Types of articles, Publishing of Articles in newspapers or newsletters

 

Types of articles

Article is generally shorter than a book and its size vary from as short as a paragraph or two or as long as several dozen pages. Articles are used to provide up-to-date information on a wide variety of topics. Articles can address any topic that the author decides to explore and it will reflect opinion, news, research, reviews, instruction, etc. Articles appear in newspapers, magazines, journals, and even in books.

Book Review is usually a brief article that provides an evaluation and appreciation of a book. A review might assess the importance of a book's contributions to a particular field of study and it make recommendations to potential readers. Reviews of fiction will usually comment on originality, style, and readability.

Journal is a regularly published collection of articles that focus on topics specific to a particular academic discipline or profession. Journals might be published monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually. Journal articles generally have a substantial length (often more than 10 pages) and usually reflect research, either surveys of existing research or original research. Most journal articles have an abstract and extensive documentation. A journal article will have a survey of existing literature on a topic and proceeds with the development of new ideas or new research into a topic. Articles are usually written by experts in their fields, although journals might also publish letters from their readership commenting on articles that have been published in previous issues. Journals might also include opinion articles or editorials. Examples of journals include Journal of the American Medical Association, Evolutionary Biology, Nature Reviews Microbiology, Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, Cell Host & Microbe, Annual Review of Microbiology, Trends in Microbiology, etc.

Magazine is a regularly published collection of articles that may focus on any topic in general or on topics of interest to a specific group, such as sports or music, home decorators, etc. Magazines may be published weekly, monthly or semi-monthly or weekly. Articles in magazines are typically written for the general public and do not list references.  These articles are generally written by the magazine's own staff writers. Magazine articles are easy to read, brief and may include illustrations or photos. Magazines will contains advertisements as a source of revenue. Examples of magazines include Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, Yathra, Vogue, Sports Illustrated, etc.

Newsletter is a regularly published collection of brief news articles of interest to members of a particular community. Professional associations might issue newsletters to keep their members up to date. These are usually internal publications and nearly any type of organization or society might have its own newsletter. Articles in newsletters are brief and the entire newsletter will be only a few pages in length. Examples of newsletters include 401(k) Advisor, Credit Card Weekly, Education Business Weekly, Student Aid News, etc.

Newspaper is a regularly published collection of brief articles that provide updates on current events and interests. Newspapers are generally published daily, weekly or bi-weekly. Most major newspapers publish daily, with expanded coverage on the weekends. Newspapers can be national or international in focus or might be targeted strictly to a particular community or locality. Newspaper articles are written largely by newspaper staff and editors and often do not provide authors' names. Newspapers rely on advertising for a part of their income and might also include photographs and even full color illustrations of photos. A common feature of most newspapers is its editorial page, where the editor express opinions on timely topics and invite their readers to submit their opinions. Examples of newspapers include New York Times, Times of London, Times of India, Hindu, Mathrubhumi, Malayala Manorama, etc.

Peer Reviewed/Refereed Journal: Most academic/scholarly journals use subject experts or "peers" to review articles before publication. Reviewers will carefully examine articles to ensure that they meet journal criteria for subject matter and style. The process ensures that articles are appropriate to a particular journal and that they are of the highest quality.

Trade Journal: A regularly published collection of articles that address topics of interest to members of a particular profession, such as law enforcement or advertising or banking. Articles will be brief and report on developments and news within a field. Trade journals also include editorials, letters to the editor and advertisements that target members of the profession. Trade journal articles include a short list of references.  Examples of trade journals include Police Chief, Education Digest, Margin, The Economic journal, etc.

Issue and Volume

Issue is a single, regular publication of a journal, magazine, newspaper, newsletter, or trade publication. A magazine or journal that publishes monthly will have twelve issues in a year. News magazines like Time and Newsweek publish weekly and will have 52 issues in a year. Newspapers publish daily or weekly. A daily will have 365 issues in a year. Issues are usually numbered, so a journal that publishes twelve issues in a year starting with January will number each issue sequentially (issue 1, January; issue 2, February; issue 3, March; etc.).

Most journals and many magazines, newsletters, newspapers, and trade publications assign volume numbers to issues. For example, a journal that publishes four times a year will assign each yearly issues a volume number. Publications that publish monthly will assign two volumes in each publishing year.

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Publishing of Articles in newspapers /newsletters

Newspaper Articles

Newspaper articles frequently do not give author names. Articles may be obtained from the various national and international wire services such as Associated Press and Reuters and may only reference the wire service providing the news article. But feature stories give author name. For Editorials, newspaper editors are the authors. Letters to the editors will routinely provide the names of the readers submitting the letters.

Newspapers can be published daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or even just on weekends.

Newspaper articles typically report news on a wide variety of topics, from politics to science to art and music. Newspapers published in localities will typically have a section that provides national and international news coverage and additional sections that focus on local news and interests. Local papers also typically publish obituaries.

Newspapers arrange articles on the page in columns. Lead articles will begin on the front pages of the various newspaper sections and will continue deeper in the paper. The most important news events typically appear on the front page of the first section of the paper. Newspapers make extensive use of photographs either from syndicated sources or from the paper's own staff photographers. Photos are typically in black and white, however in some sections color photos are also added.  Newspapers are normally printed on large sheets of newsprint and folded.

Newspapers will include advertisements throughout the paper and might even have full page and special insert advertisements. Advertisements imbedded within the paper itself are typically black and white. Those that are included as special inserts or supplements may be in color and even on glossy paper.

To write a newspaper article, first an outline should be set. Review the research and notes and write down the ideas for the following six sections, headline, byline, Lead, story line, source and conclusion

Headline is a brief, noticeable statement about the incident, it should be attractive and up to the point.

Byline: Byline is the author’s name. It tells who wrote the story.

Lead or Lead paragraph has all the who, what, when, where, why and how. The author needs to find answers to these questions and write the article. The lead is usually the first paragraph and is written to provide a preview of the entire story. The lead will help readers decide if they want to read the rest of the story.

Storyline: After the lead, well-written story follow that includes facts from the research and quotes from people who were interviewed. The article should not have our opinion. Any events should be detailed in chronological order and active voice should be used in clear, short, direct sentences. 

The most important information is to be given in the opening paragraph followed by supporting information.

Source - The sources with information and citations are provided at the bottom of each page or the end of the story.

Conclusion is the final information, summary or carefully chosen quote.

The parts of a newspaper article are Who – Who was involved, What – What happened, Where – Where did it happen, Why – Why it happened, When – When did it happen and How – How it happened?

Newsletter Article

Articles are typically brief and frequently consist of announcements of upcoming events or brief news items of interest to members of an association or society or club and authors are not listed. Articles are typically brief, usually consisting of a few paragraphs each.

Frequency of publication might be regular or sporadic. Some newsletters might be issued only as needed.

Newsletters typically focus on topics that are very specific to a particular organization or club. News items might include announcements of training opportunities or upcoming conferences, updates on legislative initiatives, etc.

Newsletters might be simply word-processed documents or they might be glossy, professionally published materials.

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Journal Articles

Journals are typically heavy on text and light on illustration. Journal covers emphasis on highlighting key research articles that appear within a particular issue.

Authors of journal articles are usually affiliated with universities, research institutions, or professional associations. Detailed information is given after the article title, but author degrees are usually given.

A journal article will have an Abstract: The article text is preceded with an abstract. The abstract will provide an overview of what the article discusses.

The language used in journal articles is specific to the subject matter being covered by the journal, written in an academic rather than popular style.

Journal articles normally are highly documented with sources that have provided information to the authors and/or that provide further related information. Documentation of sources can be handled by in-text references (MLA, APA, Chicago sciences styles) or by the use of footnotes (Chicago humanities style), or by the use of endnotes (Turabian style). Individual journals will specify their own requirements for documentation.  The sources are often referenced in an alphabetically or numerically arranged bibliography located at the end of the article. Format of the bibliography will vary depending on the documentation style used by the journal.

Journal articles are generally fairly lengthy, often consisting of a dozen or more pages. Some journals also publish book reviews. Articles that result from research studies will often include statistical data gathered during the course of the studies. These data are often presented in charts, graphs and tables.

Journals typically gather and publish research on a very specific area, like genetics, microbiology, epidemiology, criminology, history, statistics, etc.

Journals normally make use of volume and issue numbering to help identify individual issues in their series.

 

References

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528624/

https://ucsd.libguides.com/c.php?g=704382&p=5000890

https://beckerguides.wustl.edu/authors/hindex

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4150161/

https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/essays/concept-citation-indexing/

https://www.ou.edu/webhelp/librarydemos/isi/

https://innspub.net/innspub-manuscript-preparation/

https://intmed.vcu.edu/media/intmed-dev/documents/facdev/A6StepbyStepGuidetoWritingaScientificManuscriptbyWenzeletal.pdf

https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/skills/plagiarism

https://www.plagiarism.org/article/what-is-plagiarism

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335319583_Plagiarism_Detection_Software_an_Overview

https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/conference-papers/

 

 

Plagiarism

 

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the representation of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work. Plagiarism is considered a violation of academic integrity and a breach of journalistic ethics and is unethical.  It undermines the standards of institution and of the degrees it issues.

According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, “plagiarize" means to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own, to use (another's production) without crediting the source, to commit literary theft or to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterwards.

All of the following are considered plagiarism:

·         turning in someone else's work as your own

·         copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit

·         failing to put a quotation in quotation marks

·         giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation

·         changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit

·         copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not

Plagiarism can be avoided by citing sources. Simply acknowledging that certain material has been borrowed and providing the information necessary to find that source is enough to prevent plagiarism.

Plagiarism is similar other crimes like computer hacking, spamming, phishing, copyrights violation, etc.  Among   academic   community   plagiarism   is   considered   as academic   dishonesty   or   academic fraud, and serious consequences ranging from suspension to termination may result.

Different types or Forms of plagiarism

Unintentional plagiarism

Some cases of plagiarism are not due to deliberate intention to cheat, they happen due to ignorance or inability to note down citations.  But no such excuse are acceptable, it is plagiarism and is still chargeable.

Unintentional plagiarism is not giving proper credit for someone else's ideas, research, or words, even if it was not intentional to present them as your own.  Examples of unintentional plagiarism are Accidentally failing to cite your sources correctly, ​Not citing paraphrased information, Incorrect paraphrasing, unintentionally using a "source" from the web, which is actually someone else's research paper and posted by others for cheating, etc.

Intentional plagiarism

Intentional plagiarism is knowingly presenting someone else's ideas, research, or words as your own. Examples are copying or downloading or buying an entire paper or part of a paper written by someone else and presenting it as your own with your name on it or Intentionally not giving proper credit or appropriate citation for a source after incorporating someone else's concepts or words into your own paper.

Verbatim (word for word) quotation without clear acknowledgement

Quotations must always be identified by the use of either quotation marks or indentation, and referencing of the sources cited.

Cutting and pasting from the Internet without clear acknowledgement

Information derived from the Internet must be adequately referenced and included in the bibliography. It is important to evaluate carefully all material found on the Internet.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing the work of others by altering a few words and changing their order, or by closely following the structure of their argument, is plagiarism unless due acknowledgement to the author is given.

Collusion

This involve unauthorised collaboration between students, failure to attribute assistance received, or failure to follow regulations precisely on group work projects. It is our responsibility to ensure that we are entirely clear about the extent of collaboration permitted, and which parts of the work are owned or not.

Inaccurate citation

It is important to cite correctly. We should not include anything in references or bibliography that were not actually consulted.

Failure to acknowledge assistance

You must clearly acknowledge all assistance which has contributed to the production of your work, such as advice from fellow students, laboratory technicians, and other external sources.

Use of material written by professional agencies or other persons

You should neither make use of professional agencies in the production of your work nor submit material which has been written for you even with the consent of the person who wrote it. One should undertake the research process unaided.

Auto-plagiarism or Self plagiarism

You must not submit work for assessment that you have already submitted (partially or in full), either for your current course or for another qualification same or different university. Where earlier work by you are cited, it should be listed in reference.

Detection of Plagiarism

In   universities and other institutions, detection and prevention of plagiarism is a major educational challenge, especially due to the availability of resources through internet. Plagiarism is also a major issue in scientific publishing.  So nowadays, in academic fields and for academic publishing, plagiarism detection soft-wares are used to control and stop the act of plagiarism. 

A numbers of plagiarism software are available by which acts of plagiarism can be detected.  Even though it helps to check plagiarism, these software’s possess drawbacks and limitations.  It only shows the similarity and give hints to some other documents. Examples of plagiarism check software’s are Turnitin, Dupli Checker, Copyleaks, Plagiarism Checker, PlagAware, iThenticate, Urkund, etc.

 

References

https://www.ou.edu/webhelp/librarydemos/isi/

https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/skills/plagiarism

https://www.plagiarism.org/article/what-is-plagiarism

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335319583_Plagiarism_Detection_Software_an_Overview

 

ISSN, Impact Factor and Citation index

ISSN Number

In all aspects of life, we need to be able to uniquely identify something. In Scientific publishing for uniquely identifying we use DOI (Digital Object Identifier) which provides a unique way to identify a paper and an ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) identifier to identify a single author.  An ISSN is just another form of unique identifier which identifies a form of electronic or print media.  An ISSN will be unique to a specific journal. If two journals have the same name, or almost the same name, which is a tactic used by some predatory journals to try and trick researchers into submitting their journal, they can be identified as separate based on the IISN.  No two journals cannot have the same ISSN.

An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine or journal. The ISSN helps to distinguish between serials with the same title.

There is difference between an ISBN and an ISSN. The ISBN is International Standard Book Number and it identifies editions of books. The ISSN is used for serials (such as journals, magazines and newspapers).  For example, on an annual, the ISBN will identify a specific volume of book (e.g. 2017 edition) while ISSN identifies the title and stays the same each year.

The ISSN system was first drafted as an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) international standard in 1971 and published as ISO 3297 in 1975.  ISSNs is used in ordering, cataloging, interlibrary loans, and other practices in connection with serial literature.  The format of the ISSN is an eight-digit code, divided by a hyphen into two four-digit numbers.  The digits that make up the ISSN have no meaning in themselves, they just have to be unique from all other ISSNs.  The only digit that has a meaning is the last one. This is known as a check digit and its role is to ensure the integrity of the other seven digits. This means that if one of the other seven digits changes, or the check digit changes, then it can be shown that there is an error in the ISSN number.

The ISSN system is managed by an international centre in Paris. They take responsibility for assigning ISSNs in France and also for countries that do not have their own national centre.  There is a network of more than 80 centres across the world who take responsibility for assigning ISSN’s in their respective countries.

When a serial with the same content is published in more than one media type, a different ISSN is assigned to each media type. For example, many serials are published both in print and electronic media. The ISSN system refers to these types as print ISSN (p-ISSN) and electronic ISSN (e-ISSN), respectively.  ISSN-L is a unique identifier for all versions of the serial containing the same content across different media. The ISSN-L is one of a serial's existing ISSNs, it is based on the ISSN of the first published medium version of the publication. If the print and online versions of the publication are published at the same time, the ISSN of the print version is chosen as the basis of the ISSN-L.

A journal may continue to publish eith with or without ISSN.  Not having an ISSN does not mean that the journal is better or worse, although there is an impression that a journal with an ISSN has some mark of quality about it. 

Guidelines for requesting an ISSN

·         Applying and obtaining an ISSN is free.

·         An ISSN can be revoked if it is shown that misleading information was provided at the time it was requested.

·         ISSNs are assigned for certain categories of print/electronic media, including serials, journals and magazines.

·         Books cannot be assigned an ISSN. They require an ISBN.

·         We can get ISSN assigned once we give proof of publication, for online publications, an ISSN can only be assigned after the first issue has been released.

·         There should be a minimum of five editorial board members.

·         Official postal and email addresses should be provided. The emails should have an institutional domain and personal email addresses (such as Yahoo and Gmail) should be avoided.

·         An ISSN can be withdrawn if plagiarism is detected.

·         The name and complete postal address (specifically India) of the publisher must be displayed on the publication or publication website.

The standard way to display (or print) an ISSN is:

·         ISSN followed by a space

·         The first for digits

·         A hyphen

·         The last four digits

For example, (without the quotes when displaying/printing), “ISSN 1476-4687”, which is the ISSN for the journal Nature.

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Science citation index

There are three strategies that are commonly used to find materials on research

1.  Following references back to other work: We look through the documents (books, articles) that we already know about to find references ("citations") made by their authors to other, former works.  We try to get and read those works too.

2.  Bibliographies and indexing services: We search through bibliographies or abstracting/indexing services, using subject words.

3.  Consult a subject expert: We talk to a researcher or scholar who knows the area, and who advises us of what authors/researchers we should be familiar with.

4.  Citation indexing - A citation index is a kind of bibliographic index, an index of citations between publications, allowing the user to easily establish which later documents cite which earlier documents.

Citation indexing makes links between books and articles that were written in the past and articles that make reference to ("cite") these older publications.  In other words, it is a technique that allows us to trace the use of an idea (an earlier document) forward to others who have used ("cited") it.  The evidence that we take as indicating this "relationship" between earlier research and subsequent research are the references or footnotes or endnotes (citations) in the more recent work.

Problems with the first strategy is that they can direct us to research literature that is older than these articles.  If we are reading a 1995 article, we will find references in it which are published prior to 1995.  The same problem with much of the bibliographic literature too: unless a bibliography is a recurrent publication, or is made available online in a continuously updated fashion, it cannot maintain entries for very recently published research materials.

The third method of going to a scholar is a good approach, but it is not generally available to most of researchers.  This form of inquiry depends on the professional/academic relationship with the scholar.

So there is a fourth technique that can be employed to locate recent research which is known as citation indexing.   This is like an informational "ancestry" of a current idea as it is expressed in the literature.  That ancestry is noted by the author of the current idea (his journal article) through his citations. It allows to follow a a concept's or idea's or methodology's use by other scholars.  Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), the company that makes citation indexing services, have built a database of current articles coming from thousands of journals that it selects to use for this purpose. 

In other words, if you know that Author A wrote a very important research article in 1995, you can search ISI's citation index to get a list of recent journal articles have cited this 1995 work. For example, if author B and author C have cited ‘Author A 1995 work’ in 2002 and author C have cited ‘Author A 1995 work’ in 2020, we can see this.  This is how citation indexing works: you know about an author (or more specifically, an author's particular article that has already been published) and you use ISI's citation index to find out who has cited that work recently.

The Science Citation Index (SCI) is a citation index originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and created by Eugene Garfield. It was officially launched in 1964 and is now owned by Clarivate Analytics.  SCI does not attempt to cover all publications in the sciences. Its coverage is limited to about 3600 journals, plus some books and conference proceedings.  Journals are selected based on citation statistics such as impact factor and thus indexes the most important journals.

Its larger version is Science Citation Index Expanded.  It covers more than 9,200 notable and significant journals, across 178 disciplines, from 1900 to the present. These are world's leading journals of science and technology.

The index is made available online through different platforms, such as the Web of Science and SciSearch. There are also CD and printed editions, covering a smaller number of journals.  Thomson Reuters also markets several subsets of this database, termed "Specialty Citation Indexes" such as the Neuroscience Citation Index and the Chemistry Citation Index.

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Impact factor and importance

Impact factor is commonly used to evaluate the relative importance of a journal within its field and to measure the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited in a particular time period. Journal which publishes more review articles will get highest IFs.  It was first introduced by Eugene Garfield, the founder of the Institute for Scientific Information.  Journals with higher IFs believed to be more important than those with lower ones. According to Eugene Garfield “impact simply reflects the ability of the journals and editors to attract the best paper available.” Journal which publishes more review articles will get maximum IFs.

Impact factor can be calculated after completing minimum of 3 years of publication.  So journal IF cannot be calculated for new journals. The journal with the highest IF is the one that published the most commonly cited articles over a 2-year period.

In a given year, the IF of a journal is the average number of citations received per article published in that journal during the 2 preceding years. IFs are calculated each year by Thomson scientific and are published in Journal Citation Reports.

For example, if a journal has an IF of 3 in 2008, then its papers published in 2006 and 2007 received three citations each on average in 2008. The 2008 IFs are actually published in 2009; they cannot be calculated until all of the 2008 publications have been processed by the indexing agency (Thomson Reuters).

The IF of any journal may be calculated by the formula;

2012 impact factor =A/B

Where A is the number of times articles published in 2010 and 2011 were cited by indexed journals during 2012. B is the total number of citable items like articles and reviews published by that journal in 2010 and 2011.

H index

The h index is a metric for evaluating the cumulative impact of an author's scholarly output and performance.  It measures quantity with quality by comparing publications to citations. For any author, some publications might be highly cited while some other publications may not have any citation at all.  The h index corrects for the disproportionate weight of highly cited publications or publications that have not yet been cited.  The h index was proposed by J.E. Hirsch in 2005. It gives estimate of the importance, significance, and broad impact of a scientist’s cumulative research contributions. 

It is calculated as number of papers (h) that have received at least h citations.

For example, an h index of 10 means that among all publications by one author, 10 of these publications have received at least 10 citations each. 

i10-Index

i10 index is the number of publications by an author with at least 10 citations. This very simple measure is only used by Google Scholar.

 

References

https://ucsd.libguides.com/c.php?g=704382&p=5000890

https://beckerguides.wustl.edu/authors/hindex

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4150161/

https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/essays/concept-citation-indexing/

https://www.ou.edu/webhelp/librarydemos/isi/

Manuscripts preparation for Journals – Components

 

Peer Review and peer reviewed journals

Peer-reviewed or refereed journals have an editorial board of subject experts who review and evaluate submitted articles before accepting them for publication.

Peer review or referee process

An editorial board request subject experts to review and evaluate submitted articles before accepting them for publication in a scholarly journal. Submissions are evaluated using criteria including the excellence, novelty and significance of the research or ideas.  Scholarly journals use this process to protect and maintain the quality of material they publish. List of the members of the editorial board are listed near the beginning of each journal issue.

Basic information about each publication, including whether it is peer-reviewed/refereed can be searched by searching journal title in Ulrichsweb or Ulrichs.

Blind Peer Review (Single Blind Peer Review) ‐ The author of the article is unaware of who the reviewers or referees are.  The reviewers might be familiar or not having any knowledge of the author.

Double Blind Peer Review ‐ Here neither the author nor the reviewers are known to each other. So the reviewers' assessments of the article will be less subject to bias.

Peer Review ‐ This is also called "refereeing," the process of submitting an article to a panel of experts for review prior to making a publishing decision.

The peer review process is utilized by a majority of academic journals and book chapters. Peers are professionals and experts who have an intimate familiarity with the subject matter being explored in the article or chapter.

The ideas behind peer review are

·         Only the best articles and chapters will be selected for publication.

·         Articles and chapters selected for publications are subjected to professional scrutiny

·         Outside reviewers will bring little or no bias into the selection process.

·         Shortcomings are more likely to be spotted and corrected before publication.

·         The process of fact‐checking is further enhanced.

Not all academic publications use the peer review process. Some publications might utilize their own editors or even a single editor to screen articles being considered for publication. This does not necessarily take away the importance or legitimacy of the publication as a valid academic source.

Manuscripts preparation for Journals – Components

Manuscript Preparation

Scientific writing involves effectively communicating research findings. The final stage of a research project is the writing of a manuscript which ultimately allows a research work to become part of the “body of knowledge.” Preparation of a manuscript involves the careful inclusion of all the relevant information so that the research can be understood as well as replicated by others. It should be concise and clear without any ambiguity or confusion.

A Manuscript/article for publication is an original work that presents new knowledge. This new knowledge should be explained by building upon already existing knowledge.

Manuscript should contain the section such as, Title, Abstract, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results & Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgement and finally References.

A manuscript must be clearly written in the language and font types directed by the particular Journal guidelines.

The Scientific Ethics should be followed in manuscript writing, Persons who have significant contributions in conducting the research must not be excluded from the authors list and persons without having any contribution should not be included as author.

No Plagiarism should be there and should be cautious about the novelty and copyrights of others.

Manuscript Structure:

Title page - Title page should contain the title of the article, the full names of authors and institutional full addresses for all authors and email of corresponding author. Abstract and Keywords should be included.

·               Title - A good title should contain the fewest possible words that adequately describe the contents of a paper. Title should be Informative, meaningful & specific, Neither too short nor too long, Must be chosen with extreme care since it will be read by thousands of people.  Unnecessary jargon, uncommon, abbreviations, ambiguous terms, unnecessary detail, etc should be avoided

·               Author(s) Name - Should provide full name of all authors.

·               Authors affiliations - Should provide institutional full address for all authors.

·               Corresponding Author - The name and email address of the corresponding author should also be included, mentioned as corresponding author by marking star (*). The corresponding author is fully responsible for any disputes arising due to the publication of his/her manuscript.

·               Abstract - An abstract should be prepared; the word count should be kept limited to as per journal guide line. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or references or exaggerated conclusions. A good abstract should (i) state the principal objectives and scope of the investigation, (ii) describe the methodology employed, (iii) summarize the results and (iv) state the principal conclusion.

·               Keywords - Keywords should be very selective and appropriate with 5 to 7 key words. Keywords are important for indexing: they enable your manuscript to be more easily identified and cited. Avoid uncommon abbreviations and general terms.

Main Text

Original Investigations and Brief Report contain the section of Introduction, Material, Methods (or Materials and Methods), Results, Discussion (or Results and Discussion).

·         Introduction - Provide the necessary background information to put your work into context. The introduction should provide within 2-3 paragraph based on the type or category of information presented and aims of the study.

Do not include methods, results or conclusions (an outline of the conclusion may be given in the final paragraph of introduction), Description of data collection and analysis, extensive review of the field, or disproportionate citation of own work, work of colleagues or work that supports your findings while ignoring contradictory studies or work by competitors.

·         Materials and Methods/Methodology – we should give full details by which a competent worker can repeat the experiment. For materials, include the exact technical specifications and quantities and source or methods of preparation. For methods, usual order of presentation is chronological. This section must be brief but informative. Clearly explain how you carried out your study according to the following generalized structure:

o   What materials were used?, How the experiment was structured or designed?, How the experimental procedure was done?, How the data were analyzed?, etc.

o   We can give appropriate sub-heading for each of the category or method used or procedure, study areas, analysis etc. Write most of this section in past tense using passive voice. Do not include any results here.

·         Results/Case Studies - It is the most significant part of a paper. The Results section presents the experimental data to the reader and is not a place for discussion or interpretation of the data. The data itself should be presented in tables and figures. The placement of a particular table or figure in the text should be indicated. For experimental studies, key statistics and any statistical analysis that was performed should be stated.  Give appropriate sub-heading based on the study results.

o   It should be short but clearly represented.

o   No discussions should be included here.

o   Use Tables and Figures to organize all the data systematically - Tables to show exact values; Figures to show trends or relationship effect.

o   Figures and Tables should be easy to understand without the reader having to refer to the text.

o   Do not include both a Table and a Figure showing the same information.

o   Presented tables and figures in the paper must be referred to in the results section.

·         Discussion -The discussion section is often the most difficult to write.  If the work has characterized a phenomenon by studying specific effects, use the results to describe each effect in separate paragraphs. If the work has presented a hypothesis, use the results to construct a logical argument that supports or rejects your hypothesis. If the work has identified main objectives for the work, use the results to address each of these objectives. 

A A well defined study that is described in the Introduction, along with supporting results that are presented in the Results section, can be easily constructed in the Discussion section. Begin the Discussion section with a brief paragraph that again gives an overview to the work. Summarize the most important findings and, if applicable, accept or reject the proposed hypothesis. Next, identify the most interesting, significant, remarkable findings that were presented in the Results section, and contrast these findings in light of other studies reported in the literature. Finally, at the end of the Discussion section, discuss other works in the literature that address this topic and explain how this work contributes to the overall field of study.

FiFinalize the discussion section according to the following criteria-

o   Try to present the principles, relationships and generalization as shown by the results.

o   Point out any exceptions or any lack of correction, and define unsettled points.

o   Show how your results, and interpretations agree or disagree with previous published works.

o   Discuss both theoretical implications, as well as practical applications.

·         Conclusions - The practical implications of research are explained in the conclusions. Here, again introduce the work and then briefly state the major results, major points of the discussion and finally, end with a statement of how this work contributes to the overall field of study. The Conclusions section should contain short Introduction, Results, Significance of the research, implications, Limitations, Recommended topics for further study, etc.  Conclusion should be limited to one or two paragraph.

Acknowledgements – This is a brief statement acknowledging the efforts of any person or consultant who are not included as authors. All funding sources for the work should be stated. In short, Acknowledgements of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section before the References.

Declaration of Interests- All authors must declare any conflicts of interest. This section is for acknowledging individuals and institutions whose assistance and support the authors wish to mention.

References - The paper should be prepared in the style of the journal to which the paper is submitted. Guidance on referencing style can be found in the Author Guidelines for the specific chosen journal.  So we should check the Authors instructions for the correct ‘reference’ format.  Include all references that have been cited in the text. Do not include extra references to simply cite particular authors or journals. It may be appropriate to cite previous publications from your own laboratory. Softwares may be used for easier reference formatting. 

Supplementary Material - Unpublished tables and figures that relate to the manuscript but are too lengthy to be printed with the manuscript can be submitted online as Supplementary Material. Do not include material that has been published previously or is otherwise under copyright restriction.

Final Checklist for submission

We must ensure that before submitting the manuscript for publication, the following matters should be considered

·         Title page should contain full title, name of the author/co-authors, their designation & institutions they are affiliated with and email address for future correspondence.

·         Abstract and keywords are provided.

·         References are properly arranged as per the Instruction to Authors section.

·         Tables should be on separate pages.

·         Headings of Tables, their numbers and Captions of illustrations.

·         Photographs and illustrations with high resolution along with their captions.

·         Copy right agreement added with signature of corresponding author/All authors.

·         Disclosure regarding source of funding and conflict of interest if any

·         Letter of Undertaking signed by all the corresponding author/authors.

 

Scientific articles are generally written in the “IMRaD” format.  The IMRaD report is a paper that is structured in four main sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. This format used for lab reports as well as for preparing planned and systematic research report in any field of research.

Structure of research papers/article (www.quora.com)

 

Structure of research papers/article (www.link.springer.com)

 

 

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Selection of journals for article publication

Publishing in journals that are not reputable can diminish the credibility of our research. To ensure that our work gets the readership it deserves, publishing the article in a good, reputable and suitable journal is very important.  The process of selecting an appropriate journal is becoming increasingly complex due to the proliferation of journals, areas of specialization, and emergence of interdisciplinary topics. Authors have to optimize between many criteria or constraints before reaching a decision about where to publish.

The following are a few criteria that may be followed for journal selection

·         Opt among the journals that you, your colleagues and mentors use for research.  Some journals used to charge a publication fee or processing for article publication and will publish the article in open access.  Some journals will publish articles without any publication fee, but will demand a subscription fee for others to view or access the article.  In other words, some journals are based on a reader-pays model, in which institutional libraries typically pay for access, and some journals are open access journals and support “unrestricted access and unrestricted reuse,” but are based on an author-pays model.

·         Review the recent publications in the journal to assess the scientific rigor and editorial quality of the publications.

·         Aim and scope of the journal, the editorial board, indexing status, the peer review process, reputation, and policies for authors are the key indicators of quality journals. These criteria can help identify quality journals suitable for publication. Journal indexes (also called bibliographic indexes or bibliographic databases) are lists of journals, organized by discipline, subject, or type of publication.  To be indexed, journal undergo certain review process.  So, journals included in an index are considered of higher quality than journals that are not. Examples of indexing services are Index Medicus, MedLine, PubMed, EMBASE, SCOPUS, EBSCO Publishing's Electronic Databases, SCIRUS, etc.

·         Another option is to consult with librarians affiliated with institution or a local public library. Librarians can provide guidance in helping authors with selecting quality journals to consider for publication.

·         Another important factor is the time a journal takes for completing the reviewing and publication process

 

Quick Tips for Journal Selection

Make a List of the Journals Available - To obtain a comprehensive knowledge about available journals and to prepare a list of journals in the given subject area one may consulting peers, search through online listings, and check with professional associations.

·         Determine the Impact of the Journal

Quantitative measures such as the Impact Factor, Journal Rank, Article Influence, and H-Index are used to determine the impact of the journal. These are generally linked to the citation rate for articles published in the journal.

·         Identify the match of Journal Scope and Policies

The subject areas covered and the types of articles published should be ascertained and should go through the editorial policies and practices of the journal.

·         Check the Journal Requirements and Distribution

Most journals have a certain style for the article. The article must be consistent with the requirements of the journal. The mode of distribution (print/online) and number of subscribers determine the reach of the journal.

·         Collect Information about the Journal’s Peer Review Process

Information about the peer review process for the specific journal, including stature of reviewers, objectivity, and timelines, should also be gathered from a variety of sources. Actual values or estimates of rejection rates should be obtained.

·         Check the “Instructions for Authors” thoroughly

The “Instruction for Authors” has certain additional information for the authors that one must keep in mind before submitting the manuscript. For example, topics that are welcome, discouraged, page limit etc. may be mentioned here, that are important for the authors. Therefore, this list must be thoroughly checked.

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References

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528624/

https://ucsd.libguides.com/c.php?g=704382&p=5000890

https://beckerguides.wustl.edu/authors/hindex

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4150161/

https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/essays/concept-citation-indexing/

https://www.ou.edu/webhelp/librarydemos/isi/

https://innspub.net/innspub-manuscript-preparation/

https://intmed.vcu.edu/media/intmed-dev/documents/facdev/A6StepbyStepGuidetoWritingaScientificManuscriptbyWenzeletal.pdf