>> SUSAN LUNTE: My top tip, actually there would be two top tips for publishing for someone
that's really early in their career.
One would be make sure that you know all the background to what you're writing about.
Make sure you reference all the previous work that's been done and that you put it in the
context of what's been done.
Sometimes you have to go back beyond 2005.
I know a lot of the younger people don't always go back past 2005 on the lit search because
they think that's far enough but really there's a lot of good chemistry that was done in the
1800s, 1900s that's relevant.
And then the other thing would be choice of reviewers.
When you submit an article, make sure that you point down some referees that you would
recommend could do a good review of your article but make sure those people are experts in
the field and not necessarily someone that you had a beer with at a meeting or a friend
or something like that.
Make sure it's someone that can really do a good review as that will ultimately help
your paper in the end because you'll get good feedback which will make it a better paper
in the journal.
>> HONGZHE SUN: People get tempted to copy and follow in the footsteps of people who
have gone through before but I'd like to suggest that the best way to stand out as a scientist
is to focus on new things and on novelty of your research.
So try to focus on why your work is different from others.
>> BEN FERINGA: Think carefully about what the impact is of your discovery or invention
or the advance you have made.
Make absolutely clear even if it is a very tiny advance why this is important, why the
community should read this and why it should be published in a Royal Society of Chemistry
journal of high standards.
>> JONATHAN STEED: I think it is really important for authors to tell a story in their paper.
They don't just need to report a particular piece of data or a particular method but actually
to have a narrative with a beginning, middle and end.
It sounds obvious but they need to set up the problem that they are trying to address.
Authors need to explain the work that they have done, the experiments that they've done,
but also then conclude with how that addresses the fundamental problem they've set up.
In a sense there needs to be: this is what we thought was the problem, this is how we
addressed it and this is what it means.
That meaning is often lost when people get too close to the data but it's the meaning
that people will take away from the paper, and the meaning that they'll cite.
>> BEN ZHONG TANG: To write a good paper, you should put a context there very clearer
so people can follow the flow of your story.
And of course, the structure, the data organisation is very important.
All these things are very important.
>> DAVID SMITH: I mean my top tip would obviously be to write the best paper you can, that goes
without saying, and to make sure that you've worked very hard with your co-authors to get
it as good as it can be.
But particularly focus on the abstract.
Sometimes they get a bit forgotten.
They can be written as the last thing in the paper and put together in a bit of a rush.
It is always worth remembering that it is probably the bit that people will really read
from your paper, the bit that they'll find in the online database.
It's got to cover the key points and also draw them in, make them want to go and look
at the article, see how you've done things and read the underlying science.
So a good abstract can really go a long way in publishing good articles.
>> JACK RUMBLE: My top tip for publishing is to ensure that the title and the abstract
of the article contain keywords that explain what's in the article.
This is especially important when it comes to search engines since they're going to pick
up these terms and they're going to build up an index of those terms.
They're going to deliver that content based on what's within that title.
>> POLLY ARNOLD: If I was to advise a new author, I would suggest that they try to write
a concise cover letter.
I find that really helps me work out that I've chosen the correct journal, and also
I find that often, in phrasing the cover letter on why it's important, I often end up going
back to my own manuscript and rewriting the introduction.
>> RAHUL BANERJEE: Write a good cover letter highlighting the novelty of your work.
That is something that is really important and many times, as an associate editor, I
do not see it.
That is definitely something that all editors across the board in different journals and
different publishing houses want to see.
They would like to see a cover letter that's crisp, bullet-pointed, what exactly is the
novelty of someone's work.
>> SETH MARDER: When you think about submitting a paper, I think it's critically important
to think about that paper in the context of what the reader will want to read.
If you think that as a reader, you'd be really happy with that paper in a given journal,
then go ahead and submit it.
If you scratch your head and say 'I don't know but I'll try anyway' odds are that you
may not be putting the paper in the right journal.
>> ZIJIAN GUO: I always tell my students to wait another day, another week and come back
again to proof read it.
They will find many mistakes and typos so this is very important for the quality of
the manuscript.
>> CAROLINE BURLEY: We're often asked by authors how important formatting is when they submit
their paper to us because each publisher has their own house style.
So my top tip is that actually it's not that important to do that on your first submission.
If your paper is accepted then we'll make sure it is formatted to RSC requirements.
As long as in your submission your paper is clear and understandable for the referees
and the editors, that's the most important thing.
>> RAHUL BANERJEE: Do not let the rejections dishearten you, depress you.
It happens, it happens to everybody, it happened to everybody.
Yes, everybody feels bad when a paper gets rejected, whichever the journal it is, but
do not take it personally.
Take it very seriously, learn from it, but do not take it personally and do not let it
frustrate you from doing good work.
Continuously evolve, learn from the mistakes and make yourself better.
>> HONGZHE SUN: My advice is that as one of the best organisations for the chemical sciences,
Royal Society of Chemistry has one of the best journals in every branch of chemistry
so I strongly encourage someone to submit their best work to Royal Society of Chemistry.