19-Journal Articles

Question 1

What are the 10 aspects of effective data?

Answer 1

• reusable
• reproducible
• reviewed
• comprehensive
• citable
• discoverable
• accessible
• preserved
• stored

Question 2

What are the attributes of scientific writing?

Answer 2

• Quite different from literary writing
• Formal writing style that is highly technical (i.e., not casual as you would in conversation or email)
• Not overly descriptive or flowery; sentences not complicated; paragraphs are relatively short
• Goal is to clearly convey information

Question 3

What are the differences between Research (journal) & review articles?

Answer 3

Journal article
•Describes original research conducted by authors
•Utilizes a structured framework

Review article
•Integrates, summarizes and provides ideas for extending upon prior research on a particular topic
•Authors study existing literature (vs. doing new research)

Question 4

How to read an article properly?

Answer 4

• Takes lots of time to find, select, and collect papers; also to extract relevant information
• Reading and understanding articles is time-consuming and challenging
• Unfamiliar organization
• Unfamiliar terminology and theories
• Read papers at least twice (or 10+ times)
• Take good notes while you do your research (finding articles; reading articles; etc.)

Question 5

What is plagiarism?

Answer 5

“Presenting and using another’s published or unpublished work, including theories, concepts, data, source material, methodologies or findings, including graphs and images, as one’s own, without appropriate referencing and, if required, without permission”

Question 6

How to avoid plagiarizing?

Answer 6

• Take good notes!
• Do not simply cut/paste; do not change 1-2 words
• Describe ideas and findings in your own words
• Add citation (or you may never find again!)

Question 7

What are the components of manuscripts?

Answer 7

• Title,
• Abstract,
• Introduction,
• Materials and Methods,
• Results,
• Discussion,
• Literature Cited
• Acknowledgments
• Tables/Figures

Question 8

What is the purpose of a title?

Answer 8

capture the message, main thrust of paper

Question 9

What are the characteristics of an abstract?

Answer 9

<200 words, concisely summarize paper; stand-alone; indexed and searched

Question 10

What are the characteristics of introduction?

Answer 10

what did you study and why?
General –> narrow –>hypothesis;
what are knowledge gaps or contentions in field?

Question 11

What are the characteristics of methods?

Answer 11

how you did it; can the reader repeat your study now?; OK to cite previous approaches, but new ones give full details; stats!

Question 12

What are the characteristics of results?

Answer 12

what you found but no interpretation; Tables, Figures, Text –How decide? Captions standalone

Question 13

What are the characteristics of discussion?

Answer 13

what does your work mean? Compare/contrast with others; implications? Strengths/weaknesses? Future work? Conclusions?

Question 14

What are the characteristics of ref list?

Answer 14

do not cite a paper if you have not read!; follow journal style; Reference managers

Question 15

What are the characteristics of acknowledgements?

Answer 15

thanks to helpers, collaborators, funders…

Question 16

What is the “spoof” study?

Answer 16

• Molecule X from lichen species Y inhibits the growth of cancer cell Z.
• fictitious authors are affiliated with fictitious African institutions
• 1: cancer cells grow more slowly in a test tube when treated with increasing concentrations of a molecule (results show opposite trend)
• 2: cells treated with increasing doses of radiation to simulate cancer radiotherapy(not done)•Firm conclusion given

Question 17

What is the outcome of the “spoof” study?

Answer 17

• 157 journals accepted; 98 rejected
• Of 255 papers that underwent entire review process, 60% of decisions had no sign of peer review
• Most reviews focused on paper’s layout, formatting, and language
• 36 papers had reviews concerning the science, and of those 16 papers were still accepted

Question 18

What are the criteria for Authorship (ICMJE.org)?

Answer 18

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.