From the student’s desk: Notes on preparing an article for a Scientific Journal

The title:

The author should remember that the title will be read by perhaps thousands of people but few, if any, will read the entire paper. Each word must therefore be chosen with care. Abstracting and indexing services rely on the accuracy of the title; an improperly titled paper may be lost and never reach its intended audience. The terms in the title should be limited to those words which highlight the significant content of the article in words that are both understandable and retrievable. The author should ask: “how would I look for this kind of information in an index?”

The abstract:

The abstract is a summary of the article. It should: (1) state the principal objectives and scope of the investigation; (2) describe the methodology employed; (3) summarize the results; and (4) state the principal conclusions reached. It should not give any information or conclusion that is not stated in the paper. The primary purpose of the abstract is to enable readers to identify the basic content of the article quickly and accurately, and to determine its relevance to their interests. Abstracts must not contain information which is meaningless without referring to the text. Do not refer to illustrations and tables. It is sensible to write the abstract after you have written the paper.  Some journals (not all) require you to include a list of keywords at the end of the abstract.

The introduction:

A good introduction will contain the following: (1) it should present in clear outline the nature and scope of the problem investigated; (2) it should give the hypothesis being investigated; (3) it should give the motivation for doing the research and the background knowledge that is considered essential for the reader to understand the paper; (4) it might explain why the problem was studied; (5) it should briefly review the pertinent literature; (6) it should briefly state the method of investigation; (7) it should give the principal results of the investigated.

Materials and Methods:

In this section the author should give enough detail that a competent worker can repeat the experiments described. The careful writing of this section is critically important because scientific convention requires that your results be reproducible- thus you must provide the means for another researcher to reproduce your experiments.

If your method is new, you must give all the needed details. If the method has been published previously in a primary journal, you need give only the literature reference. If you modified procedure, describe what you did that was new. State whatever statistical procedures you used on your results.

Results:

There are two kinds of components of the results section. First, you should present the data. Secondly, you should give some overall description of the experiments (providing the ‘big picture’). Since the entire paper must stand or fall on the basis of the results, they must be presented with great clarity, succinctness and, as far as possible, simplicity. Describe on the most efficient and logical way of showing your findings, and avoid duplication. Do not describe in detail in the text what is obvious from the table or figure. If tables or figures tell the main story, the text need mention only the highlights. It is sometimes sensible to state what you did not find under the conditions of your experiment.

Discussion:

This is often the hardest section to write. Many are too long and verbose. Apart from the abstract, it is the section that most influences an editor when first examining a paper. The essential features of a good discussion are: (1) try to present the principals, relationships and generalizations shown by the results. (2) You should state whether the data support they hypothesis being tested. (3) You point out any exceptions or any lack of correlation among your results and define unsettled matters. (4) Show how your results and interpretations agree (or contrast with) previously published work. (5) Discuss the theoretical implications of your work, as well as any possible practical applications. (6) State your conclusions (and possibly summarize your evidence for each conclusion.

Literature citations:

Only significant, published works should be cited. References to unpublished data, papers in dissertations, in press, thesis and other secondary materials are often not acceptable and generally should be cited only sparingly or not at all.

Check all parts of every reference against the original publication. Because there are variations among journals in the way literature is cited, the researcher should write out literature references in full on index cards (or some other convenient, retrievable source) at the time they are consulted; it is then easy to edit this information subsequently, when required to do so for purpose of publication.

Please note that the above article was taken out the FRD Programme Series No 22, June 1995 by Dr G. Baker. Foundation for Research Development, University Development Programme, Pretoria