the advancement of knowledge, get the necessary feedback to improve your research plans and establish your career. Therefore we cannot emphasize enough the import ance of learning to write your articles effectively. Remarkably few colleges, universities, companies and other organizations worldwide take the trouble to instruct their students, research staff and others in paper writing. They seem to expect people to assimilate the requisite skills from their mentors (who themselves often need training). This manual will instruct you how to go about writing a research paper. To keep it within reasonable bounds, it does not include much information on how to write in good idiomatic English (see A.10). There is a wealth of books on this matter, and a quick search online will lead you to many. This is true not only regarding non native English speakers, as many native speakers often need help, particu larly important in developing a personal style, so necessary if papers are to be less stereotyped in the presentation.