@Ravindra - correct. At the end of the day, originality and/or a new spin on an idea will always be important. You could conduct the 'perfect' study and report it very well but, if the topic has been well covered already and it is 'looking a little tired' - it is not going to help. As a reviewer for many international journals, I've rejected many well constructed and structured manuscripts on that basis alone. Mind you - I always clearly identify that that is the case. I will give positive feedback - bar the problem of originality. For me, a major part of conducting my own research is that I've thoroughly investigated what has already occurred before - so that I know I have at least 'something' new to report. That is the product that I am trying to sell.

It can, to some extent, improve the chance to get such research published (especially if the paper is not sent to a top journal), but, certainly, writing it badly can ruin the chance of getting published even if data, methods etc are good. A journal can easily reject the paper if it contains lots of typos, if it is not clearly explained in the introduction why this topic is important and how this paper contributes toward filling the research gap or if the theory part does not fit the empirical part...

Yes it is helpful. Presentation is a very important aspect. But scientific content is always the priority. If a well conducted work is not presented well, it is very prone to rejection or subsequent revisions.

Actually a poorly planned/conducted research work stands apart from a well designed and conducted one, no matter how well it is written.. the CONSORT statement (http://www.consort-statement.org/consort-statement/) provides a checklist to assess the transparency of reporting and has 25 items looking at the title and abstract, introduction, methods, result and discussion that allows us to see how rigorous the design and conduct of the trial was...

similary we have the STROBE statement for observational studies, STRAAD for diagnostic studies and PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses that allow us to look deeper than the style of writing..

regards, raza

http://www.consort-statement.org/index.aspx?o=2965

I think a well-written paper (or thesis) has much more impact than a standard style paper, whether we like it or not.

We now receive ads arguing nice style is the key to publication. "We help you get published by proof-reading your papers, making sure good style and perfect English give you equal chances. Errors prevent reviewers from concentrating on content" and so on. Of course, it is not sufficient to get proof-read (I hope), but still, the success ratio of native English scientists is much higher than the non natives writers. Some conference boards offer advice on academic writing for non-natives, which is great; but this is fairly insufficient.

@Rafael - I suppose that it also 'boils down to' - 'how poor is the research'? A'reasonable' study, written well, in a lower quality journal 'stands quite a good chance' - because the other submissions (and probably the quality of the reviewers) will be similar.

The fact is though, that those who have conducted very poor research' (and know that this is the case), are likely to 'dress it up' so that it looks much better than it is I.e. manipulating the data, over-stressing the impact etc. Unfortunately, sometimes these studies get through the 'net' - but I would like to think that eventually these 'researchers' are found out and exposed.

Any conclusion drawn from a research, may be fruitful or futile.But definitely there is the depiction of a fact. Then how its quality can be assessed ? I think research is a research without good or bad quality.But the paper presented/ written/ published can be of a good or bad quality.

I guess there is a difference in what everyone means by 'fixing' poor research.. if we mean that it gets published, then unfortunately yes.. but if we mean fixing the flaws in the process the research was conducted, then the problem cannot be fixed...

It would be quite helpful if we make the distinction between research and facts... research is the process through which we gain knowledge or understanding of the facts, write-up is the process of reporting this knowledge or understanding... and both can be flawed...

so suppose i start out by doing a trial of a drug on a certain disease but selectively use it on patients who have milder form of the disease and compare the results to patients with severe disease.. the milder disease will have better outcome even if the drug doesn't work but i can attribute the better outcome to the drug.. if i do a good job with the write-up, it will most likely get published somewhere, but it will not 'fix' the fact that the drug doesn't work as well as i say it does..

the question here is, if the research is flawed, can you make up for it by a good write-up... and i think no matter how well we say it, an incorrect statement will not become correct..

regards, raza

@Ravindra - correct. At the end of the day, originality and/or a new spin on an idea will always be important. You could conduct the 'perfect' study and report it very well but, if the topic has been well covered already and it is 'looking a little tired' - it is not going to help. As a reviewer for many international journals, I've rejected many well constructed and structured manuscripts on that basis alone. Mind you - I always clearly identify that that is the case. I will give positive feedback - bar the problem of originality. For me, a major part of conducting my own research is that I've thoroughly investigated what has already occurred before - so that I know I have at least 'something' new to report. That is the product that I am trying to sell.

Thank you for these inputs - well, if the research is not designed well, no matter what good writing you will do, it will not manage to make this work successful.

We need to be aware that as academics we need to be the innovative people who would bring new and solid knowledge to the world... but, if we do not design our research well - we might not have another Albert Einstein for the 21st century! -:)

Regards

Paper reviewers, in their majority, are scientific and objective. Therefore, if helpful they may reject a research and point out why it is not appropriate. However, they also accept and they point out the merits of the paper.

Not a poor research but a ordinary research can

Problem formulation and solution techniques is more important

I have to say as it is known that regarding paper publishing " Have something to say". Thus, there are thousands of journals and perhaps hunderds of thousands of papers published every year. It is a sad fact that the majority of papers are not cited and it is likely that many are not read by more than a handful of people. This then begs the question as to when is something worth publishing? The point is "have something to say"! Only when you have a clear message should you begin to think about the publication process.

The first aim of scientific writting is to be understood, it is not to produce the greatest number of papers from the minimal amount of data using the maximum number of words. Authors write to express and not to impress.

Food for thought with possibly controversal discussion option: The number of typos and wrongly put commas in a scientific text strongly correlates with its quality.

Think about it like this: If a referee gets crazy about reading a paper due to too many mistakes and the style of writing (s)he gets a negative feeling and possibly might be prejudiced. Then, if the next paper is free of errors and has some nice writing style this referee might subconsciously applaud for it and get that paper accepted even if the content is not that good. Think about it how you (would) behave as a reviewer.

Good one Stefan. Lucky who comes next. However, still one would practice fairness in dealing with each case individually. One must not read/review the next paper after a bad experience.

Yes. Sometimes it happens. The other side is very bad. Some good research works are rejected by the publishers. Edward Jenner who is credited as the discoverer/ inventor of vaccination as a technique to prevent small pox submitted a paper to the Royal Society in 1797 describing his experiment, but his paper was rejected. How is it? Here, I would like to mention the following quote:

In science credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not the man to whom the idea first occurs —Francis Galton

Yes - it can be a bit of a 'lottery' out there. Sometimes good studies will slip through the net - and sometimes the wrong people get credited. However, I would like to think that those cases are the exceptions - and not the rule.

Only if research work and achievements / outcomes are good then only a good writer can tune it to best and make accepted in an IF journal, but a good writer can well make quality reviews be published in high IF journals - where his writing and knowledge counts much. Means to say that quality writing skills also have own significance and are unmatchable. There is also difference in few instances between a good researcher and a good writer.

A good research work can only be finely tuned for making it more presentable to the scientific community. But if the research work is full of errors or entirely absurd without any definite outcome it can not be hidden.

Poor research cannot be improved . Writing is important from a standpoint of accuracy and clarity, but there has to be valid data to back it up .