Good practice in referencing
- Cite only those references that you have consulted yourself.
- Always cite the original source.
- Include at least a couple of most recent references.
- Ensure a good chronological spread of references.
- Limit self-citations.
- Include at least a few references to papers published in the target journal.
Self-plagiarism and text recycling
- Cite your paper instead of recycling your earlier text.
- If earlier methods are only slightly modified,cite and describe only the modifications.
- If you do not have the copyright, text recycling can violate Copyright.
- See Text Recycling Research Project website: <https://textrecycling.org/>:
How to avoid plagiarism?
- Avoid’copy and paste’.
- Enclose text in quotation marks.
- Provide correct citation and reference.
- Paraphrase:borrow ideas,not words.
- Cite only what you have read first-hand.
- Use website Ludwig Guru for paraphrasing your paragraphs ( https://ludwig.guru/)
Beware of’robotic ‘paraphrasing, 1
‘Tortured phrases’ give away fabricated research papers
Analysis reveals that strange turns of phrases may indicate foul play in science. In April 2021, a series of strange phrases in journal articles piqued the interest of a group of computer scientists.The researchers could not understand why researchers would use the terms ‘counterfeit consciousness”,”profound neural organization’ and ‘colossal information’ in place of the more widely recognized terms ‘artificial intelligence ‘,’ deep neural network’ and ‘big data”.
Further investigation revealed that these strange terms- which they dub”tortured phrases”-are probably the result of automated translation or software that attempts to disguise plagiarism. And they seem to be rife in computer-science papers.
Source: Else H. 2021. Nature 596:328-329.<https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-021-02134-0/d41586-021-02134-0.pdf>
Table: Beware of ‘robotic’ paraphrasing
| Scientific terms | Tortured phrases |
| Big data | Colossal information |
| Artificial Intelligence | Counterfeit consciousness |
| Deep neural network | Profound neural organization |
| Remaining energy | Leftover vitality |
| Cloud computing | Haze figuring |
| Signal to noise | Flag to commotion |
| Random value | Irregular esteem |
How to spot predatory journals?
- Solicit submissions by email; message in poor English.
- Display ISSN prominently;also mention Google Scholar, Index Copernicus,etc.
- Charge upfront fee; promise fast publication.
- Skip review or only cursory peer review.
- Have large international editorial boards.
- Seldom show street address.
- Claim false impact factors.
ISSN has nothing to do with quality(or’standard’)
What is an ISSN?
An ISSN is an 8-digit code used to identify newspapers, journals, magazines, and periodicals of all kinds and on all media-print and electronic.
What is its role?
- The ISSN role is to identify a publication.
- It is a digital code without any intrinsic meaning:
- It does not include any information about the origin or contents of the publication,
- It does not guarantee the quality or validity of the contents.
Searching Web of Science Master Journal list
- Web of Science is a company that will assign Impact factors to journals.
- Go to this website https://mjl.clarivate.com/home & find the impact factor for the journal.
- Journal Impact Factor (JIF) tells you how often papers published in a journal are cited, or referred to.
- For a given year(say,2020), the JIF is the number of times articles published in that journal are cited during the past two years(2018 and 2019) divided by the total number of citable items published in the journal in the past two years.
- JIFS is published by Clarivate Analytics and calculated every year. It is given to three decimal places.
- JIFs for 2021:More than 20,000 journals from 113 countries across five continents and 254 research categories in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.
Journal impact factor: Quality criteria & impact criteria for Journals
Quality Criteria: ISSN, Journal title, Journal publisher, URL (Online journals), Content access, Presence of peer review policy, contact details, scholarly content, Article titles and Article abstracts in English, Bibliographic information in Roman Script, Clarity of language, Timeliness and/or Publication Volume, Website Functionality/Journal format, Presence of Ethic Statements, Editorial Affiliation details, Author Affiliation details, Editorila Board Composition, Validity of Statements, Peer Review, Content Relevance, Grant Support Details, Adherence to Community Standards, Author Distribution, Appropriate Citations to the Literature.
Impact Criteria: Comparative Citation Analysis, Author Citation Analysis, EBM Citation Analysis, Content Significance
Top leading journals and at end of the list
Utrecht University to abandon journal metrics
- “By early 2022,every department at Utrecht University in the Netherlands will judge its scholars by other standards, including their commitment to teamwork and their efforts to promote open science.”
- “Impact factors don’t really reflect the quality of an individual researcher or academic … We have a strong belief that something has to change,and abandoning the impact factor is one of those changes.”
Alternatives to impact factor
Eigen factor
- It can be alternative to Impact factor and it can used to access journal status.
- The Eigenfactor® Project is an academic research project co-founded in January 2007 by Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West and sponsored by the West Lab at the Information School and the Bergstrom Lab in the Department of Biology at the University of Washington.
- Eigenfactor scores are scaled so that the Eigenfactor scores of all journals listed in Thomson’s Journal Citation Reports(JCR)sum to 100. Thus if a journal has an Eigenfactor score of 1.0,it has 1%of the total influence of all indexed publications.
SCImago Journal Rank
- Journal Impact Factor is based on Web of Science database
- SCImago Journal Rank is based on Scopus database
- Citation data from over 34,100 titles from more than 5000 international publishers
- Gives weighting to the citing journal
H-index:impact of an individual scientist
- Proposed by J.E. Hirsch in 2005
- An h-index of 10 means that among all publications by one author, 10 of these publications have received at least 10 citations each.
- “Typical values for academic physicians in 14 medical specialties … on average,assistant professors have an h-index of 2-5, associate professors 6-10,and full professors 12-24 … .If you hope to win the Nobel Prize,your h-index should be at least 35 and preferably closer to 70.
Spread the word
After publishing your work in journal, do the following to increase your profile.
- Join ResearchGate.
- Post the news of your article on Linked-In and Linked-In groups.
- Post the news on Facebook and relevant Facebook groups.
- Tweet about your article.
- Send copies to at least a few authors cited in your paper.
Key takeaways
- Focus on becoming a better researcher and then on publishing.
- Enjoy your work as a researcher;discuss it with colleagues;join a professional society;participate in discussion groups, conferences,etc .; visit other institutes, laboratories,field sites,etc.
- Always have several manuscripts in the pipeline.
- Select the journal wisely:weight multidisciplinary against specialist journals.
- Read widely to become a more competent writer.
- Pay attention to details of scientific style and conventions.
- Persevere:if one journal turns you down,try another.