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Scientific Publication
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Copyright © 2002 -- 2004 Herbert J. Bernstein. All rights reserved.
Research and development is of little value unless the results are
preserved and, preferably, shared with others. Scientific publication
has much in common with other styles of publication, but the demands
of technical jargon and the need to give appropriate credit for
the work of others impose additional requirements.
Every discipline has its own conventions, and even within a discipline
each journal will have its own style, reflected in a guide to authors.
However, there are many elements of style in scientific publication which
are common or similar across all or most disciplines:
- Style
- Try for clarity and precision
- Try for an 8th grade reading level
short sentences, simple words
- Provide structure
- Tell 'em what you are going to tell 'em
- Tell 'em
- Tell 'em what you told 'em
- Applies on all scales: paragraphs, sections, the entire paper
- Don't dazzle -- communicate
- Define terms before you use them or provide a glossary or both
- Avoid the passive voice and the royal we
- Structure of a Paper
- Abstract (self-contained for publication apart from the paper)
- Front matter
- Title
- Author(s)
- Affiliation(s) (may be footnoted or trail the body)
- Support credits (may be footnoted or trail the body)
- Summary or Abstract
- Keywords (not always used, may be footnoted or trail the body)
- (In books or very large articles) Table of contents
- Body
- Carefully cites material from other sources
- Footnotes (use sparingly)
- In-line bracketed citations
- Sections after the introduction may be grouped by subtopics
- Introduction (with citations)
- Notation (sometimes handled by glossary in back matter)
- Discussion (with citations)
- Examples (if appropriate, may be in appendices)
- Results (if appropriate)
- Conjectures and proposals
- Summary and conclusions
- Back matter
- Acknowledgments
- Appendices
- References or Bibiography
- (In books or very large articles) Index
- Many forms of publication
Updated 14 October 2004.
yaya@dowling.edu