Five basic requirements for writing foreign journal papers, namely, 5C: correctness, clarity, conciseness, completeness and consistency. Only by meeting these five requirements can it be regarded as a qualified foreign journal article. I deeply agree with this. Below, I will explain my point of view from the basic structure of foreign periodical papers.
1) Introduction
I always think that introduction is one of the most difficult parts of foreign journal articles (the other is discussion). The defect of Chinese articles is that the introduction has no connotation, is too simple, and does not really reflect the original research and innovation elements of a paper. It should be said that foreign periodical papers have high requirements for introduction. It is no exaggeration to say that a good introduction is half the battle. So everyone should concentrate enough energy on the introduction.
I think the most important thing to write a good introduction is to keep a clear sense of hierarchy and strong logic. The combination of the two is to establish a progressive relationship on the basis of logic. At the beginning, you should first explain the basic content of your research field, try to be concise and clear, and don't talk too much. It should be noted that people who read the article are experts in this field, so some obvious knowledge should be described in general rather than narrative language.
Next is one of the key points of the introduction: literature review. This point should be described with special emphasis on pen and ink. On the one hand, we should comprehensively summarize the past and present situation in this field, and there must be no omissions.
Especially the latest progress and the citation of past classic literature. These are the two most likely problems that we should try our best to avoid. If once the judges find these two diseases, it is likely that you have not done enough in-depth or comprehensive, and the negative impact is very obvious. On the other hand, the application of literature and the provision of data must be accurate. It is absolutely unacceptable to unilaterally extract some results without reflecting the overall results of the literature. The data cited should also be correct, especially the data indirectly cited (that is, the data not found in the original document but found in another document). Errors in data will greatly reduce the impression of the article. In addition, when quoting documents, pay attention to avoid giving people the impression of plagiarism, that is, don't copy the original text, but summarize and describe it in your own words. If the reviewer happens to be a reference to the document, this is not good.
Then, it analyzes the limitations of previous research and clarifies the innovation of its own research, which is the climax of the whole introduction, so it is more cautious. When expounding the limitations, we should pay attention to objectively and fairly evaluating other people's work, and don't base the value of our own research on belittling other people's work, which is often a common problem in writing Chinese articles. In the writing of foreign periodical papers, this is absolutely unacceptable, and we must follow the principle of seeking truth from facts to analyze it. When expounding his own innovation, he only describes the defects of past research and describes his own solutions completely and clearly. It should be noted that the stall of the article should not be spread too much, but should be grasped and elaborated in depth. As long as it can solve a problem well, it is a good article. The more innovative descriptions are, the easier it is for commentators to catch them. The characteristics of Chinese articles are more innovative, while the characteristics of English articles are just the opposite: it is quite good to solve one or two problems thoroughly and systematically. Finally, it is a summary description of the research content of the paper, which can be divided into one, two, three and four aspects to make the final finishing work for the introduction.
At this point, the writing of the introduction is a success. However, after writing, it is very important to revise it carefully and carefully consider whether every sentence in it is properly and accurately expressed, which is very important for the revision and improvement of the introduction.
2) Methods
Describe the experimental process of our thesis (this is for science and engineering, I don't know about liberal arts, so I can't talk nonsense). The writing of this process is relatively simple, but there are many problems that need attention. The most important thing is completeness and science. Integrity is to pay attention to every link of the experiment, not to lose sight of one thing and miss some important contents.
Methods Generally, it can be organized according to experimental objects, experimental equipment, experimental materials, experimental records and experimental analysis methods. The experimental object is generally human or animal or some tissues, and its basic information should be described clearly. In addition, it should be noted that most foreign publications have some specific requirements for experiments involving people or animals, and some are not allowed to do experiments on people or animals, which requires careful reading of the detailed regulations on experiments in the submitted publications. If you violate this regulation, you may not accept the review or publication, which should be paid special attention to.
In the description of experimental equipment, the model, manufacturer and purpose of the instrument should be explained in detail (there may be other ways to write confidential items, I don't know). The connection between experimental equipment should be scientific and correct, and it should not give people the feeling of confusion or misoperation. When using the equipment, some necessary steps are necessary, especially the operations that may have a specific impact on the experimental results. The advantage of doing so is to make corresponding analysis in the discussion. For example, some equipment should be calibrated before use, and some equipment should be recalibrated after each stage of experiment to ensure the correctness of the results. This point must explain your operation steps or correction process in detail, so that the reviewers can analyze your results. The description of experimental materials should have different requirements according to different disciplines, so it is difficult to describe them in detail here. Generally speaking, it is necessary to pay attention to the selection of materials, that is, it is best to explain why this material is chosen. If this point is not clearly described, the whole experiment process may be untenable. The experiment process is to describe the whole operation flow of your own experiment clearly, which is generally illustrated by the flow chart of the experiment. There are many ways to draw the flow chart, some are words, some are combined with schematic diagrams, and different methods are adopted according to different experiments. Generally speaking, the latter may be more (especially some experimental subjects), because it can let the reviewers know your experimental process at a glance. If the schematic diagram is beautifully spent, it can also enhance some impression points. There should be a distinct sense of hierarchy when describing, and the sequence and correlation of each step should be clearly described to avoid the impression of confusion in the experimental process. Because the final judgment of whether your experiment is reasonable comes from the description of this process.
As long as the above four aspects can be described completely and scientifically, I believe it is not a problem to write a good method.
3) results
Many people put the results and discussion together when writing a paper, but most papers are divided into two parts. The choice of these two methods depends on the type of article. If it is more appropriate to discuss your results while analyzing, and it is not suitable for separate analysis (or when it is difficult to do so, the discussion becomes chicken ribs), then it is more appropriate to write together; Instead, they should be written together. Because there is no experience in writing together, I want to talk about it separately here. I hope that people who have writing experience together can supplement this content.
The requirement of the result part is four words: informative and accurate. A large amount of information is to provide the most comprehensive analysis results. All the results that can be obtained from your experiment should be provided to the readers. Don't deliberately hide or omit some important results. Accuracy means that the results must be true, not forged or tampered with. In a sense, the lack of detailed results will not lead to the direct rejection of the paper, but if the authenticity of the results is doubted, it will definitely be rejected.
Tables and charts are usually used when providing results. Different magazines have different requirements for charts, so they should be treated separately according to the requirements of magazines. The advantage of the table is that it can clearly show the first-hand results of the paper, which is convenient for future generations to quote and compare in the research. The advantage of the chart is that it can flexibly show the changing trend of data, and the expression is more direct and infectious. It should be said that charts should be used together, so that we can learn from each other and enrich the results. It should be pointed out that people like to give various pictures more and more now, but the requirement of magazines is to limit the number of pictures as much as possible. Because this will increase the difficulty of typesetting, the layout will also increase, and the expenditure of the publishing house will also increase. So my suggestion is that when you provide maps, try to provide the most information with the least number of maps, generally speaking, no more than eight. If there are too many pictures, it will be too cumbersome and cumbersome, and the editor-in-chief will not appreciate it. If necessary, tables can be used instead of some charts. The format of the picture is different from magazine to magazine, and there are many that need tif format. BMP(JPG is even worse) is not recommended. Some people say that vector graphics are clearer, and my feeling is no different from that in tif format, as long as it is clear enough. Use color pictures carefully, because black and white pictures can be free, but color pictures definitely have to be charged and expensive. In the case that the results and discussion are written separately, the results part should try not to design comments on the results, but only summarize the results. Otherwise, the contents of these two parts will overlap and be very complicated, which is not conducive to the description of the discussion. The description of the results should also pay attention to the arrangement between levels, and should be described separately according to the requirements of the organization, so that it seems logical. Don't pile them together in a mess, just give them. The result is a mess, which will greatly reduce the readability of the paper, and ultimately it is yourself who suffers. Most results should provide statistical results, such as analysis of variance. The result form of variance analysis should be given according to the format of the publication. Some require detailed analysis values, degrees of freedom and probabilities, while others only need analysis values and probabilities. Probability can be given by p=0.02 or p0.03, and there are some special requirements for the expression of degrees of freedom. Although these details have little to do with it, we should pay attention to the unification of the format and not be in a mess. When there are too many statistical analysis results, they can be given in tabular form, referring to the results of SPSS software analysis.
If the results of the paper are all statistical data, it will be chaotic, and the tabular form will avoid this.
4) discussion
As mentioned above, introduction and discussion are the two most difficult parts in the whole paper. The discussion part is difficult to write, because it can best reflect the depth and breadth of an author's research. The depth is the degree to which the paper studies the questions raised, and the breadth is whether the experimental results can be analyzed and explained from many aspects. To write a good exposition, I think it can be divided into the following two steps: first, choose the issues to be discussed and analyzed in depth. In the results section, some results are important, while others are ignored. In the discussion section, choosing the appropriate results for in-depth discussion is the first problem to face in writing this section. Generally speaking, it can be judged according to a simple principle: if the result you get reflects the uniqueness of the experiment and is not obtained in other studies, then this result is the problem that should be discussed emphatically. Some results are consistent with previous studies, and there is no significant difference, so we should write them off and not discuss them in depth, otherwise we will just repeat other people's work and have no value. An important role of discussion is to highlight the innovation of one's own research, showing the characteristics that are significantly different from others. The difference between big and small is another problem, and the most important thing is that there is a difference.
Secondly, the selected problems are discussed from multiple angles according to a certain level. Sometimes there is more than one question of choice (in fact, there are more than two in most cases), so it needs to be described clearly according to a certain level. Generally speaking, the most important thing should be placed in the middle, followed by the beginning and the end. I think putting it in the middle can bring the judges' emotions to a climax, with a foreshadowing in front and a summary behind. This order seems more appropriate, please correct me if it is not. No matter how big or small the problem is, whether it is important or not, it should be discussed in depth from many aspects. In this regard, we should first compare similar results to illustrate the uniqueness of our conclusion. Secondly, it is necessary to systematically explain why there is such a result. There are many methods: from the perspective of experimental design, from the perspective of theoretical principles, from the perspective of analytical methods, or from the perspective of analysis by others. There is no such thing as a definite rule. It's important to explain this question thoroughly and clearly, so as not to give people the feeling of wanting more (this is actually very difficult, because the judges will always ask new questions, and we can only try our best to do this).
In the discussion, it is important to keep consistency with the results, that is, the results and discussions should correspond to each other, echo each other and set off each other. Never show that the seminar came to the opposite conclusion from the experiment, which proves that your discussion idea is a complete failure or your experiment is a failure at all. Therefore, in the description of discussion, the accuracy of language expression is particularly important. Due to the differences between Chinese and English expression habits, there will always be some misunderstandings, so try to solve them before submitting the manuscript, otherwise it is very wrong to be rejected because of this problem.
At this point, four special topics of foreign periodical papers have been introduced. Some people say that there is still a lack of summary and conclusion, but I think that as long as the above four parts are solved, these two parts will be easy to write, and they are not the focus of the judges (the importance of the summary is slightly higher). There are two other parts here: thank you and reference.
5) Confirm
The main content is divided into two parts: The first part explains the sources of research funds, such as the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the United States. When writing a fund, the number of the fund (funding number) should generally be clearly indicated. Only in this way can it be regarded as the research result of the fund and the research result of the laboratory. You know, without financial support, there is no completion of research results. The second is to express gratitude to the participants (researchers not listed by the author) and units. If they pass the preliminary examination and finally accept publication, it is basic courtesy to add thanks to the editors and anonymous reviewers. Many people in China will miss this part in the article, which is very bad.
Regarding references, what matters is the format. Different magazines have different requirements for the format of references, which can be divided into: the author's writing style, some before, some after, some after, some without the main points; The names of articles, some with quotation marks, some without quotation marks; The journal should be abbreviated, full name and italicized, which is unnecessary. Year sequence and issue number, some before the year, some after the year; Periodical papers, books, dissertations and conference papers are cited in different formats. These files are arranged in alphabetical order, while other files are arranged in Arabic numerals according to the order in which they appear in the files. Basically, these questions seem trivial, but if your references are arranged in disorder, the reviewers will have a bad impression of your paper and think that you have no cognitive organization and writing ability, which will have a certain negative impact. Therefore, although things are small, they have great influence, so it is better to organize them carefully.
In addition, the paper should be written in English from beginning to end, and never write in Chinese before it is translated into English. The article written in this way is definitely not Chinese, and English is not English, which is also a great waste of energy. I'd rather write poor grammar at first, but it's better to revise it slowly. In addition, it will be more convenient to write like this if there are people with better professional English. When writing, pay attention to the tense of the article. There is no tense problem in Chinese, but in English, and the requirements are quite strict. Generally speaking, it is the past tense in most cases. In the review of the introductory literature, the whole part of the method, the summary of the results and most of the discussions, the past tense should be used. In other cases, it can be described in general tense. The boundaries between tenses are strict. It's better to read and analyze foreign papers carefully, or let experienced people check them for you, which is better.
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