FW: [STS-L] How to Write a Good Scientific Paper -- A freely available new eBook from SPIE Press

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Glenn Hampson

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2018. 3. 22. 오후 3:54:5218. 3. 22.

받는사람 The Open Scholarship Initiative

In case you didn’t see this link (http://spie.org/samples/9781510619142.pdf) from the STL-L listserv, here a really nice, concise, and free book on how to write for science. The author, Chris Mack, is a fabulous writer and makes some good observations about the issues regularly discussed on the OSI list. Here are a few excerpts:

On incentives (p.2): Any properly regulated and well-functioning “marketplace” (to borrow economic parlance) aligns self-interested and selfless motivations as much as possible. I suspect that every author has some combination of these two classes of motivation. The problem comes when altruism and self-interest are not balanced. In particular, if self-interest becomes so strong as to become selfish and swamp the altruistic goal of scientific advancement, the entire scientific enterprise can suffer. In the academic world, as in the economic world, systems that promote greater disparity in “wealth” contribute to unbalanced selfishness. A winner-take-all tournament, where only the scientists with the top-rated papers published in the top-rated journals have a chance of getting jobs, tenure, grants, and students, will skew motivations towards self-interest. In the business world, rewarding and recognizing only monetary gain for one’s employer can have the same effect. (Some universities are actively applying both pressures to their professors.) The result can be a continuum of sins: lack of motivation for replication experiments, bias against the null result, increased prevalence of faddish and safe science over creative exploration, unnecessary feuds over priority, preference for competition over collaboration, lack of transparency and full disclosure, conflicts of interest, double publication, plagiarism, and outright fraud. (Many of these subjects will be discussed in the following chapters.)
On predatory publishing (p. 60): Unfortunately, the open-access movement in publishing (where authors pay for publication and readers can access the papers for free) has given rise to an ugly phenomenon: the predatory journal. These are sham scientific journals that pretend to be serving the needs of the scientific community but in fact are only about making money. Despite a legitimate-looking website and a reasonable-sounding name, these journals are not the real thing. They are rarely, if ever, read, will accept any paper submitted after a phony peer review, and then take the authors’ money to put their paper up on a website. To publish a paper in a predatory journal is worse than a waste of money, it is a blot on the author’s career and a detriment to science.
On peer review (p. 74): Peer review has evolved significantly since it was first introduced in the mid-eighteenth century, and it continues to evolve today. Technology has drastically sped the process, with email, web-based submissions, and online publishing. Search-engine-style document comparisons do a reasonable job of detecting plagiarism. But in the end, it is the careful reading of a manuscript by editors and expert reviewers that makes the whole process work. Science is a human endeavor, with the scientific quality dependent on the attitude, training, and work ethic of the scientists involved. Likewise, scientific journal publishing depends on the efforts of well-trained and hardworking scientists and engineers who choose to give back to their scientific community by volunteering for their journal.
On publishing ethics (p. 79): For a result to be scientific, and contribute to the body of scientific knowledge, it must be described sufficiently so that the paper’s conclusions can be validated by others. I call this the primary ethic of scientific publication. It requires openness, honesty, and integrity on the part of the authors, all traits that most scientists readily exhibit. When followed, this ethic allows new scientific knowledge to add to existing knowledge and for science to advance. When commercial or competitive interests intrude, there may be pressure on authors not to provide sufficient detail in a paper. Companies may want to keep certain ideas trade secrets. Authors may want to keep flaws hidden, to increase the chance of publication and to maximize claims of significance. Authors may also want to keep certain techniques to themselves in order to keep ahead of rival research groups in generating new results. Secrets may be desirable, or even necessary, but they are not a part of science. Put simply, if other interests require that details necessary to validating a paper’s conclusions cannot be disclosed, then that paper should not be published in a peer-reviewed journal. Authors who want to keep necessary details hidden should not submit such work for publication.

Best,

Glenn

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org

From: sts-l-...@lists.ala.org <sts-l-...@lists.ala.org> On Behalf Of Mary Summerfield
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2018 11:51 AM
To: st...@lists.ala.org
Subject: [STS-L] How to Write a Good Scientific Paper -- A freely available new eBook from SPIE Press

Dear STS-L Participants,

SPIE Press has published a book that should be valuable to all students and faculty in science and engineering: How to Write a Good Scientific Paper by Chris A. Mack.

We are pleased to announce that it is available, for personal use only, at no charge as a PDF eBook, with the link at the book’s web page.

Alternatively anyone can order How to Write a Good Scientific Paper from SPIE’s Bookstore as a softcover book.

Book Description: Many scientists and engineers consider themselves poor writers or find the writing process difficult. The good news is that you do not have to be a talented writer to produce a good scientific paper, but you do have to be a careful writer. In particular, writing for a peer-reviewed scientific or engineering journal requires learning and executing a specific formula for presenting scientific work. This book is all about teaching the style and conventions of writing for a peer-reviewed scientific journal. From structure to style, titles to tables, abstracts to author lists, this book gives practical advice about the process of writing a paper and getting it published.

Please share this information with your librarian colleagues, STEM researchers, faculty members, and students as SPIE hopes that Chris Mack’s wisdom on this topic will be widely disseminated.

With best regards,

Mary Summerfield

Publications Business Development Manager

SPIE

+1 360 685 5588 (Office)

+1 360 647 1445 (Fax)

mar...@SPIE.org

Learn about SPIE Press Books and SPIE Journals.

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From: sts-l-...@lists.ala.org <sts-l-...@lists.ala.org> On Behalf Of Eric Maki
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2018 10:56 AM
To: st...@lists.ala.org
Subject: [STS-L] Two New AMS eBook Collections

Hello STS-L folks,

The American Mathematical Society is pleased to announce the availability of these new eBook Collections:

Monographs:

Translations of Mathematical Monographs

ISSN 2472-5137 (online); ISSN 0065-9282 (print) | 1962 -2014 (240 volumes)

This series contains works of advanced mathematical research and exposition translated primarily from Japanese and Russian. Included as a subseries to this series are original works translated from publisher Iwanami Shoten (Tokyo).

Proceedings and Collections:

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ISSN 2472-4912 (online); ISSN 1051-8037 (print) | 1990-1994 (21 volumes)

Each volume in Advances in Soviet Mathematics is compiled by a leading specialist in a particular area of mathematics and consists of high-quality articles written by world-class mathematicians from Russia. Titles published after Volume 21 appear as a subseries (now entitled Advances in the Mathematical Sciences) in the book series, American Mathematical Society Translations Series 2.

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For more information, including title lists and pricing, please visit http://www.ams.org/ebookcollections. Feel free to email directly with questions.

Regards,

Eric

Eric Maki

Senior Marketing Manager
+1 401.455.4023 (t)