How to write and publish a paper

Introduction

In this section, David shares his experience as a publisher and discusses the importance of choosing the right topic for a paper.

Predicting Paper Success

• The success or failure of a paper is largely determined by the topic chosen.

• About 90% of a paper's success comes down to the fundamental choice of topic.

• If people can't find your paper, they won't read it. Nowadays, people search online to find and download papers.

• Artificial intelligence plays a role in suggesting papers to readers.

Importance of Good Papers

In this section, David emphasizes the importance of publishing good papers that are worth reading.

Median Impact

• The median number of citations for published papers is zero.

• Many papers end up in "intellectual landfill" because they are not worth reading.

• Papers should pass an "ecological test" - is it worth cutting down a tree to publish it?

• There is craftsmanship and skill involved in communicating scientific ideas effectively.

Experience Writing Papers

In this section, David and Chris discuss their experiences writing and publishing papers.

Remembering Good Papers

• A good paper is like good art - you love it or hate it but you remember it.

• Some papers do incredibly well while others get buried in intellectual landfill.

• There are insider tips and tricks to help improve your chances of publishing a successful paper.

Choosing a Topic

In this section, Chris asks David how he chooses topics for his papers.

Choosing Consistent Topics vs. Editorials/Reviews

• If you've done research on a certain topic, your paper will likely be consistent with that.

• Some people write editorials or reviews on topics they are interested in.

• The key is to choose a topic that is worth writing about and will be of interest to readers.

The Matthew Effect in Science and Inequalities in Academics

David explains the concept of the Matthew effect in science, where successful academics get more opportunities while those who are struggling have fewer chances. He also talks about how this leads to inequalities in academics.

The Importance of Mentorship

• Successful mentorship can help students find winning topics and debates.

• Lack of good mentorship can lead to derivative topics that go nowhere.

• David is passionate about addressing inequalities, especially in health, and has created a convergence method to help students find winning topics.

Fast Tracking Academic Careers with Mentorship

David talks about his Fast Track program, which provides guidance for graduate students doing PhDs who want to fast track their academic careers.

The Fast Track Program

• Provides guidance to avoid mistakes and landmines along the way.

• Offers mentorship, step-by-step courses, and a community of practice.

• Limited availability for those willing to work hard.

Publishing Papers and Seeking Advice from Experienced Professionals

Brian asks David about his experience publishing papers and seeking advice from experienced professionals.

Experience Publishing Papers

• David has published over 400 papers throughout his career.

• His experience makes him a seasoned operator in the academic space.

Seeking Advice from Experienced Professionals

• It's important to seek advice from experienced professionals like David who have been around the block.

• Brian will ask a list of questions one at a time.

Literature in Academic Papers

The scientific community communicates by publishing and the entire mechanism for that has to have some sort of organization and gate. Peer review is a check on the quality of articles, but it has shortcomings. Publishing in high impact journals can be beneficial for academic careers.

Importance of Publishing in Scientific Community

• The scientific community communicates by publishing.

• Peer review is a check on the quality of articles.

• Publishing is a mechanism for getting information into similar journals.

• Publishing in high impact journals can be beneficial for academic careers.

Joining the Scientific Community

• Joining the scientific community means going through peer review and being transparent about methods.

• Getting past peer review sends a signal that your work is worth taking seriously.

• If everything was just on a blog, it would be a bit of a free-for-all.

Choosing Where to Publish

• It's not necessary to publish in high impact journals, but it can be beneficial for academic careers.

• Publication strategy should fit into career goals.

• Some people are passionate about making a difference and choose their publication based on what hurdles they want to jump through.

Finding the Right Journal

In this section, the speakers discuss how to find the right journal for your research paper.

Searching for Journals

• Google search is not very helpful in finding a suitable journal.

• Look at citations in similar articles to find relevant journals.

• Develop a "nearest neighbor paper" to actively hunt for the paper that's most similar to yours.

Creating a Shortlist of Journals

• Use Clarov8's list of field-specific journals by ranking for inspiration.

• Have a shortlist of five journals ready because some will inevitably get rejected.

Dealing with Rejection and Knowing When to Give Up

In this section, the speakers discuss how to deal with rejection and when it may be time to give up on getting your paper published.

Responding to Feedback

• Take any feedback received from rejections as an opportunity for revision.

• If no journal is sending your paper out for review, then it may be time to cut your losses.

Knowing When to Give Up

• Make a calculus based on feedback received and whether or not editors are sending your paper out for review.

• Assess what you're getting from reviews and try incorporating those comments. If you're still getting rejected after revisions, it may be time to move on.

The Importance of Literature Reviews

In this section, the speakers discuss why literature reviews are important in research papers.

Understanding the Value of Literature Reviews

• Literature reviews establish the value added of your paper and show what gap it fills.

• A well-done literature review can help establish a debate and discussion around your research topic.

Importance of Literature Review in Scientific Research

In this section, Kevin discusses the importance of literature review in scientific research and how it can help researchers gather information on their topic of interest.

Background on Literature Review

• Kevin explains that literature review is important because it helps researchers find what other people in their field are publishing on.

• He shares his experience working with physicians to write papers and how they would manage thousands or tens of thousands of citations on topics they wanted to save and refer to.

• According to Kevin, there was no good tool out there to help them manage all those citations until they built a system that could search the literature, pull back articles of interest, screen those articles down to the ones that matter, build a concept hierarchy to map each underlying article to the concepts that you actually want to publish about, and then take data from them.

Importance of Doing a Literature Review

• Doing a literature review is important because we need a central source of truth to compare new results against.

• Researchers cannot get answers unless they gather all other literature in one place transparently and replicably for their audience.

• It is also essential for researchers who want to establish themselves as experts in the field by doing a literature review first before trying to change practice.

Importance of Demonstrating Expertise

In this section, the speaker discusses the importance of demonstrating expertise in a research paper and how it can impact the credibility of the study.

Demonstrating Expertise

• It is important to demonstrate expertise in a research paper to increase its credibility.

• A well-written results section and detailed methods can help establish that the authors are on the cutting edge of their field.

Benefits of Collaborative Work with Nested Knowledge

In this section, the speaker talks about nested knowledge and how it facilitates collaborative work among team members.

Collaborative Work with Nested Knowledge

• Nested knowledge allows for collaborative work among team members.

• The visual aspect of nested knowledge helps create a hierarchy of different tags, making it easier to see everything at once.

Visualizing Nested Knowledge

In this section, the speaker talks about how nested knowledge is visualized and requests for Kevin to display it on screen.

Visualizing Nested Knowledge

• It is difficult to explain nested knowledge without visuals.

• The speaker requests Kevin to display nested knowledge on screen so viewers can understand better.

Live Stream Plug and Video Presentation Request

In this section, the speaker plugs another live stream for channel members and requests Kevin to do a video presentation.

Live Stream Plug and Video Presentation Request

• The speaker plugs another live stream for channel members discussing how to get a job at WHO.

• Viewers need to be channel members to participate in the live stream.

• The speaker requests Kevin to do a video presentation on nested knowledge.

Benefits of Literature Review

In this section, the speaker talks about the benefits of doing a literature review and how it ingrains good scientific habits.

Benefits of Literature Review

• Doing a systematic literature review ingrains good scientific habits such as precision and detail.

• It is foundational and helps establish solid scientific habits that are necessary for more complex research in the future.

Collaborating with Other Authors

In this section, the speaker discusses collaborating with other authors and how groups of people collaborate to write a paper.

Collaborating with Other Authors

• The speaker has all their PhD students do a systematic literature review as their starting point.

• Senior authors who have written many papers can be great resources for learning best practices.

• There are different roles people play when collaborating on writing a paper, and there are criteria for being listed as an author.

Setting Expectations for Co-Authorship

In this section, the speaker emphasizes the importance of setting expectations for co-authorship and leveraging co-authors' expertise to strengthen manuscripts.

Importance of Setting Expectations

• The PI should set the tone and expectations for co-authorship.

• It is unethical for a professor to slap their name on a paper without contributing.

• Students should think about how to get the most value out of their co-authors by deploying their talents wisely.

Leveraging Co-Authors' Expertise

• Co-authors can be at all levels of academic hierarchy but should be engaged in ways that align with their expertise.

• Top supervisors are great for input in choosing topics and framing manuscripts, but may not be best suited for heavy lifting or language editing.

• Taking stock of co-authors' talents and deploying them wisely can strengthen manuscripts.

Dealing with Criticism from Referees

In this section, the speaker discusses how to deal with criticism from referees during peer review.

Responding to Criticism

• Sometimes referees may send back comments that do not apply or would weaken the paper if implemented.

• The author's principle is to go as far as possible to address comments while doing the minimum necessary to thoroughly address them.

• Disagreeing with referees can be done respectfully by pinging it back to the editor and explaining why you disagree.

Revisions and Referees

In this section, the speakers discuss how to handle revisions and referees during the publication process.

Cheat Sheets for Revisions

• Authors can use cheat sheets to help with revisions.

• These cheat sheets can clarify points made in the manuscript without changing the content.

• This approach can strengthen an argument and address issues raised by referees.

Winning at Revisions

• Getting a revision is a win, but it's important not to get into a fight with reviewers.

• Addressing all issues raised in the manuscript is crucial.

• Failure to address fundamental weaknesses in the paper may lead to rejection.

Rejecting Papers at Revision

• Papers may be rejected if referees identify fundamental weaknesses that authors fail to address.

• Clear inclusion and exclusion criteria are necessary when selecting articles for systematic reviews.

• Predefined templates can make data extraction easier.

Tips for Conducting Systematic Reviews

The speakers provide tips on conducting systematic reviews.

Finding Relevant Articles

• Optimizing PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) is key when searching for relevant articles.

• Clear inclusion and exclusion criteria are necessary when selecting articles for systematic reviews.

Extracting Data from Articles

• Predefined templates can make data extraction easier.

• A common format exists for extracting data from studies.

Refining Search Results

In this section, the speakers discuss how to refine search results when conducting research.

Strategies for Narrowing Down Search Results

• Use PICO (Patient, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) to identify specific parameters for your search.

• Include negations in your search terms to exclude irrelevant studies.

• Utilize software tools that allow you to pre-screen articles and review abstracts before diving into the full text.

Tips for Effective Negation

• Identify concepts that are not relevant to your research question and use negation to exclude them from your search.

• Be specific with negations by excluding study types and interventions that are not of interest.

Benefits of Pre-Screening Articles

• Pre-screening allows you to quickly assess the relevance of a study before investing time in reading the full text.

• AI collation can help identify key topics and risks related to a study's population.

Using AI to Improve Literature Review

In this section, the speakers discuss how AI can help researchers improve their literature review process. They also talk about the importance of finding relevant articles and the challenges of publishing negative results.

Improving Literature Review with AI

• AI can help researchers find relevant articles for their literature review.

• AI can provide initial abstracts that match the researcher's interest, giving them confidence to move forward with screening.

• If there is a lot of evidence on a topic, it may be necessary to work through a large volume of articles for a systematic literature review.

• For a lighter touch review, finding the right articles to reference in the introduction and background is important.

Challenges of Publishing Negative Results

• Journals tend to favor positive results over negative ones because they are more likely to be read and cited.

• Replicating research is an important part of the scientific process but journals are not excited about publishing studies that have already been done.

• It is harder to prove null findings than positive ones, making it difficult to publish negative results.

• However, there has been a culture change towards publishing negative results in recent years.

Encouraging Publication of Negative Findings

• Getting your topic right at the beginning can increase your chances of publishing even if you have negative findings.

• Simple replications may be hard to get published so choosing your topic carefully is important.

Presenting Negative Results in Scientific Publishing

The speaker recommends presenting negative results in scientific publishing and argues that there has been a culture shift among journal editors and the scientific community towards valuing replication studies and negative results. They suggest arguing for the importance of negative results in the discussion section of a paper.

Importance of Negative Results

• There has been a culture shift towards valuing replication studies and negative results.

• Replication is important to prove the basis of science.

• Stress testing positive results is important to ensure scientific findings are durable.

• Argue for the importance of negative contributions to literature in your own discussion section.

Handling Negative Decisions on Manuscripts

The speaker addresses how to handle receiving a negative decision on a manuscript after spending nine months on peer review without any comments provided. They suggest it is difficult to insist on peer review comments but emphasize that journals should strive to provide good service with quick turnaround times.

Handling Negative Decisions

• It's difficult to insist on peer review comments.

• Journals should strive for quick turnaround times between submission and decision-making.

• Relevant papers need to be published quickly so they don't miss their relevance window.

Open Access Publishing

The speaker discusses open access publishing, its challenges, and its future as an increasingly popular model for scientific publishing.

Open Access Publishing

• Open access publishing is the future.

• Challenges include getting the payment mechanism right, especially for disadvantaged junior researchers and those in low and middle-income countries.

• There is still progress to be made in making open access publishing more accessible.

Open Access and Publishing

In this section, Kevin and David discuss the problem that open access is trying to address, which is the long review time for journals. They also talk about how open access has solved this problem and the challenges around payment mechanisms.

The Problem with Journals

• The problem that open access is trying to address is the user's question about the nine-month review time.

• Journals are having reviewers work for free to push an article out there, but in the end, the payment only comes from subscriptions.

• This incentive system doesn't align with what authors are looking for, which is getting their results out there quickly because they're part of the scientific discussion.

How Open Access Solves This Problem

• Open access has done a lot to solve this issue by allowing authors to get their results out there quickly.

• There are still huge problems around payment mechanisms and especially just amounts. However, as people work out a good model to scale up a business, they can move toward cheaper options.

Challenges Around Payment Mechanisms

• There needs to be pressure on journals to try to attract authors who are looking to publish their data.

• If you're publishing open access, make sure that the journal is indexed on PubMed or index generally and do a quick check to make sure that you're not publishing with a predatory publisher.

Funding Agencies and Models for Open Access Journals

In this section, David talks about his desire for funding agencies to put aside more money that's made available as a pot of money that can be tapped into where there's a paper that's good and will get through peer review. He also discusses the model used in globalization and health, which is not incentivized to publish more.

Funding Agencies

• David would like to see some of these big funding agencies put aside more money that's made available as a pot of money that can just be tapped into where there's a paper that's good and will get through peer review.

• Given how expensive it is to have done the research, paid the researchers, etc., for it to not make it over that last hurdle for the want of what is relatively a small amount of money is tragic.

Models for Open Access Journals

• In globalization and health, they provide waivers for people from poorer countries.

• There are still many people who are unable to get their papers into open access journals because they're not part of an institution that can finance it.

• One model you should look for in an open access journal is one where the editorial board is not incentivized to publish more.

Editorial Decisions and Literature Review

In this section, the speakers discuss editorial decisions made by publishing companies for financial reasons. They also talk about the difficulties students face when doing a literature review and offer tips to overcome them.

Editorial Decisions

• Publishing companies make editorial decisions based on financial reasons.

• There are predatory journals that publish articles without proper scrutiny.

• Researchers should look out for index journals and impact factors to ensure they are publishing in reputable journals.

Literature Review

• Students find it difficult to do a literature review because of lack of support and guidance from supervisors.

• Students need a support structure in place, which should be provided by their university.

• Having a mentor with a track record of writing and publishing papers is important for those who want to write and publish papers.

• Good study design is crucial for bringing high-quality reviews into practice.

Tips for Conducting a Systematic Review

In this section, the speaker provides tips for conducting a systematic review.

Reading Articles Early in the Process

• Read articles early in the process of screening and tagging them.

• Flag content that might be of interest.

• Have a heuristic along the way to determine if there is enough evidence to publish.

Comparing Articles

• Compare articles to ensure they are similar enough.

• Ensure that you are comparing clinical reviews and not pre-clinical narrative reviews.

Gathering Data and Finding Low-Quality Data

• Gather data and find low-quality data.

• Do a common data elements review with software to create a review of quality that sets the stage for further research on the topic.

• Help researchers structure what are the data points that need gathering in order to do a systematic review that's robust in the future.

Seeking Assistance

• Sign up and get on the support channel if you need help finding your search or figuring out if your research question is concrete enough.

• Get assistance with technical details such as how to actually do a common data elements review and call for better data quality in your discipline.

• The support team can help refine any of these areas above.