Dear Prof.

Its really very important to contribute and publish the research work in a Scientific Journal for the welfare of the profession and to the future evidences. But there are many scientists who really contribute their best to do some innovative research, but fail to publish due to lack of proper knowledge on the Peer-review online process and lack of selection of International Journals. But the problems of publishing mostly based on the Journals acceptance of research work and Peer review processing time. Practically, many people are not aware of Good Journals and knowledge on Impact factors of the Journals, Even some Journals will make some false statement of Indexing process.

I had practically observed from my colleagues and my professors who really done a good work but many of their paper rejected after waiting for a peer review process of 2-3 years. Sometimes, the communication and response between the editors and authors may be too passive and authors may not be fully active to challenge once if their article was rejected. Sometimes the Comments from the peer reviewers may be so pathetic addressing the professors manuscript as a student notes.

But still I feel that Contribution to publish the scientific paper is important than thinking of all these hurdles. I feel that GOOGLE Index is the most accessible to plenty of researchers and low economy countries. I feel that knowledge should be spread to all the corners of the knowledge and professional education. But paying to access and paying for publication, thought its a good article, is what it hurts to the poor economic country scientists. Paying 1000$ may be easy for the US Scientists.. But for the Low economic countries like India, Pakistan and many parts of Africa etc.. where is too expensive to pay to access and publish the papers in reputed journals is a challenge than the scientific work they do.

But still I wish to hear some fruitful comments and suggestions from the experts who really had good experience from the past decades.

Dear Roman, grate links. I wish to add few more links useful for persons working in the field of biomedical or biosciences

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/

http://www.plos.org/

http://www.biomedcentral.com/

http://scholar.google.co.in/

These sites allow to access publications, in addition one may request authors to send reprint of their authors. Google scholar profile site allow users to read detail about a scientist from his/her google scholar profiles, it is searchable see example scholar from Chandigarh

http://scholar.google.co.in/citations?hl=en&view_op=search_authors&mauthors=Chandigarh

Fortunately, there are a lot of open access journals. In this site

http://www.doaj.org/

you can find most of them.

In the web site of each journal there are instruccions for authors

Just to add this link to Open Access journals from Africa http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajol/browse/alpha?letter=oa

@ Seema, I fully agree with your view. Though concept of open access is grate but publishing charges are too high difficult to afford. In simple word existing system is discouraging researchers to publish their findings. Business houses (publishers) are interested in money, no interest in welfare of researchers. Initially I thought that Biomedcentral, PLOS etc have come us to help researcher by introducing concept of open access, now I realize they are not different.

Interesting and very relevant topic. Sorry to realise (if this is the case) prejudiced reviews of third world authors - and inappropriate basis for rejection.

Moreover, I guess there is some (but not in all cases) a correlation between high ranked journals, actual impact and prices. Waiving the pub fees for indigent scientists sounds ideal - but how is this managed?

Following instruction to authors and choosing a journal already publishing similar studies within your field of science and/or the methodologies has for me been succesful, however with just a few papers it may be inadequate for me to make generalizations. Be self-critical and realistic if you want a faster publication process - that has been helpful to me.

We submit a manuscript to a journal, reviewers raised some scientific point. We incorporate their suggestions in revised manuscript. Revised manuscript again reviewed by reviewers and they accept revised manuscript. Editor write that manuscript is acceptable but manuscript should be checked by native English speaker). We tried our best and submit manuscript after making all English related corrections. Editor reject our paper solely based on English problem, nothing to do with science. This is one of the worst experience I have in my scientific where manuscript is solely rejected based on English writing. This is common that on most of our manuscript we get one comment about quality of English. We are not only one most of Indian scientists are facing this problem.

I offer training for scientific research, writing and Publishing. I have training modules ranging from 2 days to one week. There is a chance for indians to attend my training program which will be held at Anjuman Institiute of Technology and Management, Bhatkal, Karnataka, on December 29th and 30th 2012. For more details please visit www.aitmb.ac.in or email me: [email protected]

@Mujeebu , Thanks for information. It is nice you are conducting course on scientific writing. May I know what is your experience when you send your papers to high IF or reputed international journals .

Good discussion. The major problem is truly business aspect tailing scientific publications at high cost to authors/organisation even-when, journals are making lot of money from ads. A greatly respected nature journal is expanding business like a giant business house. Scientific societies may publish cheaper but impact factors - a major business-cum-evaluation factor - is coming in the way of societies. It is felt, one day, an organization like Google shall come to rescue making high-impact journals a free access with profits from purely ads of other business houses - thus encouraging scientists to publish without any charges to be pre- or post-paid and also provide free editing services to non-english speaking countries.

Dear Rakesh, its good idea if some organization like google publish open access journals, no publishing charges. Research gate may also initiate open access journals for scientific welfare.

Thanks Dr Raghava, Researchgate can make it happen with strong backing of 2 million researchers on its rolls.

Dear Dr. Raghava, Thank you for your response. You may please visit my institutional website for the details of my program including my profile. From your reputed profile, I believe that you are qualified enough in scientific writing and publishing. If any candidate is interetsted in getting benefit out of my program, I request him/her to attend the event personally. I also cordially welcome and highly appreciate any voluntary offer from experts like you to join my team as trainers.

Best regards

To all.

Yes Really a problem to diffuse scientific data, not judged on form, on country appartenance ... and other non scientific critera (we have an expression in France, for the banks but being applied by symbolism to other things: "one only lend to rich people"). Also to publish experiement with negative results, because, as already discussed in an anothet topic, it's a major bias for science (if you have made 10 series of experiments with 1 positive and 9 negatives, but only the positive published, the global result is false).

Second point: open access journal are more and more frequent, but as research is most often evaluated on IF of journal where article are published, only few obtain the Reuters classification of IF: it's a second bias, because when you send a paper, the first thing that do the editor is to look at your own publications and your impact factor score, that can be a limitation in the acceptance. If Einstein was living now, he never be allowed to publish his theory. Anal that process can be responsible for a new sort of "falsification" for a journal to increase its IF: the self nomination, and also the request for an author published to quoted papers published in the journalwhere he wants to be published. Now, each years, some journals are excluded of Reuter's classification because of that.

Some high impact factor review (ie BMJ) accept a lower price for publications and "poor researchers" (I am part of them, because with no funding , even living in France), oreven no fees requested : but it's rare and without knowing the criteria for country selection.

Third point: added to looking at your own pblication, also editors look at you lab appartenance (always "one lend only to rich") or your country; as there were some countries where research is good and others with bad research. There is also a sort of "racism" in the scientific community.

So, I think that it's the all system of evaluation that has to be "revewied" (:-); but like for the lobbiing of petrol companies with benzin cars, fighting to conserve the market face to electric cars, it would be the same from the "rich" research scientists.

Friendly

Didier JAMBOU

The problem of English language is very common; I think that an editor should accept a paper if the reviewers express a positive opinion about science. In the case of open-acces journal, especially if you have to pay a high fee, the editor should manage the revision of English proposing and/or suggesting to the authors the modification he/she thinks are necessary.

Another potential problem: some journals sometimes reject a manuscript without appropriate motivations, that is to say without giving the authors the necessary help and support to improve the paper. In other words, the author do not understand why is manuscript has been rejected.

No doubt that concept of impact factor of journals has given a new pep to research publications yet, it is largely becoming a marketing tool in the hand of celebrity journals to behave like 'big fish' in the ocean of knowledge. For this, the only chance for journals financed by scientific societies to survive is visibility via open access internet services.Researchgate has allowed scientists to free upload their research, published wherever, and is thus, service to research - so far so good!

Very interesting discussion. Thanks for bringing the issue.

Here my input: concerned with "hidden science" we just launched UNAIS- Unpublished Articles In Science - www.unais.net - where authors of a rejecetd paper that will be never resubmitted can post it in UNAIS. A real scientific "depository".

Looking forward for comments & inputs.

Recently granting agencies like NIH force, journals to make papers available to public which were published using grant from these agencies. this was a bold step taken by funding agencies. This is important that scientist hard work in form of publication should not be controlled by publication houses. It will be grate if research funding agencies support publication of journals in such this a way that science is fully controlled by researchers rather than by business houses.

@Diana

It is really a god initiative to publish unpublished artcles. Today I came across another journal Cureous at http://www.cureus.com/ . It is open access and no charge from authors for publishing papers. Members are requested if you know more open access journals who have no charge or minimum charge please write on this thread. This will help researchers who can not afford high cost of publishing their papers and wish that their work is accessible free to community after publication.

I think that the attached document together with the links below can help those researchers who are trying to submit some paper.

http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.0040033

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/sep/24/1

That is a very good an informative discussion and many facts came out which is almost a common problem in every third lab in Developing and 3rd world countries. First, it is hard to acquire high class instruments (although for which outsourcing is a popular solution) n acquiring some chemicals vital to the experiments and to the researcher's pocket, sometimes takes its own time!

If the these problems are somehow dealt with, and the group comes up with a noticeable research output it is always a worry "how should I write the article so that it gives a maximum impact on the journals' review committee!" or say "shall I give the entire data (which otherwise was speculated to result in at least two separate papers) to increase the impact and authenticity"

No Researcher can ever deny this fact that impact factor was never a concern in their lives at least at some point of time. In India since last few years we are supposed to address an API (Academic Point Index); the minimum eligible score and even the rules of calculating the points of which for job applicants differ from insti to insti.

Apart from the academic grades, the API includes points for no. of conferences/seminars/symposia and workshops attended throughout career, no. of PhDs students guided and papers and books published, with many other areas too. There are separate points for papers published in high and low impact jounls. Like e.g. (as of my institute it is) above 5 impact point paper will earn you 25 points, between 2-5 impacts 15 points, 1 to 2 10 point and below 1 will award u 5 points.

So what is practised is that the person thinking of a journal with an impact of 4.95 will try for a 5.05. Or he may think can I split the data into two separate papers of 2+ impact factors so that I can get a 30 API???? :o

So, in that case we are intentionally or unintentionally nurturing such a practice for which getting an high API at times becomes more important than the way your research output should be read by the crowd. Its becomes more n more unfortunate when this becomes the only aim!

Although there is another group of researchers who at times happen to be new to that field....who come up with brilliant ideas and with utter hard work accomplish good results, but by virtue of their limited experience fail to click high IF journals, which again are scored by the researchers with same experimental sophistication but more experience in presenting the thought! This is appreciable for the group, as the way reviewers and the fellow researchers will absorb the work, decides the actual contribution of the author(s) to the community. And in case you were wondering what happened to the first group of people with less exposure n expertise in this field of writing and presentation, who failed to click that journal....he finally realized that his starting experimental material should have been retreated or more refined before being carried out further in an order to get accepted. So it will be better for him to start with it again with the reformed startin matrl/ active compounds, spend two more years, and then settle down with a paper of much less impact factor.

Well I cannot decide whether m wrong or entirely right....but this craze and race for premium journals may make all of us forget that PUBLISHING YOUR WORK IS LETTING A LAYMAN KNOW....WHAT YOU GAVE IN RETURN TO HIM AND THE WORLD

AND HOW ANOTHER PERSON CAN PICK UP THE FOOTSTEPS WHERE YOU STOPPED.

In this race unfortunately some people may lag behind, who otherwise could have made some difference

I invite you to publish your quality original medical articles in our new e-journal (Russian Open Medical Journal; http://romj.org). We support open access publication. Publishing in RusOMJ is free of charge now.

RusOMJ abstracted in DOAJ, Russian Science Citation Index, etc.

Thank you all, for this highly important debate. Special thanks @ Raghava and @ Diana... I have also passed through the phases discussed already. I think publication is definitely difficult, time taking and sadly sometimes racist. But with patience we can overcome a lot of them. I know some very good workers but used to write papers with too "unattractive" title and Abstract. Although I understand that spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, syntex error(s) should not hinder a scientific work to get published, but we have to understand that these shortfalls definitely hamper the smooth-reading/ reader's interest of reading. My suggestion is , have patience to correct the ms according to the reviewer's suggestion (if legitimate), and to not get disheartened by rejection. it is not wise to always get stick to the IF of a journal only.

What is "Open Access"? Explained by PhD comics

In yet another story headlining publishing houses, India's top science officials have expressed concern over not being able to afford subscriptions to international science journals, budgeted at Rs 500 crores for the 5 year period covered by the 12th five-year plan (2012-2017).

The issue is concisely captured in the quote in the LiveMint article here : ""I'll try my best to get this (budget for journals) passed, though I doubt whether the Planning Commission will allot Rs.500 crore just for journals," Ravi (Science minister at the time) said last week as part of a longer speech on the 60th anniversary of the National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (Niscair), a CSIR body. Access to academic journals is a basic necessity for professional scientists. Researchers compete to publish their best research in top academic journals and the frequency of articles in top journals is crucial to career progression as well as the general advancement of science."

According to the article, prices have gone up about 5 times since the previous 5 year plan! It's not only Indian officials who are uncomfortable with the rise in prices. Tired of rising prices, Harvard too, had issued a memo earlier this year requesting their faculty to make their work available freely and/or in open access journals.

(On a tangentially related note, there is an interesting piece advocating the abolishment of law reviews here )

But why this sudden rise in prices? Off the top of my head, and (please note, full disclaimer) without looking into the working of the publishing industry and the data etc, I would like to hazard a guess as to what is probably one factor.

Copyrights are a set of incentives to encourage proliferation of knowledge and information. When it comes to academic work, there are several incentives present for research - the primary ones being reputational benefits, requirements for positions and promotions, and scientific curiousity. The incentives for academics to publish this research, accordingly, also primarily stem from these factors.

However, copyright steps in and gives (financial) incentives to "Publishers" instead of academics, to increase publications. (And in doing so, it disregards the incentives that are already present for the academics to publish). And as all businesses go, business sense requires going after more profits. This does not mean that publishing houses do not require capital or revenues to continue operating, of course. I would not even go so far as to call them a 'necessary evil'.. and would simply call them 'necessary'. However, our policy seems to be geared towards the 'middleman', rather than the creators. And without strict regulation, it is but natural that the middleman rises in importance in the whole equation. The sudden rise? Because with the internet and of course the recession, they seem to be losing control of their hold on the market, and are trying to grab back as much as they can, so they can continue as before.

With the rise of the digital world however, much of the capital required to disperse information is no longer required. The printing press is replaced with a computer and an internet connection. However, in order to organise the flood of information, there definitely needs to be some organization and quality control. Will open access journals step up to fit this role? We are yet to see. However, given the rising costs of journals, academic institutions may start seeing it fit to invest more into quality control of open access, than traditional methods. Indeed, UK has already said they are going to fully support open access journals in physics, allowing readers free access to journals for particle physics . There may be some controversy over their particular business model, but it shows a big move towards experimenting with non-traditional methods. I see it quite likely that other countries / institutes will be following suit, or trying their own methods of promoting open access.

I'll leave you with what seems to be a good source for finding open access journals - the Directory of Open Access Journals.

There is another explanation. The paid for or subscription based model is about to collapse like a house of cards. Publishers are gearing up for a move to the Gold Route business model supported by research councils and governments (UK Government) insisting on Open Access to funded research, but being prepared to pay, or at least saying they are prepared to pay, article publishing costs (APCs). In a mature market publishers are exploiting their monopoly position while they can until either Open Access breaks the market open, or by their own actions, publishers price themselves out of it. There may be a greater awareness of copyright on behalf of authors and the organisations they work for to retain copyright as well. My thought is that at a global level, countries, national organisations and professional organisations which invest long term in the Open Access model and are prepared to build quality and integrity into their Open Access journals are better placed to have leverage in the publishing market of the future. My guess is that it takes 3 -5 years to build a credible Open Access publication?

Below post on iMechanica has good information and suggestions on the books and articles on writing good journal papers:

http://imechanica.org/node/1772

I highly recommend them to the researchers who are new to the publishing excercise!

Of course, Matt: "Open Access publication" could be the best. But it's open access for the readers but not free of charges for the writer, and for researchers who have no found only devoted to publication, it can be impossible (ie BMJ Open asks 1200 pounds to publish).

Regards

Didier

Didier, yes of course their are costs. Nothing is free. What I would say is that the choices are limited by a lack of investment in alternative routes to publication. I understand BMJ is expensive but where are the competitors. Without investment in alternatives there will always be limited choice.

Is there any journal publishing papers for free in the fields; solar energy, hydrogen production, physical Chemistry, Renewable energy, or Photochemistry?

It seems that discussion is merged into another (but equally interesting) argument, or not?

There is one other way - assotiation often run their journals. For wood anatomy it may be IAWA Journal, impact factor above 1 - what is not bad in botanical studies. For me impact factor above 5 is very difficult to achieve.

In IAWA my article will be sent to any member of assotiation, and after several moths they will publish it free of charge on line - now they published in full versions 2010 articles,

If you don’t bother about impact factor publish in some new journals and they will accept easily.

Two-days National Level Workshop on "Research, Writing and Publishing" at Anjuman Institute of Technology and Management, Bhatkal- Karnataka, India (on 29-30 Dec 2012). This workshop will address most of the issues discussed here. Interested colleagues please see the attached brochure and register in advance.

Dear Ibrahim Hassan and other colleagues from related area,

We have launched a new international journal entitled "International Journal of Advanced Thermofluid Research" which will publish the papers (accepted after rigorous review) free of cost. The inaugural issue is expected by Jan 2013. We earnestly look forward your valuable contributions. Please visit the website for more details (www.ijatr.org)

ISSN, indexed, RI and IF holders can be better options

of course yes ! All journals are upto the mark as far the research honesty is obeyed.

On the Internet, look at New Concepts in Global Tectonics ( NCGT ). They are not

free, but they are not outrageously priced either, and the articles are free to read.

Despite the above hurdles in the publication process, let us never cease to publish and share new scientific insights for the sake of knowledge growth. Infact one can have complete findings written in a complete article format and not submitted anywhere. Your children will look at that folder of unpublished papers and may be publish them. I personally, also attach them as part of my unpublished information in my CV. It also increases my appetite to read new findings similar to what i have found. interestingly some of the newer findings have made me to write review papers on some topics and have collaborated with experts in the field who got them paid and published in high impact factors journals. remember in every effort you shall make there is a profit, always take it to the end. cheers

Do feel free to submit your papers to either Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science (started in 1978) with four issues per year , Pertanika Journal of Science and Technology (two issues per year) or Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities ( four issues per year). These are peer-reviewed international English language journals indexed by SCOPUS (Elsevier), EBSCO, DOAJ, Agricola, CABI, BIOSIS (Thomson),Google Scholar and ISC (Islamic Science Citation Centre) among others. Our journals have NO PAGE CHARGES and provide OPEN ACCESS to papers published in them through the journal websites. They are published by Univesriti Putra Malaysia Press of Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia and are available both as hard copies and in the digital format through the Pertanika website at www.pertanika.upm.edu.my or by clicking at the Pertanika link on the Uniersiti Putra Malayisa website: www.upm.edu.my. Information on how to submit your paper to Pertanika journals can also be obtained from the above mentioned journal website. I am Editor-in-Chief of the Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science which accepts papers in the biological and agricultural sciences. However, for more information about all three Pertanika journals do contact the Executive Editor at: [email protected]. We look forward to receiving your paper submissions.

@Tam, May I know impact factor of these journals.

We do not have IF from ISI yet for our journals

@Tan

This raised another question why free journals are not popular among researchers (poor IF). Researcher wish to publish his/her paper in popular journal (high IF) with minimum charges or free.

The best journals to publish in are those without page charges and yet have IF. In the field of genetics I can think of a few examples like the century old Journal of Genetics, Biochemical Genetics, Genetics, Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics, and Animal Genetics.

@TAN

I agree with you but still IF of above journals are low, we consider IF more than IF 3.0 of journal as average.

Actually, the IF values of highly regarded journals depend upon the field of study being considered. In agriculture for example, the journal Animal Genetics with IF of 2.403 is a highly rated journal as its "ISI Journal Citation Reports © Ranking for 2011 is 3/55 (Agriculture Dairy & Animal Science) and 90/158 (Genetics & Heredity)" . Hence, no one average IF value can be applied across the board for classifying journals into the various tiers.

I agree with you, IF is filed specific. In that case it is good news in agriculture we have journals which are open access and not charging any publication charges from authors. I wish same model should be their in other fields also.

Also agree with you,Colleagues. And to ponderate that in France, we also consider for a position request (professor), the rate of the journal classment among the discipline (in the third upper part of the classification ie).

Regards

Didier

This is a very good discussion. But recently another problem that we are facing with publishing is the time taken by the journals to review. Some of the free journals take more than 4 months to review and sometimes more like that of Biomed and that of Elsevier publishing group, and if rejected, eventually you get nothing as a comment to improve your journal. and if revised then it takes another 3-4 months to correct the revised form for acceptance, thereby increasing the time period for publication to almost more than 6-7 months. And if that paper is rejected from 1 or 2 journal like that of Biomed then it will take definitely more than a year for it to get published. So after one year where does the novelty of the scientific facts present in the article stand in?

Only paid articles sometimes provide a rapid peer review, but the time taken for for review still stands a major concern in field of publishing articles.

Each country should have its registered research journals counted for within country, continent and global impact by its own approved body rather than depending on Thomsons Reuter,ISI or other current organizations. This shall give a fair account of impact locally and internationally. Also, it shall add to lists of journals being used for assessing knowledge impact in local use and external interest which can be collated for further implications. Indian Journals.com can take the lead as it has a huge data base. This shall also save dying journals due to negative influence of current celebrated impact publishing houses. Live and let live shall save all knowledge being created of which impact can be realized some times later - like theory of relativity vs discovery of photoelectric effect published by the all-time great scientist Albert Einstein.

There are several literature related to this in google. http://nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

I would like to add that, when rejected by high IF journals, they give you no reasons for rejection or no suggestions. It seems like I don't like you so, I rejected yours. This selection Bias is amajoe reason why we are now turning towards Open Access Journals.

@Roy, I am not connivence that Open Access Journals are different in term of review process. Only difference is open access after publication.

I have experience of about three decades for publishing research work in science journal . One should be conversant with research methodology. Once you are doing a scientific research in a proper methodical way and looking for a novel solution of a scientific problem or a new invention and discovery, you go through the work of scientists who have done research on the related theme and prepare a review of literature. Introduce your subject in a manner that you define objectives clearly at the end of your introduction. Present your data in a simple manner avoid complications and then discuss the results. Support your article with good references. Avoid language errors. Finally you look for a research journal having good impact factor. Go through the instruction to authors and finally you receive a response from the editor that your paper has been accepted- Prof.K.k.Sharma , MDS University Ajmer-305009 Rajasthan India.

Dear Pr Krishnan Sharma,

Eviedently, you pointed on the best methodology to be in the best condistion to be published.

Unfortunatly, we are not always in a "wonderful world" , even in sciences and even with these all criteria followed, researchers can be disappointed because not published at all. As I have said previously, reviewers and editors also look at your "history" of publications (in which journal and IF) and your lab homing.

And perhaps with less experience in publishing than you, I have now the opinion that , sometimes , as a proverb says in France "one only lend to rich people".

Regards

Didier JAMBOU

My Dear Mr Didier Jambou, I can understand what you mean.Thirty years back I also had similar feelings but once I dared to publish and removed hesitation from my mind that those who have history of publication can publish. You may try and sure you will succeed. In the beginning when high ranked journals do not give you chance , you may try with some simple ones. I am sure soon you will have a list of good publications in your name.Just for reference you may visit my web page www.biodiversityfriends.com to get an idea about the progress in publications I made.

Do not despair if your paper is rejected by a journal. If comments by the reviewers are given, use these to improve your paper and then submit it to another journal in your field. The IF of a journal does not really matter when gauging the relevance of a paper. as if your paper is good, then it will be highly cited as long as you publish it in a journal that is easily accessable.

Do remember that for a particular paper it is the number of citations to it which is the ultimate measure of its influence to its field of study NOT the impact factor of the journal that it is published in.

I agree that the citation of a paper is more important than the impact factor, but many researchers will be more influenced by the impact factor more before they cite. In come cases the impact factor seems to authentice the results in the eyes of the citators. May the methodology and the reproducibility of the research be our main focus of the reliability of the knowledge contributed.

In some research organizations, they only give importance to your paper if you publish in high IF journal. This is the reason, some researcher prefere not publish instead of publishing in low IF journal. Most of the researchers do research to impress their peers instead of their satisfaction or for contributing to society. This is also fact that number of low IF journals do not follow standard of the field strictly and publish anything, so readers are not interested to read papers published in these journals. Acceptance of journal in redears is important to get your work noticed.

With reference to Dr. Gajendra's comments , please note also that a recent study has shown that there is a POSITIVE correlation between the IF of a journal and the number of papers published in it being retracted. Hence, the higher the rewards, the higher the temptation to cheat is also!

With regards to temptations to cheat, S. Tan, what about the recent proliferation in the number of Journals going for the Open Access (OA) option? What are the stakes in one targeting high IF journals, but which have the OA option? Recent discussions elsewhere seem to suggest that whenever there is money or payment involved in the review process (before or after), "....quality would be compromised" at some point. So, what are your opinions on this? Take Genome biology or PLoS genetics as case studies..

Dear Dr Raghava,

Your citation: "In some research organizations, they only give importance to your paper if you publish in high IF journal"

I think that's true in most of occidental countries, and it underline the problem of research evaluation , and of the obtention of a position in most research organisations.

In France ie, to become associate professor or professor, you have to follow stricted rules. And for the part evaluating your research works, there is a scoring with the position as author, the IF of the review ... and a minimal score required (necessary but not sufficient)

Evidently, as IF depends also on the disciplinary (highest IF journals in mathematic can have lower iF than a " medium" journal in biology ie), there is another scoring called SIGAPS score which ponderate that. And so on ...

And it joins your point of view on some researchers who prefer not to be published than in a journal with low IF.

The problem is that it has an impact on the homing of foreign students (in USA or Europe), because researchers being used of that system apply it to select their students.

And by consequence, it leads to all the temptations to bypass these systems, leading to frauds, or more perverse, the slef-citation by the journals itselves.

So, to my mind, we have to re-found a new system of world research evaluation .

Best regards

Didier

Dear Dr. Raghava:

After reading the mails to your articles, it seems everybody is trying to find a shortcut to get his/her article published. Wish you all the best in trying to help these people. I feel the first thing should be that the author know what he/she is trying to publish. Next is to go through the types of articles published in different journals and find a suitable journal for this. Lastly follow the authors instructions of that journal to write the manuscript.

Really, Soon Tan?

Then may be you had better read this and get back to me so that we have this conversation again;

http://occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2012/04/01/plos1-public-library-of-sloppiness/

My experience with PLOS ONE was better than yours perhaps because the reviewers who went through my papers did a good job of reviewing them. Ultimately it depends on us also when we act as paper reviewers for journals.

I would say on another way, the question should be is how to write a scientific paper that can be accepted In IF journal. This is more important than to how to publish. There are some articles which have been published but are not with high quality. Therefore, once you know who to write a paper according to the rulesof each section (title, abstract ......., choice where is informative and indicative and so on) then it will be easy to publish it. You said that some researchers spent much time of doing research work (lab. work) but they can not published. So, what does that mean? if you have the results and you cannot give it to others to promote more science further. So, once again, writing article is the question. More time spent on article writing and more comments of the reviewers (referees) on the paper make it much better and improve it.

As a member of a developing country, i have the following challenges.

(1) After seeing the reviews comment about my first publication ever, i was depressed for many days. It took consolation from my supervisor for me to even do the revision. Reviewers should consider the emotional state of authors before write their reviews. Corrections can be made without hurting anybody's feelings.

(2) Rejection of publications is not always avoidable. However,due to many latex templates available, as required by many publishing houses, converting to another journal style can be daunting. Is there a way to have a Latex standard?

(3) Flow of expression in English is usually difficult for non-english speakers and this reflect in writeups, due to transliteration. To overcome this many resort to copy and pasting of paragraphs from other peoples research to complement theirs. A way around this is collaboration from top researchers. This forum, researchgate, is a good starting point,

(4) Time and cost of publication is another issue. The total cost is not that of publication but the total cost incurred in publication including internet cost which is astronomical in developing countries. This has also limited exposure to materials for qualitative research. A way out for those in developing country is the ejds (www.ejds.it) which provides qualitative papers for researchers. Some journals spend more than a year in publishing a work, there should be a way to checkmate this. It might encourage 'publication craving' researcher to send to another paper.

This is really a nice forum.

You are absolutely right Samuel. Under all circumstances, reviewers should be polite especially when recommending rejection of a paper. Moreover, constructive criticisms and suggestions are most welcomed whereas negative or nasty ones should have no place among honest scientists who respect one another. One should always remember that scientists in the developing countries are trying our best to do good research under difficult financial constraints. Hence, for example we can only use techniques which we can afford to characterize our treasure trove of biodiversity. We may not be able to use SNP or next generation sequencing but we may be able to afford to use allozymes or DNA microsatellite markers on agarose gels to do our work. However, results from such techniques are still valid and useful and should not be rejected outright.

Love this nice discussion, it is so useful :) I am now a PhD candidate, I still have not published any papers but these experiences are cool! Thanks all!!!

It is not a difficult thing to do. Search on AMAZON.COM under 'Medical publications" Start by buying those books that are rated 4 or 5 stars. Good luck.

Hi Soon, I was not implying that I got rejected by PLoS one, I think you misunderstood me. Actually, I do not consider publishing in a journal where one has to pay money (whenever it is done; before, during or after) to be of that high quality. There are these 'traditional' journals where the peer review is for free...and I mean, very very free. The problem is with budget and probably, quality. In my experience, these "traditional journals" are more challenging to publish in than the crop of 'open access journals now available everywhere. It is clear that money is a factor, or else why is it that suddenly, everyone is being dragged to join the band wagon? I have always challenged those who feel "cool" to have published in open access journals like PLoS one (IF 4.4?) to try publishing in those other traditional ones I mentioned earlier. Last time I threw the challenge to one food chemist colleague of mine to try publishing in Food chemistry (IF 3.65) 2 years latter, he is still struggling to prove me wrong. And this fella has published in PLoS one 3 times within the period under review!

I am not suggesting that the traditional journals do not have their own fair(?) share of the blame, where the publication of what could sometimes (probably rightly so) be categorized "thrash". I have read it where critics have suggested that the "politics" and "game of exclusion" is played even more, higher up the ladder by the high profile journals. It has been shown that what sometimes does not have the ingredients to be taken seriously has been published with those big names. But then, that is life. The issue in contention here, is the way communicating research is being "commercialized"

If you follow closely what my colleagues are complaining about, it would interest you to know that we in the third world, or is it developing countries now, have our own problems to contend with, as far as communicating research findings is concerned. But, to add the commercialization aspect is simply saying to us "whatever you guys find, we are not interested"! I mean, the "law of exclusion" of using criticisms from reviewers who pay more attention to "language" than "science" is enough humiliation. The use of personal insults where the issue at stake is justification of an observation and making a valid conclusion, is sometimes beyond comprehension. We know that there are some really bad scientific communications that come out of the third world. But one was under the impression that we needed to be encouraged the most? What happened to transfer of technology? I doubt that science could be encouraged with insults, name calling and stuff like that.

Added to this now is the money issue. We used to be heavily criticized, insulted and our papers not accepted for publication. Now, we have to pay, to get criticized, insulted and yet not get published? This exactly what PLoS one and all the other open access journals are advocating.

If I can publish in the traditional journal with IF 2 and above, I can also publish in PLoS one when the need arises....I never have to feel intimidated when I write articles now because I submit information that adds to existing knowledge not just "anything". So, why would I need to pay to get it published? Moreover, I also review for the traditional journals and I know a poor article when I see one, at least in my own field.

Please note that the two above comments were from me via a redundant account which has since been rightfully deleted.

Dear Mohahammed,

I totally agree with your comments. Hence, let us make an effort to support traditional peer review journals which unfortunately usually tend to have lower IF as they are not open access since they do not have publication charges.

However, some of them are in reality OPEN ACCESS journals too eg Journal of Genetics (IF 1.086) which is more than a century old and freely readable via the Indian Academy of Science website by readers from the developing countries and the Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science (SCORPUS listed no ISI Thomson IF yet although we first started publication in 1978) which can be read for free through a link from the Universiti Putra Malaysia website : www.upm.edu.my. Both these journals DO NOT have page charges and welcome manuscripts from throughout the world.

If we can all actively resolve to make an effort to support such journals by reading and quoting relevant articles from them, then they will thrive and have greater impacts on scientific research especially in the developing world where we cannot afford exorbitant journal page and or processing charges..We have the remedy to our problem, so let us utilize it rather than letting it go to waste. IF can be built up over time if the papers publish in a journal are good.

1 / 0 · 3 days ago

[Deleted]

Deleted

Dear Friends,

For more information on how to submit papers to the following peer review journals which do not have page charges :

1.Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science (Four issues a year)

2.Pertanika Journal of Science and Technology (Two issues a year)

3.Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities (Four issues a year)

Please contact

Dr. Nayan S. Deep,

Executive Editor for the above three journals at:

[email protected]

or Ms Erica Kwan,

Publications Officer at

[email protected]>;

1 / 0 · 3 days ago

S. G. Tan

When we expect a reviewer to be polite in rejecting a manuscript; we should be equally responsible to realize the standard of the journal and what we are trying to get published there in.....

Novelty of your research can get you good publications..

I cant! :(

We need scholars like you to publish and share with the world. Visit www.rennergroup.co.uk. Submit an article to the Journal "Select Creative Genius- a journal registered with the British Library. "- Dr C. F. Ifeta

Jai, you miss the point. No one (at least not me) is questioning the criticism of a poor scientific communication, based purely on its scientific content. The issue at stake is when the insults get personal, then it is something else.

There are reviews that have been civil and still sent the right messages about the unacceptability of such articles, with recommendations for the right things to be done. That is how scientific conversations should be held (in my opinion).

You will sometime wonder what makes some reviewers qualify to be reviewers, except they use their graduate students as is often speculated.

Dear Muhammad Faisal Mahmod,

Please read the following useful answers.

Thanks

Dear all,

I am interested in this topic too much. I am now studying about fluid mechanic analysis, but I do not know which paper journal is fake or not?. Please give me some tips to know a good and trust journal.

Thank you for helping and caring.

Yours sincerely,

Dear Nguyen, I`ll rather suggest above all, to first try paper journal of which you are linked to at your professional area of practice.

I have retired from teaching at the University of the Algarve. I taught English, Statistics, Anthropology and Sociology. I can translate from Portuguese, Spanish and French. I am now setting up a website to help academics get published. You can visit the website at Academic Services.

http://academicservice.info

Indeed, starting scientists, especially when they are not co-authored by experienced scientists (i.e. frequently publishing scientists with good publication records) generally experience tremendous problems in getting their work published. Unfortunately it is often not solely scientific quality that counts, but also having a few papers published before significantly increases your success rate. Besides it is of course of utmost importance to use common international scientific terminology (use appropriate English) and be familiar with the common structure of papers in specific journals. Having a few scientific papers will significantly accelerate your scientific career.

If you are working in the field of ecology, amongst others 'Ecoauthor - www.ecoauthor.net' can help.

http://www.ecoauthor.net

Discussion is great and helping. But problem remains the unsolved. sometimes we cannot even find the homepage of a paper in which we want to get published. Ads appear in the results and they are all junk journals having no IF, but still demanding $100+ per article. I question the journals, why they charge us being authors?????

Though the journals have to spend on many expenditures but they they should generate money from alternate ways like google ads etc.

Sharing our idea in an easy and safe way, should be the priority of all the journals.

Have a look at REF-N-WRITE scientific paper writing tool. This tool allows you to import text from previous papers relevant to the subject area in MS word. While you are writing your paper, you can just search for similar statements from other authors and inherit their vocabulary and language to improve your paper. It also comes with a library of academic phrases that you can readily use to polish your paper. Here is the link for the site.

http://www.ref-n-write.com

They have some nice tutorials here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf7qyyKtbyQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6hlXzqO3r4

@Premkumar, Do we have similar free software for mac. 

You can refer to some papers written in this issue like

Tips for Publishing in Scientific Journals by Katrina Kelner (2007) or

7 steps to publishing in a scientific journal by Aijaz A. Shaikh (2016) who mentioned the important tips for writing a good manuscript and summarized them as

1. Do not rush submitting your article for publication.

2. Select an appropriate publication outlet.

3. Read the aims and scope and author guidelines of your target journal carefully.

4. Make a good first impression with your title and abstract.

5. Have a professional editing firm copy-edit (not just proofread) your manuscript, including the main text, list of references, tables and figures.

6. Submit a cover letter with the manuscript.

7. Address reviewer comments very carefully.