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ResearchGate and The Royal Society deepen their partnership of collaboration in the year 2024

 

The Royal Society and ResearchGate have joined hands to expand their partnership. They have decided to jointly cover all the journals of Royal Society, increasing the visibility and readership of 45000 articles at a global level.

Currently, the Journal Home product of Researchgate platform has increased the visibility of 10 journals of Royal Society publisher. These 10 journals are of open access and subscription model of publishing. In the year 2023, ResearchGate was provided content of journals published by Royal Society.

In the year 2024, both the parties have further strengthened their partnership as it was a successful collaboration. The readership and the reach of the content provided by the Royal Society has increased manifold due to ResearchGate platform.

It was found that in the year 2023, two open access journals of the Royal Society saw a 64% increase in their usage on the ResearchGate platform. The trend of increased usage continues for these two journals as their articles have been viewed more than 1.75 million times on ResearchGate in the past 12 months.

Using the platform of Researchgate, the Royal Society’s journals could get more engagement from researches who are in their early stage of careers. The publishers of Royal Society were targeting to increase their reach in this critical demographic group.

In the year 2024, ResearchGate has introduced a new product named Journal Home. There are dedicated profiles of all the journal titles of the Royal Society publisher. The important information and the content that is relevant is sourced from each journal and provided through the Journal Home platform of ResearchGate.

The branding of prominent journals is being done on all the associated pages dedicated to articles. Journal Home provides insights into unique network, paving the path to increase The Royal Society’s engagement with the journal community.

Each of the journals’ profiles contain the names of editors and authors. Thus, members of ResearchGate platform can understand how a journal is connected to a network of academic professionals.

Authors of the Royal Society publisher have benefitted additionally from the partnership of the publisher with ResearchGate. Their research work gets added automatically to their profiles on ResearchGate platform.

Thus, the visibility of the articles is boosted and the platform provides insights into who is currently reading the article and citing their research paper. Thus, the connectivity of the authors with the readers has increased significantly.

More 75,000 authors have benefitted as they have added their articles to their profiles on ResearchGate. The discovery and accessibility of these articles has increased sharply due to features of “Journals Home.”

 

 

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Academic Editing services offered by Harrisco: top editing company of academic research papers.

 

Academic editing of research papers is a highly specialized service offered by Harrisco Research Institute. Our company is based in Seoul, South Korea and has been in service since 1997. The documents that usually need editing are thesis, admission essays, research papers, journal manuscripts, books, etc.

Harrisco’s clients are leading universities of Korea, which includes medical colleges and hospitals affiliated to them. Editing is a highly specialized skill, which is performed by highly qualified native English editors from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. They have advanced degrees (MSc/PhD) in their technical field of specialization.

An academic editor would check for errors in grammar, punctuation, logical flow of ideas, organization, and style. Academic editing also involves formatting of research papers according to a specific journal’s style.

In general, medical papers are formatted according to the AMA Manual of Style. Business and engineering papers are formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style.

Other prominent style guides are the APA, MLA, Harvard, Oxford, and Turabian style of formatting. The reference list and the citation style are always formatted according to a particular style guide. The papers are edited and submitted to leading SCI journals, which follow the system of international peer-review.

Academic editing is essential for ESL (English as Second Language) authors as they have English language issues. The intended meaning of the hypothesis and experiments are conveyed correctly by academic editors.

In Korea, the papers are first translated from Korean to English and then polished by technically qualified editors. As the editors have advanced degrees in science and technology, they have requisite subject matter expertise.

Academic editors themselves have an impressive list of publications. They have participated in academic conferences and understand the nuances of academic editing. The polished manuscript will have four important components: Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion.

Most journals specify that the word count of Abstract needs to be between 250 to 300 words. Thus, academic editors also do word count reduction as per instructions to authors guideline of journals. The international peer-reviewed SCI journals are from leading scientific publishers, such as Elsevier, Springer, Nature, and Wiley.

Journal editors are very strict, so the acceptance of articles depends on the quality of content. Therefore, researchers cannot afford to make mistakes in their content, especially English language errors. Harrisco has an impressive track record of 100% publication output.

 

 

 

 

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The International Knowledge Civilization and Nanotechnology Conference (IKNC)

Harrisco is organizing the International Knowledge Civilization and Nanotechnology Conference on 19-21st August, 2021 in Seoul, South Korea. This interdisciplinary conference is inviting papers on public health, arts and humanities, religion, etc. The conference is specially focused on vaccines developed for the pandemic of COVID-19.

All overseas researchers can attend the event through online webinar. The conference papers will be reviewed by a strict panel of professors who have published papers in high impact international SCI journals. High quality selected papers will be published completed in a special issue of following SCI journals: The Journal of Dharma (Arts and Humanities), Iranian journal of public health (biomedical papers), and Ethiopian Journal of Health Development (Biomedical papers).

The last date for submission of Abstracts is 31st July, 2021. The last date for abstract acceptance is 3rd August, 2021. The due date for early registration is 6th August, 2021. All abstracts and papers will be checked for plagiarism by CopyKiller software. Complete papers can be submitted by 25th September, 2021. The conference is held in partnership with BIT Congress, an academic conference company in Beijing, China.

The 3rd IKNC conference invites interdisciplinary researchers and experts from both industry and academia. These people will present their work at a global platform and disseminate their knowledge pertaining to innovations. Novice researchers should use this platform for networking with the peer review team of eminent scientists who will also hold talks and presentations at the event.

How to submit the papers? This is the most frequently asked question by interested researchers. We have given all information on conference website www.iknc.org. The official language for abstract is English and researchers have to submit contact details of corresponding authors. The affiliation of authors should also be presented in the abstract. The wordcount limit for all abstracts is 150 words. In case of engineering papers, it should never exceed 250 words. All accepted abstracts need to receive Harrisco editing certificate by 5th August, 2021.

Authors whose abstracts have been accepted are requested to submit their full papers for the conference. A selected list of high quality papers will be published in full in the conference proceeding. All submissions have to be made in the Word template. Authors have to follow the guidelines of the journals that have collaborated with Harrisco for the conference. The guidelines will be provided to the authors with the letter of acceptance.

The online submission system will be accepting full papers till 25th September, 2021. The review process is rigid as the collaborated journals are high impact journals indexed by SCI, SSCI, A&HCI. After adhering to stringent review process, the selected high quality papers will be published after the author pay the additional publication fees.

It is mandatory to send all accepted papers to Harrisco for editing, and the company would be providing Harrisco editing certificate to these papers. Please refer to the company website en.harrisco.net. Both oral and video presentations would be for 20 minutes each. The authors would be given 5 minutes for Question and Answer session.

 

 

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How to handle manuscript rejection of an academic journal

 

Many ESL (English as Second Language) researchers face manuscript rejections from the editorial board of prestigious peer-reviewed journals. However, they should not be disheartened and devise a strategy to overcome this debacle. Obviously, most authors would like to challenge the decision of the editorial board by making ardent appeals.

They can modify the content of the manuscript to suit the needs of the journal and consider resubmitting the manuscript to the same journal or they may seek the help of publishing experts and submit the revised draft to an entirely different journal. In this article, we describe the steps that authors need to take after manuscript rejection.

It is extremely challenging to comprehend the complex style guides of international scientific journals. As ESL researchers have a limited command over English language, they may seek the help of scientific editors to polish, revise, and review the content of their manuscript. Most authors ask their colleagues to do an informal peer review at the pre-submission stage.

Although a manuscript is revised and reviewed several times before submission, about 40% papers get rejected after being peer-reviewed by an esteemed team of independent researchers. Moreover, the recent survey points out that 21% of scientific papers are rejected outright by the editorial board.

Even after a manuscript is rejected by a journal, an author has several options to move forward. An author need not despair by the negative review process, but they need to adapt to the constructive criticism provided by the editorial board. The reviews provided will certainly help the authors in improving the scientific content of their document.

Let’s explore what an author can to handle rejection by an academic journal

  1. Appeal to the editorial board

Most journal websites display a policy for challenging the rejection of the editorial board. All authors have the fundamental right to appeal against rejection, but the decision should be based on logic. Emotional sentiments do not carry any weightage.

Sometimes, peer reviewers may reject a manuscript due to misunderstanding of content. Such situations are delicate, and authors can still defend their thesis politely. Appeals that elaborate the scope of the journal are not really appreciated by the editorial board.

2. Journal re-submission

When the authors have clarified their stance and cleared all misconceptions of peer reviewers, the editorial board will reconsider their decision and may even invite authors to resubmit their revised manuscript for publication. By incorporating the suggestions of peer reviewers, an author can brighten their chances of publication. However, the editorial board of some journals do not have any re-submission policy, and authors need to respect their viewpoint. In such cases, authors should try to find another journal suitable for publication.

3. Modify the manuscript before submitting it to a different journal

Most authors prefer to submit their work to another journal after facing rejection from the journal of their choice. However, the authors should carefully incorporate the changes suggested the peer-reviewers of the first journal. This would improve the scientific accuracy of the content and improve the hopes of publication in another journal.

Nevertheless, an author would still need to work on the manuscript and adjust it to the style specifications of a different journals. All journals have specific instructions for authors, and reference styles of most journals differ depending upon the field of study. A carefully worded, concise cover letter will impress the reviewing editor of the journal.

4. Submit to another journal without modifying the manuscript

Although this option seems to be easy, it is not really recommended to novice authors. All the efforts put forth by the esteemed team of peer reviewers would go in vain when authors do not acknowledge their suggestions. In general, most suggestions offered by peer reviewers improve the quality of the manuscript.

There could be some suggestions that may be erroneous due to misunderstanding and those can be overlooked. Although the set of peer reviewers would be different for another journal, they too may highlight the same flaws in the manuscript. All authors should carefully handle manuscript rejection of an academic journal.

5. Discard the manuscript and do not resubmit it to another journal

Some authors may feel so dejected that they may totally do away with the manuscript. Resubmitting a manuscript to another journal is a pain-staking process, but it is not correct to discard valuable research findings. Research data has to be published somewhere for mutual academic benefits. Who knows your data may be a building block for path-breaking research in the future?

We all know that scholarly publishing was concealed under paywalls, but things have changed today with the success of open access journals. Compared to the conventional subscription journals, many open access journals are less strict with their review process. Journals like PeerJ, PLOS One are incredible for biomedical researchers. Platforms like Figshare make research data freely accessible and citable to the masses.

6. Hire the services of author education companies

Finally, authors may consider the services offered by many author education companies. A complete package of scientific review, English editing, and journal selection may improve their chances of publication. Academic editors are native English speakers with advanced degrees in science and technology. They have an impressive track record of publication in international journals. Although there are several such companies, Harrisco is a name to reckon with.

Harrisco has been operational for the last 25 years, making Korean research accessible to international journals. Many retired American professors work remotely for Harrisco, embellishing the work of scientific manuscripts translated from Korean to English. So, the next time you face manuscript rejection, remember you are not alone. Harrisco is here to help every ESL researcher overcome the challenge of publishing in international English journals.

 

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Identify world’s leading journals in the Journal Citation Reports published by Web of Science

Clarivate Analytics is a leading player in the STM publishing industry, providing truthful insights into the world of academic publishing. On the 29th of June, 2020, Clarivate Analytics released its Journal Citation Reports (JCR), an important document that is published annually on the Web of Science. The JCR document is important for the global academic community as it provides an insight into high-quality academic journals of the international community.

All academic journals are ranked on the basis of several indicators, visualizations, and data. The report is a quantitative estimate of the impact created by academic journals in their field of study. The report specifically scrutinizes the quality of research published in prestigious journals and how they were promoted to the international community of researchers.

To compile this report, Clarivate Analytics team made use of the 2019 data presented in the Web of Science Core Collection, which is a flagship brand of the company and a global citation database that is publisher-neutral. Clarivate Analytics invited a global team of experts to curate the structured data presented in the 2019 Web of Science Core Collection.

To accurately evaluate the impact factor of academic journals, the team of experts carefully evaluated the content presented in the selected collection of books, conference proceedings, and journals. This report is used to estimate the true worth of a journal in the academic community, which consists of researchers, editors, publishers, investors, and librarians. Their main goal is to promote high-impact journals to a diverse set of audiences.

Although vast data of metrics is available in the JCR report, the most widely used metric is the “ Web of Science journal impact factor” in academic publishing. So, what really are the key highlights of the JCR report published in 2020? Let us first explore the selection criteria for the inclusion of journals. In the 2020 JCR report, the experts have added 351 new journals to the inclusion list.

Out of them, 178 journals are completely “Open Access” in nature. Given that most researchers have flocked to the OA model of publishing, JCR report included 1600 OA journals in 2020. Nevertheless, JCR report has compiled the impact-factor of 12,000 journals from 236 research fields of hard sciences and social sciences. These journals were selected from 83 countries spread across five continents of the earth.

The JCR report of 2020 has evaluated the open access publishing model through new descriptive data. This implies that the report includes data on the access model used for reading articles of each journal. Thus, the JCR report of 2020 provides transparent, publisher-neutral information to the community of researchers on whether they can access “free-to-read” articles in a journal.

Moreover, the report also provides information on whether the articles can be re-used through Creative Commons Licenses, which are usually issued through “gold open access model”. Finally, the report presents the overall citations and the volume of content presented by each journal.

One of the key highlights of the JCR report is the fact that it includes 7487 hybrid journals in its 2020 edition. Moreover, these hybrid journals are innovatively classified in order to enable readers to quickly identify the following features of these journals: 1) The number of papers published through the conventional subscription model, and 2) the number of papers published through the Creative Common Licenses, which establishes the “gold open access model.”

Now that we know the classification criteria of each type of journal, let’s explore the objectives behind the journal selection process. In the JCR report of 2020, Clarivate Analytics has excluded 33 journals that did not conform to the standards of academic integrity. Thus, the JCR report of 2020 has excluded 0.27% of the listed journals.

These journals have exhibited anomalous behavior in terms of citation. There have been strong evidences to prove that the journals had many cases of self-citation and stacked citation. These situations do not conform with the disciplinary norms put forth by the JCR review committee of experts.

Another important disciplinary action exercised by the JCR review committee is as follows: An “Editorial Expression of Concern” was issued to as many as 15 academic journals, which contained one or more published articles with an unusually high number of journal citations. These citations were disproportionately associated with JIF. The editorial board of Clarivate Analytics will scrutinize low-quality content of this type to prevent any distortions of the Journal Impact Factor.

Keith Collier is a senior vice president of products at the Science Group of Clarivate Analytics. In a press release of the 2020 JCR report, Keith Collier issued the following statement: Web of Science Citation Reports has been providing unbiased data on journal citations for the past 40 years, so the academic community has been following this report consistently for these many years.

It gives a glimpse of the world’s leading journals in the field of hard sciences and social sciences. The research community includes all academic editors, librarians, researchers, publishers, and institutions. They can carefully evaluate the selected journals to make informed decisions about their publications. The report helps them understand citation trends of academic journals.

In the year 2020, Clarivate Analytics made concerted efforts to accelerate the pace of innovation in academia. They have updated the parameters of self-citation and added a new paradigm of descriptive data, which will provide the research community with a better insight on the evolving models of academic publishing.

In the 2020 JCR report, a wide number of indicators are used for evaluating each journal’s profile. The most noteworthy among them is the “Web of Science Impact Factor.” It indicates the average frequency of citation received by a journal in a particular year.

Moreover, the report also presents “Immediacy Index,” which indicates the frequency of citing an average article from a journal in the same year of publication. After classifying the journals according to their category, the journal impact factor indicates the rank of the journal. This metric is expressed in terms of percentile.

 

 

 

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How to impress the Journal Editor with Your Cover Letter

In research and academia, it is extremely important to publish your data and results in international English journals of high-impact factor. All researchers have to submit a cover letter along with their manuscript to the journal editor. Usually, a cover letter is addressed to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal.

A journal editor forms a first impression of your work by reading your cover letter. Based on the cover letter, a journal editor gets a glimpse of the main ideas presented in your study. A journal editor then decides whether the manuscript is relevant for publication in the journal. In other words, a cover letter is a mirror to the quality of a research study.

A journal editor may either forward the manuscript to the team of peer reviewers or may reject it outright. In some cases, a journal editor may be so impressed with the cover letter that they may publish the manuscript as it is. Now, let’s discuss how you can write a cover letter that is concise yet persuasive in its tone.

Typically, a cover letter is written in professional English and should not exceed more than 2 pages in length. A cover letter is mostly written to sell a research study to a journal editor. In this article, we present 11 tips for cover letter development.

  1. Always include important fundamentals of a cover letter: It is always preferable to use a letterhead from your affiliated institution. If letterhead can’t be availed, then make it a point to furnish the following details at the top left corner of the page: the names of all authors, including corresponding authors, the email address for correspondence, and the physical address of the institutions affiliated to the authors.

In case of a standardized letterhead, the author must include his or her contact information at the end of the letter, just below the signature. The journal editor would always need your contact information for further correspondence. To increase the credibility of the cover letter, the author should include the hand-written signature and not just the mere name in typed format.

In some journals, different editors are assigned to review manuscripts of different regions: American, European, Asian, African, and Middle-eastern regions. Many prestigious journals have global coverage, so authors should make sure that they are contacting the right editor in their region.

Address the editor with their proper title, such as Dr. or Prof. before mentioning their correct name. A journal’s website usually displays the names of its editors. If the names of editors are not available on a journal’s webpage, then you may address them as “Dear Editor” or “Dear Editor-in-Chief”. Always refrain from using the following salutation: “Dear Sir” or “Dear Madam.”

Authors should always make it a point to write the cover letter in a unique way. Remember that originality is the keyword here, so an author cannot simply copy the wordings from their manuscript. They need to paraphrase their results and findings in a succinct way. Only native English authors are capable of rewording their findings and data. Take the help of a native English speaker if you are not comfortable with rewording. Before developing ideas for your cover letter, make sure that your research completely aligns with the theme, scope, and objective of the journal.

2. How to present the main content in the cover letter of a journal: The tone of the cover letter should be positive and constructive; the English language usage should be professional. The “title of the manuscript” should be presented as it is in the cover letter. Make sure you present the correct title as there may be instances where you have changed the title in the final draft of the manuscript. Then, clearly mention the type of article presented in the manuscript.

For example, it could be a short summary, a meta-analysis, full article, a systematic review, etc. Remember, an ethical author never submits a paper to more than one journal simultaneously. There could be instances of an author submitting their manuscript to another journal after facing outright rejection from a prestigious journal. Then, such an author should write a new cover letter to the different journal editor.

This cover letter should address the theme, requirements, and objectives of the second journal. There could be instances where you are addressing the editor for the second time. In this case, the cover letter should clearly indicate how you have modified the manuscript by taking into account the constructive feedback of the peer reviewers.

All the reasons of rejection should be clarified in the second cover letter. A journal editor is always keen to publish papers that have novelty of content. Therefore, the main content of the cover letter should be just one or two paragraphs explaining the novelty of a research study. This section should cover all the important points presented in your manuscript. This section cannot be very long or short; it should be of medium length.

The author should present the best results of the experiments and mention all the novel techniques used in the study. All significant results of previous related studies may be included in a concise manner, if necessary. However, the author must be careful enough to ensure that the results presented in the cover letter match with those presented in the main manuscript and in the supplementary information.

Finally, the author should explain the significance of the rationale behind submitting to a particular journal. This is the most important aspect of a cover letter. A journal editor should be convinced that your research study addresses the scope of the journal. The author must explain how their research study addresses an important issue and how it can attract the attention of the journal’s readers. A journal editor must be convinced that the research study contains path-breaking results.

3. How to conclude your cover letter: Make a list of the other supporting documents that you are including with the cover letter: the main manuscript, the supporting information, author information forms, feedback to the comments provided by reviewers (This is included in revised cover letter.).

However, it is important to keep the cover letter concise, so some authors may do away with this information as it simply lengthens the cover letter. Remember a cover letter is like a sales pitch for a research study. The author has to convince the editor how a research study is relevant to the scope of the journal.

In the final paragraph, the authors should thank the editor for considering their manuscript, and they should be open to constructive feedback thereafter. The authors should refrain from using abbreviations in the cover letter. Before submission, they should make sure that the content does not have any errors related to grammar, punctuation, and style. There should be no spelling errors in the cover letter.

Most researchers in Korea think that cover letter development is a daunting task. Harrisco is a leading academic editing company that provides complete publication support to Korean researchers. The native English editors of Harrisco are retired professors who can draft perfect copies in immaculate English. Being scientifically strong with PhD degrees, Korean researchers are assured of high-quality work.

 

 

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How to avoid plagiarism in a manuscript

 

Most researchers are hard-pressed for time, and ESL (English as Second Language) or EFL (English as Foreign Language) researchers may have a difficult time expressing their views in English. These researchers may unintentionally be caught in plagiarism issues, which violate publication ethics of international English journals.

A plagiarized paper is always rejected by the peer-reviewed journal’s editor. This not only damages the reputation of the author but also raises a question mark on the credibility of the research carried out by scientists in academia.  This situation is particularly grim among researchers in Korea, China, and Japan.

What is the definition of plagiarism?

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, plagiarism is defined as “an act of using another person’s words or ideas without giving credit to that person.” Most Chinese, Korean, and Japanese researchers have a problem paraphrasing the findings of related studies in their manuscript. They often use the research findings of published authors in their paper but fail to acknowledge the sources. This is what causes plagiarism in their document.

In this article, we restrain ourselves to discussing academic plagiarism and we also suggest ways of avoiding it. In the “introduction” and “discussion” sections of a manuscript, it is very important to present information from previously published studies. However, this information should be cited from credible sources. Authors who fail to acknowledge the work of other researchers are accused of plagiarism by journal editors.

Types of plagiarism in academia

Intentional plagiarism

Some authors intentionally plagiarize in academia. There have been instances where authors have entirely copied the findings of a related study and claimed authorship of the plagiarized work. Authors are found guilty of plagiarism when they copy the text of another related study without citing the source in the reference list. In a systematic review, authors have to gather data from various related studies and then work on this data and present them as their own. This is a tricky and cumbersome task that often leads to “mosaic plagiarism.”

Accidental Plagiarism

Most students pursuing master’s and doctorate degree are caught in plagiarism issues. Most ESL and EFL researchers have issues paraphrasing the content of related studies. More often, they may use quotation marks inappropriately in their paper. They may also fail to cite papers correctly. While paraphrasing the content, ESL and EFL authors often retain the sentence structure and this leads to plagiarism. While authors may cite the content correctly, the authors must paraphrase in their words.

Self-plagiarism

Some authors include information from their previously published papers, but they do not cite these papers in their manuscript. This is known as self-plagiarism. All journals look out for novelty of content, so it is very important to maintain originality of a manuscript. Authors should always cite their previously published papers in their manuscript.

How to avoid plagiarism in an academic manuscript?

All researchers including Issac Newton and Albert Einstein have referred to the work of previously published papers and come up with innovative concepts. Therefore, an author must always be careful to acknowledge the work of previously published authors in their manuscript. The following tips would be useful in avoiding plagiarism issues:

1. Authors may use quotation marks in their manuscript

In some fields of study, authors may quote the work of previous authors in “verbatim” style. In such situations, the authors must use “quotation marks” to highlight the “verbatim” text in the document. The source from which the quoted text was obtained must also be cited in the document.

2. Authors must paraphrase the content in their words

To paraphrase the content of previously published studies, authors should have a grasp of academic writing skills and English language proficiency. Although the paraphrased content may be included in a new manuscript, it should clearly relate with an original concept in the study.

While paraphrasing the content, the authors should change the sentence structure and wordings but strive to retain the original meaning. The sources used for obtaining the content must be cited in the reference list of the document. Footnotes may also be used for citations.

3. All the components of a sentence may have references

Very often, sentences may include ideas from related studies. Therefore, each idea presented in the sentence must be appropriately cited with the matching source. For example, authors may be using different protocols for testing different animals in a study. These protocols may be mentioned in a single sentence.

Authors should ensure that these protocols are cited with their appropriate references. For example, an author may construct a sentence as follows: Protocol X has been used previously in bovine and murine cells. In this case, the author should cite the study that used bovine cells and the study that used murine cells separately in the reference list.

4. Authors must maintain the accuracy of all references

While writing an academic manuscript, the authors must ensure that all the cited references are accurate. Famous authors have many published papers, so authors should make sure that they have cited the correct paper. An author may be caught in plagiarism issues if they have cited papers inaccurately in the manuscript.

5. Authors should use reference management software and plagiarism checker software

Endnote is the most widely used reference management software that enables authors to create a reference list easily. There are many online companies providing plagiarism checker software. Some companies offer it for free and some offer paid versions. Among them, iThenticate and PlagScan are most commonly used by academics. Authors may check the originality of their work with any of these software programs.

Harrisco is an academic editing company that offers complete publication support to authors in Korea, China, and Japan. Harrisco offers plagiarism check and extensive editing services to ESL and EFL authors, thereby bridging the gap between academia and publishing. Harrisco has been in operations since 1997 and successfully established its brand in Korea. Welcome to Global Harrisco, let us take care of your publication needs!
 

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A month long standoff ends between Elsevier and South Korean universities

ScienceDirect is a database of more than 3500 academic journals and books, which is published by world’s no.1 academic publisher Elsevier. The publisher Elsevier is headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands. For more than a month, South Korean universities were opposing a steep price rise proposed by Elsevier.

Initially, Elsevier had proposed a price hike of 4.5%, which was severely opposed by a consortium of top South Korean universities. On January 12, 2018, a settlement was finally achieved between South Korean universities and Elsevier.

South Korean universities have agreed to a price rise of about 3.5–3.9%.  In the initial proposal, Elsevier was compelling South Korean universities to compulsorily prescribe to its lesser known journals, as part of their ScienceDirect package deal. In future, South Korean universities would negotiate further for more concessions.

According to Lee Chang Won, secretary general of the Korea University & College Library Association, Elsevier currently provides a flat rate system. Therefore, universities have to pay for digital content of all journals, including the ones that are read least by viewers.

Lee Chang Won led the consortium of South Korean universities along with Korean Council for University Education (KCUE). Previously, South Korean universities accepted whatever rate increase was imposed by Elsevier, but they can no longer do the same due to budget cuts in library expenditure.

The consortium of 300 university and college libraries was formed in May 2017 by negotiating with 42 providers of databases. This group sought concessions on open-access journals and other less-read journals, which were included in the ScienceDirect package of Elsevier.

When Elsevier authorities refused to oblige, the consortium boycotted Elsevier and refused to renew contracts. During the period of negotiations, Elsevier provided access to all its products. Following negotiations, individual universities will now have to renew their one-year license at 3.9%; moreover, their three-year contract would be increased by 3.5%, 3.6%, and 3.7% above the baseline. These terms and conditions have been agreed by the consortium of universities in South Korea.

For 2019 contracts, negotiations would continue about pricing and other details between the consortium of South Korean universities and Elsevier, the publisher. According to Sogang’s Kim, the consortium is keen on signing a multi-year contract with Elsevier, wherein the annual increase of fees would be in the range 3.5–3.9%. This annual rate of increase in subscription fees is well above the international level of 2%. ScienceDirect journals are expensive but indispensable for academicians, rights from professors to post-doc scholars.

The month-long standoff between South Korean universities and Elsevier is akin to similar dispute between the consortium of German universities and Elsevier in 2017. At that point of time, electronic journals of Elsevier were not accessible to more than 60 universities in Germany as Elsevier had temporarily suspended access; however, the publisher restored access few weeks later though negotiations are still going on between consortium of German universities and Elsevier. Meanwhile, more than 200 universities in Germany have ceased their contract with Elsevier.