About the Research Articles, its

formatting and Other Information's

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 Why to Write and Publish a
Research Paper ?
 Ideally- to share research findings and
discoveries with the hope of improving base
 Practically-
- to get degree
- to get funding
- to get promoted
- to get recognitions
- for knowledge sharing and achievements
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 Kinds of Scientific Publications
 PhD/MPhil Thesis
Aspects to be Assessed for a Thesis:
background knowledge
original contributions (amount of work)
methodology
presentation (writing)
 Conference Publications
Focus on a piece of work with limited discussion
 Journal Publications
More complete (extensive) discussion
 Monographs / Book chapters / Text books

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 Where to publish your work
 Journals
Ranking of journals
Review process of journals
Publication cycle
 Conferences
Ranking of conferences
Review process of conferences
N.B. a good journal / conference tends to have rigorous
review process and long review time

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Important journals & conferences
 Database
IEEE Trans on Knowledge and Data Engineering
ACM Trans on Database Systems
Software Engineering
IEEE Trans on Software Engineering
ACM Trans on Software Eng. and Methodology
IEEE Int’l Conf on Software Engineering
 Distributed Systems
IEEE Trans on Parallel and Distributed Systems
ACM Trans on Computer Systems
IEEE Int’l Conf on Distributed Computing Systems
 Computer Networks
IEEE/ACM Trans on Networking
IEEE INFOCOM
ACM Mobicom, etc.
…….

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 Plan your writing
 Ask two questions before starting:
What is new in your work?
What are you going to write?
 Emphasize on the originality and
significance of your work.
 Organize your thinking and decide the
structure (outlines) of your paper.
 Stick on your central points throughout the
whole paper and remove all unnecessary
discussions.
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 Reader-oriented Writing
 Purpose of your writing: disseminating your
research results.
Don’t write if there is nothing to write
Don’t make a simple problem complicated to fool people
Don’t hide technical details
 Reader-oriented writing: Write in a way that would
lead readers to follow your thinking, NOT in the way of
your thinking.
Well-organize your thinking
Give enough and clear explanation (never leave reader to guess)
Try to present your idea in an accurate way (no ambiguous)
Always think how readers would interpret your writing (assume you’re a
reader)
 Use simple/ plain English
Purpose of technical writing: express your idea correctly & clearly.

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 A Typical Review Form of a Journal
From TKDE@computer.org Fri Mar 9 01:42 HKT 2001

Section I. Overview
A. Reader Interest
1. Which category describes this manuscript?
___Practice/Application/Case Study/Experience Report
_X_Research/Technology
___Survey/Tutorial/How-To
2. How relevant is this manuscript to the readers of this periodical?
Please explain your rating.
___Very Relevant
_X_Relevant
___Interesting - but not very relevant
___Irrelevant
B. Content
1. Please explain how this manuscript advances this field of research
and/or contributes something new to the literature.
………….
2. Is the manuscript technically sound? Please explain your answer.
___Yes
___Appears to be - but didn't check completely
_X_Partially
___No

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 A Typical Review Form of a Journal (cont’d)
C. Presentation
1. Are the title, abstract, and keywords appropriate? Please comment.
_X_Yes
___No
2. Does the manuscript contain sufficient and appropriate references?
Please comment.
___References are sufficient and appropriate
_X_Important references are missing; more references are needed
___Number of references are excessive
…………..
3. Does the introduction state the objectives of the manuscript in
terms that encourage the reader to read on? Please explain your answer.
_X_Yes
___Could be improved
___No
4. How would you rate the organization of the manuscript? Is it
focused? Is the length appropriate for the topic? Please comment.
_X_Satisfactory
___Could be improved
___Poor
…………..
5. Please rate and comment on the readability of this manuscript.
___Easy to read
_X_Readable - but requires some effort to understand
___Difficult to read and understand
___Unreadable

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 A Typical Review Form of a Journal (cont’d)
Section II. Summary and Recommendation

A. Evaluation
Please rate the manuscript. Explain your choice.
___Award Quality
___Excellent
___Good
_X_Fair
___Poor

B. Recommendation
Please make your recommendation and explain your decision.

___Accept with no changes as a short paper

___Accept with no changes as a regular paper
___Accept if certain minor revisions are made
_X_Author should prepare a major revision for a second review
___Revise as a short paper
_X_Revise as a regular paper
___Reject

Section III. Detailed Comments

A. Public Comments (these will be made available to authors)

B. Comments to editors (these will not be available to authors)

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 Formatting
 Follow the journal’s style guide You must
check the style guidelines of the journal or
conference paper.
 This is the first thing that the editors of the
journal or conference will check and reject if
you don’t comply.
 Suggested strategy:

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 Formatting (Continue)
 Find out and understand the style of that
journal or proceedings.
 Write your paper freely; don’t be overly
concerned about the style at this point.
 Once you have written and edited your
paper, then format it according to style
guidelines.

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 Formatting-Research articles
1. Writing Tools and Software
Microsoft Word
Latex
OpenOffice
LibreOffice
Scrivener
GoogleDocs
DropBoxPaper

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 Formatting-Research articles
2. Referencing Tools and Reference
Management Software
Zotero
Mendeley
EndNote
RefWorks
Citavi
PaperPile
JabRef
Papers
Docear
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 Formatting-Research articles
3. Searching Tools
Google Scholar- Recommended
ResearchGate
https://scinapse.io/ ( SCINAPSE) - Recommended

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 Formatting-Research articles
 4. Grammar Checkers and Sentence
Correction Tools
 MS Word Spelling & Grammar checker
 Grammarly
 ProWritingAid
 CorrectEnglish
 StyleWriter
 WhiteSmoke
 Ginger Software
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 Online Grammar checking sites
 Survey Paper
 What is Survey Paper ??
 Survey paper comprises the interpretation, the
author draw out after reviewing and analyzing
several research paper ( which are already
published) on a specific topic
 This mean that you should have a point to make or
conclusion to draw
 And this will be done my collecting data from a
broad collection of previous work
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 Goal of a survey paper
 Providing reader with a view of existing work
that is well organized and comprehensive
 Not all details must be included
 Make sure to cover all relevant materials
completely
 Logical Structure of organization

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 What is the approach ?
 Collect as many paper as you can
 Read them and note down their features
and limitations in your own words and
sentences
 Follow IMD format ( Introduction,
methodologies and Discussion )

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 Authorship
 “Authorship is reserved for a person who
make primary contribution and to hold
primary responsibility for the data, concept
and interpretation of result for a published
work” ( Huth, 1987)
 “Authorship not only encompasses those
who do the actual writing but also those who
have made substantial scientific contributions
to a study”
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 The statement of authorship responsibility is
certification that each author has made
substantial contribution to
 A. the conceptions and design, acquisition
of data, or analysis and interpretation of
data
 B. drafting and revising the articles
 C. Approval of the final version. Further
each author take public responsibility

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 Only those who can take both
responsibility and credit for a work
should be an author

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 Unethical Authorship Practics
 Honorary/gift authorship: Naming the head
of department where the study is carried out
as an author of the paper when he/she has
made no significant contribution to the study
 Guest author ship: Naming a certain person(
generally a senior well known researcher )
an author in the hope that it will boost the
chances of being published

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 Authentication of Journals
 How to find an impact factor journal
 From JCR report

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 Selecting the Right Journal for
your Scientific Manuscript
Factors to be Considered :
•Criteria
•Impact Factor & other metrics
•Tools: help identify journals to publish in

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 Criteria

 Journal information/Content
• Journals used by yourself/
mentors/advisor/colleagues
• Types of articles published (original
research, review, case study)
• Length of manuscript accepted
• Supplemental data

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 Criteria
 Reputation of the journal
• # years in publication
• Cost and availability (journal cost
effectiveness)
• Open access
• Peer review status
• Impact factor

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 Criteria
 Reputation of the journal

• Reputation of the journal (publisher, editor)

• Acceptance/rejection rates (journals with
lower acceptance rates are generally more
prestigious)
• Quality of accepted articles and authors
• Audience of journal (readership)
• Audience Size (indexing & circulation)
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 Criteria
 Review Process

• Time to publication (speed of peer review,

pre-pub online)
• Publication Costs & Author Fees: (should
fall in the industry standard $1500 - $5000
range)

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How to Identify High Impact
journals in your field:

-JCR Journal
Citation Reports
from Thomson’s
InCites/ Web of
Science

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 Manuscript Matching Tools:
• Jane (Journal/Author Name Estimator) - compare your
document to documents in Medline to find the best
matching journals, authors or articles.
• Edanz Journal Selector
• Endnote – Manuscript Matcher
• Elsevier Journal Finder - (publisher specific)
• Springer Journal Selector - (publisher specific)

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