Al-Farabi Kazakh National University Department of Physics and Engineering ORGANIZATION AND PLANNING OF RESEARCH Lecturer: Kabatayeva R. S. , Department of Theoretical and Nuclear Physics, Senior Teacher, Ph. D in Physics.
Problem task for a Master Student for seminar
During a semester a Master student has an opportunity to make an expanded report-presentation in English on task of Relevance or Urgency of Scientific Investigation, in the framework of which his or her master thesis will be performed.
There should presented answers to the following questions in the report: 1. Theme or direction of the scientific investigation. 2. Why did you choose this problem? 3. Backgrounds of the scientific investigation, history of development of the question being investigated. 4. State of development of the scientific investigation in Kazakhstan and abroad, financial support.
5. Domestic and foreign scientists or group of scientists (laboratories, institutes, universities, countries, group of universities or countries), investigating this question. 6. Bibliographic analysis of the question being investigated (diagrams: years and publication quantities, quality of publications, journals, points of extremums, substantiation). Use of bibliometric data-bases and instruction on citations.
7. Objectives of the scientific investigation. 8. Problems of the scientific investigation. 9. Novelty and practical or theoretical relevance or importance of the scientific investigation. 10. Expected results. 11. And other information, that a master student will consider as to be necessary in his or her report for full substantiation of relevance or urgency of the scientific investigation.
Plan of lecture 1 1. INTRODUCTION 2. International system of scientific publications 3. From the history of scientific publications 4. Appearing of the peer-review procedure 5. Appearing of figures 6. Appearing of a part, describing materials and methods 7. Primary and secondary scientific publications
1. Introduction The objective of the research is a scientific publication as a document confirming the fact of the scientific achievement and informing colleagues about the investigation. A scientific experiment, even if it gives the very impressive results, is not completed until its results are published. The foundation stone of the philosophy of the modern science is an obligatory publication of the results of original research, and only this way they can be tested and only then they can become a part of “scientific knowledge”.
Scientists-researchers are to represent a written report about what they have done, why they have done, how they have done, and what is the new knowledge they brought to the mankind. Thus, a scientist is to not only “do science”, but also “write science”. Everyone, whose profession is science, has to “write science”. Our colleagues, working in the most advanced countries with developed science, say that the most part of their time, about 70 -80 %, they spend for writing articles, reports, projects, and not at all for carrying out of experiments, results treatment or calculations.
Scientific texts, written badly, even about investigations carried out perfectly, are often not published. It especially concerns the articles, written by our researchers and presented to prestigious international journals. The refusal in publication is often connected with “bad” English, because of what the content of the article is not correctly understood.
The article’s presentation and correctness of formulation’s use also influence on its quality. Nowadays the contribution of scientists, organizations and even a whole country to the development of science is estimated by both quantity and citations of scientific publications. Our objective is a gaining of skills for public presentations of results of research work in oral or written form. Some researchers nevertheless become good authors, in spite of that they were not taught to write about their investigation.
Some researchers are lucky, and they are taught by their supervisors or colleagues, which write good. Some researchers imitate to their scientific supervisors or other authors and copy their disadvantages in publication. Some researchers study to write by theirselves, and it takes a lot of time. Our objective is to tell qualified researchers and master students how to write and prepare a manuscript of the scientific article, that it corresponds to the standards of the international system of scientific publication.
The requirements to articles for medical journals are different from those on Physics or Philosophy and History. However there exist the general points, knowledge of which allows the beginner authors to do the first steps and avoid many mistakes, and help the experienced authors to improve skills of writing of scientific articles. Nowadays the language of the international communication in the scientific-educational community is English. The large and most important part of scientific publications is published in English.
If you want that your article was read by colleagues from other countries, then it should be published in English. In the base of these lectures are presentations of specialists from developed countries, which have visited Kazakhstan, particularly our University, and made their presentations about scientific writing. They are editors of famous international publishing houses, representatives of international databases and scientists.
2. International system of scientific publications Scientific publications – are not the articles about science or on scientific theme in popular journal. Scientific literature or scientific publications represent a statement of results of the original experimental or theoretical investigations in the original articles, and also their generalization or analysis in reviews, monographs, and they intended, first of all, for professionals-researchers. Articles are placed in professional scientific journals.
For the modern scientific publications the following peculiarities are significant: 1. The most part of articles about original research is written in accordance with the definite format: introduction, methods, results and discussions (IMRAD format). 2. There are total references for other scientific works in the publications so that a reader can independently find the work, which is cited (references, citations). 3. There are illustrations in the publications, and the illustrations are described in the text (tables, charts, schematic, diagrams, graphs, line -drawings, images).
4. There is a detailed description of the way the results were obtained (methodics, theoretical deductions, discussions, statistical treatment of data) and how the authors came to the conclusions stated in the publication (methods, materials). 5. The most valuable publications are those which are published in peer-reviewed journals. In such journals the manuscripts are published only after they have been considered and approved, at least, by two specialists (peer-reviewers). 6. The publication is always open access for all readers without any restrictions (permanent available for public).
3. From the history of scientific publications Long before the time when articles in scientific journals became the mean of communication among scientists, the results of research were stated in scientific books, called treatises (from Latin tractatus – subjected to consideration). Beyond all doubt that exactly books, not journals, accompanied the beginning of scientific revolution. The direct predecessor of the scientific journals in the 17 th century were learned letters, which the scientists exchanged.
The most famous are Galilean letters about sunspots and planets’ orbits, which were lately published as a collection, that is a book. Galilean’s letters were not personal messages to friends or colleagues, but they were essays, describing results of experiments and observations, and intended for wide public interested in it. Men and scientists contribute to effective and fast dissemination of such scientific notes; they rewrite and then distribute these messages to researchers and friends.
The position of secretary appeared with the appearing of scientific communities, the duties of the secretary were a copying and a distribution of the letters of the community members and researchers. In march, 1665 the first issue of the scientific journal «Philosophical Transactions» was published (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1
There were about 20 pages in the first issues of the journal, circulation is 1200 copies. To 1677 there were Newton, Boyle, Hooke, Leeuwenhoek, Huygens, Leibnitz, Galileo among the publications’ authors of the journal. The requirements to the style of scientific publications were already formulated then – without overstatement, verbosity, metaphors and allegories, almost mathematical dry style. The journal «Philosophical Transactions» is an authoritative scientific journals nowadays.
4. Appearing of the peer-review procedure A peer-review – is a procedure of critical consideration of manuscripts of scientific articles before the publication by scientistsspecialists in the same field. The objective of the peer-review is to make sure and in the necessary cases make the author following standards, accepted in the specific field or science in a whole. The peer-review is used by publishers for selection and estimation of manuscripts.
The activity similar to the peer-review procedure is found in the “Ethics of Doctor”, written by Ishak bin Ali al-Ravi (854 -931) from Rakha, Sirium. His work, as the more later other Arabian medical documents, says that a doctor, which comes to patient, is always to make notes about the state of the patient every time he visits him. When the patient recovered or died, the notes of the clinician doctor were looked through by the local medical council, consisting of other doctors, which made review of the notes of the doctor in order to decide if his actions corresponded to the standards accepted in the treatment or not. If their opinions were negative, then the clinician doctor could face with court action from the patient, whose treatment did not correspond to the norms accepted.
The procedure of the peer-review of manuscripts before the publication was firstly applied in 1731 at a preparation to publication of the «Medical Essays and Observations» by Henri Oldenburg, who was also the founder of the first scientific journal «Philosophical Transactions» . The modern system of peer-review is evolved from this process of the 18 th century. However the peer-review became the generally accepted practice only from the middle of the 20 th century.
For example, in 1905, which is called a year of miracles in Physics, Albert Einstein’s articles were published in the German journal «Annalen der Physik» , the articles were not formally peer-reviewed before the publication, and were only read by Max Plank (the chief-editor of the journal) and Wilhelm Wien (both are Nobel Laureates). Recently there appeared attempts to check the system of peer-reviewing by the way of presentation of senseless texts written by pseudo-scientific language.
Successful attempts of such kinds belong to computer program SCIgen – several articles, generated by random way, and were accepted to publication in American, Iranian and Russian journals. The article, published in 2008 in Russian periodic issue (then it was a journal from the list of the Higher Attestation Commission) “Journal of scientific publication of aspirants and Ph. D students” is called “Корчеватель: алгоритм типичной унификации точек доступа и избыточности”.
5. Appearing of figures It is difficult to present the modern scientific publication without figures. However the modern figures were “invented” only in the end of the 18 th century by the German physicist Johann Lambert and English economist William Pleyfer. The last scientist was the first who drew color figures for economic data (Fig. 2). From the beginning the independent variable (horizontal axis) was often the time, and the dependent variable (vertical axis) was the physical or chemical properties which changed in time.
Fig. 2
6. Appearing of a part, describing materials and methods The peculiar role in establishment of the modern format of scientific articles belongs to Louis Pasteur. To convince his critics, many of whom were fanatical supporters of theory of spontaneous generation of life, Pasteur included detailed description of the experiment in the text of the publications, following which other researchers can reproduce it.
Pasteur not only proved that many deceases are caused by microorganisms and developed the method of pure culture for study of microorganisms, but also contributed to the progress in the methodology of experimental science and essentially changed the structure of articles, published in scientific journals. Since then the principle of “reproducibility” of experiments became the fundamental one for scientific investigations, and the description of the methodology of their carrying out – is a separate part of the articles, what led to a creation of the modern format of scientific publications.
7. Primary and secondary scientific publications Currently in the international scientific community there is a clear representation of a scientific article as a written and published report, describing the results of the original research and satisfying the definite criteria. Gradually there appeared a notion of “valid/primary scientific publication/literature”. This conception appeared under the influence of three-hundredyear tradition of presentation of scientific investigations’ results, and the editorial practice and scientific ethics.
Further we will use the term “primary” publication/article/literature. In order to qualify an article as a primary one, it should be published correctly. Even if there was a good investigation and the article is written in a proper way, but it is published in “incorrect” issue, then it can’t be considered as a primary publication.
The reverse situation is also possible: an article even about modest investigation can turned out to be “correct”, if it was correctly published in the primary (correct) scientific literature. Still recently it was a lot of problems on the strict definition of the “primary scientific publication”. The Council of Biology Editors in the USA – is an authoritative professional organization – accept the following definition:
The acceptable primary scientific publication – is the first public presentation of the essential information about investigation in the form, which allows colleagues to: (1) estimate the investigation (2) reproduce the experiment (3) evaluate the intellectual process, leading to results.
This public presentation of information about investigation must be available for perception by senses, placed on permanent storage medium, available without restriction for scientific community, and also for including in one or more bibliographic systems of referencing of scientific publications (for example, Biological Abstracts, Chemical Abstracts, Index Medicus, Excerpta Medica, Bibliography of Agriculture and etc. in the USA and analogical systems in other countries).
This means that material unpublished earlier about an original investigation should be published in an issue, where firstly the manuscripts are peer-reviewed by colleaguesinvestigators and only after positive opinions of the peerreviewers are printed in a journal. It is called a publication in a peer-reviewed journal, and only such a publication is considered to be “correct”, and the journal, which follows such rules – is a “correct” scientific literature.
And to have the report represented about the original investigation published by such a journal, it should be written in accordance with specific requirements. After publication the article should become available not only for scientists without restriction, but also for referencing and inclusion the information about it in databases of scientific-technical information: referencing journal, system of search of scientific-technical information.
If the last condition is not valid, then it can lead to the situation that information, contained in the article, will be lost for the scientific community. Saying exactly, it, of course, will be in the text of the article, but it will be impossible to find it as well as to obtain the fact of existence of published results. for publication only manuscripts which are not under consideration by any other issues and were published nowhere earlier.
The fact that the manuscript or its essential part has earlier been presented publically in materials of conference, technical bulletin, or placed on site in Internet, can be a reason for refusal in publication. Thus, the “correct scientific article” – is an article, describing the original investigation and published in the peerreviewing scientific journal, where it can be reproduced only once.
Beside the articles about original scientific investigations (original articles) which are placed in the peer-reviewing journals, there a lot of scientific texts of other types in the other issues, which do not answer the criteria of the primary scientific publication. For example, most of the reports about investigations, carried out on agreements with governmental or private organizations, institutes’ works, and institutes’ bulletin are not classified as the primary scientific literature. Messages relating to news, articles in corporate issues and journal for restricted (official) use are not correct scientific publications.
However in engineering and information-computer fields the patents and technical reports are considered as the primary scientific publications. If there exists the primary scientific literature, then there should exist the secondary one. The review papers are also related to the secondary scientific literature, which are also published in the peerreview journals. The review papers are devoted to the analysis of the articles published earlier, connected by common theme.
There exist journals which publish only review papers. They are assigned for generalization, summation, analysis, estimation and synthesis of the information published earlier in the primary publications. The opinion that the review papers do not contain new information is false. On the contrary, there are formulations of new theories, developments of new ideas or even paradigms, and these papers are often cited in other articles.
Books (not textbooks) play an important role in the scientific literature, which are often called monographs and devoted to statement of investigation results on large scientific projects, generalization of achievements in the specific direction or compilation of articles, connected by common thematic. Books are related to the secondary scientific literature. Articles on conference reports are published in the appropriate issues (conference reports, conference proceedings). There are messages about the original scientific investigations in such reports, however manuscripts of such publications are not peerreviewed.
The significant part of reports at conferences is not the first public presentations of results of the original research. Most of the reports have review character, and the presentations of the original research – are only preliminary messages about results, accompanying by interesting thoughts or, on the contrary, presented not for the first time. Neither ones nor the other reports can not be qualified as a "correct" publications.
What concerns the preliminary messages, usually more lately the results of these works are published in some primary scientific issue, when the authors have already obtained final and more reliable and extended results, and have treated and documented the experimental methodology thoroughly. Hence, the extended issues of conference materials cannot be considered as the primary scientific literature. If they contain original data, then it is possible to publish them again in a peer-review journal.
Lately a part of the reports made at conferences are selected for publication in special issues of peer-review journal and all the selected articles are peer-reviewed. In this case such publications can be considered as the primary literature. There are several important items in the base of classification of scientific publications on the primary and secondary ones.
The first one – the peer-review procedure and the standard of structure of scientific publications are the guarantee (although not hundred-percent) of the quality and simplify the perception of readers. A requirement of the fact that it must be the first public presentation of the investigation results stops any repeated publication of the same article, and it means a stop of unnecessary increase of the number of scientific articles. In addition, this requirement can simplify a solution of current and future problem of authorship of those or another discoveries and results in the science.
The second one – availability for the bibliographic systems of scientific publications referencing simplifies the finding of information, and it means a decrease of the probability of getting it lost. Nowadays more and more members of the international scientific community follow the classification of the scientific publications. The primary scientific publication – describes an original investigation and is published in a peer-review journal.
All other publications, review articles, conference materials, monographs, collections – are the secondary scientific literature. And at last, the tertiary scientific publications – are the encyclopedias, textbooks and analogous issues, which are assigned for more wide audience.
Thank you all for attention!
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