1. The moral of the story is that the publishing process requires not only hard work but also resilience — and struggling young authors can learn valuable lessons from those who have already navigated that process.
2. You are only as good as your last paper — previous success does not guarantee future acceptance.
3. A key to winning over editors and reviewers is having strong data to support conclusions. Some people don't appreciate the fact that a lot of weak data does not make up for having less, but more powerful, data.
4. Authors should try to resist the urge to let their findings trickle out over many years and many papers.
5. Younger writers need to recognize their own working patterns and write when they are most productive — whether it is early morning, late at night, at a desk or during a walk.
6. Recognizing that writing is a long process is valuable. Find a mentor in that process, somebody to guide and coach you.
7. For many publishing veterans, the writing process starts at the earliest stages of designing a research project.
8. Aspiring writers should have a template to hand — a previous paper published by the lab or a 'near-neighbour' article from the same journal. Paralysed would-be writers should take the template concept one step further by counting the number of paragraphs in each section, the number of figures and the number of references.
9. Start every day of writing by editing the previous day's material — a useful tactic that helps to ease us into a writing mindset.
10. The usual writing advice applies to manuscript writing as well — be clear and concise and use simple language whenever possible.
11. Editors stress the importance of clarity above all else, to help convey arguments and logic to them and to readers.
12. You've got to hook the editor with the abstract.
13. Most writers make the mistake of assuming too much knowledge on the part of their audience.
14. Editors say that one way to identify holes or gaps in logic that would be vulnerable in peer review is to imagine a sceptical audience reading the manuscript. Think of the most adversarial reader you can imagine, and write to substantiate the veracity of your arguments and to anticipate criticisms and answer them.
15. Some editors suggest that 'winning over' a sceptical editor, reader or reviewer should be the ultimate goal of any paper's abstract.
16. Editors read the abstract and start formulating a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, looking for reasons to rip it apart.
17. Authors should avoid an abstract structure that says: we did X, which told us Y, and has implications for Z. Instead, he says, start with why a reader should care about learning more about Z and then explain how this work furthers that goal.
18. The introduction should persuade readers “that you know what you are talking about and have something new to teach them.
19. Authors should clearly distinguish between data in the results section and inferences about what they mean in the discussion section.
20. The introduction need not cite every background article gathered, the results section should not archive every piece of data ever collected, and the discussion is not a treatise on the paper's subject.
21. The writer must be selective, choosing only the references, data points and arguments that bolster the particular question at hand.
22. Once a first draft is complete, the work has only just begun. “Revise and revise and revise.” Even polished authors go through an average of 10–12 drafts, and sometimes as many as 30.
23. Writers should ask not only the principal investigator to view drafts, but also every co-author, as well as fellow students or postdocs, and colleagues outside the immediate field of research. Lead authors should give co-authors set deadlines of 10 days to two weeks to suggest changes. Experienced authors counsel letting the draft sit for a few days before reading it with fresh eyes to catch mistakes or problems in flow. It is better to read drafts aloud with your students to spot errors.
24. Authors should not suggest reviewers who are personal friends or institutional colleagues; including those people could immediately erode the editor's trust. Authors need to find a balance — it is fine to exclude a couple of reviewers who are direct competitors or known naysayers, but restricting too many qualified reviewers can backfire.
25. As an author, your job is to make the editor's job as easy as possible.
选杂志
1. Before starting to write the paper, authors should carefully choose a journal audience for their research story — and initially aim for the highest-impact, highest-profile journal possible. The submission process is fast enough today; it's worth the effort of sending your paper to the highest journals where it belongs.
2. Established authors and journal editors suggest thinking early about the right journal and finding an appropriate editor, the best reviewers and, of course, an appropriate audience of readers.
修稿
1. New authors can feel overwhelmed when the reviewers' comments come back. Wojtal likes to let reviews sit for a week to let his “blood pressure return to normal”.
2. Blumberg advises copying all of the reviewers' comments into a new electronic document to address each one step-by-step.
3. Authors should work through the list and explain how criticisms were addressed, or why they were not, in the resubmission cover letter to the editor.
4. A clear, succinct resubmission letter may result in an editor making their own decision rather than sending the paper back out for another round of review.
5. New authors should be careful to polish their work and respond meticulously and politely to reviewers' comments without getting overwhelmed or frustrated by lengthy, time-consuming queries. Those who follow such advice are more likely to find success. Those who don't could end up on the wrong side of the 'publish or perish' divide.
6. The worst thing an author can do is to ignore a reviewer's criticism and send it back without an explanation. This wastes an editor's time trying to resolve the issue on his or her own.
7. “If you strongly believe the reviewers have erred and that the editor should hear from you, definitely send an e-mail,” says Blumberg, who, as an editor, is happy to hear from authors. “Be as polite as possible, stick to the facts, and keep it to the point.”
结束语
Young scientists would be wise to embrace written communication as the foundation of an academic career and the key to earning tenure, winning funding and, ultimately, sustaining a research programme, says Hauber. “If your result is not published, you haven't done anything,” he says. “You might not set out to be an enthusiastic writer, but you should try to learn to love it.”
Mark Hauber的学生于2007年向Nature投稿，这是一篇关于捕食一种海鸟的论文，被拒。接着向《科学》杂志投稿，被拒。这位气馁的学生Matt Rayner建议向《Conservation Biology》投稿，这是该研究领域的二类期刊。但是Hauber因为经验丰富，认为这篇论文应该去投更好的杂志。他修改了少许内容，向级别更高的《Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA》投稿，几周以后就收到接收通知。
现在已经是新西兰国立大气与水源研究院博士后的Rayner提到：“我已经深深明白人们会对投稿被拒这种表象信以为真。如果你认为文章内容包含了好的资料与数据，你需要做的就是坚持。能在《Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA》上发表文章令我非常兴奋”。Hauber表示同意，“文章审核的过程具有偶然性”，他现在是纽约城市大学Hunter学院的动物行为学家。这个故事的寓意告诉我们，发表文章需要努力的工作和抗挫折的能力，而正在奋斗中的年轻作者应该从那些已经发表过论文的作者身上学习宝贵的经验。
撰写科研论文的通常建议是：尽量使用明确、扼要、简单的语言(see G. D. Gopen & J. A. Swan Am. Sci. 78, 550–558; 1990)。Blumberg撰写的很多科学书籍都是畅销书，他指出： “当你想表达‘rats’时不要写个复杂的‘rodents’，这种创新不需要，因为科学本身就已经够复杂了。”编辑们因为工作忙碌，根本来不及细细品味那些不好生撰写的论文，即使有重要意义也难逃被拒的命运。
Wojtal在the Journal of Structural Geology担当了6年的编辑，他认为最糟糕的事情是作者在回复中忽视审稿专家的意见不予回答，对于编辑而言，他们则需要花时间去重新分析这些有争议的地方。Blumberg很乐意与作者进行交流，无经验的作者希望知道在被拒时是否应该再去争取一下，他认为“如果你觉得审稿专家的意见不中肯，而编辑应该听听你的意见，那么请邮件联系我们，并紧密联系文章内容说到点子上”。
Hauber指出，年轻的科研工作者应该把写论文当作学术生涯的基础，它是获得职位、申请基金、维持一个研究项目的重要手段，“如果你的成果不能被公布，你的努力也是无用功，或许你不想成为一个写作狂人，但至少你应该试着去喜欢去学习写作。”
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