Introductory Course on SCIENTIFIC WRITING

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Introductory Course on SCIENTIFIC WRITING

• Payman Jalali
• Department of Energy and Environmental Technology
• Lappeenranta University of Technology

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Searching databases of scientific sources
b) Searching tools about specific journals.
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Searching databases of scientific sources
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Searching databases of scientific sources
View journals by subject category
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Searching databases of scientific sources
We will see a list of journals related to the
Mechanical Engineering with some columns
containing grading factors of journals and so on.
We can sort the journals based on title, impact
factor or ...
Note that some well-known journals may not be
included in certain categories. In other words,
there can be many other related journals in a
field, e.g. Mechanical engineering, which cannot
be found in the category of Engineering,
Mechanical. Therefore, it is always suggested to
search several categories to obtain extra list of
journals suitable to publish our work.
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Searching databases of scientific sources
We can also search for a specific journal, for
example
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Searching databases of scientific sources
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Searching databases of scientific sources
Distribution of citations to articles in the
journal
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Searching databases of scientific sources
Distribution of citations from articles in the
journal to articles in other journals
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Searching databases of scientific sources
Trend of Journal Impact Factor
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Searching databases of scientific sources
We can also obtain average information of the
category of journals that our specified journal
belongs to.
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How to prepare for writing an article?
The first step before publishing a paper Where
to submit? How can we select a suitable journal
for submitting our papers? We may consider the
following factors to consider the place of
publication

• General domain(s) of specialty Engineering or
  Science?
• Subdomains of specialty what field(s) of
  Engineering or Science?
• Journal indices which journal has better
  indices for our work?
• Type of article regular, letter, comment,
  erratum etc?
• Other factors Choice of publisher, country of
  publication, or where related works have been
  previously published.

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How to prepare for writing an article?
Engineering or Science? Many journals publish
articles which are purely engineering (with
usually lower Impact Factor), and many journals
only publish purely scientific articles (usually
higher Impact Factors). Since in many research
fields we may not be able to determine clear
boundaries between Engineering or Scientific
articles, some journals publish both kinds of
articles. We, as researchers, should know whether
our research and results are purely Engineering,
or purely Scientific, or a combination of
both. Writing keywords and the title of the
article may help us see what domain or domains it
fits.
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How to prepare for writing an article?
Special field in Engineering or Science? The
fields of specialty in Engineering or Science is
the next step to be decided. As we already saw in
the ISI database, we can select a variety of
subject categories in the fields of
Engineering, Applied Science, and Pure
Science.
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How to prepare for writing an article?
- Journal indices Once we have selected potential
journals, we can check their evaluated indices
such as the Impact Factor if we do not have any
other preferences in the selection of the final
journal.
- Type of article Some journals publish different
classes of articles inside each volume. These
classes could be regular (original) article
referring to ordinary research articles. The
entire journal or part of it may be devoted to
Letters which are short articles (2-4 pages
maximum) containing very new and important
knowledge or information relevant to a topic. The
article can be a comment which is short and
commenting a published paper and sometimes the
response of the authors is also included. If
authors would like to correct some mistakes or
errors in an earlier published paper they will
publish it as an erratum (Errata in plural).
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How to prepare for writing an article?
- Other factors Some other factors may also
influence our decision before selecting the
journal. These factors can be listed as

• - The language or country of publication,
• The publisher,
• Some earlier publications in the field of our
  research or topic.
• Note that your self-evaluation for your work and
  your article is very important factor in finding
  a suitable journal. In other words, you know
  yourself how much new and novel information your
  results and your article provides for the
  readers. Therefore, you can select a suitable
  journal based on the self-estimated scientific
  value of your article.

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How to prepare for writing an article?

• Homework 1
• Please provide a title and 5 keywords preferably
  related to your research or expertise today,
• Considering the above-mentioned criteria select
  at least 5 journals which are best candidates for
  submitting your article.
• Finally, select 1 journal to submit your work.
• Note Please describe clearly all steps you take
  in finding the most suitable journal for your
  article.