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Scientific Writing and Publishing

Anna Ercoli Schnitzer, AMLSUM Health Sciences Libraries

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Basic Steps

1) Find a novel theory, idea, case, experiment, procedure, etc.

2) Retrieve relevant online information from library resources

3) Integrate your own ideas, methods, and results with citations found in the literature

4) Prepare the results for publication according to appropriate Instructions to Authors

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Database Resources PubMed, Embase, Dynamed,

Scopus, Web of Science, and other University of Michigan online database resources. See website:

www.lib.umich.edu/hsl

Scientific Writing and Publishing Guide prepared by Health Sciences Libraries

Guide to Scientific Writing & Publishing

http://guides.lib.umich.edu/content.php?pid=38726&sid=284467 Or: http://tinyurl.com/nts8gn

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Scientific Writing Research Guide--HSL

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Pubmed @UM

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EMBASE

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DynaMed

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Scopus

Very comprehensive, broad-based

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Web of Science

Can see who is quoting whom

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Journal Citation Reports (JCR)

Can see which journals are highly regarded

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Google Scholar

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Structuring Your Paper: Abstract: (short summary) Introduction (state importance of

key ideas) Materials/Methods (what and how) Results (your conclusions) Discussion (literature review,

impact of paper and going forward) References/Acknowledgements

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Language and Style

Use the active voice (“We can see that” rather than “It can be seen that…”)

Use simple, clear language (e.g.,“yearly”, not “on an annual basis”)

Arrange pages to be visually attractive with sections, subsections, bullets, italics--as necessary

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Summary

Identify your key idea(s) clearly Make your contributions explicit

using examples as appropriate Make use of appropriate style

resources as necessary and follow publisher’s instructions to authors

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Giving Credit to Others

Acknowledge people who have helped you

Be generous to the competition Document weaknesses

(‘limitations”) in your approach Ask others to read and criticize Treat each criticism as a gift