In academic publishing, an article is first a drafted manuscript that is carefully reviewed by scientists of a particular discipline and specialization. Their in-depth commentary identifies the flaws and highlights the benefits of the experimental study design and results. Receiving research grants and scholarships is impossible without getting a manuscript approved by a group of esteemed peer reviewers, who are usually mid-career researchers with an impressive track record of publications.
Most early career researchers are post-doc candidates who have to scrutinize their work from the eagle eyes of three to four peer reviewers. The authenticity of the research and its related findings need to be officially recognized by peer reviewers. After peer review process is completed, the article is polished by an academic publisher.
Some of the flaws of academic peer review process is that it is a slow and lengthy process, often determined by the type of peer review model followed by a journal. Academics are overworked people and they work on volunteer basis for journals. Therefore, peer review process seems to be exploitative for academics as it offers very little or no remuneration. The time and effort put in reviewing is an integral part of the publication process, so it should be compensated.
Another striking flaw of the peer review process is that is getting biased and lacks transparency. Most journals follow the double blind peer review system. The names of the authors of the manuscript are concealed. The reviewers do not know the names of the authors of the manuscript. At the same time, the names of the reviewers and their credentials are not furnished to authors. Thus, the current system lacks transparency and acts as a “black box.”
Finally, the speed of the peer review process is associated with a long waiting time. Whenever, a paper is submitted to a journal, it is scrutinized for the novelty of findings. Once the content is approved, the authors have to wait for a long time before the paper is sent to set of esteemed peer reviewers.
Once the peer review process is completed, the final publication process is initiated: here, the editors do NOT work in tandem with reviewers. Usually, researchers get their work published in peer-reviewed journals within one year or two. Delays in peer review process makes policymakers rely on outdated findings of science.
Early career researchers have to make a mark in the field of scholarly publications. They need to get a tenure of post-doc research positions and professorship only on the basis of their successful publications. Most post-doc researchers are very good in laboratory activities. Writing of experimental manuscripts is an art, which needs to be deciphered from the constructive comments of peer reviewers.
Meningioma is a brain tumor that is not metastatic and occurs even after a patient undergoes surgery and radiation. In such a situation, the patient with brain tumor is left with no treatment option.
Such aggressive tumors cannot be treated with drugs. These tumors occur in about 20% of the cases, making patients disabled or even prone to death.
Currently, researchers at the Northwestern University of Medicine have collaborated with the University of California and the University of Hong Kong.
They are on a mission to develop a novel drug that can inhibits the development of meningiomas. They are the most aggressive form of brain tumors. They are also working on identifying how accurately the drug are effective in destroying meningiomas.
These scientists have developed a new drug named abemaciclib, which is an anti-cancer agent. The drug was tested successful in a human clinical trial of selected patients. It was also tested on animal model of mouse.
Moreover, a three-dimensional brain tumor was extracted from living tissues. Such a tumor was known as organoids, and the drug was tested on this organoid and other cell cultures.
Investigators created two subgroups of meningiomas as their clinical outcome and recurrence rates were different. This new method of classifying tumors was more effective in predicting the recurrence rate as compared to the existing method.
Currently, patients with brain tumor have to undergo surgery. After undergoing surgery, a specimen of the tumor is examined by the doctor under a microscope and graded according to its aggression: one, two, or three.
But gradation of tumors has only 70% accuracy level. This implies that some tumors would behave in a way that does not resemble the specimen observed under the microscope.
In this study, we identified the patient who were suitable for being treated with abemaciclib, the novel anti-cancer drug. It is highly likely that the brain tumor of these patients would respond to this drug.
According to the lead investigator of this study, the drug has the potential to give such patients a longer life that is devoid of any symptoms. Dr. Stephen Magill is the corresponding author of this study and practices neurological surgery at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. This study was published in the esteemed journal Nature Genetics.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has a profound impact on the health of American citizens, ever since it was introduced on a commercial scale this year in the US. This finding has been published in the latest report of the esteemed Journal of Medical Economics.
The vaccine was introduced in the year 2021 in the US, and it became the most widely used vaccine against COVID-19 in the US. The vaccine has been successful in preventing 8.7 million cases of coronavirus. In fact, it was so effective that it prevented 690,000 cases of hospitalization and even about 110,000 deaths in the US.
The healthcare industry has been able to save more than 30 billion dollars due to this vaccine. Moreover, it has also prevented $ 40 billion in what could have been lost productivity of patients and people prone to developing coronavirus.
Pfizer-BioNTech was the first COVID-19 vaccine to have been made commercially in the US. In fact, almost six out of ten American citizens received this vaccine according to the Center for Disease Control, which is a leading public health agency in the US.
The market research study was conducted by authors who received funding from Pfizer. The authors were either employees or consultants of Pfizer. They used a real-world model to test the clinical trial data and estimate the number of cases with symptoms of COVID-19.
They also estimated the number of hospitalizations and deaths that could have occurred in the year 2021 if the vaccine had not been provided to these subjects. Moreover, they estimated the impact of these cases on the existing healthcare system and economy in general.
In the clinical trial model, the authors fed the following data: the number of people vaccinated, the efficacy of the vaccine according to different age groups, the probability of developing COVID-19, the symptoms developed, and the chances of being hospitalized.
The long-term effects of COVID-19 were also considered in the number of working days lost by the patient. The infection was classified as the leading cause of premature deaths, causing an economic burden on the country.
This research study has some limitations, which could have led to an underestimation of figures. The authors did not take into account the potential the vaccine had in reducing the transmission of COVID-19.
The severity of the cases was also not considered. Moreover, the authors did not measure the overall impact that long-standing COVID-19 cases had on the economy. The research model did not take into account the omicron variant of the COVID-19 as it emerged much later.
Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) is a consortium that announced its partnership with the American Chemical Society (ACS) for publications. With this development, researchers across the UK would have better access to articles in OA journals and periodicals of chemistry.
The publications department will not charge any money from the researcher for publishing articles in the OA format in ACS journals. These researchers have to be affiliated to universities and institutes in the UK. All the scientific articles are accessible through the open access (OA) model. The agreement between ACS and JISC would be effective for three years, dated May 2022.
JISC’s content marketing head, Anna Vernon, issued a press release stating the agreement between ACS and JISC is remarkable for all researchers based in the UK. As the OA movement is gaining momentum, they will now be providing many OA publishing modes in all ACS journals. This would facilitate collaborations between authors, institutions, and publications of chemistry. Thus, researchers in the UK would be improving their work and discoveries in the world of chemistry and interdisciplinary areas.
James Milne, the president of the publications department of ACS, also issued a press statement, emphasizing how transformative was the impact of this innovative agreement with JISC. World-class path-breaking research is being conducted by scientists in the UK. They regularly publish their work in ACS journals, which always adhere to high standards of quality and integrity. With this agreement, the reach of chemistry articles will be extended to the global community of chemists. The findings published would benefit both the funder and the institutions.
In recent times, ACS has been quietly making efforts to transition into the OA model of publications. Its read and publish program is a significant effort in this direction, supporting OA researchers. The program is being practiced in more than 400 institutions and more than 20 countries, enabling rapid growth in the readership of OA articles. ACS is a society that is committed to innovations in the open science movement, serving its growing demand in the author and reader communities.
The trends in open access publishing are the talking point of most academicians in scholarly publications. One of the most commonly misunderstood topics is the correlation between impact factors and open access journals.
One of the most significant benefits of publishing open access is that the article is freely accessible to everyone to read. Thus, valuable research data can be disseminated to a broader audience, and the article’s impact factor may increase.
Is the impact factor helpful in assessing the quality of research papers? Is open access publishing suppressing the efficacy of the impact factor? Well, some open access journals have an impact factor, while many do not endorse these metrics.
An open-access journal may not have an impact factor due to the following reasons: the scope and aim of the journal may be in the Arts & Humanities sector, such that it is not enlisted in the SSCI (Social Science Citation Index) or the SCI (Science Citation Index). These are databases that present the impact factors of journals.
The OA journal may be relatively new, and the process of application of indexing in SCI and SSCI databases may not have occurred. In the case of fairly old journals, the editorial board has to make an effort to apply to indexing processes.
However, most prestigious OA journals have an impact factor, but that does not mean other OA journals have published low quality research. On the contrary, the impact factor indicates the quality of research even in subscription journals of the same discipline.
Now, let us understand the complex aspects on which the impact factor depends. In general, patterns of citations in a particular subject area and the type of articles a journal publishes are taken into account before giving an impact factor to the journal.
For example, an open-access journal may be well-read by the masses. Its content is freely available to everyone and is not restricted by a paywall, like in subscription journals. An ordinary reader may expect the articles to be highly cited. However, if the readership is mainly due to medical practitioners, the articles won’t be highly cited.
Most researchers consider the impact factor of the journal before publishing an article. However, researchers and funders are moving beyond the scope of impact factor to assess the merits of scientific research. Today, they are exposed to a wider range of metrics, which enable a better assessment of the quality of research.
Furthermore, in open-access journal, the article is available online and is free to read for everyone and anywhere in the world with internet access. Therefore, the research published in open access journals will have a broader impact as it generates lots of downloads by researchers worldwide.
Brill, the leading academic publisher from Europe, has made a strategic acquisition of Wageningen Academic Publishers this week. Brill publishes journals, books, and periodicals in humanities, social science, law, and biology.
The shareholders of Wageningen Publishers have agreed to sell all their shares and enable Brill publishers to acquire a 100% stake in the business. With this acquisition, Brill gained all titles of Wageningen Academic Publishers, which had journals and books in food science, health, animal studies, agriculture, and environment.
The publishers primarily published Open Access (OA) journals, books, and conference proceedings. In the year 2021, the total estimated revenue of Wageningen Academic Publishers (WAP) was around 1 million EUR. With the acquisition of WAP, Brill will strengthen its stand in the academic publishing domain of biology, which is seeing a spurt in new titles and issues.
Moreover, Brill’s main objective is to foray into emerging disciplines, such as agriculture and the environment. Therefore, it has to have publications that address global challenges. Furthermore, many researchers receive scholarships in these fields as they are all related to climate change.
According to Brill’s CEO, Peter Coebergh, WAP was an excellent international publisher in agriculture and biology. Moreover, it included a lot of journals that were highly attractive to researchers. With the acquisition of WAP, Brill has now taken on a humungous task of creating an interdisciplinary ecosystem of Science and International laws on climate change and the environment.
The portfolio of interdisciplinary journals will showcase the strong presence of open access models of publishing and research. Furthermore, according to managing directors and shareholders of WAP, the acquisition makes WAP a part of the Brill family, thereby further consolidating its programs on current titles of journals and books.
The purchase is effective from 15 April 2022 and marks a significant development in academic publishing.
The abstract is a precise summary of the entire research paper. It should entice the reader into reading the full paper, so authors spend substantial amount of time and effort into crafting an abstract that provides a gist of the entire experimental study.
In conferences, an abstract is presented to keynote speakers and reviewers. They judge the entire quality of a research paper only on the basis of the abstract. If the abstract is good, the entire paper would be selected for presentation to the audience. An abstract is considered as an indicator of the quality of content in a research paper.
Let’s understand the purpose of writing a good abstract for a scientific research paper. An abstract should provide a brief overview of the entire research paper. A reader must be provided with the following content: background, objective, methods, results, and conclusion.
In general, an abstract has to be not more than 250 to 300 words. The objective should state clearly what was the motive of conducting the research study. The methods should describe how the experimental research study was conducted. The results should mention the novel findings of this study. Finally, the conclusion must state the significance of the research study.
In general, just two to three sentences must be included in the background of the study. They should effectively guide the reader into the investigational methods used in the study. Next, the objective of the study should not be more than one sentence in length. Thereafter, the methods section should clearly describe the research study design.
The results section must be written in detail and include all the important information about the findings in the study. It is the longest section of the abstract; however, the word count limit of the abstract must be kept in mind while writing the results. Finally, the conclusion of the abstract should include the three important components: the significance of the study, additional important findings, and the perspective of the study.
An introduction is the first section of a research paper after the abstract. It summarizes the rationale behind the topic of a research study. The background information is presented to induce the reader into understanding the hypothesis and methodology of the experiment. An introduction has to be written in a simple, lucid language, making a good impression on the reader. An introduction should present general information on the topic of the research study in the initial paragraph. Then, the specific context of the study should be explained. The introduction should have the statement of purpose of the study in the concluding paragraph. It should also include potential outcomes of the study.
Information related to the topic of study would include the significance of the topic, the general background of the topic, and an overview of current research studies on the topic. There would be a niche problem associated with the topic of a research study. Then, develop a research question that would confront the existing assumptions. Thereafter, identify gaps in existing research studies. Now, that the research topic is aligned with the niche of research, it is mandatory to explain the objective of the research study. The highlights of the study may be summarized along with important results. Finally, the authors should describe the structure of the study in a concise, succinct manner.
A research problem may be dealt with many methodologies. However, the reader must be informed in the introduction section why alternative methodologies have not been considered and why authors have chosen a specific approach to deal with the research problem. In other words, every introduction section should describe how a research problem is being investigated within the scope and boundaries of the study.
The introduction section of a research paper should have a narrative flow. Firstly, the subject area of interest should be identified clearly. For this purpose, the keywords presented in the Abstract section should be used in the title of the paper. The same keywords should also be used in the initial few sentences of the introduction section. Thus, although general information would develop the background, the subject area of interest would also be presented in a focused manner.
The context of the study would include a critical and rational review of all published studies related to the subject area of interest. There may be known facts about the research problem, and these must be presented in the introduction section. Thus, this information would help readers understand key elements associated with the research problem. The hypothesis that is going to be investigated must be stated clearly toward the end of the introduction section. The rationale behind this research problem must also be stated at the end of the introduction. In conclusion, the goal of the introduction is to compel the readers to peruse through the paper.
While submitting a manuscript to a journal, it is very important to include an impressive cover letter to the editor-in-chief. The cover letter provides a glimpse of the results and data presented in the manuscript, including the experimental study design. Based on the content of the cover letter, the journal editor would make an important decision of accepting the article with revisions or directly publishing it. In most cases, the paper is forwarded to reviewers based on the content of the cover letter and manuscript. A cover letter should be typically of 1-2 pages. In this article, we guide you on how to write a professional yet persuasive cover letter that attracts the attention of the journal editor.
Salient features of a cover letter to a journal editor:
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Academic writing is used in formal manuscripts of scholarly communications. These manuscripts are published in scholarly journals. In this article, let us discuss the factors differentiating academic writing from general writing.
Formal language: Academic writing involves the use of formal language that does not include any slang words or contractions. Colloquial words should also be refrained from using.
In academic writing, the use of pronouns in the first person ( I and We) are discouraged. However, many style guides prefer the use of active voice over passive voice, so they may recommend the judicious use of informal elements of writing.
Structure and format of content: Many academic papers have to be written in a format that conforms with the style guide of a discipline. For example, the American Medical Association’s Manual of Style is used for preparing manuscripts of biomedical science.
Social science papers may conform with the requirements of the American Psychological Association (APA) Manual of Style. In general, business papers have to be written in a formal style and conform to the requirements of the Chicago Manual of Style.
In these style guides, guidelines are given for formatting the references and the content of the paper. This would include title, margins, headings, etc. Many style guides also explain scientific writing style, social science writing style, business writing style, etc.
Regardless of the formatting settings, logical flow of ideas and a proper transition of information are encouraged. In a scientific paper, it does not matter whether it is biomedical sciences or physical sciences paper.
All these papers will have six important components: Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. In a social science paper, the format of the paper will have greater flexibility and creative freedom.
Tone: The readers of a manuscript would interpret ideas depending on the tone of communication. The tone of writing would depend on the target audience, so the writing style of a manuscript author would depend on the area of specialisation.
Both implicit and explicit forms of personal bias should be avoided in academic writing. An objective point of view must be presented. Care must be taken to avoid a rhetorical form of content. A clear and succinct form of academic writing would avoid the use of emotional phrases.
The target audience of a manuscript is always a group of researchers, professors, teachers, authors, and other academics like peer-reviewers. Therefore, the tone would further emphasise formal word choice and vocabulary.
