What Is Journal Formatting:
The first question that pops up when we see the Journal is what exactly it is. How do you define Journals? And more importantly who is it applicable to? To plainly answer this, you can say that Journal is a scientific or research-based publication.
Now when these papers, drafted by academicians, come out periodically, you have a Journal. But is everything that comes out once every few days called a journal? Of course, you can’t say that.
They are after all periodicals. Hence, you can define Journal as, a periodical publication which furthers the progress of the subject matter. The subject matters can be either scientific ( for science journals) or academic journals ( for arts and literature). Speaking, there can be any journal on any subject, as long as it is doing more. It is furthering on a concept as well.
Requirements Of Scientific Journal In Academics:
One way defining Journals is to say that they are Scientific Magazines. Although this thought brings the idea of it, Journal is something more than that. Magazines work on a single point validation and is a combination various ideas and theories. On the other hand, a journal deals with a particular idea which the author talks about.
Also, the journal undergoes a process of Peer Review, which ensures that the said publication adheres to correct theories. A group of publishers and experts go through the material and validate it. Hence, a journal comes out with a more relevant discussion than others. Further, scholars use these directly in the preparation of further matters by scholarly participants. Thus, you can depend on a journal more than you can on a magazine to derive your information.
When it comes to Scientific Journal, you have the subject matter experts going through your work. They will ensure that the issue of the journal is as relevant and applicable to the field. If you are an independent researcher and are making a journal on science, you may require some help.
Again, if you are using any figures, experiments, or calculations in your work, you have to supply details for the same. This is for the use of analysts and other researchers, as they will try and see if the experiments are true enough. Thus by doing so, you are confirming your Journal, a status of the permanent scientific record. School textbook materials and such will go on to use your material in future. Thus, Scientific journal publishing requires perfect formatting, editing and storing.
The Definition Of Academic Journals:
When we say academic journal, we mean something focusing on the Academic needs. By definition, Academic and Scientific Journals are two different concepts.
You can see that the form and function of the publication are somewhat different. Even to the end users who use it, these two offer different purposes. Hence, you need to have a clear understanding of these two standalone types of Journals.
Within this article, most of our discussion will focus around Academic Journals. Again, within these Journals, there are two kinds, based on how a scholar brings these journals to the editor.
So with regards to it, if you are being asked by a University to prepare a journal, you can do so.
Receiving like this is called Solicited paper. Most universities ask their scholarly fellow to come forward with journals on a particular topic. This is again Solicited papers. On the contrary, you can directly submit your research papers for journal purposes. This voluntary act by self-will is called Unsolicited journal.
Once you have brought your research to the university with either of the ways, the next step will be editors picking it up. The editors will see through the submission and come to a conclusion about it in some time.
Once they are happy with what they see, they take it up for peer review. Of course, the process of Peer Review and the number of rounds varies from publisher to publisher. The number of Peer review panel is somewhere between usually 2 to 4, but it could easily go beyond it. On the other hand, sometimes the editors can go for Public peer reviewing when the subject material is non-confidential.
Peer Review Procedures In Journal Acceptance:
As you go further in the step of publishing a journal, the major step that comes is Peer Review. Of course, as we saw earlier in the discussion Peer review is usually taken up by 2 or 3 experts. Naturally, all of them are specialists in the subject matter under consideration.
You have your work before them, and review takes some time. After such review, you will receive either review suggestions, rejection or acceptance from the panel. Most of the reviewers give you enough time to rework on the material and resubmit them.
Here you need to ensure that the corrections are put in and that editors will pick these up for further reviews. Most of the times it does happen. Usually, Peer Review takes up some weeks and depending on the matter even months.
Reviewing Articles and Furthering The Matter:
Editors while defining the review procedures of Journal Publishing, group the material into different stages which are called “Reviews Of Progress.” These are pointers which tell you at which stage the review has come to. You can track the progress with ‘reviews of progress’ as the editors take it up. You have some journals which list all the important articles on the subject. The articles give you options to include them or not in the final output.
This also helps you in seeing if the articles you’ve submitted are up to date. If the journals are a series of multiple entries, you will get the information from the editor’s panel again. Other factors which you can track for edition review, year of evaluation, submission criteria, etc. The usual practice is to help the research scholar get in the game with the recent updates in regards with the journal.
Ranking Criteria Of Journals:
The term that the scholars and publishers use to identify the worthiness of the journal is Prestige. The scholars award this once the journal has passed the testing and review phase.
Thus, you can see the ranking come in, just before the publishing of your journal. The factors in Journal prestige are various. Most essentially, you know that Quality, Relevance, Impact factors (If accurate for the scientific studies), the number of citations and so on. The prestige contains a broad scale of all the elements you have in the journal preparation. Once your journal gets a Prestige, you have the validation that your work contains the required Impact factors. But then how can you get impact factors within your content?
In this regard, most of the impact factors in a Journal are listed out by Anglo-Americal Humanities Journals association. To understand the concept of Impact Factor, you will have to understand the factor of citations. Thus, Impact factor, is a convenient proxy, measuring the number of later articles citing articles already published in the journal.
Science Citation Index perhaps ranks the Nature science journals. In general sense, there have been three ways of assessing the Journal quality. They are – stated a preference, revealed preference; and publication power approaches. You can have your publication validate through any one of these criteria.
Journal Formatting – Checklist For A Worthy Journal:
A critical step in bringing out a new thesis or a journal is ensuring that it is as relevant as it was when started. Of course, you also need to ensure that the Journal includes all the updates which the review board suggests. In spite of all this, it may so happen that your journal has shot past its prime time.
A year here and there is a situation that surely happens. To avoid this situation, most journal publishers give out a format which you need to go with when making a journal. Having said that, the formats for Academic and Scientific Journals differ in the way you do it. However, a general routine which you can follow to ensure quality is below.
Initial Considerations In Journal:
The first task to accomplish as you begin the process of writing is to order and organise the information you wish to present. Some people work well from an outline; others do not. Some people write first to discover the points, then rearrange them using an after-the-fact outline.
Whatever process you may use, be aware that scientific writing requires particular attention to order and organisation. You need to know what information will go into each division because you will have to divide the whole paper into sections. If you don’t work from an outline, this may be an occasion when you at least want to develop a list of the major points to be included in each section, before you begin to write. If the paper has multiple authors, then this is a good time to work with your collaborators so that you can cover all the points.
The End Users Of The Journal – The Audience:
Who will be reading your paper? You will have to answer this question, mostly at the very start of starting your work. Usually, you will be writing to your peers. Simple advice: address your paper to another interested biology student, or lab group, in this course or major, and assume they have at least the same knowledge and expertise base as you.
Knowing your audience helps you to decide what information to include–you would write a unique article for a small, highly technical, disciplinary journal vs. one that went out to a broad range of disciplines. Similarly, you would write a paper for an audience of other biology majors very differently than one you would write for a cross section of the college. Do not write your paper specifically for your instructor.
Using Prose Formatting To Work For You:
You need to ensure that you work with the thesis or the projects with easy language. Yes, you are a scholar and scientific researcher, but that’s not relevant here. You need to present your case in the simplest way possible. The logic here is simple; you need to appeal to a lot of people, before getting through with the publication.
Your should write in complete sentences and easily understood. It should conform to the conventions of standard written English. Most of the factors that we are looking at are grammar, spellings, alignments and fonts. Every visual style you use for the content, the readers will have to understand it easily.
Your ideas will have little impact, no matter how good the research, if you cannot communicate them well. Remember always that scientific terminology very often has a precise meaning. Be certain you choose your words correctly and wisely. Writing clearly and concisely is important.
Make sure that every paragraph has a clear topic sentence and that the paragraph content supports the issue. The goal is to report your findings and conclusions clearly, and with as few words as necessary. Your audience (other scientists usually) are not interested in flowery prose; they want to know your findings.
Remember that Writing and thinking are closely linked enterprises. When people have difficulty translating their ideas into words, they do not know the material as well as they think. And therefore many times, a presentation is easily misunderstood for something else.
Maintaining A Visual Style For The Work:
Be clear and concise. You need to ensure to write briefly and to the point. You will have to understand that sometimes less is more. Editors and Peer review panel do not have all the time in the world. So, you need to give them what they want to read clearly and precisely.
Say what you mean clearly and avoid embellishment with unnecessary words or phrases. Brevity is critical. Use of the active voice alone shortens sentence length considerably.
Precise word use is critical. Even more so in Scientific Journals. Well, that does not mean that Academic Journals can be taken lightly. When it comes to Scientific works come, terminology carries specific meaning – learn to use it appropriately and use it consistently.
A critical function of technical terminology is to say a lot with a few words, i.e., economy. This applies as well to appropriate acronyms (e.g., PCR) and abbreviations. Direct your paper toward the average reader in your intended audience. If writing for a highly technical journal, you will necessarily use the technical jargon. If writing for a general science audience, you would limit the jargon.
Annotations And Abbreviations You May Use In Journal:
One of the simplest things to ensure you are doing is maintain tense and sense. Most of the researchers have the habit of switching tenses midway through a sentence. The major disadvantage of not using a standard tense is that you will lose your readers soon. They shall feel highly confused as to what you intend to show. The common practice of using Abbreviations is that you can use them only for a selected few data.
You cannot utilise Abbreviations for data depicting a textual content. You will have to use them in connection with Figurative data. This usage will ensure that you maintain a proper and intuitive structure to the journal, which the editors and reviewers can easily read.
Having said this, a common rule is that you can use the abbreviation for temperature, in the same way, both descriptively and also figuratively. Either way, you need to be careful while using the abbreviations for a time, distance and other scientific data.
This usage will ensure that you maintain a proper and intuitive structure to the journal, which the editors and reviewers can easily read. Having said this, a common rule is that you can use the abbreviation for temperature, in the same way, both descriptively and also figuratively. Either way, you need to be careful while using the abbreviations for a time, distance and other scientific data.
Using The Correct Way Of Saying It – Voice To Use:
Another factor that you need to ensure while preparing your journal is the reference voice. Most publishers prefer to use the third person reference for the most part. Unless the research involves historical data which you are presenting, a direct voice is preferred over indirect voice.
Passive voice usually disconnects the reader with the content matter and attracts a lower rate of understanding. In this regard, Some disciplines and their journals have moved away from a very strict adherence to the third person construction, and permit limited use of the first person in published papers.
You will need to take care of this change beforehand in the preparation of the material. In addition to using the third person voice ( apart from the first person, which you may use in introductions etc.) you need to see the verbs as well. Most publishing review panels look at how frequently you have used the active verbs.
In this regard, Some disciplines and their journals have moved away from a very strict adherence to the third person construction, and permit limited use of the first person in published papers. You will need to take care of this change beforehand in the preparation of the material. In addition to using the third person voice ( apart from the first person, which you may use in introductions etc.) you need to see the verbs as well. Most publishing review panels look at how frequently you have used the active verbs.
The Use Of References In Journals:
References to the research findings of others are an integral component of any research paper. The usual practice is to summarise the finding or other information in your words and then cite the source.
Any ideas or other information that are not your own must be given a reference, which you can cite in the text. As a rule, in research papers, direct quotation and footnoting are not practised. You can simply restate the author’s ideas or findings in your words and provide a citation. Thus, Providing citation is highly recommended practice. These steps ensure that the Journal is free from any strings.
Check For Plagiarism:
Every author needs to check his material for Plagiarism. The use of others words, ideas, images, etc. without citation is not to be tolerated. However, you can easily check for plagiarism and easily refer it to the sources. This way you can easily avoid any plagiarism claims that may shoot up once the paper is published.
In the strictest sense, plagiarism is a representation of the work of others as being your work. Also, paraphrasing other’s words too closely can be taken as plagiarism in some circumstances. Therefore, nowhere in the journal preparation can you prepare and draft your content without providing a valid citation. Most of the times, failure to do so will only result in the invalidation of the material.
Conclusion Of Journal Preparation:
With new needs and requirements in place to prepare Journals with, you may face difficulties in preparing a Journal. There are many factors within which the preparation of journal can go wrong. Factors like citations, style specs, formatting, and highlights, etc. can make the Journal fail to deliver.
The idea of preparing a journal is that A critical aspect of the scientific process is the reporting of new results in scientific journals to disseminate that information to the larger community of scientists. Communication of your results contributes to the pool of knowledge within your discipline (and others) and very often provides information that helps others interpret their experimental results. Most journals accept papers for publication only after peer review by a small group of scientists who work in the same field and who recommend the paper be published (usually with some revision).
With all these factors in mind, you will need to understand that, journal preparation in itself is an art. Hence, you will need to turn to professional publishing services company which will ensure that your journals are prepared most affordable. Also, we ensure a hundred percent quality service, such that the journals are taken up by the biggest STM publishers in the world. Drop us a mail right away, and prepare your work in the best way possible.
