Article Writing

Research methodology

SATO Shin-ichi (ssato@untref.edu.ar)

Thesis a Book or a paper? Thesis

Graduation thesis Master thesis Ph.D. Thesis

Researchers CV (Curriculum Vitae)

Publications
Reviewed articles Books Thesis Conference proceedings (International/Domestic)

Research project (Budget) Classes (Lectures) Patents Awards Academic society

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Thesis a Book or a paper? A thesis is categorized as a book in CV for a researcher, but the contents is rather close to a scientific paper
As a scientific paper As a book Preface Acknowledgments Table of contents Introduction Each chapter must be an original contents of the author Conclusions

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Articles previously published are good database We are not in the Department of Literature, so we dont need to care about the expression style very much. Actually what we need is the precise expression as scientific paper which enable a reader to repeat your experiments only with the information in your article (= Reproducibility). You may copy the sentences from the previous (good) articles (But dont copy the contents of the other authors..)

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Contents of an article Abstract: Provide the information which readers want to read Introduction: Motivation, previous studies, and assumption (purpose of the study) Procedure: The important thing is Reproducibility Results: Describe the behavior of the data collected Discussion: Describe the reason why the above results happened. Conclusions: The findings of the study. The purpose of the study has been archived? References: Usually a reader checks the abstract, figs. and references first.

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Introduction

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Introduction Motivation of the study

Describing the present situation in the related field What is the problem?/What is needed?

Previous studies
Past tense: Specific author(s) Past participle: General condition

Purpose of the study (Objectives)

The purpose of the present study is to investigate In the present study, was investigated

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Typical verbs in Introduction section Find the verbs (except for be and have):
The author(s) + verb the passive voice + by author(s)

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Typical verbs in Introduction section

Find the verbs (except for be and have):

The author(s) + verb the passive voice + by author(s)
Show (The author) showed /was shown by (the author) Find (The author) found /was found by (the author) Investigate (The author) investigated /was investigated by (the author) Propose (The author) proposed /was proposed by (the author) Conduct (The author) conducted /was conducted by (the author) Use (The author) used /was used by (the author) Determine (The author) determined /was determined by (the author) Evaluate (The author) evaluated /was evaluated by (the author) Propose (The author) proposed /was proposed by (the author) Define (The author) defined /was defined by (the author) 9/41 Suggest (The author) suggested /was suggested by (the author)

The words However and Therefore in Introduction

(previous studies) However, has not still fully investigated yet. (Though, Although, Despite) Therefore, it is needed to investigate

In other words, if you cannot describe however sentence, you dont need to write an article

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The words However and Therefore in Introduction

The previous research results investigating the interaction between acoustic and visual stimuli in theaters are still limited in their applicability and generalizability. Therefore, there is a need to further investigate the effects of acoustic and visual information on the subjective evaluations of concert hall and theater experiences. However, their investigation only used singing voices with a stationary amplitude and pitch, and the music signals analyzed by the r-ACF were therefore limited. Studies on the relationship between subjective preferences and the ACF of the source signals used musical pieces with durations of only a few seconds, and most of the music signals were comprised of a single instrument and vocal signals. Therefore, this study investigates the r-ACF analysis of orchestral music signals of a few minutes duration and which show a wide variation in tempo and composition.

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The words However and Therefore in Introduction Find the word:

However (Also though, although, despite) Therefore

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Google Scholar search

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Google Scholar search

Keywords

When you type free field , the search result gives you the list which includes the word free and field .

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Google Scholar search

When you type free field , the search result gives you the list which exactly includes the word free field .

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Google scholar search

Search results: free field: 32,100 hits free sound field: 323 hits Statistically, free filed seems correct.

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PDF search
1. 2. Make database (PDF files of your own research fields in a folder) Use search menu

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Tables and figures All the tables and the figures must have a number in the order of appearance in the main text All the tables and figures and the tables must be explained in the main text Table caption is above the table Figure caption is below the figure

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Figures Figure 1 shows the As shown in Figure 1,

y-axis [unit]

x-axis [unit]

Relationship between x-axis and y-axis.

y-axis [unit]

x-axis [unit]

y-axis as a function of x-axis (as a parameter of ).

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Figures One figure caption corresponds to the one figures, thus, in the figure caption we don't use Figures 1 and 2, (or more). Use Figure 1(a) and 1(b) ... If there are more than two curves, bars, or sets of plots in the figure, use the legends to distinguish them

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Figures: Is simple best?

1.5 Measured scale value Measured scale value 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 -0.5 -1.0 -1.5 -1.5 -1.0 -0.5

0.0

-1.5 -1.5

0.0 Calculated scale value

1.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

Calculated scale value

simple

complicated

It depends on the authors preference, but at least: The labels for x- and y-axis should be enough large The figure can be printed even in grayscale (not in color)
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Tables Table 1 shows is listed in Table 1. / is shown in Table 1 As listed in Table 1, /As shown in Table 1,

JASA ACUSTICA

JSV

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Equation Equation does not need the caption Put the equation number in parentheses on the right side of the equation. Explain all the parameters in the equation in the where clause after the equation

Example:
The minimum distance between the microphones and the source is obtained by: (1) where V is the volume of the room, T is an estimation of the reverberation time and c is the sound speed. It was chosen the sine sweep method to measure

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Equations is defined by (Equation) is calculated as follows (Equation) The formula for is (Equation) is represented as (Equation) Not only the articles published but also the textbooks show you a good examples.
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Reference
Describe all the items below Journal article
All authors names Title Journal name Volume number Publication year pages of each reference All authors names Title Publisher and the place (city) of publication Publication year Chapter number (if necessary)

Book

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References
Dont forget a space after period/comma Please be careful to use a uppercase/lowercase letters JASA ACUSTICA

JSV

Not all readers read the whole manuscript Abstract, Figures, and References are (especially) important
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Review of an article
Research methodology

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Peer review system The purpose of reviewing papers: 1. to ensure that the paper is of sufficient merit 2. to ensure effective communication It is best to assume that if a reviewer failed to understand a point you were making, that readers of the journal will do likewise. It is necessary to answer the comments made by reviewers in the manuscript

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The reasons for review Finding deficiencies in: Technical approach & analysis Computation Ignorance of related research Detecting problems such as Style and grammar that confuse the reader Patent or legal issues

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Review process In the early stage of review process, we sometimes receive very severe comments, but you dont need to be shocked very much. The review process is not the problem of the right/wrong answer. The important thing is the effective communication between the author(s) and the reviewers. Basically, the author must reply to all the comments of the reviewer. If the author tries to rebut the reviewers comment, show enough evidence/additional data/references. The best thing to improve the skill of journal article writing is to submit many papers and to receive many review comments (To make the review is also useful).
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Communication with reviewers The presentation for Ph.D. thesis sometimes is called defense. This should be a discussion, but usually: Professors experience >> Students experience So professors easily tend to be a side of offence. The relationship between the author and the reviewers tends to become like the above (under the peer-review system).

Reviewers
Reviewer makes comments on some of author s descriptions

Authors

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Communication with reviewers The presentation for Ph.D. thesis sometimes is called defense. This should be a discussion, but usually: Professors experience >> Students experience So professors easily tend to be a side of offence. The relationship between the author and the reviewers tends to become like the above (under the peer-review system).

Reviewers

Authors

Reviewer pointed out , But author thinks

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Communication with reviewers The presentation for Ph.D. thesis sometimes is called defense. This should be a discussion, but usually: Professors experience >> Students experience So professors easily tend to be a side of offence. The relationship between the author and the reviewers tends to become like the above (under the peer-review system).

Reviewers

Authors
Basically, accept all the comments and modify the manuscript according to these comments.
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Communication with reviewers The presentation for Ph.D. thesis sometimes is called defense. This should be a discussion, but usually: Professors experience >> Students experience So professors easily tend to be a side of offence. The relationship between the author and the reviewers tends to become like the above (under the peer-review system).

Reviewers

Authors
But if youre sure that the comment is not acceptable, reject it with enough descriptions
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What to write for review Title & author of paper Summary of paper
A few sentences, it should demonstrate that you understand the paper It is strongly recommended if the review is critical Authors assumption and Technical approach Analysis and Results Conclusions and References should be discussed Suggestions of the reviewers own opinion (importance and usage of the paper, improvements needed) Style, figure, grammar
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Good things about the paper

Major comments

Minor comments

Checklist for a reviewer Abstract Does it actually summarize the paper? Does it include the conclusions as well as the statement of the original problem? Is there information not presented elsewhere in the paper? Introduction Does it explain why the topic is important? Does it excessively broad?

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Checklist for a reviewer (continued) Body of the paper Has the author integrated discussions of errors and uncertainties in his analysis at suitable points? Is the level of detail reasonable? (Are too much data presented?) Is this the right amount of work for a paper? (Should the paper be divided into two papers?) Tables, Graphs and Figures Is every table and graph necessary? Do the tables contain more digits than are actually significant? Can the table data be presented better in a graph? Are all figures and tables appropriately captioned and referred to in the text?
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Checklist for a reviewer (continued) Conclusions Is there any surprises, most important and new material introduced? References Are all of the references old? Has the author forgotten important references?

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Further reading
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA) is one of the most active international journals on Acoustics. Its guideline includes not only the style format but also the attitude of article writing. It is worth reading.

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Active voice and personal pronouns In general, personal pronouns, including the tutorial we, are preferably avoided in scholarly writing, so that the tone is impersonal and dispassionate. In a few cases, it is appropriate that an opinion be given or that a unique personal experience be related, and personal pronouns are un avoidable. What should be assiduously avoided are any egotistical statements using personal pronouns. If a personal opinion needs to be expressed, a preferred construction is to refer to the author in the third person, such as: the present writer believes that ... .

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Selection of references References are typically cited extensively in the introduction, and the selection of such references can play an important role in the potential usefulness of the paper to future readers and in the opinions that readers and reviewers form of the paper. Demonstration of the relevance of the work is often accomplished via citations, with accompanying discussion. The implied claims to originality can be strengthened via citations, with accompanying discussion, to prior work related to the subject of the paper, sufficient to establish credibility that the authors are familiar with the literature and are not duplicating previous published work. Unsupported assertions that the authors are familiar with all applicable literature and that they have carried out an exhaustive literature survey are generally unconvincing to the critical reader.
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