How To Publish in International Journals

How to Publish Papers in
International Journals
By Raymond J. RITCHIE
(BScHons, PhD, University of Sydney)
7 December 2021
Assoc Prof, Tropical Plant Biology Unit,

Faculty of Technology and Environment, Prince of Songkla University,
Kathu, Phuket 83120, Thailand
How to Publish 2021Version - 1

Author’s Foreword
Dr Raymond J. RITCHIE (BSC Hons, PhD, Sydney)
For the scholar who studies or works in a university, doing scholarly research and publishing the
findings in the form of articles in peer-reviewed International Journals is one of the most
important academic activities. No-one really takes you seriously until you have published a
single authored or at least a first-authored paper. I hope this publication is a very good
opportunity for learning how to publish papers in International Journals by someone who
actually does know the complete process of how to publish papers in International Journals.
Working in SE-Asia I know that >95% of global science is published in English but about 80%
of your readership is using English as a second language
Most of my papers are single authored and I am the first author (and Corresponding Author) on
most of his papers. I conceived the projects, did the experimental work, drew the figures,
prepared the tables and wrote the papers. I submitted the papers and have had to deal with the
journal editors and respond adequately to referee’s reports.
My papers are on a wide variety of topics on a large range of organisms: Bacteria, Fungi, Plants
and Animals and I am something of a polymath. I have also published papers in Science
Education, Theoretical Biology and Social Science Research and Regional Geography. Here the
emphasis will be on practical information on how to do it and what I have learnt from
experience. What works what does not? As a published scientist I am regularly sent papers to
referee by International Journals.
This book is based on my experience teaching a Masters course on how to publish in

International Journals and various workshops I have run on the topic from 2010 to 2020 for both
staff and students in Thailand. I hope that my publication will be of value to both native English
speakers and those using English as a second language. The aim of this little book is to enable a
Masters or graduate student to understand how to publish a paper themselves. The author has
been surprised in his career how few students are ever taught how to publish a scientific paper.
Once you know you can establish yourself as an independent scientific researcher, you are
beholden to no-one.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction and Writing the Introduction 5

Chapter 2: How to Write the Materials and Methods. 17
Chapter 3: How to Write the Results. 21
Results (I) – The text 21
Results (II) – The Tables 23
Results (III) – The Graphs & Figures 25
Chapter 4: How to write the Discussion. 37
Chapter 5: How to write the Abstract. 51
Chapter 6: Submitting the Paper and Getting it Accepted 53
Chapter 7: Referee’s Reports and Revisions 59
Chapter 8: How to make a Conference Poster 67
Chapter 9: Scientific Fraud 77
References 91

Chapter I Introduction and Writing the Introduction
What this publication is about.
The aim is to teach students and staff how to independently publish papers in international
journals rather than simply writing in English. A good guidebook is Day (1998). It is on-line:
newer editions you have to buy. Things have not changed much except that nearly everything
today is now on-line.
The complete procedure of getting a paper published will be gone through step by step. Most of
the content is about conceiving the paper, getting organized, writing the different parts of the
paper, how to use references and choosing the most suitable journal.
The problem of nefarious journals will be discussed including the use of Beal’s List and the
Thomson-Reuters ISI rating to identify journals which you should not submit papers to.
The core of the work will consist of:
• Authorship issues need to be carefully considered.

• Choosing a Journal that you judge to be suitable. Having a target journal from the start
is a good idea.
• How to write the Introduction.
• How to write the Materials and Methods.
• The Results consists of Text, Graphs, Tables and Captions for Figures. You have to
write Text about all the Tables, Graphs and Figures.
• How to write a proper Discussion of your Results and their implications and how they
compare to what was already known.
• I will emphasize the critical importance of using references correctly and making sure
that all references are included, all references must mentioned in the text and ensuring
that the references are in the format used by a journal.
• The final step of preparing the manuscript is writing the Abstract.
Getting started:
• The Science is pointless unless it is published and published in the right place. Do not
bury your work in obscure places.
• The first requirement to be able to successfully publish scientific papers is to have the
confidence to write one and submit it.
• Delicate sensitive types will never get anywhere in science. You need to have a thick
hide like an elephant.
• Important Questions:
Some Seemingly Stupid Questions
Do you have enough data for a scientific paper?
Do you understand your results? (That is not a stupid question!)
Are the aims of your study clear to you as well as to others?
Did your research have a clear outcome?
And remember. What one fool can do another can.
Appropriate Journal
Care is needed in selecting the appropriate journal. Some things to consider.
A Target Journal
When you start writing a paper it is a good idea to have a Target Journal in mind. If a journal
has published papers like yours before there is a good chance they will consider your paper.
Sending a paper to the wrong journal means discouraging and rude rejection letters from the
editor and wasted time. In this example the obvious target journal for this manuscript is Aquatic
Botany.

This paper was on magnetic germination of seeds. Most plant biology journals rarely publish
papers on biological effects of magnetic fields. It was anticipated that this paper would be hard
to publish in a journal that is read regularly. In this example the obvious journal is a lot less
obvious and the Journal of Agrophysics has a very low rating.

Do Not Publish in Mickey-Mouse (Minor) Journals
You have identified a potential target journal based on the frequency of citation of that
journal in your manuscript. The next consideration is the status of the journal.
• Never send a paper to a Beall’s List journal even if papers from such a journal
are cited several times in your paper. You should as a matter of principle avoid citing
Beall’s List journals because it only renders respectability to them.
• The most frequently cited journal might not necessarily be the best choice for
your manuscript. You need to check the status of the journal. Use ISI (Institute of
Scientific Information) Rating as a guide. Who to you want to read your paper?

• Never send a paper to a journal that is not ISI rated.
• Send your paper to a journal that is cited in your manuscript but has the more
favourable ISI rating. However, in general the higher the ISI rating the harder it is to
publish in that journal. This does not make much sense when you realise that journals
focusing on similar topics use the same referee’s but it has much to do with the Ego of
the Editor.
The Importance of ISI.
• Do not take ISI too seriously, just check that the journal has one. That is the critical
issue, not the actual number rating.
• For Example: In scientific research on photosynthesis there are two key journals. You try
one journal and then the other.
• Photosynthesis Research – ISI 3.502 – Springer-Verlag
• Photosynthetica – ISI 1.409 – Springer-Verlag
• I have published in both journals. They publish the same sort of papers. Same
publisher. Your papers are sent to the same referee’s so why the big difference in
ranking?
• Photosynthesis Research is run by the Germans.
• Photosynthetica is run by the Czechs.

Considering the ISI Rating of Candidate Target Journals
Marine Botany Paper Magnetic Effects Paper
Journal Name ISI Journal Name ISI
Aquatic Botany 1.61 International Agrophysics 1.12
Botanica Marina 1.40 Bioelectromagnetics 1.705
Journal of Experimental 2.475 Electro-magnetic Biology & 1.194

Marine Biology and Medicine
Ecology
Plant Physiology 6.841 Journal of Plant Physiology 2.557
Estuarine and Coastal 2.057 Environmental and 3.359

Marine Science Experimental Botany
Conclusion: Try Aquatic Botany Conclusion: Try Environmental and

as logical first choice because of Experimental Botany as first choice. ISI
high citation. Plant Physiology of International Agrophysics is too low
has too high an ISI for a minor even though cited many times. Bad news.
seagrass paper. I have never been able to publish in
Environmental and Experimental
Botany.

Authorship
• The person that did most of the work is always first author. Never allow any argument
on this point. The best way to make this clear is to write the title page with you as first
author. If you did the work you are in the driver’s seat. Everyone else is a passenger
including your supervisor.
• Never give your work to someone else to write up. Writing up is part of the job. It is
irresponsible and causes trouble.
• My experience has been that if possible it is best to write a paper by yourself or with a
single co-author.
• The paper with the student or post-doc as the first author (the junior scientist) with their
lord and master (their supervisor) as last author is a standard model that dates back
centuries. It is still common today because it works. For example, my fist paper was
Ritchie (1982) but numbers 2 and 3 were Ritchie and Larkum (1982a, b). I am still
publishing papers with my old PhD supervisor (Ritchie and Larkum 2012) and Ritchie
and Larkum 2016), Ritchie, Larkum and Ribas (2017), Larkum, Ritchie and Raven
(2018).
• Try and get a definite agreement on the number of authors.
Authorship Problems
• Once you start writing a paper people start taking you seriously. That has good and
bad points. You will find that most people are very encouraging. On the downside it is
a little bit like inheriting a fortune from a rich uncle. Suddenly you find you have more
friends than you thought you had. Hence, you need to be careful. Your paper is
valuable material. It can be stolen.
• Do not put somebody’s name on the paper just because you think it might help to get it
published. This is not how the world works. Nominal authorship is a very bad idea.
Only put people down as authors if they actually have made a contribution to the
paper. It is difficult to remove authors.
• Make sure people do contribute. If you find that one of your co-authors does not do
anything useful it is very hard to get their names off a paper. They may do nothing but

they still want their name on it. Lesson – the careful who you put on a paper in the
first place.
• Be professional. A manuscript is a confidential document.
Commercialisation Problems for authorship
• Nothing I have ever done has had any commercial value and so I have never been in
difficulties about patents and intellectual property (IP) rights but have heard a lot of
horror stories from colleagues.
• Once you publish something in an International journal it becomes public knowledge
and so generally cannot be patented. Patent first. I have one manuscript with a colleague
which featured a potential patentable device. I advised her to get the patent first.
• IP rights can prevent you from publishing your work. Ask for legal advice from the
Research Office. For example, if you sign a contract with a prawn farm company to work
on improving their prawn food they can stop you from publishing it. The confidential
report you spent months writing for them does nothing for your career. Even years later
they may still not release it for publication.
Formal Agreements over Authorship
• As I have said I have ever been involved in writing a paper where there were questions
over commercialisation and intellectual property rights. In the above case I mentioned I
advised the first author to patent her device before attempting publication. She now has
the patent. We are now trying to publish the work.
• I personally have never had to resort to an authorship agreement in writing but in a few of
my papers I wish I had insisted on some written agreement.
• In the case of most scientific papers authorship questions can be settled by having a
meeting of the authors of a paper and questions resolved by mutual agreement. However,
if the first author is young and inexperienced they may need advice and help from a
trusted senior co-author – usually their supervisor.
• If authorship is a complex issue and could lead to trouble. You might need a signed
agreement. But legalism can backfire and generate ill feeling.

The Introduction should include:
• You must have a clear statement of what is the problem your paper is addressing and
why it is important.
• A clear outline of what the paper is about is needed which shows that that you
understand the problem. You did not do the project simply because you were told to.
• Make the aims of the paper clear in the last paragraph. You can even put in a single
sentence about what your paper has shown.
• The Introduction is not intended to be an exhaustive review of the subject but it needs to
be fully referenced to demonstrate that you are familiar with the literature. This is
important.
• Use scientific journals and books as your sources, references and authorities (Primary
Literature). Avoid other literature. Even published conference papers are often
difficult of access (no pdf) and so are generally are not regarded as primary
literature.
What not to say in the Introduction:
• You do not bring up issues in the Introduction that you do not deal with in the paper. It
makes your paper look incomplete.
• If your own work does not shed light on an aspect of a topic do not bring it up. When
you have finished the Discussion you need to re-evaluate the Introduction. Topics
brought up in the Introduction but not dealt with in the paper can be either removed or
added to the Discussion as future avenues of research. Talking about new avenues of
work in your Discussion improves the look of your paper.
• You may need to say what your paper is not about.
For example “Extrasolar planets have been found orbiting G, K and M stars but here we do not
discuss planets of K stars because so few are yet documented”.
Your First Scientific Paper:
• You are joining the big school now. Take yourself seriously.

• Do not make your paper read like it is simply a glorified laboratory report on a project
assigned by your supervisor.
• Use good scientific papers you have read as a model.
• This publication is not about writing in English. Reading scientific papers you will
quickly notice that they are written using a form of English that is very different to
common spoken English and is not like TV and Movie English either. 97% of all
science today is written in English, I have never needed a translation of a paper in
another language. Not even once.
• But 80% of people reading your paper are using English as a second language.
Write simple, short, explicit sentences not only does it make the paper easier to read
but you are less likely to make grammatical and structural mistakes.
The Introduction should demonstrate clear evidence that you critically read the literature and
identified the problem.
Some amusing quotes from Willingham (2007)
• “Critical thinking is not a set of skills that can be deployed at any time, in any context. It
is a type of thought that even 3-year-olds can engage in—and even trained scientists can
fail in.”
– Some brilliant scientists can be very credulous and remarkably easy to fool, especially if
they are told what they want to hear. See the chapter on scientific fraud.
• “Knowing that one should think critically is not the same as being able to do so. That
requires domain knowledge and practice.”
– Very true, you do need practice to understand science and you do need to learn to be
sceptical.
One of the more comical things about Science is that commentators on Science usually have no
scientific experience themselves and hopelessly confuse “Training” and “Education”. In general,
training in the sciences is necessary but is not sufficient to be a good scientist.

Some more amusing quotes from Willingham (2007)
• “Teaching content alone is not likely to lead to proficiency in science, nor is engaging in
inquiry experiences devoid of meaningful science content.”
• “Subjects who started with more and better integrated knowledge planned more
informative experiments made better use of experimental outcomes.”
• The more general your level of science knowledge the better. Read news items in New
Scientist, Nature and Science regularly.
• Of course the Americans think you have to organise a course to teach critical thinking but
I doubt if it necessarily works. That is the training vs. education problem.
When you have finished.
Submitting a Paper:
• When submitting a paper it is critical to write a proper Cover Letter such as the
example below. Remember that an Editor can reject your paper without sending it
out to referees. Be very polite. Usually trying to argue with an Editor is futile. Their
journal is their very own little empire and they do what they please.
• Submitting a paper using ScholarOne/Editorial Manager will be described and the

standard journal procedures after you submit a paper will also be described.
• ScholarOne/Editorial Manager is not very user friendly and every journal tailors it to
their own preferences and so until you open it and look you may find that they ask for
things you did not expect. Also what you read in the Instructions to Authors might not
correspond to what you find in Scholar One. The word limit mentioned in the
Instructions is often different to what you find when you are trying to submit the paper.
Impatiently trying to cut your abstract to fit a lower work limit off the top of your head is
not a good idea. I think it is very important for students to know about how to use
ScholarOne/Editorial Manager so they can submit papers themselves rather than rely
on their supervisor. Some have never submitted a paper themselves in their lives.

Here is an example of a grovelling letter to an editor asking the journal to consider the
paper. This journal rejected the paper. We sent it somewhere else and got it published.
PRINCE OF SONGKLA UNIVERSITY

Tropical Plant Biology Research Unit,
Faculty of Technology & Environment, Phuket Campus,
Kathu, Phuket, Thailand
Phone: +66 7627 6130 Fax: +66 7627 6102
Email: Raymond.r@phuket.psu.ac.th and Raymond.ritchie@uni.sydney edu.au
The Editor in Chief, Bioelectromagnetics

14 May 2016
Dear Dr James C. LIN,
We hope you will be able to consider our new manuscript for publication.
Chadapust J. SUDSIRI, Jumpa NATTAWAT, Pinpong KONGCHANA and Raymond

J. RITCHIE. Stimulation of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) germination by exposure to
electromagnetic fields.
This paper is on the novel topic of induction of germination of difficult-to-germinate seeds using electro-
magnetic fields and magnetised water. It does not resolve the problem of the mechanism of action but it does
clearly show that the method works and is convenient for difficult to germinate oil palm seeds. Unreliable
supply of seedlings is a major problem for the Oil Palm industry. The technique has considerable conservation
value because the seeds of many endangered plants are difficult to germinate because the natural environmental
cues for germination are not known.
A related paper has recently been accepted by Seed Science & Technology: Sudsiri Ch J, Nattawat J,
Kongchana P, Ritchie RJ (2016) Effect of magnetically treated water on germination and seedling growth of Oil
Palm (Elaeis guineensis). We can send you the proofs if you feel it is needed.
Some possible referees:

Dr Mary BEILBY, Physics, University of NSW, Australia, m.j.beilby@unsw.edu.au.
Expertise: Magnetism and Membrane Biophysics of Plants.
Prof. Dr. Thera Eksomtramag, Faculty of Agriculture, Prince of Songkla University-Hat Yai, Thailand,
theera.e@psu.ac.th. Expertise: Plant Breeding of Tropical Crops
Prof. Dr. Renate Horn, Biology, University of Rostock, Germany, renate.horn@uni-rostock.de. Expertise: Plant
Science, Developmental biology.
Prof Ivan R. KENNEDY, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, University of Sydney, Australia
i.kennedy@usyd.edu.au. Expertise: Theoretical biology, Environmental Biology, Biophysics.
Prof Sergy SHABALA, Stress Physiology, School of Agricultural Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart,
Tasmania, Australia, sergy.shabala@utas.edu.au. Expertise: Electromagnetic Effects on Plants, Stress
Physiology of Plants, Biophysics.
Assoc Prof Daniel TAN, Plant Breeding Institute, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The University of
Sydney, Australia, daniel.tan@sydney.edu.au. Expertise: Agronomy, Crop Physiology, Photosynthesis,
PAM Technology.
We declare that we have no conflicts of interest.

We hope that you will find it suitable for publication.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Raymond J. Ritchie

Chapter 2: How to Write the Materials and Methods.
Materials and Methods (M & M): First points.
M&M sections of papers are often badly written and provide inadequate information. Do
not contribute to this unfortunate modern habit. Remember your results need to be
reproducible.
Never write M & M like a cake recipe in present tense. Always use past tense, preferably 3rd
person. The cake recipe format makes you look amateurish and editors will reject your paper.
* Special Warning to English-Second Language Readers
Non-English speakers often work very hard on improving the English of the Abstract,
Introduction and Discussion and neglect the English in the Materials and Methods and the
Results. They foolishly think that the Materials and Methods are “technical” and do not worry
about the English. If people cannot understand what you did and how you did it your paper is
unlikely to be accepted.
Materials and Methods are often inadequate in both old and modern papers but this
problem seems to be getting worse.
This is not just a problem in the hard sciences. Social science papers often have very poor
descriptions of what methods they used as well. If you use a reference to cover a method that
you used you must actually look at that paper to see if it really does actually gives a useable
description. Some references are used out of habit because everybody uses them. That is very
bad science. You might get a rude shock if you actually look at the actual paper.
If you used microbes, plants or animals for your study you must give an adequate taxonomic
description at least when you first mention them. You can get away with human, cat, dog, rabbit,
rat or mouse without the Latin names but you have to specify the strain used. For peas, beans,
wheat, rice etc you need to use the Latin names when first mentioning them and the strain you

used and then you can use the common name in the rest of the text. If you are doing a study on a
bacterium called Rhodopseudomonas palustris (names in italics) you give the full name, strain
name, and description first and then later you can call it R. palustris or Rhodopseudomonas if
there is no confusion about the organism you are talking about. Deposit new plants, animals or
microbes with a herbarium, museum or a culture collection.
Caution is needed with common names of plants. Some crop plants have different common
names in American-English and English-English. Look up what “corn” means in American-
English vs. English-English. Confusingly Australian English is often a hybrid, for example Zea
mays (Indian Corn) is universally called corn in Australia in the American sense and the English
habit of using “corn” for any cereal is not the way the word is used in Australia. Some oddities of
types of English: Americans habitually talk about time of year by American season, British &
Australians usually talk in terms of month. Archaic terms like “Fall” are not used in more
evolved forms of English and the term is never used in Australia because eucalypts are
evergreen.
Culture Media and How Things were Grown
Make sure you give an adequate description of both. For plants the minimum is temperature and
light conditions. Culture media recipes have to be carefully checked. The biological literature is
littered with inadequate descriptions of culture media. Essential materials such as culture media
should be either presented in detail or referred to an easily available source.
Sometimes the original description of the medium is unobtainable, in which cases you try and
find the oldest complete description that is in the open literature and use that as your source
material. Some culture recipes are frustrating: one I know of has 5 different versions!
Do not use a thesis or conference proceedings as sources for such information. Reason? Poor
accessibility and they are not Primary Literature.
Scientific Instruments

• You need to mention the key scientific instruments you used for the study. You need the
Model, Manufacturer, City and Country where it was made.
• This is easy to forget. I submitted a paper on 26 February 2016 where I forgot to
mention the type of light meter I used.
• Software. You need Version, Manufacturer, City and Country.
• Generally using INTERNET references are frowned upon because they are ephemeral,
however you can use them as sources of database information. For example, DNA
sequences, spectra of stars etc. The proper format for referring to Internet Information
has to be used and that includes the DATE OF ACCESS and WEB ADDRESS. No
Wikipedia! The worst aspect of WIKIPEDIA is that generally you have not got a clue
who the writer is or what their agenda is.
What you are trying to do in the M&Ms.
• Remember in the M & M you are trying to establish that you knew what you were doing.
Standard analysis texts can be very useful but references to big reference books need
page numbers e.g. (APHA-Standard Methods, 1998, p 1234).
• If you do anything involving human subjects or animals make sure you obey bioethics
procedures and say so in your M & M. A journal will not accept your paper if there is
any hint of bioethics problems. Sometimes the rules are quite strict. I have fish and a pet
turtle in the lab. I even have pet crayfish. When the ethics committee inspected my lab
they were quite happy with my pet crayfish, fish and turtle. I asked if I would have to get
ethics approval to do any science on them. I was assured I would have to get official
ethics approval.
• The M&Ms should provide enough information for it to be feasible to repeat the
experiments and is properly referenced. After all, that is what M&Ms is actually for!
Some things you should not do in the M&Ms
• References used in M&M must be readily accessible; this is just as important in the
M&Ms as in the Introduction or Discussion. Avoid “grey” (Non-Primary) literature as
much as possible. If you have to use grey literature simply write it out in full and state
clearly where you got it. For example, give full details of the culture medium recipe, the

experimental protocol or the statistical procedure you used from the grey literature rather
than simply cite it.
• Do not refer to Theses as sources of M&M information including your own thesis.
Reason? Surprisingly, theses of many universities are not readily publically available.
• Do not use Conference Proceedings as sources of M&M. If you must use the information
write it out again in full and state its source. The reason is again limited accessibility.
• Government reports should also be avoided because of the accessibility of grey literature
(non Primary Literature) issue. If necessary as an information source quote in full.
• Most journals today have Supplementary Material appendices. You submit the material
as pdf and it is not edited. You can use the Supplementary Material section to deposit a
copy of a piece of Grey Literature that was hard to find.

Chapter 3 How to Write the Results.
Results (I) – The text

First points.
• Explicit verbal description of results is required. Graphs and Tables do not explain
themselves. You have to explain them in the text. Many do not understand this.
• Conclusions based on statistics need to explicitly stated and it must be clear what data was
used, the statistical tests that were used and the r, t, F & P values must be quoted as
required. It is good practice to use a standard statistics textbook as a reference.
* Do not neglect the English in the Results. If people cannot understand what you did and how
you did it your paper is unlikely to be accepted.
In the Results you are expected to:

• Accurately describe the results.
• Graphs and tables do not explain themselves. You must state what they show. “The
results are shown in Fig. 1 and Table 1” is not adequate. You must state what Fig. 1 and
Table 1 actually show.
• Do not put Materials and Methods material in the Results.
• Only minimal interpretation of data is needed in the Results. Leave interpretation to the
Discussion. Exception: where the first set of results you present lead on logically to why
you did the next part of the study then it is appropriate to say so.
• If some of the preliminary results you get in your study confirm that your experimental
material is similar to that used in previously published work it is appropriate to say that in
the Results and cite the reference.
• In general leave comparison to published material to the Discussion unless it needs to be
mentioned to explain the logical flow of the experiments you did.
Some things can go in the Materials and Methods or in the Results
• You should mention the key instruments you used for the study in the Materials and
Methods but if they come into play in your Results section you need the Model,
Manufacturer, City and Country where they were made.

• Some assumptions are made about work in a modern laboratory. You do not mention
what pipettors you used or what glass and plastic-ware you used unless it is important.
For example, if you are doing work on UV light it does not penetrate ordinary glass. You
need special glass spectrophotometer cuvettes and glassware to work with UV light.
• You do not mention the type of laptop you used to write the paper but it is easy to forget to
mention details that were essential for your project. For example, the type of light meter
used is critical in my work.
Some Materials and Methods Material is better in the Results

• Sometimes M&M material is better mentioned close to where it is a critical issue in the
Results.
• Software/Hardware Compatibility. You need Version, Manufacturer, City and Country.
This is often critical information which is essential to get hardware to work.
• Generally using INTERNET references is frowned upon because they are ephemeral,
however, you can use them as sources of database information. For example, DNA
sequences, spectra of stars etc. Proper referencing of Internet information is required
including DATE OF ACCESS.
Some things you should not do in the Results

• Repeating that you must remember that tables and graphs do not explain themselves.
You must state explicitly what they show. Please, please remember this point.
• All, repeat all, your Results need to be mentioned in the text. Do not forget to talk about
every single Table, Graph and Figure.
• Try and avoid interpretation as that is more appropriate in the Discussion. If you describe
the results of an experiment you did and it logically leads on to the subsequent results in
the paper it is appropriate to state in the results why one set of findings logically lead on
to you doing other experiments described in the paper. For example “The preliminary
experiments described in Table 1 show that added phosphate had no significant effect on
photosynthesis of the mangroves (P > 0.05) and so we concentrated on the effects of
nitrogen sources”.
• Read the Instructions to Authors. Be very careful about format requirements.

Results (II) – The Tables. First Points
• The incomprehensible table has a great tradition in science. Try to avoid information
overload.
• Conclusions based on statistics need to explicitly stated and it must be clear what data was
used, the statistical tests that were used and the P values must be quoted.
• Try and keep tables as small as possible. About 50 numbers should be the maximum. It is
better to have 2 or 3 smaller tables than one big one. A big one is best put in an Appendix
or Supplementary Material.
• Explicit verbal description of results is required. Tables do not explain themselves.
• The clumsy incomprehensible table has a great tradition in science. Try to avoid
information overload.
• Conclusions based on statistics need to explicitly stated and it must be clear what data
was used, the statistical tests that were used and the P values must be quoted.
• Try and keep tables as small as possible. About 50 numbers should be the maximum. It
is better to have 2 or 3 smaller tables than one big one. A big one is best put in an
Appendix or in Supplementary Material.
Here is an example of a truly terrible Table (from a paper I co-authored) (Kaewsrikhaw et al.,
2015). This is an example of information overload. The latest craze is to mark significant
differences by superscript! Does not help! I find them difficult to grasp.
By the way, this is how the table is likely to appear in a publication. So small you cannot even
read it. Worse, if you make a mistake or the editor or the publisher try to change it is virtually
impossible to find the mistakes.

In the tables you are expected to:
• Accurately present the results,
• Tables do not explain themselves. Just because the results are obvious to you does
not mean others find it obvious. You must state what Tables show. There is a current
fashion for using complex coding using superscripts for indicating what data is
significantly different to other data. I find these very difficult to understand and
encourage writers to not explain in the text what is different to what. Try and readily
interpret the Table above.
• The more complex the table the more likely you will make mistakes in them. It is
extremely difficult to find mistakes in Tables especially big Tables.
• Instructions to authors are often very detailed about information for Figures but
instructions about Tables can lack details.
• Warning! Warning! Warning! Journals often edit Tables considerably to make them
fit into the journal format. That means that if there are major mistakes made by the
printer in your paper they are likely to be in the Tables. You may not be able to find
them.
Some things you should not do in Results Tables
• Avoid information overload (see above)

• Conference proceedings often have very strict space limits. This encourages
squeezing all your data into one or two big Tables. When you rewrite a conference
paper into a journal paper it is a good idea to divide up your tables.
• Remember tables do not explain themselves. You must state explicitly what they
show. Avoid saying “The significant differences are shown by the subscripts in Table
1”. That is not adequate: what is different to what?
• Do not put results in the Tables that are not mentioned in the text. Do not forget to
talk about every single Table.
• Most journals now have Supplementary Information files. Put esoteric information
into the Supplementary Material. Most tables can go there.
• Read the Instructions to Authors very carefully about format of Tables.
Results (III) – The Graphs & Figures.
Here is the classic “March on Russia” by Minard.

It presents a very large amount of information in a graphic.
Napoleon lost nearly all his men, in particular those who had marched with him and had reached
Moscow. Of 350,000 men only 10,000 got out of Russia but it is worse than that. Most of the
survivors had been on garrison duty in places like Smolensk perhaps only a few thousand

(hundreds?) managed to actually get back from Moscow. Napoleon of course survived by
leaving his men to die.
First points about Figures

• Problems with Graphs, Tables and Figures are usually the major reason why a paper is
rejected. Explicit verbal description of results is required. Graphs and Figures no more
explain themselves than Tables do.
• Avoid information overload. Avoid complex figures and graphs. Too many lines on one
graph makes the figure difficult to understand and do not forget colour graphs are
expensive to publish and most people have a greyscale printer.
• Conclusions based on statistics on data shown as graphs need to be explicitly stated and it
must be clear what data was used, the statistical tests that were used and the P values
must be quoted in the legend for the figures.
• Graphs and Figures cost a lot of money in terms of technology and editorial and publishers
time. Do not put in too many Figs.
• Journals generally have rules that you cannot present the same data as a Table and a
Figure. However, there is nothing wrong with putting the graphed data in table form in
the Supplementary Material.

Here is another “March on Russia-Type graph”. This time describing undergraduate graduation
from STEM subjects in the USA. Note that the endpoint is not graduate school such Masters and
PhD students and many who go to Medical School often major in STEM. It can only be
concluded that the American system is in very deep trouble for lack of recruitment of domestic
students into STEM.

Here is an example of a bad figure in a published paper (I was co-author). The problems are
information overload and everything is so small you cannot read it (Kaewsrikhaw et al., 2015).
In Graphs you are expected to:

• Accurately present the results do not leave out data points you do not like.
• Graphs and Figures no more explain themselves any more than Tables do. Just because
you have a photo of something that does not mean you do not have to say what it shows.
• The more complex the Figure the more likely you will make mistakes in them. The
chances of you finding a mistake in the previous figure are very small.

• Instructions to Authors are often very detailed about information for Figures. They can be
absurdly detailed. The journal Photosynthetica has more than 30 pages of instructions
about figures! Patiently do what the journal wants.
• Most journal publish Figures in colour for free, others do not. Be careful that you do not
find yourself up for a massive bill. Journals often have two choices. Figure over one
column or over two columns. A figure squeezed into a single column might be
unreadable. If in doubt specify how you want it presented.
• Despite its obvious limitations use Microsoft EXCEL to draw graphs. But so many
graphics programs are so much better? The important thing is that everyone has EXCEL
and POWERPOINT. You are generally interacting with a colleague somewhere else.
They are likely to have Microsoft Office (beware of version) but might not have access to
your fancy graphs program. A colleague might want to edit your draft figures.
Some things you should not do with Graphs and Figures

• Avoid information overload in Graphs – too many lines.
• Conference proceedings often have very strict space limits. Figures are better than tables.
• Remember that Graphics do not explain themselves. You must state explicitly what they
show: “Figure 1 shows an Electron Micrograph of the fish eggs” – that is no good. What
does the EM show about the fish eggs?
• Have a good reason for putting in every Graph and Figure. If there is nothing much to say
about them leave out or put in the Supplementary Material.
• Put esoteric information into the Supplementary Material.
• Read the Instructions to Authors very carefully about format but remember they might be
out-of-date.

Here is nice little figure that is helpful and provides
useful information in a readily understandable form.
A simple drawing like this is worth 2-3 pages of
text. However, you still need to explicitly state
what it shows.
All Figures and Graphs must have a legend clearly
stating what data is being presented. A minimal
description is required.
* Note that this Figure came from another
publication. This must be acknowledged otherwise
you are in trouble for breach of copyright.

Anything wrong? No distance scale!Always put a scale on Figures.
The author has previously published this figure but that original paper (Martin & Assenov,
2013b) does not actually say where he got it.
Steve Martin has told me he had it drawn for him so it is original but that is not stated.

Typical example of Biochemistry – Molecular Biology Overload!
Labels are microscopic and how are you to grasp what is going on. Perhaps I may really be
stupid but I cannot make much of this figure.

Conceptually a good set of Figures indicating trends in Greenhouse gases. Notice though
that they have lost resolution because of the file type used. Not publishable.
Nice Figures with good presentation. But usually journals like to put in their own headings. Red
& Blue is OK for nearly all colour blind people but Red & Green is no good.

10% of Males are Red-Green Colour Blind. This figure is not appropriate because of Red/Green.

Some of this is too crowded and there may be resolution issues especially when printed
greyscale.

Diagram showing different HZ boundaries for stars ranging in spectral type from F0 to M7. The
background is too dark. Does not photocopy well or on greyscale printers. OK in Powerpoint on
a screen but try and print it! White print on a dark or black background is always a bad idea.

Chapter 4 How to write the Discussion.
Discussion (I)
This is the civilized way to write a discussion with your colleagues.
This is not the civilized way to write a discussion with your colleagues.

Here are the Important Points About Your Discussion.
• The point of the Discussion is to talk about your results and interpret them in the
context of how your findings fit in with previous knowledge and how your results
have improved understanding of the topic.
• Talk integratively about the results of your study. You can of course talk about what
each Table and Figure shows but it is important to talk about what the whole of your
study shows.
• A fault of the combined Results and Discussion format is that it is very easy to write
a paragraph about a particular experiment and then write an interpretation and then go
onto the next experiment you did until you reach the last Figure or Table and that is
the end of the Results & Discussion. The idea of an overall conclusion has been lost.
• Results and Discussion format encourages you to forget to write an overall synthesis
of what you found. Use it freely for relatively small straightforward papers of about
3000 to 5000 words but you can easily forget to say what your study has shown.
• A good Discussion is interpretive and integrates your work into previous work, talks
about its implications for future work.
• The Discussion needs to tally with the Introduction. You need to modify the
Introduction to fit what you found.
Some things you should not do in the Discussion.

• Remember again that tables and graphs do not explain themselves. You must state
explicitly what they show. That goes for the Discussion as well as the Results. Refer
to Figures and Tables in a logical order.
• Unless the information in the results is merely background material, for example
freshweights and dry weights of the plant leaves used, you need to Discuss everything
in your Results, otherwise why did you put the material in the paper at all?
• Repeating what I said. With only minor exceptions, all your Results need to be
mentioned in the text of the Discussion. Do not forget to talk about every single
Table, Graph and Figure unless it is something very routine like a standard curve.
• Try not to write a Discussion that is too short (not making enough of your data) or
too long. I tend to write L-O-N-G. Beware of not discussing your work enough.
You need to make as much of your work as possible.
Basic Structure of Discussion

• Open by basically saying what you found out.
• Interpret and evaluate your results in terms of the background information you gave in the
Introduction. Any problems about the validity of your Results: do they concur with previous
work or conflict with it?
• Use your knowledge of the literature to demonstrate the logic of the paper.
• Do not turn your Discussion into a devastating critique of your own work (this is often a
problem in multiple authorship papers) where the discussion seems to show the whole study was
a waste of time. A paragraph by one author might contradict another written by someone else.
The first author has final say on this issue – when the stuff hits the fan the 1st Author gets it.
• You need to talk about where your findings lead to. If it does not seem to lead anywhere then
what is the point of the paper anyway?
The Critical and Dangerous Nature of the Discussion Step

The Writing of the Discussion is the critical step where your ideas are put together. It is also the
step where you are likely to make serious mistakes that can damage the value of the paper to
your career. It is natural to look for expertise from those who might help in improving the paper
but you must be careful.
Some rules:
1) Only have authors on your paper that made a real contribution. In my experience the fewer
authors the better.
2) A draft manuscript is a confidential document shared as a mutual trust by the authors. Do
not carelessly pass it around. It is unprofessional and asking for trouble.
3) Do not show it to any outsiders without consensus consent by yourself and your colleagues if
you have co-authors. If you think someone else would be able to contribute to the paper make
sure the other authors are informed and a collective decision is made. Students often make the
mistake of showing their manuscript to lots of people. They may demand their names on
the paper or just send it back with their name inserted as an author. Hard to say no.
4) Beware of academic vampires and predatory bullfrogs. They prey on graduate students,
post-docs and junior faculty. They go to seminars and conferences, talk to people and are very
friendly. They act as if they are trying to be helpful. What they want you to do is give them
your manuscript and soon after they ask or demand co-authorship. What happens often is you get
the manuscript handed back with their name added onto the paper as a fait accompli. You did
not say that if they edited the paper they would not necessarily be entitled to co-authorship did
you? You did not think of that.

Professor Bullfrog captures another innocent graduate student and eats them alive. Not only are
they predatory they are cannibalistic.

Beware of Prof Dracula:
• Hypnotic eyes,
• Fascination with haematology,
• Likes meeting young women,
• Central European accent,
• Likes bats,
• Wants his name on all your papers.

Some papers fall flat on their face in the Discussion. The problems generated by multiple
authorships can destroy a paper.
This is what can happen. Do not laugh. Do you seriously believe that this paper will ever get
finished? You must have a logical order of revision of your paper or you will never get it
finished. A simple linear model is most likely to be successful. This is the responsibility of the
first author or the corresponding author who might have more experience than you in dealing
with such nonsense.

The Cyclic Model of Revising a Paper.
A (First
Author)
E B
D C
This can end up as a hopeless mess. The paper might never get finished.
When do you declare a stop?
The Cycle Model (ABCDD then back to A) can go on forever and is limited by the slowest
and most dead-beat author. The first author can find themselves the author of something they
have lost control of. They can also find themselves the author of a five author paper when
they really only wanted to write the paper with one other person.
If Authors start squabbling amongst themselves you might never see the manuscript come
back.

Author A
Author B
Author C
The Chain of Command Model

The first author retains control and prevents squabbling between Authors B & C.
Often students do not have the confidence to assert the simple fact that they are the first author
and they are in the driver’s seat.

Writing a joint paper has not changed much over the centuries.
Multiple Authorship Monster Papers

“On occasion, I have seen 10 or more authors listed at the head of a paper (sometimes only a
Note). For example, a paper by F. Bulos et al. (Phys. Rev. Letters 13:486, 1964) had 27 authors
and only 12 paragraphs. Such papers frequently come from laboratories that are so small that 10
people couldn't fit into the lab, let alone make a meaningful contribution to the experiment. What
accounts for the tendency to list a host of authors? There may be several reasons, but the primary
one no doubt relates to the publish-or-perish syndrome. Some workers wheedle or cajole their
colleagues so effectively that they become authors of most or all of the papers coming out of
their laboratory. Their research productivity might in fact be meagre, yet at year's end their
publication lists might indeed be extensive. In some institutions, such padded lists might result in
promotion. Nonetheless, the practice is not recommended. Perhaps a few administrators are
fooled, and momentary advantages are sometimes gained by these easy riders. But I suspect that

good scientists do not allow dilution of their own work by adding other people's names for their
minuscule contributions, nor do they want their own names sullied by addition of the names of a
whole herd of lightweights”. (Quoted from Day 1998).
My Comment:
An obvious problem with monster authorships is who actually did the work and wrote the paper?
This can be a critical issue in patents, intellectual property rights and scientific fraud
investigations. Sometimes Prof Bullfrog and Prof Dracula get their name on a paper they do not
want to acknowledge they ever had anything to do with. They deserve what they get.
The Single Author Paper

Obviously demonstrates initiative and ability but has some disadvantages. A single authored
paper must be entirely your own work. It is not ethical to get help from others in the
experimental work, data analysis or writing up of a paper and then not offer them co-authorship.
But think before you give your paper to others. A co-author might cause more trouble than they
are worth.
The key disadvantage of writing sole-author papers is that it is extremely difficult to spot your
own omissions and mistakes. Your brain automatically corrects things sub-consciously and the
conscious part of your brain is not made aware of it. Everybody thinks they are a genius but you
often cannot recognise the flaws in your own reasoning or the flaws and oversights in your own
data or analysis. Finishing a paper and then completely ignoring it for a while helps you to find
mistakes.
Let the paper incubate for a while.
Some Important Issues

• Secondary and Primary literature: “The vast conference literature that appears in print
normally are not primary information sources. I wish more people recognized this. If
original data are presented in such contributions, the data can and should be published (or
republished) in an archival (primary) journal. Otherwise, the information may effectively
be lost. If publication in a primary journal follows publication in a conference report,

there may be copyright and permission problems (see Chapter 31), but the more
fundamental problem of dual publication (duplicate publication of original data) normally
does not and should not arise” (quoted from Day 1998).
In biological sciences, generally you can find the information you need in an International
Journal or a book. Some research fields are much more dependent on grey literature. The two
subjects that come to mind are geography and geology (Martin and Ritchie 2020) where much of
the literature is in the form of government reports and reports of various organisations.
I think Day’s comment here is a bit dated. Today it is almost impossible to rewrite and
republish conference papers as papers in peer reviewed journals because of the “double
publication issue”. Avoid published conference papers because you are unlikely to be able
to reuse the material. Special issues of International Journals are OK. If you try and hide
that fact you are in big trouble. He also wrote it before predatory scientific journals
became a problem.
As a general rule use primary literature in Books or Journals as information sources. Publication
in primary literature is the aim of scientific publishing. Do not put your work in secondary
literature if it endangers your ability to publish it in a good journal or as a chapter in a book.
The literature that is not primary is often called Secondary, Grey or Non-archival Literature. The
term non-archival is the most apt name for it because if reflects the fact that it is not literature
that you would be able to normally find in a library. Examples of grey literature are government
reports, government reports not released publically, conference proceedings of a conference
which was attended by less than 30 people that was not published and is not on the internet.
Most university theses are grey literature because of limited accessibility.
The Aim of the Discussion

Do not lose sight of what the Discussion is for.
The Bane of Scientific Writing.

Pompous, Pretentious, Clumsy Incomprehensible Graphs and Tables, Statistical Theology and
Verbose Arcane Discussions.
Today 97% of all scientific literature is published in English but 80% of your readers are using
English as a second language. Write simple short sentences.

Cultural note: Dick and Jane is a standard school reader for 5-6 y olds in America written about
1955. Equivalent to David, Sue & Wendy books in Australia. Such children’s books are full of
cultural assumptions that no longer apply.
from Sand-Jensen (2007). Note that Sand-Jensen has given proper credit for the figure.
It is also important to point out that Sand-Jensen is Scandinavian and is professionally using
English as a second language. Today most of your readers will be using English as a second
language. Keep that in mind.

Chapter 5 How to write the Abstract.
The Abstract
• You write the Abstract after you have finished the paper, preferably after of cooling-off
period.
• It is the first thing people read so if your abstract is bad generally they do not read any more
of the paper. The Abstract is therefore very important to get right.
• The Abstract is critical for getting your paper read and cited.
• Be absolutely explicit.
• State what your study has shown.
• Give the basic results you found, not allusions to them. The Abstract is not an Introduction.
• Talk integratively about the results of your study.
• Must have some sort of conclusion sentence.
• An abstract normally does not have any references.
• Abstracts have strict word limits, normally 150 to 300 words.
Nearly all papers are submitted through the ScholarOne/Editorial Manager software produced
by Thomson-Reuters. If your abstract is even 1 word over the limit the software prevents you
from submitting your paper. Know the word limit beforehand. Sometimes this advice is no help
because when you get into ScholarOne/Editorial Manager you find they have changed the
word limit without changing the information in the Instructions to Authors. Do not try and
change the abstract off the top-of-your head while still in ScholarOne/Editorial Manager – that
is asking for mistakes.
• Every word counts so do not use superfluous phrases like “This study has shown ….”.
Databases search for info in Abstracts.
Some things you should not do in the Abstract

• Every word counts so write very simple sentences. No long complex sentences. You have to
be brief but do not make grammatical mistakes such as sentences with no verb.
• You do not have to talk about every single Table, Graph and Figure or experimental result.
You do not refer to Tables or Figures in the paper. Key results and overall conclusions please.
Some data is OK.

• If you have given a talk about your work at a conference it is perfectly OK to use it as the
basis for your paper abstract but you need to rewrite it to fit circumstances. Do not self
plagiarize.
• Try to use all the space the journal allows. If your conference abstract was 250 words and
the journal will accept 300 then expand the abstract to 290-300. I tend to write L-o-n-g and
struggle to get below the word limit. You need to make as much of your Abstract space as
possible.
Highlights
• The latest fashion in publishing is to demand a set of highlights in point form.
• Highlights are extremely difficult to write. I think they are useless.
• If there is a highlights section in ScholarOne/Editorial Manager it is usually a rude
surprise because older copies of papers from the journal often do not have them and suddenly
when you are battling with Scholar-One you discover they want highlights. Damn them!
• Like in the case of the Abstract word limits the ScholarOne/Editorial Manager software
will not accept your highlights if they do not conform to the format.
• Usually only 5 highlights, and only 80 - 85 characters per highlight (including spaces)
• Highlights are one of the more useless recent innovations in publishing.
I think highlights are a waste of time.

Chapter 6 Submitting the Paper and Getting it Accepted
Delicate sensitive types have no place in science. To get things published you have to be
stubborn, persistent and have a very thick hide. There is no point whinging or playing the
victim, no-one will take any notice.
It is totally unacceptable for a student to hand their work to their supervisor for them to get it
published and think that is the end of the matter. The student does not learn the essentials of
being a functional researcher. That is why I make a point to teach students how to submit a
paper.
The student is normally the first author and needs to learn how to write papers by themselves. I
have had to resort to publishing a student’s work with me as first author only once in my career.
(He had got a government job and would not write the paper up).
A special warning about published conference proceedings.

• It used to be quite easy to republish a published conference proceeding, provided you cited it
in the reference list and the Journal manuscript was expanded considerably from the published
conference proceedings.
• Unfortunately, today this does not seem to be acceptable by some editors.
• If you publish a paper as a published conference proceedings it is now very unlikely that you
will be ever be able to publish a journal version of the paper. It is better not to attempt to do so.
Turnitin® and Ithenticate® will find it.
• Of course you can go to a conference that publishes conference proceedings and give a paper
based on a paper you have already published. After all you are talking about your published
work. You could very easily want to talk about more than one paper you have published in
international journals in a published conference proceedings.
• If you have a paper in press you can give a short version at a conference and publish it as a
conference proceedings paper without getting into trouble. It is best not to do this with
submitted papers. After all, they might not be accepted.

The Submission to an International Journal
A grovelling submission letter to divine authority is necessary to deal with editors of scientific
journals.
The first hurdle to cross is to check that you have read the Instructions to authors properly.
Figures and Tables need to conform to what they want. Pointless to argue.
One of the most time consuming and mindless tasks is dealing with the references. You need to
check that every reference is in the text and in the reference list. Software to do this is not
perfect. Do not trust any of them.
All journals have reference formats of their own even when published by the same publisher.
There are some “standard” formats such as APA, Harvard and Vancouver (see Google Scholar,
under cite) but I do not know of a single journal that uses them exactly.
Reference Formats
1. Papers are listed with full journal names in alphabetical order. This format is the most
straightforward and should be used when you are actually writing the paper. References to
books must include the publisher & the city of publication (adding the country is optional).
2. Papers in alphabetical order using official journal abbreviations. These abbreviations are
often counter intuitive and so you have to check them from an official list. For journals without
an official ISI abbreviation use the full Journal title. Do not invent your own.
3. There are some journals that use a numbering system based on order of appearance e.g.
“Bloggs [1] and Smith and Jones [2] found different results from three previous studies others
such Ritchie, Scott and Dainty [4,5,6]”. This a terrible format to deal with. You have to write
the entire paper first and then replace names with numbers. Any edits create terrible messes.
Straight replacing names with numbers produces some ugly sentences such as “The validity of
assumptions by [2,4] have not been borne out [1,5,6]”. What on earth does that mean? That is
terrible expression. Rewrite like the example above to make it readable. It is much better to be
able to read in the text who it was who did or said what.

4. Almost no journals today use only author, date & journal. Nearly all want the title of the
article.
5. Almost no scientific journals tolerate footnotes.
There are many Journal Abbreviations sites on the Internet:

Caltech Library
https://library.caltech.edu/reference/abbreviations/
University of Illinois (Gives lots of information)
http://www.library.illinois.edu/biotech/j-abbrev.html
University of Leeds (ISI List – hence no Beall’s List Journals!)
http://www.efm.leeds.ac.uk/~mark/ISIabbr/
Index Medicus
http://www2.bg.am.poznan.pl/czasopisma/medicus.php?lang=eng
Some journals, particularly new ones, may have no official abbreviation. Just use the full journal
name. The websites above only list currently published journals. It can be very hard to find the
correct abbreviations of old journals no longer published and conversely you might have the
abbreviation on your copy of the paper but cannot find the full journal name.
Journals published by political entities that no longer exist can be very troublesome. For
example, old Soviet journals.
The Cover Letter

In the Cover Letter (see Chapter 1) you are basically begging the editor to consider your paper.
Get the editor’s title correct. If in doubt assume they have a PhD. Good practice to make sure
you know if they are male or female but never call them Mr, Mrs, Ms or Miss. Dr is nice and
safe.
You “hope they will consider your paper”.
Put in title & authors.
Good idea to briefly say why your paper is important.
If you have related papers submitted or accepted say so.

List referees. (No non-entities).
Thomson-Reuters ScholarOne/Editorial Manager.

There are some interesting quirks about ScholarOne/Editorial Manager that you need to know.
First some publishers have bought licences to use ScholarOne/Editorial Manager and changed
it considerably, editors of different journals have also changed the formats.
1. Thomson-Reuters will sell a ScholarOne/Editorial Manager licence to anyone
regardless of whether it is a respectable journal and publisher or not. Hence, the fact that a
journal has a nice looking website and uses Scholar-One is no indication that you are submitting
your paper to a respectable journal or not.
2. The journal can modify the software to suit the editor’s own tastes as to what is important
and what is not. The details of the submission process vary from one journal to another.
Frustratingly, when you get to ScholarOne/Editorial Manager you often find it does not match
the Instructions to Authors, particularly in the number of words allowed in the
Abstract/Summary.
3. Once you login as an author the first page will come up listing the papers you have submitted
to the journal and outcomes. You should notice a withdrawal option. If it is missing you are
dealing with a Beall’s List journal. If you foolishly submit a MS to the journal you will not be
able to withdraw it. You are trapped. They will demand a “withdrawal fee” or non-refundable
“handling fee” if you try to withdraw the paper. Cost about $US500. All for nothing.
4. Next page is STEP #1. They will want to know if the paper is a full length paper, a short
communication or a review. Choose option.
5. STEP #2. They want the title of the paper. Open MS and cut and paste.
6. STEP #3 They want the abstract pasted into a box. You cut and paste from the MS. The
window has a word counter on it. Do not be alarmed when you find the superscripts and
subscripts are all missing from the pasted Abstract in the box. Basically all text format is lost.
The program will stop you from proceeding if the word count is higher than the allowed number,
usually 150, 200, 250 or 300 words.
7. Next page is STEP #4. They want entries for the authors. Since you are filling it in you are
automatically designated the “Corresponding Author”. That means you will have to deal with all

correspondence with the journal. Other authors cannot revise the paper. The editor will only deal
with you about the paper.
8. The Author List is very important. Once you have submitted a paper you cannot easily
change authorship. For example, when the referee’s reports come back and you revise the paper
one of the authors might say they disagree with the changes and do not want to have their name
on the paper any more. Similarly, you might want to remove an obnoxious co-author. Both
things are very difficult to do. Journals demand signed forms on such matters.
9. The list of suggested referee’s should be considered very carefully. Preferably only put
down people who you know. Some journals will not allow you to list referees all from one
country. Others have rules not allowing referees that you have published with recently. The
reasons for such policies is to avoid “Mates Club” publishing.
10. Some journals allow you to put in a list of people who you do not want to referee your paper.
Put down known enemies and use the excuse of “conflict of interest”.
11. Attributes. A list of topics the journal is interested in publishing. Pick appropriate subjects.
(This feature often will not work if you are using an old BROWSER).
12. You finally get to enter your files. Make sure you enter the correct files and type of file.
Some journals want the tables as a separate file others do not. Some journals will not accept
PowerPoint figures. Be careful about resolution of figures.
13. You may find you cannot download your files or this whole section will not work. The
problem usually is you are using an old BROWSER.
14. ScholarOne/Editorial Manager is very user unfriendly so expect trouble in submitting your
paper using the system. It crashes when loading files or will not load files at all or the keyboard
freezes.
15. Finally when all the files are uploaded you must put them in the correct order. You must
specify what type of file each one is for example Cover Letter, Text and Figures etc. The order
varies from one journal to another.
16. Next Scholar one checks if the required files have been submitted.
17. The program then makes a pdf and/or an HTML of your submission. This can take 30 min or
more and is a favourite time for the program to crash. When it has finished it will only let you
submit the MS if you open the Pdf or HTML and check it. Once you have submitted it the
program tells you if submission has been successful or not. In a day or two you should get an

email from the journal. Most only send it to the Corresponding Author but increasingly they
send it to all listed authors.
18. Normally submission takes about 2 to 3 hours (4 or 5 hrs first time). Save what you have
done regularly as saving is often not automatic. If you are serious about training colleagues and
students you must teach them how to use ScholarOne/Editorial Manager as part of their
education. What is the point of it all if you do not know how to submit a paper?

Chapter 7 Referee’s Reports and Revisions
If the editor is not impressed by your work they will reject it as an executive decision and send
you the rejection in about 7 to 14 days. Some nicer ones will actually even tell you they have
sent it off to referee’s.
About 2 to 3 months after submission of a paper you get sent an email from the editor. Outright
acceptance is extremely rare so you need a tough hide to deal with the referee’s comments. Do
not sulk too long. The sooner you rewrite, correct and respond to all the referee’s profound and
helpful comments on the paper the better chances you have of getting it accepted.
Rule #1 respond to all the queries by your esteemed Editor and Referees no matter how inane or
stupid they seem. It is pretty standard to get one or two sympathetic referee’s reports and
one complete arsehole. That is life. The more sensible journal editors understand that.
We have just got to get a move on and complete the revision of our paper.

So the Referee’s criticised your paper! How could they! Best not to fantasize that it is a
conspiracy against you. Do not play the martyr and feel sorry for yourself as the self-important
victim.

Another inappropriate response is to simply give up and resign yourself to your fate.
There are not many lions and tigers in the arena. I support the Lions!

What you think of the peer referee’s of your paper on a bad day. Remember you are trying
to get your work published not pick a fight with the Editor or the Referee’s.

Just because you are having trouble getting work published does not mean you are wrong.
The world is real and it will not go away.
The Abstract
Remember what I said about the Abstract. It is the first thing people read so if your Abstract is
bad, generally they do not read any more of the paper. The Abstract was the first thing a referee
reads and if they did not like it things go downhill from there. Always go over your Abstract
because it is likely that it was the start of your problems with the referee.
When you revise a paper give the Abstract some serious attention even if the referees did not
comment on it. If you find things that annoy the referees in the rest of the paper and you revise
the body of the paper and not the abstract you are asking for trouble. When you have revised
your paper make sure the Abstract tallies with the new version of the paper. This is easy to
overlook.
The Introduction
You must have a clear statement of what is the problem your paper is addressing and why it is
important. Referees do not like Introductions that do not clearly state what the paper is about.
Did you make the aims of the paper clear in the last paragraph? You need only put in a single
sentence about what your paper has shown. This statement must be obvious not implied.
If the Referee starts pointing out “missing” papers, books etc. You can usually work out who
the Referee is. Make sure you cite their profoundly important papers.
It is a simple and common mistake to bring up points in the Introduction that are not dealt with in
the paper. Leave them out or move them to the Discussion as profound future avenues of
investigation.
What not to say in the Introduction:

You do not bring up issues in the Introduction that you do not deal with in the paper. This
critical error makes your paper look incomplete.
Do not make the Introduction too heavy. Go easy on theory and equations. I must admit this is
a bad habit of mine.

When you have finished the Discussion you need to re-evaluate the Introduction. Topics
brought up in the Introduction but not dealt with in the paper can be either removed or added to
the Discussion talking about future avenues of research. Talking about new avenues of work in
your Discussion improves the look of your paper: you have thought about its implications.
As pointed out above, you may need to say what your paper is not about.
For example “Extrasolar planets have been found orbiting G, K and M stars but here we do not
discuss planets of K stars because as yet so few are documented”.
The Introduction should demonstrate clear evidence that you critically read the literature and
identified the problem. If there is a lot of criticism of your Introduction you need to give it close
attention as you have not set up your problem properly.
Materials and methods

One of the major faults with the modern scientific paper is that the Materials and methods are
lousy. The idea of materials and methods is to describe what is needed for repeatability of the
work. This seems to be forgotten today.
Simple things:
• How you sourced your material properly. Where did you get the organisms? Where did you
get the uncommon chemicals?
• Tell them about the fundamentally important machines you used, for example what type of
spectrophotometer, centrifuge etc.
• Describe your experiments and what you did. Do not rely on citing some paper from years
before. This is a bad habit. Often the technology has changed and you are not doing the
experiments in the ways previously described by Blogs et al., 1962 which may still be behind a
paywall and as a result inaccessible.
• The statistical packages you used.
Phuong Nguyen: March 5 2017 at 10:23pm

"Non-English speakers often work very hard on improving the English of the Abstract,
Introduction and Discussion and neglect the English in the Materials and Methods and the
Results. If people cannot understand what you did and how you did it your paper is unlikely to
be accepted" (Dr. Raymond, 2017).
They rejected my paper! Sulk for a few days then rewrite it and send it somewhere else.
I am the editor and I have rejected your paper. Don’t even think you can win an argument with
me.
OK, send it somewhere else.

Chapter 8: Making a Poster for a Conference
If you go to a conference you are often offered giving a poster presentation rather than giving a
talk. Often giving a poster is often a better way for a student to present their work. A poster over
a talk also has the advantage that a poster presentation does not present difficulties about “double
publication” like a published conference paper. As pointed out above you need to be wary of the
supposed benefits of published conference papers. Career-wise they are not as useful as you
might think.
Phongiarus, N.,
Suyaphat C., Naiyana
Srichai, N., Ritchie,
R.J. Growth of
photosynthetic
bacteria
(Rhodopseudomonas
palustris) on cooking
oils. Asia Pacific
Phycological Forum,
Hotel Pullman Kuala
Lumpur Bangsar,
Kuala Lumpur, 8-
13th October 2017.
SB13, p 258.

Steps in Making a Poster.
Collect the Bits and Pieces.
Try and find a

picture of you that
does not make you
Must have the university look like an idiot. I
label. find that very hard.
The University will not My colleague is
pay for your trip if you luckier.
do not include the Logo.

Arsenic toxicity in a
Photosynthetic
Bacterial Symbiont of
Wolffia aarhiza. 1
Raymond J. RITCHIE and Siriporn
1
NAKPHET Underline who is presenting the poster.
1
Technology and Environment, Prince of Songkla
University-Phuket, Kathu, 83120, Thailand,
Corresponding author: Raymond J. RITCHIE ,
E-mail:
raymond.ritchie@alumni.sydney.edu.au,
raymond.r@phuket.psu.ac.th
Full Address & Email
 Western and Asian Surname conventions. Always CAPITALISE

SURNAMES to avoid confusion.

Include your logo.
The person presenting the poster should be underlined and do not forget
full address and emails.
How to
Construct the
Poster
Arsenic toxicity in a Photosynthetic Bacterial Symbiont of Wolffia
aarhiza.
Raymond J. RITCHIE 1 and Siriporn NAKPHET1
1 Technology and Environment, Prince of Songkla University-Phuket, Kathu, 83120,
Thailand,
Corresponding author: Raymond J. RITCHIE, E-mail:
raymond.ritchie@alumni.sydney.edu.au, raymond.r@phuket.psu.ac.th
Summary
An arsenic resistant nitrogen fixing photosynthetic bacterium found to live inside Wolffia aarhiza plants has been cultured and identified as a
Rhodopseudomonad species, most likely a strain of Rhodobacter capsulatus. It has BChl a as its primary photosynthetic pigment and has
spectral properties typical of a Rhodopseudomonad. Blue-diode-based PAM (Pulse Amplitude Modulation) technology can be used to
measure the photosynthetic electron transport rate (ETR) of the organism. The absorptance of the Rhodobacter films on glass fibre discs was
measured and used to calculate actual ETR as mol e- g-1 BChl a s-1. ETR vs. Irradiance (E) curves fitted the waiting-in-line model (ETR =
(ETRmax E/Eopt) exp (1-E/Eopt)). Yield (Y) was only ≈ 0.3 to 0.4. Rhodobacter saturates at about 250 to 350 µmol photons m-2 s-1 or ≈ 15%
sunlight and shows photoinhibition at high irradiances (overall Eopt was 298 7.36 μmol quanta m-2 s-1; ETRmax = 642 10.6 μmol e- g-1 BChl
a s-1; Alpha (α) = 6.05 0.200 e- photon-1 m 2 g-1 BChl a). Photosynthetic performance was much worse in Low-P medium (n = 108, overall
Eopt 158 15.4 μmol quanta m-2 s-1; ETRmax = 194 13.5 μmol e- g-1 BChl a s-1; α = 3.30 0.400 e- photon-1 m 2 g-1 BChl a). Rhodobacter is
resistant to As (V) toxicity up to at least 1 mol m-3 in high and low P medium. The Ki for As(III) in High and Low-P are not significantly different:
overall mean was 497 100 mmol m-3 but there is a threshold effect below about 200 mmol m-3 As(III). Fe(II) and As(III) did not appear to act
as electron sources but thiosulphate did act as an electron source for photosynthesis. Al(OH)3 and Hg2+ are common aquaporin channel
blocking agents but neither acted as protectants against As(III) toxicity.
Keywords: Photosynthetic bacteria, Rhodobacter, anoxygenic photosynthesis, integrating sphere spectrophotometry, PAM fluorometry.
Put in Heading Bits and add Abstract
I have put in a light blue background top and

bottom. Be very careful about this because it can
easily drown out text. Colours on a printed poster
are generally a lot darker than you see on-screen.

aarhiza.
Raymond J. RITCHIE1 and Siriporn NAKPHET1
Thailand,
Summary
An arsenic resistant nitrogen f ixing photosynthetic bacterium f ound to live inside Wolffia aarhiza plants has been cultured and identif ied as a
Rhodopseudomonad species, most likely a strain of Rhodobacter capsulatus. It has BChl a as its primary photosynthetic pigment and has spectral
properties typical of a Rhodopseudomonad. Blue-diode-based PAM (Pulse Amplitude Modulation) technology can be used to measure the
photosynthetic electron transport rate (ETR) of the organism. The absorptance of the Rhodobacter f ilms on glass f ibre discs was measured and used
to calculate actual ETR as mol e- g -1 BChl a s -1. ETR vs. Irradiance (E) curves f itted the waiting-in-line model (ETR = (ETRmax E/Eopt ) exp (1-E/Eopt )).
Yield (Y) was only ≈ 0.3 to 0.4. Rhodobacter saturates at about 250 to 350 µmol photons m-2 s -1 or ≈ 15% sunlight and shows photoinhibition at high
irradiances (overall Eopt was 298 7.36 μmol quanta m-2 s -1; ETRmax = 642 10.6 μmol e- g -1 BChl a s -1; Alpha (α) = 6.05 0.200 e- photon-1 m2 g -1
BChl a). Photosynthetic perf ormance was much worse in Low-P medium (n = 108, overall Eopt 158 15.4 μmol quanta m-2 s -1; ETRmax = 194 13.5
μmol e- g -1 BChl a s -1; α = 3.30 0.400 e- photon-1 m2 g -1 BChl a). Rhodobacter is resistant to As (V) toxicity up to at least 1 mol m-3 in high and low P
medium. The Ki f or As(III) in High and Low-P are not signif icantly different: overall mean was 497 100 mmol m-3 but there is a threshold ef f ect below
about 200 mmol m-3 As(III). Fe(II) and As(III) did not appear to act as electron sources but thiosulphate did act as an electron source f or
photosynthesis. Al(OH)3 and Hg 2+ are common aquaporin channel blocking agents but neither acted as protectants against As(III) toxicity.
Keywords: Photosynthetic bacteria, Rhodobacter, anoxygenic photosynthesis, integrating sphere spectrophotometry, PAM f luorometry.
Wolffia arrhiza This mm ruler gives you some idea of its size.
You can do experiments on a real flowering plant on a
very small scale, even in a single Eppendorf Tube (1.4
Fig. 1 Wolffia is a genus of very simple flowering plants Rhodobacter - H2S and SO32- as e- sources
Flower
ml).
Generation time ≈ -5 days. (Angiosperms). They are the smallest known flowering Control - no electron or carbon source
Control Fit
Stamen
& Anthers Daughter plants. The very simple anatomy of Wolffia helps in the Hydrogen Sulphide data
Hydrogen Sulphide 0.3 mM Fit
frond Thiosulphate data
analysis and interpretation of arsenic uptake studies. No roots,
ETR (µmol g-1 BChl a s-1)

Thiosulphate 0.3 mM Fit
~ 1 mm
Frond
Adaxial Bad news:
stems or leaves or xylem and phloem. The very small size is
Surface
with
Despite what you would think
Wolffia is not easy to grow! also an advantage in the laboratory.
Stoma
Wolffia is somewhat resistant to arsenic but is more resistant
Daughter
frond
Developing Seeds
to Arsenate (AsV) than to Arsenite (AsIII) (ref. 4). Wolffia
cells are able to interconvert As(III) and As(V) but cannot
convert it into volatile methyl arsines.
Arsenic accumulation in Wolffia is important in Thailand
PPFD Irradiance (µmol photon m -2 s-1)
Wettable Abaxial Surface
because it is used as a vegetable (“Khai-nam" ).
Photosynthesis in Rhodobacter
Fig. 2 Like the water fern Azolla, Wolffia has endosymbiotic Fig. 5 Photosynthetic electron transport rate of
bacteria capable of N-fixation. Wolffia has an endosymbiotic Rhodobacter incubated in electron source-free PM
Yield
N-fixing anoxygenic photosynthetic bacterium , Rhodobacter medium (control) and supplied with Na2S or
Yield Fit
ETR capsulatus. It is easily grown in culture in PM medium using thiosulphate (300 mmol m-3). H 2S marginally increased
the photosynthetic ETR and so was being used as an
ETR (μmol g-1 BChl a s-1)
ETR Fit acetate as a carbon source using standard methods for

electron source for photosynthesis. Thiosulphate
photosynthetic bacteria (refs 1,2,3) and its photosynthesis can
Yield (Y)
stimulated ETR by more than 50% and so was being

be easily measured using a Blue-diode PAM on cells filtered used as an electron source. Similar experiments using
onto glass fibre disks (ref 1,2,3). The maximum Yield (Y) of Fe(II) as a potential e- source showed that Rhodobacter
PS bacteria is usually ≈ 0.4. Rapid light curves can be easily could not use Fe(II) as an electron source unlike most
fitted to a Waiting-in-Line curve. Photosynthetic electron PS BacteriaRhodobacter
(Refs 1,2,3)
- Arsenite e source? Control - no Arsenite -
transport (ETR) curves were fitted to the Waiting-in-Line Control Fit

0. mM Arsenite data
Equation (ETR max = 469 30.1 μmol e - g-1 BChl a s-1 ; Eopt = 0. mM Arsenite Fit
1.0 mM Arsenite data
263 24.8 μmol quanta m -2 s-1 ; Alpha (α) = 4.843 0.553 e-
1.0 mM Arsenite Fit

Irradiance (μmol quanta m -2 s-1)
photon -1 m 2 g-1 BChl a, n = 72, r = 0.8345, p << 0.001).
Rhodobacter - Arsenite Control - no Arsenite
Mercury as Channel Blocker? Control Fit Fig. 3 Photosynthetic electron transport rate of Rhodobacter
0. mM Mercury data
0. mM Mercury Fit incubated in PM medium (control) and supplied with 200
1 mM Arsenite data
mmol m -3 Hg2+ as a potential channel blocking agent
ETR (µmol g-1 BChla s-1)
1 mM Arsenite Fit
0. mM Hg + 1 mM Arsenite
Hg + Asenite Fit
compared to cells exposed to arsenite (As(III). Hg2+ had no
effect on ETR compared to the control. 1.0 mol m -3 As (III)
was inhibitory by about 50% on ETR max but did not appear to
have much effect on the optimum irradiance (E opt ) about 200
PPFD Irradiance (µmol photon m-2 s-1)
μmol photon m -2 s-1 . Hg2+ had no protective effect against
As(III) toxicity. Similar experiments using Al(OH)3 as a Fig. 6 Photosynthetic electron transport rate of
potential channel blocker also showed no effective channel Rhodobacter incubated in electron source-free PM
blocking behaviour to prevent As(III) toxicity. medium (control) and supplied with 0.2 mol m-3
As(III) and 1 mol m-3 As(III). As(III) did not
PPFD Irradiance (µmol photon m -2 s-1) increase the photosynthetic ETR and so As(III) could
Rhodobacter- Arsenite and Arsenate in PM medium
Rhodobacter - Low Phosphate Medium
Arsenate and Arsenite
Fig. 4 The toxicity of As(III) and As(V) are quite different not be used as an electron source for photosynthesis
after 3h exposure to arsenic. As(III) is obviously toxic and (cf. Ref 5)
ETR (µmol e- g-1 BChl a s-1)
shows approximately Michaelis-Menten kinetics (Ki ≈ 0.5

Arsenite (AsIII)
MM Inhibition Curve Fit
Arsenate (AsV)
Arsenite (AsIII)
y = 0.389x + 583.5
R² = 0.896
r = 0.9466 Put in all the bits,
mmol m -3 ) but with a threshold effect and is unaffected by
[Phosphate]. Rhodobacter is highly resistant to As(V) and
footnote, references &

Arsenate (AsV)
MM Curve + C Fit shows no toxicity in cells grown in PM medium which

contains very high Pi (≈ 10 mmol m -3 P); in low P (0.1 mmol
Arsenic (mmol m-3)
m -3 ) there is significant stimulation of photosynthesis.
Arsenic (mmol m-3)
Conclusions
• Arsenite (As(III)) is toxic but Arsenate (As(V)) has no short-term inhibitory effects. Response to As(V) is different under high P compared to low-P conditions. Wombat.
• Al(OH)3 and Hg 2+ are common aquaporin channel blocking agents but neither acted as protectants against As(III) toxicity.
• As(III) does not act as an electron source for photosynthesis in Rhodobacter.
References
(1) Ritchie RJ, Runcie JW (2013). Measurement of the Photosynthetic Electron Transport Rate in an Anoxygenic Photosynthetic Bacterium Afifella (Rhodopseudomonas) marina using PAM Fluorometry. Photochem. Photobiol. 89: 370-383.
(2) Ritchie RJ (2013). The Use of Solar Radiation by a Photosynthetic Bacterium Living as a Mat or in a Shallow Pond or Flatbed Reactor. Photochem. Photobiol. 89:1143-1162 (DOI: 10.1111/php.12124).
(3) Ritchie RJ, Mekjinda N (2015). Measurement of photosynthesis using PAM technology in a purple sulphur bacterium Thermochromatium tepidum (Chromatiaceae). Photochem. Photobiol. 91: 350-358. DOI: 10.1111/php.12413
(4) Ritchie, Raymond J. and Mekjinda, Nutsara (2016). Arsenic Toxicity in the Water Weed Wolffia arrhiza Measured using Pulse Amplitude Modulation Fluorometry (PAM) Measurements of Photosynthesis. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 132: 178 – 187;
doi:10.1016/j.ecoenv.2016.06.004
(5) Kulp, T.R. et al., (2008.) Arsenic(III) fuels anoxygenic photosynthesis in hot spring biofilms from Mono Lake, California. Science 321, 967 – 970, doi:10.1126/science.1160799
Now check it over.

aarhiza.
Raymond J. RITCHIE1 and Siriporn NAKPHET1
Thailand,
Summary
An arsenic resistant nitrogen f ixing photosynthetic bacterium f ound to live inside Wolffia aarhiza plants has been cultured and identif ied as a
Rhodopseudomonad species, most likely a strain of Rhodobacter capsulatus. It has BChl a as its primary photosynthetic pigment and has spectral properties
typical of a Rhodopseudomonad. Blue-diode-based PAM (Pulse Amplitude Modulation) technology can be used to measure the photosynthetic electron
transport rate (ETR) of the organism. The absorptance of the Rhodobacter f ilms on glass f ibre discs was measured and used to calculate actual ETR as mol
e- g -1 BChl a s -1. ETR vs. Irradiance (E) curves f itted the waiting-in-line model (ETR = (ETRmax E/Eopt ) exp (1-E/Eopt )). Yield (Y) was only ≈ 0.3 to 0.4.
Rhodobacter saturates at about 250 to 350 µmol photons m-2 s -1 or ≈ 15% sunlight and shows photoinhibition at high irradiances (overall Eopt was 298 7.36
μmol quanta m-2 s -1; ETRmax = 642 10.6 μmol e- g -1 BChl a s -1; Alpha (α) = 6.05 0.200 e- photon-1 m2 g -1 BChl a). Photosynthetic perf ormance was much
worse in Low-P medium (n = 108, overall Eopt 158 15.4 μmol quanta m-2 s -1; ETRmax = 194 13.5 μmol e- g -1 BChl a s -1; α = 3.30 0.400 e- photon-1 m2 g -1
BChl a). Rhodobacter is resistant to As (V) toxicity up to at least 1 mol m-3 in high and low P medium. The Ki f or As(III) in High and Low-P are not
signif icantly different: overall mean was 497 100 mmol m-3 but there is a threshold ef f ect below about 200 mmol m-3 As(III). Fe(II) and As(III) did not appear
to act as electron sources but thiosulphate did act as an electron source f or photosynthesis. Al(OH)3 and Hg 2+ are common aquaporin channel blocking
agents but neither acted as protectants against As(III) toxicity.
Keywords: Photosynthetic bacteria, Rhodobacter, anoxygenic photosynthesis, integrating sphere spectrophotometry, PAM f luorometry.
Fig. 1 Wolffia is a genus of very simple flowering plants Rhodobacter - H2S and SO32- as e- sources
Wolffia arrhiza
Flower
Stamen
This mm ruler gives you some idea of its size.
ml).
Generation time ≈ -5 days.
Final Steps
(Angiosperms). They are the smallest known flowering
plants. The very simple anatomy of Wolffia helps in the
Control - no electron or carbon source
Control Fit
Hydrogen Sulphide data
Hydrogen Sulphide 0.3 mM Fit
Thiosulphate data
& Anthers analysis and interpretation of arsenic uptake studies. No roots,

Daughter Thiosulphate 0.3 mM Fit
frond
Frond
~ 1 mm stems or leaves or xylem and phloem. The very small size is
Adaxial Bad news:
Despite what you would think also an advantage in the laboratory.
• Check what it looks like at full

Surface Wolffia is not easy to grow!
with
Stoma Wolffia is somewhat resistant to arsenic but is more resistant
Daughter
frond
Developing Seeds to Arsenate (AsV) than to Arsenite (AsIII) (ref. 4). Wolffia
cells are able to interconvert As(III) and As(V) but cannot
screen (A1 Size).

convert it into volatile methyl arsines.
Arsenic accumulation in Wolffia is important in Thailand
because it is used as a vegetable (“Khai-nam" ). PPFD Irradiance (µmol photon m -2 s-1)
•Fix up pesky heading and

Wettable Abaxial Surface
Photosynthesis in Rhodobacter
Fig. 2 Like the water fern Azolla, Wolffia has endosymbiotic Fig. 5 Photosynthetic electron transport rate of
bacteria capable of N-fixation. Wolffia has an endosymbiotic Rhodobacter incubated in electron source-free PM
Yield
N-fixing anoxygenic photosynthetic bacterium , Rhodobacter medium (control) and supplied with Na2S or
Yield Fit
ETR
summary
capsulatus. It is easily grown in culture in PM medium using thiosulphate (300 mmol m-3). H2S marginally increased
the photosynthetic ETR and so was being used as an
ETR (μmol g-1 BChl a s-1)
ETR Fit acetate as a carbon source using standard methods for

electron source for photosynthesis. Thiosulphate
•Can you read everything from

photosynthetic bacteria (refs 1,2,3) and its photosynthesis can
Yield (Y)
stimulated ETR by more than 50% and so was being

be easily measured using a Blue-diode PAM on cells filtered used as an electron source. Similar experiments using
onto glass fibre disks (ref 1,2,3). The maximum Yield (Y) of Fe(II) as a potential e- source showed that Rhodobacter
PS bacteria is usually ≈ 0.4. Rapid light curves can be easily
1.5 m away?
fitted to a Waiting-in-Line curve. Photosynthetic electron
transport (ETR) curves were fitted to the Waiting-in-Line
could not use Fe(II) as an electron source unlike most
PS BacteriaRhodobacter
(Refs 1,2,3)
- Arsenite e source? Control - no Arsenite -
Control Fit
•Any post-script file problems?

0. mM Arsenite data
Equation (ETR max = 469 30.1 μmol e - g-1 BChl a s-1 ; Eopt = 0. mM Arsenite Fit
1.0 mM Arsenite data
263 24.8 μmol quanta m -2 s-1 ; Alpha (α) = 4.843 0.553 e-
1.0 mM Arsenite Fit

Irradiance (μmol quanta m -2 s-1)
photon -1 m 2 g-1 BChl a, n = 72, r = 0.8345, p << 0.001).
•Make sure you use a postscript

Rhodobacter - Arsenite Control - no Arsenite
Mercury as Channel Blocker? Control Fit Fig. 3 Photosynthetic electron transport rate of Rhodobacter
0. mM Mercury data
0. mM Mercury Fit incubated in PM medium (control) and supplied with 200
1 mM Arsenite data
mmol m -3 Hg2+ as a potential channel blocking agent
ETR (µmol g-1 BChla s-1)
1 mM Arsenite Fit
0. mM Hg + 1 mM Arsenite
Hg + Asenite Fit
font.(Common Thai fonts will
compared to cells exposed to arsenite (As(III). Hg2+ had no
effect on ETR compared to the control. 1.0 mol m -3 As (III)
was inhibitory by about 50% on ETR max but did not appear to
not print properly on printers!).
have much effect on the optimum irradiance (E opt ) about 200
μmol photon m -2 s-1 . Hg2+ had no protective effect against
PPFD Irradiance (µmol photon m-2 s-1)
•Group the entire poster.

As(III) toxicity. Similar experiments using Al(OH)3 as a Fig. 6 Photosynthetic electron transport rate of
potential channel blocker also showed no effective channel Rhodobacter incubated in electron source-free PM
blocking behaviour to prevent As(III) toxicity. medium (control) and supplied with 0.2 mol m-3
• Anything wrong? Yes – the

As(III) and 1 mol m-3 As(III). As(III) did not
PPFD Irradiance (µmol photon m -2 s-1) increase the photosynthetic ETR and so As(III) could
Rhodobacter- Arsenite and Arsenate in PM medium
Rhodobacter - Low Phosphate Medium
Arsenate and Arsenite
Fig. 4 The toxicity of As(III) and As(V) are quite different not be used as an electron source for photosynthesis
after 3h exposure to arsenic. As(III) is obviously toxic and (cf. Ref 5)
white and red type on one of the

Arsenite (AsIII) shows approximately Michaelis-Menten kinetics (Ki ≈ 0.5

mmol m -3 ) but with a threshold effect and is unaffected by
MM Inhibition Curve Fit y = 0.389x + 583.5
R² = 0.896
Arsenate (AsV) r = 0.9466
[Phosphate]. Rhodobacter is highly resistant to As(V) and

pictures does not show very
Arsenite (AsIII)
Arsenate (AsV)
MM Curve + C Fit shows no toxicity in cells grown in PM medium which

contains very high Pi (≈ 10 mmol m -3 P); in low P (0.1 mmol
Arsenic (mmol m-3)
m -3 ) there is significant stimulation of photosynthesis.
Arsenic (mmol m-3)
Conclusions
• Arsenite (As(III)) is toxic but Arsenate (As(V)) has no short-term inhibitory effects. Response to As(V) is different under high P compared to low-P conditions.
well. That was a mistake.
• Al(OH)3 and Hg 2+ are common aquaporin channel blocking agents but neither acted as protectants against As(III) toxicity.
• As(III) does not act as an electron source for photosynthesis in Rhodobacter.
References
•Make a pdf of the grouped
(2) Ritchie RJ (2013). The Use of Solar Radiation by a Photosynthetic Bacterium Living as a Mat or in a Shallow Pond or Flatbed Reactor. Photochem. Photobiol. 89:1143-1162 (DOI: 10.1111/php.12124).
(3) Ritchie RJ, Mekjinda N (2015). Measurement of photosynthesis using PAM technology in a purple sulphur bacterium Thermochromatium tepidum (Chromatiaceae). Photochem. Photobiol. 91: 350-358. DOI: 10.1111/php.12413 poster and get the pdf printed.
(1) Ritchie RJ, Runcie JW (2013). Measurement of the Photosynthetic Electron Transport Rate in an Anoxygenic Photosynthetic Bacterium Afifella (Rhodopseudomonas) marina using PAM Fluorometry. Photochem. Photobiol. 89: 370-383.
(4) Ritchie, Raymond J. and Mekjinda, Nutsara (2016). Arsenic Toxicity in the Water Weed Wolffia arrhiza Measured using Pulse Amplitude Modulation Fluorometry (PAM) Measurements of Photosynthesis. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 132: 178 – 187;
doi:10.1016/j.ecoenv.2016.06.004
(5) Kulp, T.R. et al., (2008.) Arsenic(III) fuels anoxygenic photosynthesis in hot spring biofilms from Mono Lake, California. Science 321, 967 – 970, doi:10.1126/science.1160799

Some things wrong with the draft poster.
This mm ruler gives you some idea of its size.

ml).
Generation time ≈ -5 days.
Dark backgrounds do not

print well.
White print never works
very well. Avoid.
Red print is almost as bad.
Bad news:
Despite what you would think
Wolffia is not easy to grow!
- .
This mm ruler gives you some idea of its size. You

can do experiments on a real flowering plant on a
very small scale, even in a single Eppendorf Tube
(1.4 ml). Generation time ≈ to days but
unfortunately Wolffia is not easy to grow.

Make PDF to give to the printer. Special warning to Thais. Never use Angasana-New
because it is not a PostScript Font and will not print properly. A1 size is best but check
with conference specifications. Never give the Powerpoint file to a printshop to print.
Always give them a pdf.

Chapter 9: Scientific Fraud
Unpleasant realities
A scientific qualification or publication does not imply anything about the morality or ethics
of someone. Reputations can be misleading: some are known crooks but usually this is known
by word-of-mouth and is not documented. You can get sued for saying someone is a cheat and a
fraud.
Basically scientific fraud is getting credit for something you did not do. New types of
unethical behaviour are being invented all the time so there is no way to be comprehensive.
Some common forms of Scientific Fraud:
• Inventing scientific data. OK – that is stating the obvious!
• Stealing data from someone else (this is done in many ways).
• Suppressing experimental results that to not support your idea. This issue can be a bit fuzzy.
All active scientists have files full of experiments that “did not work”. Are those “failed
experiments” trying to tell you something you do not recognize?
• Abusing statistics to deliberately misinterpret data (big tobacco, insecticides, toxic waste,
pharmaceuticals, anti-global warming).
• Money and science do not mix very well, science can be corrupted rather easily.
• Stealing-by-finding occurs with both research proposals and manuscripts. Be wary.
• Scientific fraud discredits all the work you have done previously and potentially everyone
you have ever worked with.
• It is a life sentence. You are never forgiven.
Scientific Fraud - Main Points

• Do not do it. No-one is ever forgiven for scientific fraud.
• There are basically two types of scientific fraud (a) the cheap and nasty variety that is
generally easy to spot because the perpetrator does not know enough science to be a convincing
counterfeiter, and (b) the psychopathic types who might have a substantial and reputable
publication record but for perverse reasons might decide that it is easier to simply fabricate data.
Type (b) can be very difficult to spot.
• If you do it you think you will not get caught you are fooling yourself.

• You will be caught due to simple errors, like falsifying dates on survey data for a study site
when you were away at a conference. Fabricating data is a deadly sin and you will pay for it.
• It is only a matter of time before they get their name on the wrong paper. Their huge, often
undeserved, reputation falls to the ground.
• Never work in a lab with 20 PhD students and 30 Post-docs. The boss has no idea what is
going on in their own lab. Only a matter of time.
• The dead giveaway of fudged data is that the results look too good to be true. Be wary of
perfect looking data.
• The universal feature of scientific fraud is: “Tell them what they want to hear!”
• Science is an incremental process and so scientific fraud usually shows itself – eventually.
There is such a thing as objective truth.
• The best protection is do not put your name on work where you have not seen the work done.
Be careful about your good name.
That is why I have no sympathy for Prof Bullfrog and Prof Dracula who bully people into
putting their names on their papers.
The Piltdown Man Scandal

The Piltdown Man Scandal is a classic example of “Tell them what they want to hear”. In the
late 19th and early 20th century no really old humanoid fossils had ever been found but there was
a consensus on what to expect. Humans are defined in terms of their brain and so the consensus
was that a “missing link” ancestor would have an advanced human brain and apelike features of
the rest of the skull and skeleton and that was what was expected to be found. Along came
Piltdown man. A “fossil” with a human-like skull and an ape-like jaw was found in a gravel pit
in England. No more material was ever found (had they not heard of replication?). The
discovery was made by an English gentleman and so there was no doubt it was genuine. What
happened later guaranteed that it took nearly 50 years for the fraud to be discovered. After initial
description the skull and jaw were treated like the crown jewels and locked away in a safe and
almost no-one ever saw the original material. Good quality plaster castes were offered to anyone
interested. The casts did not show the suspicious staining of the material and the casts did not
show the file marks on the teeth. There were a few dissenters but most of them were foreigners
such as French and Germans. By the middle of the 20th century large numbers of
Australopithecine fossils were turning up with modern-looking jaws and small brains mainly due
to the work of Raymond A. Dart (1893-1988). He was not well regarded by the British
establishment because he was not only a colonial but even worse an Australian as well. His
Australopithecines were initially dismissed as “mere” apes but specimens kept on turning up in
association with simple stone tools. The establishment did not treat Dart well. Eventually
“Piltdown man” became more and more isolated. Suspicions arose until someone got access to
the Piltdown original material. The file marks on the teeth were quickly spotted and the “fossil”
turned out to be a skull cap of modern man and orang-utan jaw doctored to remove the tell-tale
14
anthropoid ape features (they were knocked off). C dating finally dismissed “Piltdown Man”.
Some things you should not do about Scientific Fraud

• The first urge is to report it but who do you tell and who would believe you? Nearly always it
is simply what you saw going on in the lab. Who do you tell? The person you tell might already
know about it but has chosen to keep quiet about it or even worse could be involved. Who do
you trust? This is not a trivial problem or me being paranoid.

• I have personally come across scientific fraud going on in a lab twice in my career. In both
cases I did nothing because I felt that complaining was pointless and I had no idea who I could
tell.
My Two Experiences of Scientific Fraud

• In case #1 I very much liked the boss of the lab next door and knew he was honest and I felt
bad that I never told him what was going on in his lab. I felt I could not risk telling him. After
all it was only what I saw going on.
• In case #2 I hated the boss. I had been told to “build upon” previous work in his lab. One
look at the Master’s thesis convinced me the data was fraudulent. The same student was still
there in the lab, doing a PhD. I set about to get my own set of basic data required for my
project. I was fired for lack of progress. I gave the boss my lab book and walked away and said
I did not wish to take any further part in the project and I surrendered the data to him. Other
students in the lab knew the Masters work was fraudulent. They told me. Did the boss know as
well?
• Back in Australia I told an old retired Director of CSIRO Fisheries (GF Humphrey) my story
#2. He told me that as a young man he had been handed a PhD and told to build upon it at
Roscoff Marine Station in Europe. He realized it was fraudulent and started to do his own
foundational work. He too got thrown out for “lack of progress” and made no attempt to justify
himself.
What to do about Scientific Fraud

What do you do if you find scientific fraud is going on in a laboratory where you are working?
• Almost always attempts to report it have ruined the career of the person who tried to report
it. I know of one exception (Vogt who reported the fraud in the Mark Spector affair at Cornell).
• Investigations and decisions can take 10 years or more (McBride case). What do you live on
in the meantime?
• Remember your career is usually completely ruined if you are in any way involved. Do not
allow your name to appear on a paper if you have any doubts.

• Resign and run away and make sure your name is not on any paper that comes out of that
laboratory. Divorce Absolut and running away is the best practical solution. You will probably
never be able to name names or explain why you left a certain laboratory.

The McBride Case in Australia
Birth defects in rabbits falsely claimed to be caused by a pharmaceutical. McBride was
famous for previously identifying Thalidomide as causing birth defects. He was a media folk
hero/role model and he looked right.
Scientific Fraud: The McBride Case — Judgment

1. G F Humphrey, LLB MSc PhD
1. Barrister, Supreme Court of NSW, Australia. School of Biological
Sciences, University of Sydney, Australia 2006
Abstract
Dr W G McBride, who was a specialist obstetrician and gynaecologist and the first to
publish on the teratogenicity of thalidomide, has been removed from the medical
register after a four-year inquiry by the Medical Tribunal of New South Wales. Of the
44 medical practice allegations made against him by the Department of Health only
one minor one was found proved but 24 of the medical research allegations were
found proved. Of these latter, the most serious was that in 1982 he published in a
scientific journal, spurious results relating to laboratory experiments on pregnant
rabbits dosed with scopolamine. Had Dr McBride used any of the many opportunities
available to him to make an honest disclosure of his misdemeanour, his conduct would
have been excused by the Tribunal. However, he persisted in denying his fraudulent
conduct for several years, including the four years of the Inquiry. The Tribunal
unanimously found Dr McBride not of good character in the context of fitness to
practise medicine. The decision to deregister was taken by a majority of 3 to 1. Since
research science is not organized as a profession, there are no formal sanctions which
can be taken against his still engaging in such research.
Things to note about the MacBride case

• The judgment took 10 years,
• The whistle blowers were never given any compensation or reward (I think they all dropped
out of research),
• He was not convicted of scientific fraud. He was de-registered from practicing medicine for
being of “Bad Character”. Scientific fraud is not actually a criminal offense in Australia or in
many other countries (that is changing).
• Notice the last sentence “Since research science is not organized as a profession, there are no
formal sanctions which can be taken against his still engaging in such research”.
• Humphrey is the man I mentioned earlier about Roscoff.

The Mark Spector Scandal at Cornell University
Another tell-them-what-they-want-to-hear story. Another morally ambivalent story of
someone who was quite capable of doing genuine research but nevertheless chose to fabricate
work. Why? The only explanation seems to be that he thought he could get away with anything.
He did it because he could.

Here is another genuine paper by Mark Spector.
Where did the real work end and the fraud start? That is the fundamental problem with
the very smart but amoral scientific fraudster.

Mark SPECTOR – his mother told the officials at Cornell
University that he had always told lies. Made some genuine
breakthrough work but he thought he could get away with
anything. His undergraduate degree was also found to be
counterfeit. He also forged cheques. Habitual crook.
Ephraim RACKER – he almost got the Nobel Prize – twice.

There was talk of him and Spector getting a joint Nobel.
Brilliant but credulous. Liked to be told what he wanted to hear.
Had a rather comical Viennese Sigmund Freud accent. Originally
trained as a psychiatrist. Liked to psychoanalyse people. But that
did not protect him from being fooled by Spector. Tried it on me:
decided I was harmless. Turned out he refereed my first paper –
told me when I met him that he was surprised I was so young.
Asked me if I felt confident and secure.
Volker VOGT – he spotted the falsified electrophoresis gel

labelled with a Pentel pen dipped in radioactive iodine. If the gel
had been labelled with 32P the 32P beta radiation from the labelled
proteins should not have penetrated through the Perspex he put
32
over the gel to demonstrate to some students the properties of P
beta rays. The Geiger counter clicked but it should not have. He
clicked. If Spector had used 32P for his Pentel penwork he would
not have been caught.

Elisabeth Denley
My special girlfriend Elizabeth DENLEY. Met her when we were in Biology 1 at Sydney. We
did not like each other at sight. Like many very smart people she thought I was an idiot.
A CLASSIC CASE OF SCIENTIFIC FRAUD. Expelled from Scripps Institute where she was
doing a Post-Doctoral for fabricating sea urchin survey data on a date when she was away. As is
usual, she was caught accidentally. She was convinced that she was surrounded by gullable
fools and she could do anything she liked. Some smart people are like that. The trouble with that
attitude is that “idiots” sometimes notice things and it starts a snowballing effect or a collapsing
house of cards.
She disappeared for many years then emerged out of the woodwork. Apparently she has lost her
marbles but still finds gullible people to exploit. Predictably enough the UN is one of her
victims. Rather shamefully she still tries to use her University of Sydney Honours and PhD
degrees for credibility.
Very smart but Mad-Bad-and-Dangerous-to-Know.
http://en.heartfulness.org/blog/2015/05/17/heartfulness-
elizabeth/
http://omegawellbeing.org/our-team/elizabeth-denley/

Shewan LG and Coats AJS (2010) Ethics in the authorship and publishing of scientific articles.
International Journal of Cardiology 144:1–2
All authors to papers in the International Journal of Cardiology must adhere to the following
principles:
1. That the corresponding author has the approval of all other listed authors for the submission
and publication of all versions of the manuscript.
2. That all people who have a right to be recognized as authors have been included on the list of
authors and everyone listed as an author has made an independent material contribution to the
manuscript.
3. That the work submitted in the manuscript is original and has not been published elsewhere
and is not presently under consideration of publication by any other journal other than in oral,
poster or abstract format.
4. That the material in the manuscript has been acquired according to modern ethical standards
and has been approved by the legally appropriate ethical committee.
5. That the article does not contain material copied from anyone else without their written
permission.
6. That all material which derives from prior work, including from the same authors, is properly
attributed to the prior publication by proper citation.
7. That the manuscript will be maintained on the servers of the Journal and held to be a valid
publication by the Journal only as long as all statements in these principles remain true.
8. That if any of the statements above ceases to be true the authors has a duty to notify the
Journal as soon as possible so that the manuscript can be withdrawn.
* Not a bad set of general guidelines.
Comment: all well and good but in reporting scientific fraud I can assure the readers that it
is usually the end of your career.

Some Personal Opinions on Scientific Fraud
• Fudging data in an undergraduate student’s practical report is technically scientific fraud
and should be treated as such. They will comment fraud later in their careers.
• Scientific fraud in Masters and PhD theses should warrant withdrawal of the thesis,
however in my experience that happens only rarely (Liz DENLEY is an example of why I
feel it is wrong not to withdraw an awarded degree like a PhD. She uses is for street
credibility).
• Cheap and nasty scientific fraud is relatively easy to spot because the perpetrators do not
understand enough science to fabricate data properly.
The paradox of the super smart that really do not need to commit fraud but do anyway.
• These people are usually caught by accident.
• Their behaviour is basically psychopathic. They think they can get away with anything.
They often have done so since childhood and will continue until perhaps one day they are
caught (if ever).
• Their arrogance is what gets them caught. They become careless. If Mark Spector had
dipped his blue Pentel pen in a solution laced with 32P and not radioiodine (131I) he would
never have been caught and discredited. He would now be at least Prof Mark SPECTOR.
• There is a snowball effect. Once suspicions are aroused all sorts of other things fall into
place. A single falsified survey date or a single fudged electrophoresis gel is enough to
get people looking at all other work by that individual. Things once ignored or skipped
over are suddenly remembered and seen to fit a pattern. Because of the
interconnectedness of science the whole House-of-Cards falls.
• In my opinion they do it because they can and despise the rest of mankind.
Stealing-by-Finding and Theft of Ideas rather than data

In the Introduction and in the Discussion I warned everyone about being careless about who you
show your draft manuscript to. You must treat it as a confidential document and impress upon
your co-authors to be cautious about who sees your paper and who they talk to about your work.
My PhD supervisor was very naïve about such things and talked too much about my work to
other people.

• When I was a young man I always found it gratifying to tell people all about what I knew.
More than a few people learnt to take advantage of that. They would come and talk to me about
some problem. I would tell them everything I knew. I helpfully drew things on pieces of paper
for them and they took notes. Soon enough I found more than once that they had given an
exciting new project to one of their students. Prof Bullfrog did not tell the student where the
ideas had come from. The student was told there was a strange PhD student/Post Doc named
Ray Ritchie in the building up the road who was not worth talking to because he was an idiot.
• Suppose, you gave your manuscript to someone or a careless co-author sent your draft to a
friend in another university. They quickly set about doing the same experiments you describe in
your manuscript and know how to get it published quickly before you have even finished your
own. There is no redress for such activity.
• There are people in the sciences that are scavengers and bottom feeders.
• Prof Bullfrog and Prof Dracula go to seminars specifically looking for bright young students
and post-docs to take advantage of. They are helpful and friendly. They may not only try to
insinuate themselves onto co-authorship of your papers but they may simply steal your ideas and
get their laboratory to do the same types of experiments you did and since they know more about
writing and publishing than you do they publish their own work before you finish yours.
• Be wary of distinguished visiting Profs at seminars.
• The type is also common at conferences. Be a little wary.
• Result: You find you cannot get your own work published or you have to cite their paper in
your manuscript even though you know perfectly well they stole your ideas.
Scientific Fraud by Theft of Ideas

Consequences
You get a letter from the Editor that a referee has pointed out that similar research has recently
been published by Smith, J. & Bullfrog P.I. (2021) Journal of Very Important Research 34: 345-
356. You have not cited the paper (it appeared while your paper was under review). Your paper
has been rejected on the grounds that it is merely confirmatory of another study. I have personal
experience of this because it was once done to me.

But I thought of it first! What do you do? There is very little you can do because Prof
Bullfrog did not steal your data, he stole your idea. Prof Bullfrog was smart enough not to
actually steal your experimental data, simply doing the same experiments again is very hard
to prove as fraudulent activity. Unfortunately, because science is a cumulative process
people getting the same ideas at the same time is common in science: quite legitimately.
Final Thoughts on Fraudulent Activity in Science

1. Life is not a Medieval Morality Play, Fairy Tale, Movie or TV show where the
virtuous hero ultimately wins. Be stoical: do not be a villain yourself. The villain
often retires as a distinguished Professor.
2. MacBride might have had his medical licence withdrawn but he retired to his farm
as a multimillionaire.
3. Mark SPECTOR eventually managed to get a degree in Osteopathic Medicine
(Wayne University). Just the sort of doctor you would want treating you. Caught
cheating again in 1990s with falsified records. SPECTOR never used a false name.
4. Elizabeth DENLEY did not lose her PhD. People still give her money such as UN..
5. The perpetrators of scientific fraud I witnessed going on in labs both became full
Professors.
6. Academics that simply stole my ideas because I was foolish enough to tell them
about my latest ideas became full Professors.
7. Earnest advice to duly report scientific fraud is undoubtedly well–intentioned but
extreme caution is necessary and extensive documentation is needed. The crude
fraudsters are not much of a problem. Trying to discredit the psychopathic super-
smart fraudster might be almost impossible. Some people seem to be able to get
away with just about anything at all.

References and Further Reading
Beall, J. (2015) Beall’s List: Potential, possible or probable predatory scholarly open-access
publishers. [http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/, accessed 24 Nov 2015]
Bell, K (2016). Trade secrets of the submission process. [https://shar.es/1dVUVA [accessed 1
May 2016]
Bonetta L (2006) The Aftermath of Scientific Fraud. Cell 124: 873 -875
Cooper, B.M. (1975) Writing technical reports. Penguin Books, Hamondsworth, England
Carlson, K and Ross J (2010). Publication Ethics: Conflicts, Copyright, Permission, and
Authorship. Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing 25: 263-271.
Claxton LD (2005) Scientific authorship Part 1. A window into scientific fraud? Mutation
Research 589: 17–30
Claxton LD (2005). Scientific authorship Part 2. History, recurring issues, practices, and
guidelines. Mutation Research 589 (2005) 31–45
Day, R.A. (1998) How to Write & Publish a Scientific Paper 5th Edition. Oryx Press, Phoenix,
Arizona 85012-3397 (Downloadable from Internet)
Denley, E (2016) http://omegawellbeing.org/our-team/elizabeth-denley/
She was expelled from the Scripps Institute for scientific fraud. Still using her PhD. There
is no justice in the world. [Accessed 27 March 2016]
Humphrey GF. (1994) Scientific fraud: the McBride case--judgment. Medicine, Science, and the
Law. 34(4):299-306.
Hodson, D. (1998) Teaching and learning science. Open University Press, Buckingham,
Philadelphia.
Kaewsrikhaw, R., Ritchie, R.J., Prathep, A (2015) Variations of tidal exposures and seasons on
growth, morphology, anatomy and physiology of the seagrass Halophila ovalis (R.Br.)
Hook.f.in a seagrass bed in Trang Province, Southern Thailand. Aquatic Botany
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aquabot.2015.12.006
Lanham, R.A. (1974) Style: an antitextbook. Yale University Press, New Haven & London.
McCain, G. and Segal, E.M. (1973) The game of science. Brooks/Cole Publishing, Monterey,
California.
Martin, S.A., Ritchie, R.J. (2020). Sourcing Thai geography literature for ASEAN and
international education. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 42, 61-85,
DOI:10.1111/sjtg.12296.
Sand-Jensen, K. (2007) How to write consistently boring scientific literature. Oikos 116: 723727,
2007 doi: 10.1111/j.2007.0030-1299.15674.x
ScholarOne (2016) Author Instructions
http://mchelp.manuscriptcentral.com/gethelpnow/tutorials/author.pdf
[Accessed 25 May 2016]
ScholarOne (2016) http://ipscience.thomsonreuters.com/product/scholarone/ [accessed 25 may
2016]
ScholarOne (2016) Downloadable pdf of Instructions for using ScholarOne.
http://mchelp.manuscriptcentral.com/gethelpnow/tutorials/author.pdf [accessed 25 May
2016)

Shewan, L.G., and Coats, A.J.S. (2010) Ethics in the authorship and publishing of scientific
articles. International Journal of Cardiology 144:1–2
Wiley S (2008). My Favorite fraud. The Scientist Magazine,
September 1, 2008
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/26694/title/My-Favorite-Fraud/
Willingham, D.T. (2007) Critical Thinking Why It Is So Hard to Teach? American Educator
2007, 8 – 19.

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How to Publish Papers in

Assoc Prof, Tropical Plant Biology Unit,

How to Publish 2021Version - 1

This book is based on my experience teaching a Masters course on how to publish in

How to Publish 2021Version - 2

Chapter 1: Introduction and Writing the Introduction 5

How to Publish 2021Version - 4

What this publication is about.

The core of the work will consist of:

• Authorship issues need to be carefully considered.

Some Seemingly Stupid Questions

Do you have enough data for a scientific paper?

Do you understand your results? (That is not a stupid question!)

Are the aims of your study clear to you as well as to others?

Did your research have a clear outcome?

And remember. What one fool can do another can.

Care is needed in selecting the appropriate journal. Some things to consider.

How to Publish 2021Version - 6

How to Publish 2021Version - 7

How to Publish 2021Version - 8

The Importance of ISI.

How to Publish 2021Version - 9

Marine Botany Paper Magnetic Effects Paper

Journal Name ISI Journal Name ISI

Aquatic Botany 1.61 International Agrophysics 1.12

Botanica Marina 1.40 Bioelectromagnetics 1.705

Journal of Experimental 2.475 Electro-magnetic Biology & 1.194

Plant Physiology 6.841 Journal of Plant Physiology 2.557

Estuarine and Coastal 2.057 Environmental and 3.359

Conclusion: Try Aquatic Botany Conclusion: Try Environmental and

How to Publish 2021Version - 10

How to Publish 2021Version - 11

Commercialisation Problems for authorship

Formal Agreements over Authorship

How to Publish 2021Version - 12

What not to say in the Introduction:

Your First Scientific Paper:

How to Publish 2021Version - 13

Some amusing quotes from Willingham (2007)

How to Publish 2021Version - 14

When you have finished.

• Submitting a paper using ScholarOne/Editorial Manager will be described and the

How to Publish 2021Version - 15

PRINCE OF SONGKLA UNIVERSITY

The Editor in Chief, Bioelectromagnetics

Chadapust J. SUDSIRI, Jumpa NATTAWAT, Pinpong KONGCHANA and Raymond

Some possible referees:

We declare that we have no conflicts of interest.

How to Publish 2021Version - 16

* Special Warning to English-Second Language Readers

How to Publish 2021Version - 17

Culture Media and How Things were Grown

How to Publish 2021Version - 18

What you are trying to do in the M&Ms.

Some things you should not do in the M&Ms

How to Publish 2021Version - 19

How to Publish 2021Version - 20

Results (I) – The text

In the Results you are expected to:

How to Publish 2021Version - 21

Some Materials and Methods Material is better in the Results

Some things you should not do in the Results

How to Publish 2021Version - 22