EASE1 GuidelinesEASE Guidelines for Authors and Translators for of Scientific Authors Articles to be Published andin English, June 2014 Translators ofFrom Scientific the Editors’ Desks Articles to Be Published in English June 2014 2 Guidelines 6 Practical tips Appendices 7 Abstracts 8 Ambiguity 9 Cohesion 10 Ethics 11 Plurals 12 Simplicity 13 Spelling 14 Text-tables 15 About EASE Updated annually, freely available in many languages at www.ease.org.uk ©2014 European Association of Science Editors (www.ease.org.uk). Non-commercial printing allowed. 2 EASE Guidelines for Authors and Translators of Scientific Articles to be Published in English, June 2014 EASE Guidelines for Authors and Translators of Scientific Articles to be Published in English To make international scientific communication more and your interpretation and main consequences of your efficient, research articles and other scientific publications findings (conclusions). The abstract must reflect the should be COMPLETE, CONCISE, and CLEAR, as content of the article, as for most readers it will be the explained below. These are generalized but not universal major source of information about your study. You must guidelines, intended to help authors, translators, and use all keywords within the abstract, to facilitate on-line editors. Common sense is necessary when applying these searching for your article by those who may be interested rules, as perfection is impossible to reach. in your results (many databases include only titles and abstracts). In a research report, the abstract should be First of all: informative, including actual results. Only in reviews, • Carefully plan and conduct your study (e.g. Hengl et meta-analyses, and other wide-scope articles, should al. 2011). Do not begin drafting the whole paper until the abstract be indicative, i.e. listing the major topics you are sure that your findings are reasonably firm discussed but not giving outcomes (CSE 2014). Do not and complete (O’Connor 1991), allowing you to draw refer in the abstract to tables or figures, as abstracts are reliable conclusions. also published separately. References to the literature • Before you start writing, preferably choose the journal are also not allowed unless they are absolutely necessary to which you will submit your manuscript. Make sure (but then you need to provide detailed information in that the journal’s readership corresponds to your target brackets: author, title, year, etc.). Make sure that all the audience (Chipperfield et al. 2010). Get a copy of the information given in the abstract also appears in the journal’s instructions to authors and plan the article main body of the article. (See Appendix: Abstracts) to fit the journal’s preferred format in terms of overall • List of additional keywords (if required by the editors): length, number of figures required/allowed, etc. include all relevant scientific terms that are absent from the title and abstract. Keep the keywords specific. Add Manuscripts should be COMPLETE, i.e. no necessary more general terms if your study has interdisciplinary information should be missing. Remember that significance (O’Connor 1991). In medical texts, use information is interpreted more easily if it is placed vocabulary found in the MeSH Browser. where readers expect to find it (Gopen & Swan 1990). For • List of abbreviations (if required by the editors): example, the following information ought to be included in define all abbreviations used in the article, except those experimental research articles. obvious to non-specialists. • Title: should be unambiguous, understandable to • Introduction: explain why the study was needed and specialists in other fields, and reflect the content of the specify your research objectives or the question(s) you article. Be specific, not general or vague (O’Connor aimed to answer. Start from more general issues and 1991). If relevant, mention in the title the study period gradually focus on your research question(s). and location, the international scientific name of the • Methods: describe in detail how the study was studied organism or the experimental design (e.g. case carried out (e.g. study area, data collection, criteria, study or randomized controlled trial). Information origin of analysed material, sample size, number of given in the title does not need to be repeated in the measurements, age and sex of participants, equipment, abstract (as they are always published jointly), although data analysis, statistical tests, and software used). All overlap is unavoidable. factors that could have affected the results need to be • List of authors, i.e. all people who contributed considered. Sources of experimental materials obtained substantially to study planning, data collection or from biobanks should be mentioned with full names interpretation of results and wrote or critically revised and identifiers, if available (Bravo et al. 2013). If you cite the manuscript and approved its final version and agree a method described in a non-English or inaccessible to be accountable for all aspects of the work (ICMJE publication, explain it in detail in your manuscript. 2013). The authors listed first should be those who did Make sure that you comply with the ethical standards most. Names of authors must be supplemented with (e.g. WMA 2013) in respect of patient rights, animal their affiliations (during the study) and the present testing, environmental protection, etc. address of an author for correspondence. E-mail addresses of all authors should be provided, so that • Results: present the new results of your study (usually published data should not be included in this section). they can be contacted easily. All tables and figures must be mentioned in the main • Abstract: briefly explain why you conducted the study body of the article, and numbered in the order in which (background), what question(s) you aimed to answer they appear in the text. Make sure that the statistical (objectives), how you performed the study (methods), analysis is appropriate (e.g. Lang 2004). Do not fabricate what you found (results: major data, relationships), or distort any data, and do not exclude any important ©2014 European Association of Science Editors (www.ease.org.uk). Non-commercial printing allowed. 3 EASE Guidelines for Authors and Translators of Scientific Articles to be Published in English, June 2014 data; similarly, do not manipulate images to make a • Remember to comply with the journal’s instructions false impression on readers. Such data manipulations to authors in respect of abstract length, style of may constitute scientific fraud (see COPE flowcharts). references, etc. • Discussion: answer your research questions (stated at Write CONCISELY to save the time of referees and readers. the end of the Introduction) and compare your new • Do not include information that is not relevant to results with published data, as objectively as possible. your research question(s) stated in the Introduction. Discuss their limitations and highlight your main • Do not copy parts of your previous publications and findings. Consider any findings that run contrary do not submit the same manuscript to more than one to your point of view. To support your position, use journal at a time. Otherwise, you may be responsible only methodologically sound evidence (ORI 2009). for redundant publication (see COPE flowcharts). At the end of the Discussion or in a separate section, This does not apply to preliminary publications, emphasize your major conclusions and the practical such as conference abstracts (O’Connor 1991, see significance of your study. also BioMed Central policy). Moreover, secondary • Acknowledgements: mention all people who publications are acceptable if intended for a contributed substantially to the study but cannot be completely different group of readers (e.g. in another regarded as co-authors, and acknowledge all sources language or for specialists and the general public) and of funding. The recommended form is: “This work you have received approval from the editors of both was supported by the Medical Research Council [grant journals (ICMJE 2013). A reference to the primary number xxxx]”. If no specific funding was provided, publication must then be given in a footnote on the use the following sentence: “This research received no title page of the secondary publication. specific grant from any funding agency in the public, • Information given in one section preferably should commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.” (RIN 2008). not be repeated in other sections. Obvious exceptions If relevant, disclose to the editors any other conflicts include the abstract, the figure legends, and the of interest, e.g. financial or personal links with the concluding paragraph. manufacturer or with an organization that has an interest • Consider whether all tables and figures are necessary. in the submitted manuscript (Goozner et al. 2009). If you Data presented in tables should not be repeated in reproduce previously published materials (e.g. figures), figures (or vice versa). Long lists of data should not be ask the copyright owners for permission and mention repeated in the text. them in the captions or in the acknowledgements. If you were helped by a language professional (e.g. author’s • Captions to tables and figures must be informative editor or translator), a statistician, data collectors, etc., but not very long. If similar data are presented in you should acknowledge their assistance for the sake of several tables or several figures, then the format of transparency (ICMJE 2013, Graf et al. 2009). It must be their captions should also be similar. clear that they are not responsible for the final version • Preferably delete obvious statements (e.g. “Forests of the article. You need to ensure you have the consent are very important ecosystems.”) and other redundant of all the people named in this section. (See Appendix: fragments (e.g. “It is well known that…”). Ethics) • If a long scientific term is frequently repeated, define • References: make sure that you have provided its abbreviation at first use in the main body of the sources for all information extracted from other article, and later apply it consistently.