Up To it! Home > White paper: Teaching and learning publishing skills > Challenges
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
Read the earlier parts of this white paper:
- Introduction
- Requirements for publishing in selective journals
Italy is a scientifically advanced country with a long tradition of research, especially in the biomedical and clinical sciences. In Italy, there are excellent research centers as well as research groups that publish in the most prestigious international journals. Since late 2008, some of the best research papers from Italian scientists have been highlighted in my blog “Highlights of Italian biomedical research: recent publications”. Nonetheless, a significant number of Italian researchers struggle to publish in selective journals, with the consequence that interesting and important studies do not receive the necessary visibility.
As editor and writing coach working in Italy since 1997, I have been in a position to observe the difficulties that many researchers have with scientific reporting. The most recognized problem, for which many authors come to editors like me, is difficulty with English. Linguistic editing of a manuscript that is written in a poor English but that nonetheless is well organized and logically argued is a valid phase of the publication process, and aims to improve the communication of scientific information and increase the impact of the article.
During editing, however, it is common to encounter other problems of scientific writing that are more difficult to resolve at this late stage. The most serious problem is authors' lack of knowledge on how to organize and present scientific information, with the result that many research papers are confusing and incoherent. Another issue is the frequent failure to correctly acknowledge, through citing and paraphrasing, other researchers' contributions to scientific knowledge. This is, in fact, a neglected area of scientific writing among NNES authors (not only in Italy), with the result that many manuscripts have an inadequate evidence base and a high content of microplagiarized text. Finally, even international standards for scientific reporting — which exist for the exact purpose of promoting quality and ethics — are often ignored. It is surprising that, still today, clinical studies not adhering to the Declaration of Helsinki are conducted in Italy. Altogether, these issues represent major obstacles to many Italian researcher-authors in their quest to publish in selective journals.
Continue on to the following sections:
- Teaching scientific writing to NNES authors
- Learning opportunities for Italian authors
- Suggested reading
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