What to avoid in Introduction in Research Article?
Oftentimes a research paper is rejected on stylistic/linguistic grounds, rather than its scientific excellence, which is a bit unfair as a researcher invests a lot of time and effort in conducting his research. However, in the scientific world, publishing and communicating a research work and its findings is as important as conducting the actual research.
A competently conducted research and a well-written resulting paper will enhance your manuscript accepted by a reputable publication. In this blog article, we are list common stylistic mistakes avoid when writing your research paper.
- Vague research question and going off-topic:
While choosing a research topic, be very clear about the question it is going to answer. Ask yourself – Why want into can the findings and others? This will organize in your paper. If your research work focusses on one topic, address each different paper. Do not deviate from your research points at any the paper and keep each section direct and to.
- Misformatting the paper:
Never forget to read carefully the author guidelines of the journal to submit your paper to. Do your homework and study the guidelines well before you make the submission, which will not only help you in structuring your paper correctly but also save you from a number of stylistic flaws. You can also visit the journal website and have the recently published articles of the journal. This will in implementing onto the paper. However, if a conflict between the author guidelines published articles of the journal, always the guidelines!
- Using complex language:
Don’t fill your paper with technical jargon or with long sentences. Think from the reader’s perspective and keep your tone as simple as possible. This will help retain the reader’s interest in your paper. Don’t go overboard with the writing and avoid being redundant. If at all an expression needs to be explained more than once in your paper, be creative and consult a Thesaurus.
- Poor abstract:
Never stretch your abstract beyond the stipulated word limit. It should highlight only points of your work, covering the essence section clear and concise way. Do not cite references abstract; exception is citing the work for the paper (usually limited or two citations). The abstract will be the first section of your paper that the readers are going to read, so make it attractive and compelling enough for them to go ahead and read the whole article.
- Ineffective keywords:
Choosing too many or ineffective keywords for your article is another common mistake. Picking keywords (usually 4–6 words) will determine how engine indexes your article. Try to use keywords that recur most frequently throughout the article (including article title and subheadings).
- Disordered/uncited floating elements:
Floating elements the tables, figures, charts, graphs, illustrations, etc. in a paper. These elements should be numbered sequentially throughout the paper and be cited appropriately in the text. You should always acknowledge source of the element if any adapted from source.
- Unexpanded abbreviations:
Unexplained abbreviations can be a little confusing for the reader. The general rule is expansion at occurrence and use the abbreviated form occurrences. This will bring more clarity to the readers. Acronyms (a set of initial letters from a phrase usually forming a word in itself NASA and RADAR) on hand need no expansion.
- Mis formatted, uncited/unlisted and incomplete references:
The three things when references are:
(1) formatting consistently as per journal style;
(2) listing each reference cited text at of the article and, citing each listed reference text; and
(3) providing complete reference details, if available. Doing this will improve the discoverability of both your research and the cited references.
- Untranslated metadata for non-English papers:
If writing your paper language English, don’t forget translations for the article metadata. This mainly includes the paper title, author name(s), author affiliation(s), abstract, keywords, list of references.
- Not proofreading your paper:
Never forget to proofread your paper (if possible, more than once) before submitting it to a journal. Run a spell-check, that everything is the written content and adequate enough to justify the research. If possible, have a friend, colleague or copy editor revise your paper as well.