How to Publish your Research Paper?

Most of the time, academic scholars strive to publish as much as they can, as quickly as they can, and in the finest journals. This post explains how to publish your research paper, raise your profile, and broaden the impact of your publications in simple steps. We will offer guidance on everything from the title of the paper to the entire manuscript in the below section.

Choosing the right journal for your manuscript

To select the right journal for your manuscript, check out the following details.

• Check Google Scholar using keywords that apply to your Manuscript. 
• Examine the references you have cited.
• Watch out for calls for papers (Special issue from journal)
• Once you choose a journal, study the instructions to the authors and examine a recent issue of the journal.  It is important to follow guidelines from the journal.
• ” [Reviewers] are already forming a viewpoint within the first couple of pages … Grammar, referencing, sentence structure and probably most important of all, following the guidelines for submission, do matter and can make the difference between R&R [revise and re-submit]and an outright rejection.” -Peter Galvin, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Management & Organization.

What are the instructions the journal cares about?

Instructions to authors: examples

• Label the panels. Do not put a box around the panel label, and do not follow the label with a period. Use capital letters to label the panels. 
• For probability used in paper, use lowercase italic p with zero before decimal point :p<0.05
• Figure captions: Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the figure number, also in bold type. No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption.

Number of words for contributions of different types

The number of words should be limited for each article category. Check this condition based on your target journal. Following is an example of different article categories.

Number of words for contributions of different types

Article Category	Word limit including references but excluding figures, tables, and captions	Max. no. of references	Max. no. of figures	Max. no. of tables
Research article	6000	60	6	4
Perspective	6000	60	6	4
Review	9000	100	8	4
Comment	1000	10	1	1

Craft the title carefully and format it for your target journal

• Check the title structure in the target journal: phrase, complete sentence, or question.
• Most people start reading the title whether it is relevant to them.
• Prefer informative titles to catchy but uninformative titles.
• Start with an important term; avoid such terms as study, investigation, and experiment.
• Match average length in target journal. (10 ± 3 words?)¹
• Avoid jargon if possible; papers with jargon-free titles are cited more.²
• Check capitalization (sentence case, title case, all caps), alignment(centred, left-aligned, or right-aligned),and weight(bold or normal).

Notice capitalization, alignment, and typography

Pay attention to journals and how it treats its title and format them accordingly. Below are some of the examples recommended by journals. Some are right/left/center aligned, with sentence case, bold, and capitalization.

Examples: 

• A comprehensive review of aluminum matrix composite reinforcement and fabrication methodologies – Plain(not bold, sentence case, left aligned)
• Microbiological strategies for enhancing biological nitrogen fixation in nonlegumes –  As above, but bold
• QRAT Polynomially Simulates Merge Resolution -Bold, title case, complete sentence
• MOLLUSCAN LIVE-DEAD FIDELITY OF A STORM-DOMINATED SHALLOW-MARINE SETTING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS -Capitals only, left aligned
• Robust Higher Order Repetitive Controller for Disturbance Uncertainty Rejection and Multiplicative – Italics, left aligned
• SCIENTOMETRIC ASSESSMENT OF INDIA’S PUBLICATIONS DURING 2000-19 -Capitals only, centered
• Alleviation of soil salinization and the management of saline soils, climate change, and soil interactions –  Normal capitalization, right-aligned
• Scientometric Analysis of Research Publications of National Institutes of Technology –  Title-case capitalization, right-aligned

Put your best foot forward while submitting a paper to the journal for the preliminary round

• Cover letter

•  Should address to a named individual(avoid ‘Dear Editor’)
•   Link to recent papers published in the journal
•   Include the knowledge gap or problem and how you filled or solved it
•  Avoid pasting abstract in the cover letter
•  Find any undertaking(s) required
•  Provide reasons for choosing that particular journal

• Try to take the greatest care Title and abstract, first paragraphs of the Introduction and Discussion by taking extra care with spelling, grammar, punctuation

Example of cover letter

Dear Dr. Lastname,

May I request you to consider the attached manuscript, titled”…”, for possible publication in Name of the Journal. The work reported in the manuscript supplements and extends two studies, namely Author et al.,2018, vol .: pages and Author et al.,2019, vol .: pages published recently in Name of the Journal. By publishing the study in Name of the Journal, we hope to leverage the journal’s reputation and the support of all those committed to/interested in/conducting studies on…

Main framework of the Paper -The IMRAD structure

• Introduction: the reason for doing work, nature of hypothesis, essential background.
• Materials and methods: sufficient details of techniques to enable the work to be repeated.
• Results: draw attention to important details in tables and figures.
• Discussion: significance of results in relation to reasons for doing the work, and place them in the context of other work.

Write an account of your research in 20-30 paragraphs

•  Introduction: 1 page, maximum 400 words in 2-4 paragraphs
•  Methods: 2-3 pages, about 750 words in 6-8 paragraphs
• Results:2-3 pages(text, figures, tables),about 1000 words in 4-8 paragraphs
• Discussion:3-4 pages, 1000-1500 words,10 paragraphs
• Source:  Araújo C G. 2014. Detailing the writing of scientific manuscripts. Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia 102(2):e21-e23

How to write the Introduction?

• Answer the question W H Y you selected this topic.
• State the problem.
• Explain why the problem is important.
• Review work done so far to solve it.
• Introduce the study by pointing out what is different about it
• compared to past research
• Start with a broad topic and make it progressively narrower.
• End with a statement of specific objectives.

Example

Consider the paper titled“ Long-Chain Chlorinated Paraffins Have Reached the Arctic”. Let’s take a few chunks from this paper. It started with a broader area and narrowed down.

Long-range transport (LRT) can make an organic chemical with spatially limited emissions a global pollutant. Carried winds and flowing water, pollutants can reach remote areas away from anthropogenic sources. If such pollutants are also bioaccumulative and pose a risk to and wildlife toxic and, they residents can attain in remote high body burdens areas and pose a risk to wildlife and residents in remote areas.

In 2017, short-chain chlorinated paraffin (SCCPs) were nominated for the Stockholm Convention. CPs have been identified as an emerging pollutant concern in the Arctic on the basis of in silico screening of chemical inventories. Both SCCPs and MCCPs have been observed in remote environments of the Three Poles, i.e. the Arctic,”

Model predictions of long-range atmospheric transport indicate that SCCPs belong accumulate to the persistent organic chemicals that are most likely to be in the Arctic. We thus hypothesize that LCCPs may also be present in the Arctic.

To test the hypothesis, over 600 CP homologues were analyzed in marine wildlife samples collected from Greenland and Iceland. For two of the species studied, harbor porpoise and killer whale, samples collected in Swedish waters were analyzed for comparison. Greenland sharks collected about 20 years ago were analyzed to assess retrospective exposure. In addition, samples from a pregnant minke whale and a fetus it was carrying were analyzed to provide insight into the prenatal accumulation of CPs in mammals for the first time.

Introduction: earlier literature

• Make a small review as a part of the introduction.

Consider the paper titled “Thermodynamic and Physical Property Estimation of Compounds Derived from the Fast Pyrolysis of Lignocellulosic Materials”. Let’s take a few chunks of this paper.

One of the most promising platforms for the production of renewable fuels and chemicals is based on the production of bio-oil via fast pyrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass followed by its refining and/or upgrading. Pyrolysis bio-oil obtained from …. The different functional groups present in bio-oil provide, in principle, numerous possibilities for applications. At the same time, the presence of these functionalities also poses several difficulties because, for example, each different functional group might follow its own reactive behavior during the upgrading treatments.

A search of the relevant literature yielded some studies, in which oil has a been surrogate composition for bio-oil or a fraction of bio-oil has been proposed. Ille et al used experimental…Besides these surrogates for bio-oil, the research work developed by the group of Ranzi in the field of the detailed kinetic modeling of fast pyrolysis of biomass to produce bio-oil is worth mentioning. They describe raw biomass as a…..

In this context, the main objectives of this work are(1)…….

The bolded words in the above paragraphs show important points to be noted. How the introduction is started in a wider area and narrowed down to your research area and finally ended up with the main objectives of the work.

How to write the Method section ?

The methodology section in the research paper should,

• Answer the question H O W.
• Include enough detail for others to repeat the experiment.
• Give sources of material, make and model of equipment, quantities, duration, season, etc.
• Mention the statistical tests you used.
• Modified a standard method? Describe only modifications(but cite the original source).
• Mention any material received gratis.
• Mention sampling method, sample size, no. of replications, cohort, etc.
• Describe the control group.
• Use the past tense.

Specific Details in the Methods section

Examples:

• The elemental analysis of the bio-oil was experimentally determined in a Leco CHN268 series elemental analyzer(Leco Corporation, Saint Joseph, Michigan, USA).
•  The X-ray CT-Scanning was made at Hospital Universitário, Universidade de São Paulo (São Paulo, Brazil), using a Philips Brilliance 64 (Philips, Eindhoven)medical tomograph. The voxel size of the data is 0.976 mm, with an overlap of 0.33 mm. The resulting tomographic slices were processed and segmented using AVIZO 9.2.
• Standing height was measured using a stadiometer to the nearest millimeter. The child was made to stand up straight against the backboard with both feet flat on the platform. Heels were kept together with toes approximately 600 apart. To ensure the accuracy of measurements, the occiput, the shoulder blades, the buttocks, and the heels were kept in contact with the backboard, while the head was placed in the Frankfort Plane.

How to write the Results section?

The result section should 

• Answer the question W H A T.
• State only the results; comments and explanations in the Discussion section.
• Use tables and charts as appropriate but do not duplicate information.
• Use charts to emphasize patterns; use tables to give exact values and show multiple variables.
• If the results are not statistically significant, do not discuss them.
• Follow standards in expressing units. 
• Highlight important results but avoid paraphrasing all the data from a table.
• Use the past tense.

How to write the discussion section?

• Answer the question SO WHAT.
• Explain what the results mean and how they are important.
• Avoid making a discussion into an inventory: A said this; B said that; C reported this and merely adding whether those results matched yours or contradicted them: use such connectives as ‘whereas’, ‘although’, and ‘however’.
• Use such phrases as ‘can be attributed to’, ‘a possible explanation is’, and ‘the most likely reason was’.
• Use a mix of tenses: present tense for generally valid results or principles; past for specific results; future for possibilities.

Example:

Consider the paper titled “A comparative study of the land required for food and cooking fuel in rural India”

The 1000 m² for food calculated in this study is significantly(about 40%)lower than other studies for this region. The explanation for this can be found in the very low food consumption (1918 kcal/cap/day)that was found in the survey. Other studies used daily food consumption values of 2500 kcal per capita. Further, in such studies, the consumption of animal products was far higher than in the survey used here. So, our value of 1000 m² can be considered as the minimum area needed to feed one person (food at the starvation level).
Experts have developed various models of water efficiency and environmental benefits. Yet these models are little used for irrigation scheduling; at most, they help retrospectively to evaluate seasonal approaches(FAO,2012)…. Farmers, there has no formal responsibility to demonstrate efficient water use(unlike in the UK; Knox et al.,2012). Consequently, farmers pay higher water prices yet do not obtain the full potential benefits through water-efficient practices. We investigated the reasons for the difference by exploring the perspectives of water users organizations (WUOS)and relevant agencies, especially through multi-stakeholder workshops.