Ten Common Mistakes for Research Articles

1. Ten Common Mistakes for Research Articles Dr. Binshan Lin August 2007 Dr Binshan Lin

2. manuscript Authors comments and recommendation Reviewers instructions final decision& comments Manage Peer Review Process review materials final manuscript aggregate comments & recommendations final manuscript final decision Editor Dr Binshan Lin

3. SCI/SSCI Journal:Peer Review Process Qualitative Quantitative Evaluation Score (1-5) Quantitative Published Article Filter Review Peer, Open, Machine Accept Reject Revise with respect to XYZ standards Article submitted Send elsewhere Comments to Author Reject Dr Binshan Lin

4. Who are Buyers? • Reviewers • Editors • Subscribers/Readers to Journals • Publishers • How am I presenting my research to them so that they would “buy” it? Dr Binshan Lin

5. Peer Review Process • Peer-Review Process: “A scholarly process used to screen submissions for publication.” • Quality Control • Gatekeeper • First Impression in 1st five minutes! Dr Binshan Lin

6. Peer Review Process • As always, the quality of the peer review report will ultimately determine the quality of the journal. Dr Binshan Lin

7. Big Push • Colleagues who want to publish a research paper should remember that the most SCI/SSCI journals accept only a very small proportion of research articles. • Authors can improve those odds, however, by understanding the factors that help push strategically a paper into the "accepted'' pile. • Trivial mistakes are easily made, and can be fatal. Dr Binshan Lin

8. Fatal Flaws • “For me, when I reject a manuscript, it has problems (obviously) but the issue is: are these problems that can be fixed or are they "fatal flaws"? If a manuscript has a fatal flaw, I never want to see it again, and no amount of cajoling, sweet talk, or threatening will get me to change my mind. In the rejection letter, I make it clear. In my experience, authors of "fatal flaw" manuscripts take that decision as final and do not try the "revise/resubmit even though it was rejected ploy.” Dr. Leslie H. NicollEditor-in-Chief, CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing and JHPN: The Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing Dr Binshan Lin

9. # 1 Fatal Mistake • The theoretical development of the model still needs work and updating based on already established models in the information systems and marketing literatures (see Palmer, 2002; Torkzadeh and Dhillon, 2002; Zeithaml et al., 2005). • Unfortunately, the methodology of the paper is now well suited for an academic journal and is well below standards established for website evaluation in business school literature. The methodology is “explained” in Table 2 but without providing any details on why the specific evaluation questions were selected (i.e. a definition of the constructs, their reflective or formative type, and their measurement instruments, how construct validity was established), and how exactly the websites were ranked (multiple investigators or clients ranking the websites are the norm). • Clearly, because the data was not collected with a statistical analysis in mind. An example of accepted methodology can be found in Torkzadeh and Dhillon (2002) and more details on how website service quality can be assessed can be found in Zeithaml et al. (2005) and Palmer (2002). Since many other scholarly articles on website evaluation exist, the methodology used by this article is inappropriate for publication. Dr Binshan Lin

10. # 2 Fatal Mistake • Unfortunately, I am not sure that JCIS is the appropriate audience for this paper. In looking at the citations used in this paper, the author(s) did include 5 cites from JCIS but these were all in the introduction section of the paper. • In the other sections of the paper, the cites were either masters’ theses, conference proceedings, or a few academic journals. This represents a problem because it is common for papers to be submitted to a SCI/SSCI journal that is commonly cited in the paper. Since there aren’t many cites in the main part of this paper, it is tough to decide where the paper would naturally “fit.” I would suggest sending this paper to perhaps a computer-related magazine since a couple of articles were cited from this source. Dr Binshan Lin

11. # 3 Fatal Mistake • The biggest negative impression is the article goes nowhere new. It is basically a review of old literature that may or may not be relevant to today’s KM issues. • I did not find the figures/tables particularly useful, nor did I find the material particularly interesting or useful in KM. As I read the manuscript I was looking for something that I could apply to KM in my own circumstances, and woefully I found nothing. I do teach in a graduate KM program. • The overall impression is immediately negative because of serious grammar and structure problems from the very beginning of the manuscript. For this article to be considered by any SCI journal publication, it needs to have a very careful and thorough edit. Dr Binshan Lin

12. # 4 Fatal Mistake • The author(s) say “This research employs case study to achieve research purposes and focuses on large-scale IS, not on SME’s (small and medium enterprise) IS.” What does this mean? Be merciful to readers/reviewers. • The lack of thorough explanation of the instruments is necessary to make sense of the results and consequently the conclusions drawn from the results. The author(s) should not assume that readers can guess what types of close-ended questions were asked of the subjects. This is extremely important (especially for this reviewer) to assess the strength of the study. • There are several related articles published in IMDS and the author(s) should build upon these studies in their references. It seems that the authors did not understand the current trend. Dr Binshan Lin

13. # 5 Fatal Mistake • Although the authors must have spent lots of time writing this thirty-nine-page article, the presentation of the material is somewhat piecemeal and the focus is blurred. • Another crucial point that leads to this confusion and vagueness is that this research really does not have a clear research question. • The extension to TAM is very odd. It adds all possible factors as antecedents of PU and PEU without a strong justification and the survey had no particular target systems. • If I answered the questionnaires, I would have difficulty in figuring out how to reply because DSS is not a system but a family of systems. Dr Binshan Lin

14. # 6 Fatal Mistake • It was a very low level descriptive study that appeared to be directed to a practitioner audience.  This piece is not appropriate for our academic audience. • No theory base or research questions driving appropriate empirical analysis were provided.  • The manuscript was not organized as a research paper. I suspect this occurred because the author(s) did not research questions to guide their analysis/write up.  Rather, it was organized by the "issues" studied, giving very simplistic descriptive data tables that did not add much useful value.  The authors may want to consult a more seasoned researcher to seek direction.     • The various sections of the paper did not have transitions to enhance the flow of reading.  Discussion and interpretation of the "results"/data were sparse.     Dr Binshan Lin

15. # 7 Fatal Mistake • The literature review is probably the weakest of the three topics. It treats two separate subjects: (1) the evolution of HIS and the differentiating characteristics of HIS over traditional MIS, and (2) approaches to measuring successful HIS. Neither subject is examined in adequate depth. • Secondary sources such as textbooks are used rather than primary sources such as journal articles (e.g. Laudon & Laudon, p. 5). As background material for the survey section, the literature review does not provide the necessary grounding for the survey instrument. • Rather, the author adopts the Alj-Alawi instrument with only minor revisions. There doesn’t seem to be any linkage between the lit. review evaluation dimensions and the questionnaire. Dr Binshan Lin

16. # 8 Fatal Mistake • The survey research is perhaps the topic with the most potential for future publication. It compares survey data from 1991 to the present on a number of dimensions (levels of computerization, MIS development approaches, corporate needs, management commitment, user attitudes and expectations, user involvement, MIS performance). • Unfortunately, the research hypotheses are never clearly stated. • Frequency analysis is performed but statistical analysis of the significant differences between the two data sets is missing. • Further, much of the frequency analysis is presented as narrative without corresponding tables. Reader access to the key findings is difficult. Without the statistical analysis of differences, the reader is never sure if the variances in the data sets are statistically significant or if the research hypotheses have been met. Dr Binshan Lin

17. # 9 Fatal Mistake • The weakness of this submission is inherent in its content and the lack of fit with the readership of JCIS. The primary references where the body of knowledge is derived from is actually in other fields. For this reason, this submission should have been sent to journals in one of those disciplines that are more relevant. • Theoretical frameworks should have heavy implications for actual applications that can be assessed. This submission has potential, as the authors pointed out. However, it stopped short of delivering the real substance. Bottom line, how can the algorithm postulated or DEA classification framework be applied to a real data set? How can it benefit a real multi-dimensional database extraction or in the development of future Web enterprise portals? Apart from the algorithm and the mathematical formulations, the authors did not really appear to say much about its relevance to data mining, culture, farming and extraction. In other words, the argument about its applicability to database concepts and data mining in particular, is terribly unconvincing. Dr Binshan Lin

18. # 10 Fatal Mistake • The biggest concern I have regards the conclusion. • When I finished reading the paper, I was left wondering what value would be added to the IS/IT literature by publishing this paper. • Certainly the author collected lots of data, but their just isn’t a story in the paper yet. Dr Binshan Lin

19. Impact Factor Studies • One major assumption: a citation is an objective indicator of influence • Sample size matters: For example, the number of healthcare journals covered by the SCI/SSCI index isextremely limited. • Many editors made judgments on the basis of whether a paper will attract citations. Dr Binshan Lin

20. Impact Factor Studies • Authors usually cite paper that will enhance the likelihood of acceptance (or reduce the likelihood of rejection), such as those authored by potential referees and/or journal editors. • Citations may be biased in favor of: popular authors who enjoy a halo effect or established researchers. • A list of the journals with the highest impact factors reveals one of the measurement’s quirk: Because review articles tend to get cited more than original research articles do, 7 of the top 15 journals are review publications (Monastersky, 2005). Dr Binshan Lin

21. Two Major Forces • Reviewers have become more selective in the manuscripts they recommend for publication; the expectations and demands of scientists who serve as reviewers is the major determinant of the standing of a journal. • And authors are submitting higher quality manuscripts. These two variables become interlocked in a positive feedback loop. Authors submit their best manuscripts to the most prestigious journal they think might accept them. Higher quality manuscripts in turn lead to further increases in a journal's impact factor. Dr Binshan Lin

22. Rising in the East • http://scientific.thomson.com/promo/celebration/asia • “Research fronts are sets of highly cited papers that are linked together by patterns of co-citation. Co-citation is when a paper cites two earlier papers in its reference list, and we look for frequent occurrences of this. For example, if Einstein and Planck were cited together often, by later scientists, they would be frequently co-cited. To find research fronts we group together highly cited papers that are co-cited. This results in groups of papers on specialized topics such as carbon nanotubes, SARS, or embryonic stem cells, to mention just a few examples.” Dr Binshan Lin

23. Journal Pharmaceutical Sciences 533 360 522 International Journal of Pharmaceutics Pharmaceutical Research 194 284 327 Journal of Controlled Release Cited Each Other Dr Binshan Lin

24. An Invitation… • Editor-in-Chief, Industrial Management and Data Systemswww.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/imds/imds.htm • Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Mobile Communicationswww.inderscience.com/ijmc • Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Innovation and Learningwww.inderscience.com/ijil • Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Management and Enterprise Developmentwww.inderscience.com/ijmed • Editor-in-Chief, Electronic Government: An International Journalwww.inderscience.com/eg • Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Electronic Healthcare www.inderscience.com/ijeh • Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Services and Standards www.inderscience.com/ijss • Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Electronic Finance www.inderscience.com/ijef • Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Management in Educationwww.inderscience.com/ijmie Dr Binshan Lin

25. Instructor Profile • Dr. Binshan Lin is the BellSouth Corporation Professor at College of Business Administration, Louisiana State University in Shreveport. He received his Ph.D. from the Louisiana State University in 1988. He is an eight-time recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Award at LSUS. Dr. Lin receives the Computer Educator of the Year by the International Association for Computer Information Systems (IACIS) in 2005, Ben Bauman Award for Excellence in IACIS 2003, Distinguished Service Award at the Southwest Decision Sciences Institute (SWDSI) in 2007, Outstanding Educator Award at the SWDSI in 2004, and Emerald Literati Club Awards for Excellence in 2003. He has published over 160 articles in refereed journals, and currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the following nine academic journals: IndustrialManagement and DataSystems, International Journal of Mobile Communications, International Journal of Innovation and Learning, International Journal of Management and Enterprise Development, Electronic Government: An International Journal, International Journal of Electronic Healthcare, International Journal of Service and Standards, International Journal of Electronic Finance, and International Journal of Management in Education. Dr. Lin serves as President of Southwest Decision Sciences Institute (2004-2005), President of Association for Chinese Management Educators (2003-2004), President of International Chinese Information Systems Association (2000), Program Chair of IACIS Pacific 2005 Conference in Taipei, Taiwan, Program Chair of Management International Conference (MIC) 2006 in Slovenia, and General Chair of MIC 2007 in Slovenia. He also serves as a vice president (2007-2009) of Decision Sciences Institute (DSI). Dr Binshan Lin