Up To it! Home > White paper: Teaching and learning publishing skills. Introduction
This white paper was written for educators and organizers of continuing professional
development activities for biomedical and clinical researchers.
This document aims to promote informed decisions about
acquiring or developing training programs in written scientific communication for non-native
English speaking students and researchers.
Valerie Matarese, Ph.D., UpTo infotechnologies, Vidor (TV), Italy
The reporting of research activities and results in scientific articles is essential for the professional success of every researcher. Publishing in internationally read journals provides visibility and documents the researcher's capabilities. Researchers who aspire to publish in leading journals must know how to structure a research paper, how to clearly express scientific concepts, and how to prepare their manuscripts for favorable outcomes at editorial peer review. Nonetheless, most researchers begin their careers without having had any training in scientific reporting. Considering the great importance that is placed on publishing the results of scientific research, it is perplexing that so little attention is given to teaching young researchers the necessary skills.
There is some confusion regarding what skills need to be taught so that researchers, especially non-native English speaking (NNES) researchers, can publish effectively throughout their careers. Since most scientific reporting is done in English, it is common in some non-Anglophone countries to confuse knowledge of scientific English with knowledge about communicating science in written English, which requires a series of publishing skills. Scientific reporting today is done according to a formal structure that has evolved over time and that continues to evolve in order to meet the increasing requirements for clarity and transparency. Therefore, a successful researcher-author not only knows the basic principles of scientific writing as they have developed over the past decades but also stays up to date in reporting trends, in order to meet the high standards of selective journals, i.e. journals that accept for publication only a small fraction of all received manuscripts.
With this guide, I aim to clarify the main issues of teaching and learning publishing skills, by defining the various skills and proposing educational priorities from a researcher's viewpoint. These recommendations are based on my education and training as a biomedical researcher at major US universities, a 13-year experience as author's editor1 in Italy, and participation in international editing associations and their meetings. This white paper, written for educators and organizers of continuing professional development activities, aims to promote informed decisions about acquiring and developing training programs in written scientific communication, for NNES students and researchers in biomedical and clinical sciences.
This white paper contains the following sections:
- Requirements for publishing in selective journals
- Challenges for Italian authors
- Teaching scientific writing to NNES authors
- Learning opportunities for Italian authors
- Suggested reading
1 An editor who improves the language and communicative properties of a manuscript that has not yet been accepted for publication, by working with the authors rather than for the publisher.
Valerie Matarese, Ph.D. © 2010. You may copy, distribute and display this document and derivative works based upon it provided that credit is attributed to "Valerie Matarese, Ph.D. — Up To infotechnologies, Vidor (TV), Italy".
Document created 22 March 2010.
Download the full document of this white paper in PDF format: Teaching and learning publishing skills.
For further information, please contact Dr. Valerie Matarese at +39 - 0423 - 985191 or info @ uptoit.org