Writing for a scholarly journal

Writing for a
scholarly journal
10 June 2021
9am to 2pm
An interactive workshop hosted by
the South African Journal of Science
aimed at postgraduate students
and early career researchers with
little or no experience in writing
and publishing journal articles.

PROGRAMME
9:00 Welcome and introduction
Leslie Swartz
Editor-in-Chief: South African Journal of Science
9:05 – 9:35
Know your audience
From choosing a journal to marketing your article
Linda Fick
Managing Editor: South African Journal of
Science
9:35 – 9:40 Comfort break
9:40 – 11:35
What the research tells us
What we have learned from research on writers writing. What good
writers do and what don’t they do.
Chrissie Boughey
Associate Editor: South African Journal of
Science
11:45 – 12:45 (Writing) Tips of the trade
Leslie Swartz
Editor-in-Chief: South African Journal of Science
13:00 – 13:45
Tips and techniques to make your article more discoverable
Dos and don’ts of metadata. The difference a keyword or hashtag can
make.
Susan Veldsman
Director: Scholarly Publishing Programme,
ASSAf
Louise van Heerden
SciELO SA Operations Manager, ASSAf
Nadia Grobler
Online Publishing Systems Administrator: South
African Journal of Science
13:45 – 14:00 Sum up Leslie Swartz

Know your
audience…
…from choosing a
journal
to marketing your
article
Linda Fick
Managing Editor: SAJS
Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
Workshop:
Writing for a scholarly journal
10 June 2020

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Knowing our audience

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Why write up your research?
 To convey your research results and conclusions
 To add to the knowledge and literature on your subject
 To contribute to a discussion or debate in your field
 To share/disseminate that knowledge with those to whom it
is relevant – your peers, but maybe also policymakers,
practitioners, the public…? Your audience depends on your
research and aims.
You may have different messages for different audiences
Create a dissemination plan as part of your research plan

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Dissemination plan
 Non-scholarly formats, e.g. blogs, newsletters,
professional magazines, media reports, social
media, interviews, podcasts
 Typically does not involve peer review
 Purpose is to inform, persuade, entertain
 Style and register are informal
 Shorter length
 Scholarly formats, e.g. journal articles,
preprints, reports, books and monographs,
and conference presentations
 Typically involves peer review
 Purpose is to contribute new knowledge
 Style and register are formal
 Longer length
Each format can have a different audience,
different requirements (length, scope, style) and
different policies
which will influence your dissemination plan.

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Journal requirements
Journal articles are typically more accessible and more frequently read and cited than are books, but journals
have specific requirements.
• Originality – not been published before and not currently
being considered elsewhere
• Novelty – is it new? Or is it oranges also fall?
with exceptions, e.g. PLoS ONE
• Exemptions – conference presentations,
theses/dissertations, [preprints]
• Check the journal’s policies and media embargo
Sherpa Romeo https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/
How can I share it? https://www.howcanishareit.com
verify with the journal
Why is this relevant? Because it will inform your dissemination plan
e.g. Conference presentation / thesis / preprint SAJS article social media posts /
media reports / self archiving
e.g. Conference presentation / thesis news/magazine article SAJS article

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Choosing a journal
Journal type and purpose
• Different journals have different purposes and
therefore different audiences, e.g.
What is your purpose/message?
e.g. To change policy (target policymakers)or to guide
professional practising (target a specific group –
doctors/teachers) or to report a new method?
• specialist journals for researchers in that field
• multidisciplinary journals for all researchers
• journals for professionals/practitioners (doctors,
teachers)
• review journals
• methods journals
CC-BY-NC 4.0: Benoît Leblanc

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Choosing a journal
• Consider the article
types published in the
journal.
• If your purpose /
message and audience
aligns with the journal’s
purpose / policy and
readership, then the
article type you choose
should be an article
type available in that
journal.
• There are various
article types, e.g.
review article, research
article, case study,
clinical trial, methods,
case notes
CC-BY-NC 2.5: xkcd

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Choosing a journal
Journal scope
• geographical (Int J, Afr J, S Afr J)
• topic (theology, medicine, zoology)
but also, Old Testament, oncology, herpetology
and osteo-oncology, neuro-oncology
• Choose a journal that is appropriate for your topic and
purpose. Many desk rejections are not because there is a
flaw in the manuscript, but because the manuscript is not
suitable for the scope of the journal (e.g. SAJS desk rejection
rate is about 90%)
• The right journal for your manuscript on the “Challenges of
teachers in rural Limpopo, South Africa” could be a local
journal with a narrower target audience, rather than an
international journal with a broad readership
CC-BY: John R. McKiernan

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Choosing a journal
Journal characteristics
• editorial board
• quality and accreditation
• publication frequency and turnaround times
• transparent policies and processes
• metrics (impact factor, article-level metrics)
• coverage (where is it indexed)
• readership (audience)
Be wary of predatory practices when choosing a journal (and after): flattering
invitations, very fast turnaround times, lack of transparency in regard to publication
fees and peer review process, no contact information, no archives, no review reports.
Think. Check. Submit. https://thinkchecksubmit.org/
“helps researchers identify trusted journals and publishers for their research”

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Choosing a journal
• Policies – e.g. novelty, preprints, copyright, open access, APCs,
publishing ethics, peer review
• Requirements – e.g. length
• If still in doubt – and after you have read the journal’s guidelines – email the
editor to enquire if your manuscript is likely to be considered for publication –
include the title, topic, article type, audience, a summary
• Include a cover letter, especially if you are submitting to a journal that has a
high rejection rate, and indicate why you have selected that journal and why you
believe your manuscript is suitable for the journal’s scope and readership

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Finding a journal
Where do you start? With what you know. If you want to target your peers,
consider the journals you have read and cited the most.
Don’t know where to start?
• Journal databases and directories
e.g. WoS, Scopus, JSTOR, SciELO SA, DOAJ, Ulrich’s
• Journal suggesters (abstract)
e.g. JANE (Journal Author/Name Estimator), Open Journal Matcher,
EdanzJournal Selector
• Journal analysers
e.g. Journal Evaluation Tool, Metrics Toolkit, Cabell's Journalytics, Scopus
Journal Analyzer

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Examples of resources available
Please check terms of use of each resource/tool
Journal directories:
 Ulrich's Web https://www.ulrichsweb.com
 DOAJ www.doaj.org
 Journals Directory https://www.journalsdirectory.com/
 MLA Directory of Periodicals https://www.mla.org/Publications/MLA-
International-Bibliography/

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Journal suggesters:
• JANE (Journal Author/Name Estimator) https://jane.biosemantics.org/
• Open Journal Matcher https://ojm.ocert.at/
• EdanzJournal Selector https://www.edanz.com/Journal-Selector
• JSTOR text analyzer https://www.jstor.org/analyze/
• Elsevier Journal Finder https://journalfinder.elsevier.com/
• IEEE Publication Recommender https://publication-recommender.ieee.org/home
• Springer Journal Suggester https://journalsuggester.springer.com/

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Journal evaluation tools:
 Cabell's Journalytics http://www2.cabells.com/about-journalytics
 Journal Evaluation Tool
https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&a
rticle=1041&context=librarian_pubs
 Scopus Journal Analyzer www.scopus.com
 Metrics Toolkit http://metrics-toolkit.org/

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Writing the article
• Select a journal and article type BEFORE you write your paper (or at least
before you start adding muscles to the skeleton of your paper)
• Read and follow the journal’s guidelines to authors – length of your paper,
format/structure, referencing style
• Journal articles are shorter than theses/dissertations and books:
– be concise and focussed
– do not include everything that you did, or that was in
your thesis – only what is relevant to the message you want to
convey
– generally, do not include table of contents, list of acronyms/
abbreviations, pages of acknowledgements
• Consider your audience (specialist or generalist) and what is relevant and
known to them with your choice of title, word choice, descriptions and use
of acronyms

Know your audience
10 June 2021
After you have:
• decided on an article type and journal,
• read the journal guidelines and policies,
• written your manuscript,
• submitted and revised your manuscript
….your manuscript is accepted!

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Your journal article has been published…
now share your article…
• Check the policies of the journal regarding sharing and
archiving of the submitted, accepted and published versions
of the article
• Refer to your dissemination plan for other audiences – and frame your
message/findings for your target audiences (policymakers, the public, etc.)
• Promote your article in the form of lay summaries and news stories on news
sites (e.g. EurekAlert, AlphaGalileo)
• Inform your institution’s media office of your recent publication
• Use social media and blogs to promote your article and convey your findings

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Sharing on non-scholarly platforms
• Writing may be more informal, but should still be accurate, non-
offensive, free from bias, and ethical (observe copyright, do not
plagiarise and give credit to sources)
• Always cite and link to your article
• Keep your writing short and to the point

Know your audience
10 June 2021
News / blogs
News/blog articles and press releases
• Catchy titles that indicate message/relevance
• Eye-catching graphics/images
• Can use hyperlinks for references
• Avoid jargon and acronyms. If necessary, explain.
• Follow an inverted pyramid shape: most important news goes
the top, in the lead paragraph, usually the ‘what’, followed by the
where, why, when and how. As you read down, the information
becomes less important, and the least important information goes at
the bottom.
Compare with hourglass shape of journal articles

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Social media
 First determine your strategy and brand – and audience (don't mix
personal and professional)
 Is your strategy broadcast (tweet and link) or interact (respond)?
 Use graphics - images, videos, infographics
 Keep it short and to the point (character or word limit)
 Short-lived – post regularly – use a social media scheduling tool (e.g.
Buffer or Hootsuite), which also can include analytics to enable you to
track the attention and see what audience is engaging with your posts.

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Twitter
• Topic centred
• Short and simple – character limit – use short words, contractions and
ampersands (that you wouldn’t usually use when writing a journal
article)
• Threads for connected posts
• Include:
• @handle (journal, institution, network, society) – audience
• #hashtag – topic/s and audience
• Image
• Link to your article – use a URL shortener e.g. bit.ly or TinyURL
e.g.
https://theconversation.com/what-can-a-1-7-million-year-old-hominid-fossil-teach-us-
about-cancer-63627
https://tinyurl.com/fxh498x6

Know your audience
10 June 2021
URL shorteners and trackers:
• Bit.ly https://bitly.com/
• TinyURL https://tinyurl.com/app
• Hootsuite https://hootsuite.com
• Buffer https://buffer.com
Hashtag identifier:
• Hashtagify.me https://hashtagify.me/

image credit
article title
journal type

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Match the audience
“When does spring become summer? @jenfitchett and @AdriaanJvander1 propose
new seasonal divisions for SA based on daily temperature. https://bit.ly/33FN9LH
@WitsUniversity @UFSweb @SSAGTweets”
However, researchers, based at the University of Witwatersrand and the
University of the Free State, analysed the daily temperature data from 35
weather stations around the country, from 1980 to 2015.
Daily maximum and minimum temperature data were
obtained from 35 selected South African Weather Service
meteorological stations that had sufficiently complete
data sets and homogeneous time series, spanning the
period 1980–2015.

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Match the audience
“When does spring become summer? @jenfitchett and @AdriaanJvander1 propose
new seasonal divisions for SA based on daily temperature. https://bit.ly/33FN9LH
@WitsUniversity @UFSweb @SSAGTweets”
“However, researchers, based at the University of Witwatersrand and the
University of the Free State, analysed the daily temperature data from 35
weather stations around the country, from 1980 to 2015.”
“Daily maximum and minimum temperature data were
obtained from 35 selected South African Weather Service
meteorological stations that had sufficiently complete
data sets and homogeneous time series, spanning the
period 1980–2015.”

Know your audience
10 June 2021

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Match the audience
• I am immensely grateful to my husband who has
supported me throughout my studies, my children
who are the light of my life, my mom who made me
endless cups of tea whilst I was writing, my supervisor
who always believed in me, my uncle’s neighbour
who…
• I thank Big Funders Anonymous for funding (grant no.
1234), Mr Lab Assistant for assistance with data
collection, and the anonymous reviewers for their
helpful comments.

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Match the audience
• “Sunlight and skin cancer: Another link revealed”
• “Inguinal Lymph Node Dissection for Advanced Stages of Plantar
Melanoma in a Low-Income Country”

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Match the audience
• “Sunlight and skin cancer: Another link revealed”
• “Inguinal Lymph Node Dissection for Advanced Stages of
Plantar Melanoma in a Low-Income Country”

Know your audience
10 June 2021
Now that you know your
audience…

Writing: What
the research
tells us
Chrissie Boughey
Emeritus Professor
Rhodes University
Workshop:
10 June 2021

A lot of research on writing
• Focuses on the products of writing (i.e written
texts)
• It analyses texts
• It tells us what the products should look like
• So, it gives us descriptions of what, for example,
journal articles look like

The problem is . . .
• That this kind of research doesn’t tell us about how
to produce those perfect texts
• It doesn’t tell us how to address the actual writing
of a text

The other side of writing research
• Looks at writers as they write
• Identifies what writers do as they are writing

This kind of research on writing
• Began in the 1970s
• Has increasingly become more sophisticated in the
methods it uses
• Has looked at writers writing
• all sorts of different kinds of texts (academic text, fiction,
reports …)
• in a wide range of languages (including writers using
non-alphabetic writing systems)

Over time
• It became possible to identify what ‘successful’
writers did and to compare what they did with
what ‘unsuccessful’ writers did
• This gave allowed us to identify successful writing
strategies
• The strategies were then developed into an
‘approach’ to teaching writing

So, what did the successful
writers do?
• They wrote for themselves first to find out what
they wanted to say
• They used informal writing strategies (freewriting,
journaling)
• They did not worry about the formalities of writing
(spelling, grammar, punctuation) at this stage
• They wrote in any language
• They used writing as a tool for learning

Over time
• They moved into writing for a prospective reader
(the reader of a journal, the examiner of a thesis…)
• As they wrote, they imagined the reactions of this
intended reader to what they were saying (‘If I say
this, they’ll say that, so I can’t say this’)
• Writing thus became a process of drafting and
redrafting a text in response to this imaginary
conversation

If they got stuck
• They moved back into the less formal ‘generative’
writing they had used to find out what they wanted
to say in the first place

Even at the drafting stage
• They did not pay a great deal of attention to the
form of the writing

Finally,
• When they thought they had satisfied or ‘silenced’
their reader they moved into editing their text
• Editing involved a process of polishing the text to
ensure it was technically perfect and stylistically
appropriate

The strategies used by successful
writers
• Allow us to identify three stages in a writing
process

A writing process
Generative Writing Drafting Editing
Focus on identifying ideas
‘Informal’ writing
No concern for reader
Moves into concern for
reader
Imaginary conversation
Drafting and redrafting
Focus on making
meanings stand up to
critique
Focus on form – on saying
things better at a
linguistic level
Focus on technical aspects
of writing

Importantly
• Movement between the three stages was not linear
• Writers began with generative writing
• Moved into drafting but
• If they got stuck went back to generative writing

Many writers
• Ignore the generative writing (i.e. using writing as a
tool to find out what they want to say)
• Move straight into writing for an audience
(drafting)
• Even worse, they combine writing for an audience
with editing

Some generative writing
strategies
• Freewriting
• Keeping a reading journal

Freewriting
• Identify a question to answer (‘What’s the
relationship of x to y?’ ‘What does xxx really
mean?)
• Set a time limit (3,5,7 minutes)
• Write without stopping for the entire time
• Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, punctuation
• Write in any language
• When the time is up, stop!
• Read what came out

A reading journal
• Typical strategies for reading include highlighting,
underlining and making notes
• These focus on identifying important points, on
understanding and remembering
• Academic writing requires us to make knowledge
claims (statements about what we believe are true) and
to support them with evidence
• This is particularly true of the literature review section
• How does highlighting, underlining or making notes
allow you to identify those knowledge claims?

A reading journal
• Open a folder on your computer or buy a notebook
• Write a complete reference for everything you read at
the top of a new file or new page
• Sit somewhere comfortable
• Read without taking notes, highlighting or underlining
• Focus on what the author is saying, what claims they
are making and what the evidence is for those claims
• When you have finished reading, write an entry in your
journal

Dear Diary . . .
• How does this text agree or disagree with other
texts I have read?
• How does it relate to my article/study?
• What’s interesting about it?
• What do I agree with/disagree with?

Drafting: your audience
• Other sessions in this workshop will help you to
know your audience better
• Ask questions like
• What do they know (so what don’t I need to tell them)?
• What don’t they know (so what do I need to tell them)?
• What objections can they make?
• How does this evidence support the claim I am making?
What’s missing?
• Your aim is to ‘silence’ your reader

Editing
• Sit alone in a closed room and read your text aloud
to yourself
• You will often hear mistakes you can’t see

Remember
• An article is about presenting new knowledge to
your audience
• What are your knowledge claims?
• How well supported are those claims with
evidence?

Tips on
publishing
Leslie Swartz
Editor-in-Chief
South African Journal of Science
Workshop:
10 June 2021
64

Some feedback on articles submitted for publication
• In summary, this article
adds nothing to
knowledge
• I can’t see why the
author bothered
• The author is clearly not
English speaking and
needs some remedial
help in English before
he/she should think of
publishing in academic
journals
65

Some key strategic issues
• All they ever want is
repetition. All they really
like is what they know. (S
Sondheim)
• One idea, and preferably
fewer (P. Collett)
• The set-up: “You always
knew…but you didn’t
know…” (V. Packard)
66

Taking your reader with you
• Of pols, gags and other
unmentionables
• Sunday in the park with
attention deficit disorder
• Double funnels
67

An example of a PhD on Ageing
LITERATURE REVIEW
Chapter 1: The biology of ageing
Chapter 2: The psychology of ageing
Chapter 3: The sociology of ageing
Methods
Results
Conclusions
Chapter1
The biology of ageing
Chapter 2
The psychology of ageing
Chapter 3
The sociology of ageing
Methods
Results
Conclusions
68

Parts of an article
• WHY I did it
• HOW I did it
• WHAT I did
• WHAT I found
• WHAT it means
• RATIONALE
• METHOD
• PROCEDURE
• RESULTS
• DISCUSSION
69

Audience audience audience
• Know whom
you’re talking to
• Enter into a
conversation
• If you want to
take your reader
with you, you
have to know
who they are
70

Modesty, good and bad
• Always go for the best
journal and work your
way down – don’t be
modest
• Nobody likes a smart-
aleck
• You are not a journalist
• Be very clear about
what you can and can’t
say from your data (as
the mathematician
said to the physicist)
71

The modest, the pompous, or the just plain terrified?
• Fifty percent of the four subjects were approached
by the investigator and were requested for their
participation under the auspices of the current
study…
• It is believed…
• Notwithstanding the heretoforementioned, in
pursuance of the ultimate goal of statistical
significance having been obtained…
72

Some tips
• Short sentences
• Active voice where feasible
• Words of one syllable
• Not a single word or sentence
more than you need
• First person (preferably, and if
allowed by journal)
• Signposting, signposting,
signposting
• Simplify, simplify, simplify
• You don’t have to say
everything you know (this is
not your life’s work)
The blow catches
him from the
right, sharp and
surprising and
painful, like a
bolt of
electricity,
lifting him up
off the bicycle.
73

Just get started writing
• Write often - every day if you can
• “The secret is regularity” (Silvia)
• Use the ABC approach (Rabe)
• Writing and editing are not the same – try not to edit too soon
• Keep and save different versions and develop a method for saving
different versions easily, for example
• yyyymmddtimetitle.docx
• 201810200600traumachildhood.docx
• 201811021530traumachildhood.docx
75

You don’t have to start at the
beginning
• Start writing where it is easiest to write – this is often not
the beginning
• Generally the first few sentences take longer than the next
ones.
• In the beginning, don’t worry about writing in
what you think is formal or academic language –
• The key thing is communicating and
getting your ideas out there – telling
a story which is easy for your reader
to understand.
76

Dealing with peer review (or:
Humiliation can be fun)
77

Taming the beast – emotions
first but not only….
• It’s peer review – not review by a deity
• It’s not a comment on who you are
• I see your humiliating review and I raise
you – everybody gets rejected
• You may hide under a rock but only a
small rock and only for a short space of
time (a week maximum, preferably
shorter)
• Tell someone, share it, and commit to
helping one another with dealing with
reviews
• Most reviewers (not all) are trying their
best
79

Taming the beast – taking
action
• Take it bit by bit – you must be able to show that
you have responded to each and every
comment
• No biting, no fighting
• There are two reasons why they misunderstand
you:
1. They are idiots who cannot see your genius
2. You have probably put things in such a way
which has enabled their misunderstanding
as readers of your work, who are not you
and your friends
• Always try to understand what they say,
however hurtful
HAMLET
Do you see that cloud
up there that looks like
a camel?
POLONIUS
By th' mass, and ’tis like
a camel indeed.
HAMLET
Methinks it is like a
weasel.
POLONIUS
It is backed like a
weasel.
HAMLET
Or like a whale.
POLONIUS
Very like a whale.
81

Taming the beast
– taking action 2
• Be polite – be very polite (pleaded the editor)
– do the editor’s job for her/him
• Say thank you, give compliments
• Be as clear as you can
• Reviewers will contradict each other – explain to
the editor why you have done X and not Y
• If a reviewer in your view is absolutely wrong, first
try the ‘comradely greetings’ approach, then be
absolutely clear on why you can’t do what they say
• You complain at your peril – journals are looking
for reasons to reject you
• Have some empathy for the editor and the
reviewers
• Be a nice, constructive, helpful reviewer next time
82

Reviewer comments
Reviewer A
Authors’ response
This is an interesting paper on an important
topic,
Thank you very much
but it fails to articulate its premises clearly… Thank you for this helpful comment. On pp 2-
3 of the revised manuscript we have made our
position more explicit and have used bullet
point formatting so these are easy to read
I was shocked that the brilliant work of Swartz
(2017) was not cited
We apologise for this oversight, and we agree
with the reviewer that this is a key reference.
We have referenced Swartz (2017) now as well
as Swartz and Bantjes (2016)
I would like to have seen more discussion of
the Anthropocene
Thank you for this comment. Reviewer B (see
our responses below) suggested that we omit
any mention of the Anthropocene. We have
decided to follow Reviewer B on this as we
have space limitations but would be happy to
reconsider should Reviewer A believe that this
would be best for the article.
83

Common reasons for rejection
(my experience)
• Plagiarism
• Obviously pasted from a thesis
• Too much irrelevant detail
• Conclusions do not flow from data
• Data irrelevant to conclusions
• No idea of the field
• Over-grand claims to originality
• Wrong journal, wrong audience
84

Writing a title, keywords
and abstract to make your
article discoverable
Louise van Heerden
SciELO SA Operations Manager
Academy of Science of South Africa
Workshop:
10 June 2021

The aim is to optimise the discoverability of your
article by:
- choosing the right title and keywords; and
- writing an abstract that search engines will find.

You will also recognise these search (limit) options
from the search screens in databases offered by
academic libraries

• Where the haystack
represents all the
articles on your topic in
the world;
• The needle represents
your article; and
• The magnet represents
your choice of title and
keywords.

Step 1 – The title
Create a search-engine-friendly title
• An accurate and concise article title will make readers
want to read the abstract of your article.
• Short, easy to understand, and conveys the
important aspects of the research.
• No unnecessary words.
• Provide enough information about what makes this
article interesting.
• Indicate the relevance of the research to the reader.

Step 1 – The title (cont.)
• Keep in mind the audience of your article / the people
who will benefit from reading your article:
What are they researching?
What are they looking for?
Make sure your title provides an easily discoverable
answer to
these questions.
• Think about how you search for articles in your field and
which words and phrases will work well in the field of
your research?

Step 2 – The
keywords
Your keywords are words or
phrases that searchers would
be likely to type into the search
block to find your research.
Keywords do not necessarily
appear in the title of the article.

Step 2 – The keywords (cont.)
You can use specific phenomena or issues as keywords,
e.g. climate change, air pollution, sustainable
development or genetic engineering.
Be specific – not too broad or vague
Test the keywords on Google Scholar or a subject
database yourself and see if you find similar articles.

Step 3 - The abstract
The abstract of your article can be compared to the
trailer of a movie (an ‘abstract’ of the full movie, as
such).
So, write it in a way that will appeal to the reader and
make the reader want to read the full article.
► ► FULL MOVIE
► ►

Step 3 (cont.)
Structure of the abstract
• Indicate the purpose of your research (Why you did it?)
• Describe the research method you used (How you did it?)
• What you did?
• Explain the results of your research (What you found?)
• What it means?
• What recommendations arise from your article ?
• For a good example see: https://sajs.co.za/article/view/8607

Other tips for writing abstracts
• Write the abstract after you’ve written the article (clearer picture)
• Check the journal’s recommended word count
• What to avoid:
New information that you did not refer to in the article.
Undefined abbreviations, e.g., UP -> University of Pretoria
• Ask a colleague to check your abstract for you.
• Recheck the journal’s abstract guidelines and its target audience.

•
Track the citations to your research
over time
Dimensions: Citations received
See:
https://badge.dimensions.ai/details/id/pub.1
091945382

Acknowledgements
At the end of the article
Some search engines and databases do pick up these details
• Sources of funding
• Details of people that contributed to the article or research, but aren’t
considered as co-authors.
Further reading:
American Journal Experts http://www.aje.com/en/arc/editing-tip-writing-
acknowledgments/ and
Acknowledgement Sample https://acknowledgementsample.com/acknowledgement-
sample-for-a-research-paper/
Support provided
The Faculty
People by name
Students
Researchers
Lecturers
DHET, etc.

Metadata,
Citations and
Bibliographies
Susan Veldsman
Director: Scholarly Publishing
ASSAf
Workshop:
10 June 2021

Content of Presentation
• Importance of metadata
• Citations and bibliographies

Example – Scholarly Article
Title
Authors
Persistent DOI
Keywords
Abstract
Files
Date published

Example – Video in Institutional Repository

Example – Metadata Record at backend of Video

Definition
• Metadata is data that describes the article’s underlying
data.
• Meta is a prefix that -- in most information technology
usages -- means "an underlying definition or
description."
• Metadata summarizes basic information about the article
data.

Why?
Having the ability to filter through that
metadata makes it much easier for
a human or machines to locate a
specific document.

How does it work?
• contains descriptions of the article’s contents,
• as well as keywords linked to the content.
• This information is usually expressed in the form of
meta tags.
• This metadata is often displayed in search results by
search engines, making its accuracy and details very
important since it can determine whether a user decides
to visit the site or not/use the article or not.

How does it work (2)
• Till late 1990’s: Meta tags are often evaluated by search engines to
help decide a web page’s relevance, and were used as the key
in determining position in a search.
• The increase in search engine optimization towards the end of the
1990s led to many websites “keyword stuffing” their metadata to
trick search engines, making their websites seem more relevant
others.
• Since then search engines have reduced their reliance on
though they are still factored in when indexing pages.
• Many search engines also try to halt web pages’ ability to thwart
their system by regularly changing their criteria for rankings, with
Google being notorious for frequently changing their highly-
undisclosed ranking algorithms.

How is it created
• Metadata can be created manually, or by automated
information processing.
• Manual creation tends to be more accurate, allowing the
user to input any information they feel is relevant or
needed to help describe the file.
• Automated metadata creation can be much more
elementary, usually only displaying information such as
file size, file extension, when the file was created and
created the file

What is a citation?
A citation is a reference to the source of information you
used in your research.
• Any time you directly quote, paraphrase or
summarize the essential elements of someone else's
idea in your work, an in-text citation should follow.
• An in-text citation is a brief notation within the text
text of your paper or presentation which refers the
the reader to a fuller notation, or
• end-of-paper citation, that provides all necessary
details about that source of information.

End of paper citations (Bibliography)
• End-of-paper citations, as well as footnotes and endnotes,
include full details about a source of information.
• In academic research, your sources will most commonly be articles from
scholarly journals, and the citation for an article typically includes:
•author(s)
•article title
•publication information (journal title, date, volume, issue, pages,
etc.)
•Date of publication
•and, for online sources:
• DOI (digital object identifier).
• URL of the information source itself
• Date accessed
• Biomedical research articles may have a PubMed Identifier (PMID)

End of paper citations
• Books, book chapters, films, song lyrics, musical scores,
interviews, e-mails, blog entries, art works, lectures,
websites and more.
• At the end of your research paper, full citations should be
be listed in order according to the citation style you are
using:
•In MLA style, this list is called a Works Cited page.
•In APA style, it is called a References page.
•In CSE style, it is called a Cited References page.
•And, in Chicago style, there may be both
a Notes page and a Bibliography page.

In-Text Citations
In-text citations alert the reader to an idea from an outside source.
• Numerical citations give only a number that corresponds to a
footnote, endnote, or reference list entry
• Parenthetical Notes
In MLA and APA styles, in-text citations usually appear as
parenthetical notes (sometimes called parenthetical
documentation). They are called parenthetical notes because
brief information about the source, usually the author's name, year of
publication, and page number, is enclosed in parentheses as
MLA style: (Smith 263)
APA style: (Smith, 2013, p. 263)

Purpose of citations
• to uphold intellectual honesty (or avoiding plagiarism)
• to attribute prior or unoriginal work and ideas to the correct
sources,
• to allow the reader to determine independently whether the
referenced material supports the author's argument in the
way, and to help the reader gauge the strength and validity of the
material the author has used.
• Make your research discoverable
• if you cite another paper that author should be alerted to it
• opens up the opportunity for co-
authorship/collaboration/network expansion, “return citations”.

https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2021/06/08/revisiting-turning-a-critical-eye-
on-reference-lists/?informz=1

Researcher
Identifiers, Profiles
and Social
Networks
Nadia Grobler
Online Publishing Systems
Administrator: South African
Journal of Science
Workshop:
10 June 2021

Build your online presence
Increase your research impact
Track and measure the impact of your research
Get the credit for your research
Benefits:
Researcher IDs, Profiles and Social Networks

Register for researcher IDs to ensure you get credit for your research, even
if other researchers have similar names or if your name or affiliation changes.
Researcher IDs
Many more....
Scopus Author Identifier (Elsevier)
ResearcherID on Publons (Clarivate)
Open Researcher and
Contributor ID
(ORCID)
Automatically
generated

• Unique, persistent identifier which you can link to your
other Researcher IDs.
• Profile page which can include your list of publications,
employment history, research interests and links to other
profiles.
• Increasingly being used by journals, publishers,
funding bodies and university repositories.
https://orcid.org/register
Researcher IDs

Google Scholar Profile
Google Scholar Profiles provide a simple way for authors to showcase
their academic publications.
• You can check who is citing your articles, graph citations over
time, and compute several citation metrics.
• You can choose to have your list of articles updated automatically.
• If you create a Google Scholar profile, your profile will come high
up the page rankings if people are searching for your work.
Go to https://scholar.google.com and click on the “My
Profile” at the top of the page to get started.

Join social networks to share and monitor analytics for your research
publications and connect with other researchers in your field. [Not an
academic repository]
Social Networks for Researchers
• Create your profile
• List your research interests
• List your publications,
projects etc.
• Connect with co-authors
and researchers in your field
• Stay up to date with the
latest developments in your
field
• Create and receive alerts
• Follow topics/discussion
threads
https://bit.ly/3v0v99b

Punchy description or
question to spark
interest
Make use of Hashtags to
make your posts
discoverable and form
part of a discussion
thread.
Tag authors, institutions,
stakeholders, funders etc.
to alert them to your post
and also so that they can
re-share it with their
networks.
Image/infographic to
draw attention
*Adhering to copyright
laws
Link to your article,
research, profile etc.
Social Media Posting Tips

CV
Staff
profile
Bringing it all together
Own
website
/blog

Researcher IDs
• Scopus Author Identifier (Elsevier)
• ResearcherID on Publons (Clarivate)
• Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID)
Google Scholar Profile
• Academia.edu
• ResearchGate
• Mendeley
• LinkedIn
Social Media
• Hashtags
• Tagging
Resource list

University of Melbourne Libguides
• https://unimelb.libguides.com/researcher_profiles
Texas State University Libguides
• https://guides.library.txstate.edu/researcherprofile
University of Reading Libguides
• https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/boost/google-scholar-profile
University of Calgary Libguides
• https://library.ucalgary.ca/c.php?g=255602&p=1702235
Reference list

Thank you for
attending.
Please take the time to give
us your feedback:
Workshop:
10 June 2021
https://bit.ly/35759ya

Writing for a scholarly journal

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