Lessons learned from writing scientific articles Do's and don‘ts

Stefan Negru, Constantin Catalin Dragan Faculty of Computer Science, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi

How to get yourself rejected successfully

• Disregard for fluency in presenting your idea • Poor English or vocabulary; • Cite from Wikipedia - the “best” reference available; • Don't respect the required article format - write a plain txt file; • Send your paper to many journals maybe one of them will

accept it - also a great way to get banned; • Send the same paper for consecutive years without changing

anything - another great way to get banned; • Misconduct, Fabricate, Falsify, Plagiarize – IT ALWAYS WORKS!

What to do when rejected/negative review

• Get depressed and cry (me a river) - it helps if you go back and write a better paper;

• Review the reviews - it most certainly is your fault if a misunderstanding occurred;

• Modify and select a more suitable journal.

How NOT to write a paper successfully

• Don't read enough before starting your paper • Follow high-school essay/report guidelines - abstract,

introduction, content, conclusion, bibliography; • Write references/ bibliography and don't cite them in your

paper • Don't follow up on your idea

Now it’s time to get serious …

Choose your time frame carefully

Reading

• start with one article • read similar work • don't forget to stop reading • outline your idea

Writing

• develop your idea (research and start working on your idea) - preliminary title • outline your findings • related work • introduction, conclusion, title, abstract (in this order)

Choosing

• compile a list of possible journals ( hint: look at the references of your paper, search for journals using keywords of your paper)

• selection criteria: relevance to your idea, impact factor, time of acceptance/rejection • format your paper

What to do next ?

modify publish rejection acceptance

…Now go out and publish