How to Publish in Style: Essential Tips for Crafting a Captivating Scientific Paper

1. How to publish in styleGustaf Olsson & Zhiguo YuanLund Univ. Sweden Univ. of Queensland, Australia September 2018

2. remember The issue is not what youneed to say... butwhat the readerwishes to learn

3. A B C D E Identify your messages What your data says What is known from the literature The winner isE “The data also reveals A&C, and confirms B&D” What the reader wishes to know

4. Who is the Reader? • What is the keymessage? • Which journal? • Specialists? • Practicing engineers? • Interdisciplinary? • The audienceshouldinfluence the style!

5. Aspectsofyourpublication • Catching the readers attention • Title • Abstract • Introduction • Conclusions • Describing the results • Discussing and explaining the results

6. Title – make it simple! Why say:‘The effect of heating the albumen and vitellus of the Gallus GallusDomesticus contained in calcium carbonate in H2O to 373.15 K’ when‘Boiling a chicken egg in water’ says it?

7. The title • Use the title to decide on the direction of your paper – the title should catch their attention. • Express onlyoneidea or subjectin the title • As short as possible – but still informative! • Importantwordsplacedfirst • No abbreviations or jargons • Subtitles can be useful

8. introduction • Early in the project: Sketch the introduction to clarifyyourthoughts • Afterthe work is finished: Complete the introduction!

9. Introduction (2) • Start the introductionwith: • Purposeof the paper • Research challenge • Then • The background – the motivation • Earlierwork, literaturereview • Finally • The hypothesis – suggested solution to the problem • The bigpictureof the results • Overviewof the paper

10. Materials and Methods • How you did it • Should be possible to verify by the reader • Always a balance between brevity(cannot describe every technical issue) and completeness(the reader has to understand what happened) • Describe the methods (not only “I used the software XYZ and found”)

11. Materials and methods - results • Describe the resultsqualitativelyin a paragraphbeforeyou present the numbers • Be carefulwithstatistics! Before anyanalysis, look at the data and try to findoutqualitativelywhat the data tellsyou • The data shouldleadyou to the conclusions

12. results • If youcansummarize the results in a figure, do that! Remember – there is usually only space for 2-3 figures! • Tablesareuseful.Not too long or toodetailed – only the keyresults • Detailsof the resultscan be published on a website or in an internalreport. • Sometimesyoumayalso present the raw data in an appendix

13. Be carefulwithnumbersand theiraccuracy! “The mineral element contents were high concentrations of K (5,458.33±954.70 mg/100 g) and Fe (210.30±2.47 mg/100 g). “ 5,500±950 210±2.5

14. All data are not gaussian! Pharmaceuticaloccurence …. (ng/L) • N4-zz1 229 ± 261 • N4-zz2 193 ± 265 • N-zz 21 ± 24

15. discussion • Discussion is the heartof the paper – be careful to present the results clearly • The main function is to answer the questions posed in the Introduction • It is notsufficient to present the results. Try to explainthem! • Explain and discussresultsthatmay be surprising! • Edit, edit, edit….

16. conclusions • the “take-home” message of the paper • short, concise statements of the results – no explanations • notan extension of the discussion • nota summary of your paper • noreferences • will also show implications for future research

17. Finally • Revise, revise …… • Ask colleagues to reviewbeforeyousubmit • Find an experienced writer to check the language • Ask ifyourfriend (who is not a specialist!) can understand the introduction • Reviseagain!

18. Pleasecontact Gustaf Olsson Lund University, Sweden gustaf.olsson@iea.lth.se gustafolsson3@gmail.com Zhiguo Yuan Univ. of Queensland, Australia z.yuan@awmc.uq.edu.au

19. Thank you for coming to this Session • Please send us your thoughts and any feedback using this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/M2MZXNH